Gigantic thank you, as always, to Annabeth-TheTributeThatLived (Great minds think alike!), Hannie597 (Here it is!), BlairAndChuckGG (I can't wait for the Hamptons either, ha!), Guest (Thank you so much!), clove1113 (Aw thanks!), Guest (I really appreciate the feedback. I've noticed this in the recent chapters as well, and this review was just validation for me. I'm going to try to work on it from now on, so please let me know what you think. Thank you so much!), clovelycato555 (Thank you!), thg-girl2000 ( :D ), Guest (maybe not :P), Clatoforeverx (Aw, thank you!), Guest (Don't worry, I would never), Guest (Thanks so much!), newyorkgirl911 (here ya go), and Panic At The Chemical Boy (thank u thank u thank u!) for their feedback.

"Use them all, just to be sure," Clove said to Annie as she handed her a plastic bag with three pregnancy tests in it.

The elderly lady at the checkout counter at the drug store had been hardcore judging Clove, and she was just glad Annie had waited in the car and hadn't been there to see it. The whole thing was still so surreal. Innocent Annie, the baby of their group, was possibly pregnant. It made absolutely no sense. Of all the people in their group of friends, Annie was by far the least likely to get pregnant in high school. Yet here they were, standing in the dimly lit upstairs hallway of the Astoria household, with three unused pregnancy tests that would determine Annie's entire future.

"Thank you," Annie said warmly, the slightest quiver in her words. "So much."

"Anytime," Clove replied with a smile.

Annie disappeared into the second floor bathroom, and Clove chewed on her fingernails nervously, impatiently waiting right outside the door. She didn't even want to think about what Cato would do to Finnick if Annie were pregnant. Or really, if he even found out Annie could be pregnant at all.

She could hear Cato lightly snoring from his bedroom down the hallway, and she hoped and prayed that he wouldn't wake up to find her still at his house, an hour after she said she was leaving. She didn't have a cover story, but she sure as hell wasn't going to tell him the truth, that she was still here because his little sister was quite possibly carrying his best friend's baby.

She took a deep breath in. She needed to calm down. There was a large possibility that Annie wasn't even pregnant; teenage girls always had irregular periods every once in a while. At least, that was what she kept telling herself. So what if Annie had never been late before? It was still possible.

The door to bathroom reopened, squeaking on its hinges.

"Well?" Clove asked expectantly. She tried to read Annie's expression for any signs of excitement or dread, but she was a blank slate.

Annie finally let out a huge breath of relief. "I'm not pregnant," she said with a smile bigger and brighter

"They were all negative?" Clove asked, stunned. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Annie nodded, and Clove visibly relaxed. "Oh, thank God. I feel like I need to throw you a 'Congratulations On Not Being Pregnant' party."

Annie laughed, smiling knowingly. "You just want an excuse to throw another party."

She couldn't help but smile. Annie knew her far too well.

"Besides," Annie continued excitedly, "we can party all we want when we get to the Hamptons."

Their whole group had collectively decided to rent a house in Southampton for winter break. The ten of them were staying in a gorgeous mansion on the beach for a week, and a couple of their parents were renting out another home down the block for themselves.

It was going to be way colder in New York than it was in Beverly Hills, but no one was complaining. The Hamptons were beautiful regardless of the temperature. Plus, thirty degree weather gave Clove the perfect excuse to wear stylish winter clothes, which she never got to wear in the land of eternal warm weather, also known as southern California.

"Speaking of the Hamptons," Clove started, "I haven't even started packing. And we leave in what? Three days?"

"Two days," Annie corrected.

"Even better," she replied sarcastically. "I'll take that as my cue to go home and begin the unending process of stuffing my suitcase until it refuses to zip."

It wasn't until Clove was driving down the palm tree-lined streets of Beverly Hills, however, that anxiety about the upcoming vacation truly set in. Besides having only forty-eight hours to pack for a whole week in New York, she was understandably apprehensive about living in a house with nine other people who, despite their tight-knit friendship, kept countless secrets from one another.

She wished they were close enough to tell one another everything, but they hadn't been that close in months. There was a time, around the end of the summer, when they lived in a seemingly blissful paradise. They didn't keep secrets or lie or cheat – most of the time at least. But at some point between then and now, the usually flawless and inspiring royalty of Panem Preparatory had begun to crumble.

Originally, Clove had hoped that a group vacation to the Hamptons would help them bond as friends, but she was starting to question that as the trip drew nearer. In a perfect world, everyone would return home from the trip feeling closer than ever before, but Clove knew by this point that her world, even though she was Clove Carlton, was far from perfect.

