I don't own The Hunger Games.
Finnick sighed deeply as his family sang happy birthday to his aunt, who was seated diagonally from him at their dining room table. It was the house that he had grown up in, and his parents were holding a dinner party for his father's sister, Louisa Odair, for her fiftieth birthday. Finnick thought it was dull, and that was an understatement. Izabelle sat to his left, and his older sister Chelsea sat in the seat to his right. Their parents sat opposite them, with Finnick's aunt in between them.
"I'm gonna go talk to Aidan." Finnick mumbled as they finished singing and his mother went to fetch the cake. He stood from the table and went to join his six year old adopted cousin on the couch.
"Hi Finn." He smiled up at him as Finnick sat down next to him on the white leather couch. The money he sent to his parents each month hadn't gone to waste.
"Hey buddy. What are you up to?" Finnick asked, peaking at Aidan's laptop screen.
"It's this cool online game that Chelsea showed me. You pick your dream football team and then you pick the cheerleading team. I put you on it, of course." Aidan grinned at his cousin. He thought Finnick was the coolest thing since chocolate chip ice-cream, and Finnick loved spending time with him.
"Sweet. You better have put on the football team, not the cheerleading." He joked.
"Obviously." Aidan laughed, showing off his gappy teeth. "Do you think you could help me? I don't know any cheerleader's names or if they're good."
"Of course, let me have a look." Finnick pulled Aidan and the laptop onto his lap and looked at what he had done so far. Two cheerleaders had been dragged into the boxes; a dark skinned girl from the Ravens' squad, and an older woman from the 49er's.
"Well, there's your first mistake. There's no Panem!" Finnick ruffled Aidan's hair with his knuckles, making him laugh. Aidan moved the cheerleaders out of the slots and Finnick clicked on the Panem tab.
"Well, first you want her." He pointed to the pixel image of Johanna. "She's scary, but she's the head cheerleader."
"Next!" Aidan grinned as he dragged Johanna's avatar into the first slot.
"Now her." He pointed at Clove's pixels. "She's the vice."
Aidan dragged Clove into the slot.
"Now, don't tell anyone I did this..." Finnick opened up the Dallas tab and dropped three girls into the slots. "But you'll want some of them.
"I pinkie promise not to tell." Aidan said, looping his pinkie finger through Finnick's. He re-opened the Panem tab.
"Now get her. She's got moves." He pointed a Glimmer, a flurry of yellow and tan pixels. Aidan obediently added her to his make believe squad.
"Who next?" Aidan asked, and Finnick looked at the screen thoughtfully.
"Her." He pointed at the avatar of Annie Cresta. "She's new, but she's got potential."
Finnick had thought about her a lot since he properly introduced himself to her a week ago. At first he thought she'd been the nice, blushing girl who had probably been a nerd in high school. Then he met her for real and realized how wrong he had been. She was kind, she was polite and yes, she had blushed. But she had done more than that- she had listened to him and she had shared things with him the way Izabelle once had.
"Is she pretty in real life?" Aidan asked, dropping Annie's pixel form into the next slot.
"Yeah, she is." Finnick admitted, because he had quite honestly never seen anyone as radiant as her. Her eyes had made him understand why everybody fawned over his own.
"Prettier than Izabelle?" Aidan asked cheekily. Finnick glanced over at the table, comparing Izabelle's dark brown hair and blue eyes that had once been brighter than the sun but were now dull to Annie's even darker brown hair and sea green eyes that had him doing crazy things like sharing the Finnick- the-fourteen-year-old-dweeb story. Which he never told, like, anyone.
"Yeah. But do not tell Iz that I said that." Finnick warned him.
"My lips are sealed." Aidan mimed zipping his lips shut.
Yeah. Finnick thought. So are mine.
…
"Beware. Cassidy the predator is on her way back." Glimmer warned over the straw in her martini.
"She does not look happy." Marvel pointed out. It was true, even from a distance the cheerleaders could tell that he face was screwed up in disgust.
"What happened this time?" Johanna asked, but it didn't sound like she really cared all that much.
"He's waiting for his girlfriend." Cassidy scoffed, pushing her already sky high mini skirt up even further. "I mean, who cares? I wouldn't have had a problem with a quickie in the bathroom."
"You disgust me." Clove wrinkled her nose and turned away to order another drink.
"Help me out here, Annie. It's getting late and I didn't plan on going home alone." Cassidy asked the newest squad member.
"Oh, I don't know Cass." Annie said, twirling her star around in her diet Coke. She didn't like to drink during the season, limiting herself to two like the others girls usually did.
"Please?" Cassidy stuck her bottom lip out, but Annie still wasn't sure she wanted to help her get her claws into