Christmas cheer was in the air as Clove finally managed to zip her overstuffed Louis Vuitton suitcase closed the next afternoon. A wave of relief flooded her body, and she relaxed onto her bed, humming along to the rendition of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas that was playing on her stereo. The clock on her bedside table read 5:56 in slim white numbers, giving her a whole two hours to go on a run along the beach and still make it home in time for the new episode of Pretty Little Liars at eight.

She picked up her phone and started to dial Johanna's number on instinct to see if she was in the mood for a run. Jo had proven herself to be a great running partner over the last few months, seeing as she and Clove ran at pretty similar paces, but things between the two of them hadn't been the same ever since Clove saw Johanna and Marvel talking that day after midterms. Granted, Johanna didn't even know that Clove knew, so the only real tension was in Clove's mind.

Just as Clove had made the decision to go running alone, the name of someone that she had been skillfully avoiding over the last twenty-four hours appeared on her screen.

Cato.

She sighed, silently scolding herself once again for getting shitfaced and sleeping with him in a drunken haze. It didn't matter how great it felt to be with him like that because the reality of the situation was that they could never be more than fuck buddies. And Clove Carlton was not anybody's fuck buddy. Cato wasn't just anybody, though, which was the only way she was able to justify their tumultuous relationship in her mind.

Her finger hovered hesitantly over the decline button as she decided that she really really did not feel like talking to him. She could already hear him making some snide remark about the other night, and she didn't feel like having her Christmas spirit crushed by the not-so-cheerful manwhore known as Cato Astoria.

But then she thought that he could possibly be calling about a tragic emergency and knew that, regardless of what they did with each other while under the influence, they were still really good friends who were always there for one another when it mattered.

So, much to her dismay, she accepted the call before she could decide against it.

"Clover!" he said gleefully from the other end of the phone.

Well, he certainly wasn't calling about a tragic emergency.

"What?" she deadpanned, already regretting accepting the call.

"I need you to come over and make me pack for the Hamptons," he said.

She groaned. She hadn't even wanted to answer the phone for him, much less spend the rest of the night with him. Plus, if she did end up going over there, he would undoubtedly end up mentioning their most recent hookup and she really wasn't in the mood to discuss that.

So she did the one thing that she was best at. She lied. "I can't."

Unfortunately, Cato had a rare talent for knowing exactly when she was being untruthful, and he used it to his advantage whenever possible.

"Clover," he drawled, knowing damn good and well that he was irresistible when he begged for something. "Please."

"Pretty Little Liars comes on tonight," she said obstinately. She would not fall victim to his unfair tactics of adorable pleading.

"I have a television in my room," he replied, and she could practically hear him rolling his eyes through the phone.

"I already promised Kat I'd go to her house and watch it with her," she lied again.

"No you didn't," Cato started, "because I know for a fact that Katniss has a date with Gale tonight."

Shit.

Clove didn't know what she was more upset about: the fact that Cato had caught her in the middle of a blatant lie, or the fact that Katniss didn't feel the need to inform her that she was going on a date with Gale Hawthorne.

"Why are you avoiding me?" he asked. "Does this have something to do with what happened the other night?"

God, why on earth had she answered the phone for him?

"I'm not avoiding you, Cato. I just prefer to watch PLL alone," she stated simply. Another lie. She was on a roll tonight.

"All I'm asking is that you come over and keep me from getting distracted. I promise I'll be quiet."

She sighed loudly.

"Please," he added.

She could almost see him smiling, knowing that he'd won her over.

"I'll leave my house in a few minutes," she replied in submission, hating how much power he had over her. "But if you speak while my show is on, I will fuck you up."

Two hours later, Clove found herself sitting cross-legged on Cato's oversized bed as the Pretty Little Liars intro played on his flat screen. She had a large bowl of popcorn in her lap and an adorable look of anticipation on her face. Cato, from his spot on the ground surrounded by stacks of clothing and other essentials for New York, couldn't help but keep sneaking glances at her.

He loved her so much, every little thing about her. How she could eat two whole bags of popcorn by herself and not worry about how it would affect her figure. How passionate she was about everything, even Pretty Little Liars. How she was just so real and honest with him, even at times when a little sugarcoating would have been nice. He was overwhelmingly in love with Clove Carlton, and she didn't have a clue.

He stood up from the ground and walked across the hall to the bathroom, and Clove continued to stare nervously at the TV, fully enthralled by the show and oblivious to everything around her.

"Clove," Cato said when he reappeared in the doorway, and she held up a hand to silence him, never taking her eyes off the TV.

What had she told him about interrupting her while her show was on?

"Clove," he repeated, more assertively this time.

She continued to ignore him, knowing that if she took her eyes off the screen for even a split second that she would miss something imperative to the unfolding plot. It wasn't until the picture on the television screen froze that she whipped around to look at him. He was holding the remote in one hand, looking rather unpleasant.

"What the fuck, Cato?" she said angrily. "Put it back on!"

"Do you know anything about the fucking pregnancy tests in the trashcan in the bathroom across the hall?" he demanded.

"No," she immediately said, her heart thundering. Holy crap. She hadn't even thought about telling Annie to get rid of the pregnancy tests, and now Cato had found them. And something was telling her he wasn't going to let it go. Shit. She needed to play dumb, uninterested, oblivious. "Now put my show back on."

"I'm serious, Clove," he said, softening the tone of his voice slightly. "Do you think you might be pregnant?"

She couldn't help it. She laughed. "Me?" she asked incredulously, shaking her head in amusement. "God, no."

"Who else would it belong to?" he asked, and she shrugged. This conversation needed to be over. Now. "Annie?" he added sarcastically as an afterthought, chuckling a little.

The millisecond that Clove froze in her tracks was plenty of time for Cato to notice that something was off. "Obviously not," she responded, but it was too late.

He narrowed his blue eyes at her. "What do you know?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

"I don't know anything."

"Clove," he said seriously. He wasn't fucking around, she could tell. "Do the pregnancy tests belong to Annie?"

"I don't know," she said impatiently. This was not good. No, this was not good at all. As if she didn't have enough shit on her plate, now she would have to exhaust the rest of her energy into preventing Cato from murdering Finnick.

"Oh my fucking God," he said, disgusted. "They fucking do, don't they?"

She couldn't find the words to answer him. It was a lost cause at this point. He had figured it out, and all she was thinking was that this was it, this was the night that she was going to witness Cato losing his mind and Finnick losing his front teeth.

There was a fraction of a second when time seemed to slow as she stared pleadingly into his cerulean eyes, and she thought that maybe he wouldn't flip his shit. But then he whipped around sharply and stormed down the hall and right into Annie's room, where she and Finnick were curled up watching a romantic comedy.

Clove was right on his heels, emerging through Annie's doorway only seconds after Cato. How had she let this happen? Sixteen years she had practiced and perfected an ability to lie flawlessly on the spot, and she freezes now, of all times.

"Finnick," Cato began, and the calmness in his tone actually took her aback. Granted, there was an underlying fury in it, like the calm before the storm, but she had just assumed that he would go straight to the punching rather than actually try to talk things out first. "Did you have sex with my little sister?"

Finnick rose his eyebrows, blinking a few times in an effort to decide if he had heard Cato right. The realization that Cato had somehow figured things out dawned on Annie as she narrowed her eyes at her older brother. "Cato, please don't."

"Don't what?" Finnick asked obliviously. Clove felt a pang of pity for him. The poor guy didn't know what was about to hit him – literally.

"She's fucking pregnant," Cato roared.

Finn's eyes widened in shock, and a look of horror came across Annie's face. "No, I'm not!" she defended. "I could have been, but I'm not."

Clove didn't think she had ever seen Cato look so upset. Not infuriated or threatening, but genuinely upset. It was almost refreshing in a sick sort of way to see him feeling something other than lust. "I can't believe you slept with her," he said, shaking his head at Finnick. "You promised me."

Both Finnick and Annie lowered their eyes guiltily. "You know," Annie pointed out, "it's not like I have the best role model for what to do in my sex life."

Cato scrunched up his face in a mixture of horror and disgust. "Please, never say those words again. I never ever want to hear you talk about your sex life ever again."

Clove and Annie met eyes for the first time that night, and both of them cracked a slightly amused smile. Finnick chuckled, and before any of them could process what was happening, the sound of their uncontrolled, senseless laughter was echoing throughout the room.

Cato was still pissed as hell, but their laughter was contagious. He thought he must be pretty insane, because who laughed in the middle of a discussion about their little sister's almost-pregnancy?

"I'm sorry," Annie said to Cato as a peace offering. A charming smile danced on her lips, and he had no choice but to let it go. Irresistibility ran in the family.

"I guess I have to forgive you," Cato responded with an overprotective smirk that only big brothers could pull off.

With that, Clove and Cato returned to his room to resume watching Pretty Little Liars and packing for the Hamptons, respectively. She glanced swiftly at her diamond-encrusted watch. In just under twelve hours, they would be climbing aboard a private jet to New York, and the real adventures would begin.

Anything could happen in the Hamptons.

As the luxury jet slowly lifted off the ground the next morning at seven o'clock sharp and the world below condensed into a blur of tiny mansions and cars and people, a sigh of relief escaped from Clove's parted lips. A whole week without her hypocritical mother and irritating stepfamily awaited her on the East Coast, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't damn excited for it. In the weeks following the Thanksgiving dinner fiasco, she had been adeptly avoiding pretty much her whole family, much to the benefit of her sanity. It never ceased to amaze her that, not even six months ago, she was living in a picture-perfect home with happily married parents, the ideal boyfriend, and a band of loyal admirers.

It was almost funny, in an ironic way, the extent to which her life had changed in half a year.

An oafish figure plopped down in the tan leather seat across from her, and she didn't have to look up to know that it was Cato. "You look contemplative," he stated.

"How perceptive of you," she deadpanned, refusing to look away from the window. The plane was well off the ground by now, and her whole world had long been compressed into a single square in a vast landscape.

There was an unspoken agreement between the two of them that they would not, under any circumstances, mention the ambiguous state of their physical relationship. Not in private, and certainly not in front of their friends.

"You ever going to tell me what was going on between you and Jacqueline the other night?" Cato inquired.

Clove scoffed. Yeah, right. She would honestly rather talk about every self-loathing thing she did after that, which was saying a lot. If it ever got out that she, the one and only Clove Carlton, cheated on a midterm, her future would shatter right before her eyes. There was only so much money, after all, that her parents could "donate" to the school to keep her out of trouble.

"I'll take that as a no," Cato mumbled to himself, flagging down the private stewardess in pursuit of a glass of scotch.

Still exhausted from the week of midterms, Clove drifted in and out of a dreamless sleep. Her eyelids were heavy, and she cracked them open at one point to see Johanna, wrapped in a plush blanket, moping down the aisle with a bottle of champagne in her hand. Jo's gaze was, unsurprisingly, fixed on Glimmer and Marvel, who were seemingly enthralled in conversation with one another.

A small smirk danced on Clove's lips – there was totally something going on between Johanna and Marvel – right before she slipped back into a state of rest.

"I don't fucking get it," Johanna ranted to Finnick, still thousands of feet in the air in her parents' private jet. In the three hours that they had been in the air, Johanna had gone through almost two full bottles of champagne and half a glass of gin. She was by no means a lightweight, but if she kept going at this rate, she would hardly be able to stand up by the time they landed in New York.

"What don't you get?" Finnick asked in a voice reserved solely for toddlers, pets, and intoxicated people.

"Marvel," she stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "We fucked the night of the post-midterms party, did you know that?" She didn't wait for a response. "Well, now you know that. We fucked that night, and the morning after, and again the next night."

Finnick's hazel eyes darted around the plane in search of a savior from this terribly awkward situation. How was he supposed to respond to something like that? He and Johanna were childhood best friends, so it wasn't exactly a new thing for her to inform him about her most recent fuck buddy. She just usually wasn't so drunk or upset during the discussion. It was more of an "Aye, Finn, you'll never guess who I banged this weekend" thing than whatever Johanna was pulling today.

"Now look at him!" Johanna whisper-yelled, motioning across the aisle to where Marvel and Glimmer were smiling at each other. She took another long swig of champagne, emptying out the bottle.

"I want more alcohol," she stated, but she wasn't even thirsty anymore. All she really wanted was for Marvel to stop talking to Glimmer fucking Davenport for one second. There was a word for what she was feeling, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Are you," Finnick lowered the tone of his voice an octave, exposing his signature smirk, "jealous?"

Oh, she would have punched him right in his pretty boy face if Katniss hadn't chosen that exact moment to slide into the chair next to her. Her knuckles, which were just itching to make contact with Finnick's perfectly sculpted jawline, clenched tightly into fists. She was not jealous. Of all the emotions in the world, Johanna Mason did not get jealous. It wasn't a way of the natural world.

But because Katniss, who was entirely oblivious to Johanna and Marvel's recent endeavors, had joined the conversation, Johanna could not voice any of these thoughts. She settled with an infuriated glare in Finnick's direction, and oh, if looks could kill…

Katniss, having grown very accustomed to Johanna's death glares over the years, didn't think anything of the situation. So they remained like that for what felt like hours, with Katniss chatting nonchalantly and Finnick smirking irresistibly and Johanna glaring back and forth between them all.

"I'm home," breathed Clove airily as she descended the steps of the private jet. The notorious New York skyline greeted her, holding with it the promise of unforgettable yet difficult to remember nights to come. The cool air hit her like a brick wall, sending a shiver down her spine. She certainly wasn't in LA anymore.

They filed into the three Range Rovers that were waiting at the private airport to bring them to their Hamptons house, grateful for the temporary relief from the cold. As born and raised Californians, this degree of cold was beyond unnatural to their warm-blooded, salt water infused bodies.

Clove, Cato, Glimmer, and Marvel somehow all ended up in the same car, which never failed to be either a perfectly harmonious experience or the gateway to the ninth circle of hell. There was no in between when it came to the four of them; they lived in extremes.

In the backseat, Clove rested her head on Cato's shoulder, feeling annoyingly comforted when he wrapped a secure arm around her petite body. As much as she didn't want to feel calm in his embrace, Clove had yet to find anyone else whose mere presence was enough to soothe her from the inside out.

Glimmer and Marvel shared a smirk that only best friends could understand, silently agreeing to tease Cato and Clove for the remainder of the car ride. "You two look adorable," cooed Glimmer, chuckling at the annoyed looks that plastered themselves on their faces in response to her comment.

They were perfect for each other, and everybody but the two of them could see it.

"It's cold, and we're using our body heat to warm each other up," defended Cato as he kept Clove tight in his arms. He wasn't letting go of her for the world.

Glimmer smiled knowingly. "It's called cuddling."

"We're just friends," Clove insisted, refusing to own up to her own feelings about him. She needed to admit it to herself before she could admit it to anybody else.

"Friends with benefits, you mean," Glimmer corrected, smirking teasingly and wiggling her eyebrows ridiculously.

"Okay, look who's talking," Cato replied, pointing back and forth accusingly between Glimmer and Marvel. "I would bet anything that you two end up hooking up by the end of this trip."

"You'd bet anything?" Glimmer said incredulously.

Cato frowned, already regretting the words that had come out of his mouth not even ten seconds before. If he had learned anything in his seventeen years of life, it was to never, under any circumstances, make a bet with Glimmer Davenport.

"Why don't we make this trip a little more interesting?" proposed Glimmer, folding her hands in her lap. "Me and Marvel against you and Clove. If you and Clove hook up before Marvel and I do, we win, and vice versa."

Cato glanced nervously at Clove, who was smirking like there was no tomorrow. "Game on," said Clove.

"Hold up," Marvel interrupted. "What do the winners get?"

"A thousand dollars each?" Cato offered.

"No way," Clove said. "We all have more than enough money to go around. Let's make this interesting."

"I like it," Glimmer said, nodding in approval. She had been waiting years to get her hands on Cato's car, and she finally had a fair shot at it. "If Marvel and I win, I want the Bentley for a week."

"Fuck no," Cato said immediately. "You can have anything in the world, just not my Bentley."

Glimmer laughed a laugh almost as irresistible as Clove's. "That's why I want it."

"You suck at driving, Glimmer. Hell would have to freeze over before I let you behind the wheel of the Bentley," Cato said stubbornly. There were very few things in the world he held in higher esteem than himself, and his Bentley was one of them.

"Don't lose, and you won't have to," Glimmer stated, smirking ingeniously.

"You evil son of a bitch," Cato said, shaking his head at Glimmer's persuasive abilities. "But, when we win, Marvel has to write both of our research papers next semester."

"What?! Why me? She's the one who wants your Bentley," an exasperated Marvel argued.

"Because you got perfect scores on the English and writing sections of the ACT the last time you took it," replied Cato as if it were the most obvious thing ever.

Smiling approvingly, Clove high fived Cato. "Good idea, Cato. I'm impressed."

"I can't," persisted Marvel. "It's mentally impossible to write three research papers at once."

A smug smile came across Cato's face. "Don't lose, and you won't have to," he replied, mocking Glimmer's words precisely.

"Oh, it's on," Marvel asserted. No fucking way was he writing Cato's, Clove's, and his own research papers next semester. Glimmer was hot, but not three research papers hot.

Never before in history had there been four people as dead set on defeating each other as Clove, Cato, Glimmer, and Marvel that afternoon in the Range Rover, en route to Southampton and perhaps the most challenging week of their lives.

AN:

We meet again! I'm super sorry for leaving you guys hanging for so long, but I am happy to say that I finally updated my other story Backwards after almost a year hiatus. So if you need something to hold you over until chapter 20, you know where to go :P

Pleaseeee favorite, follow, and review to put a big smile on my face!

xox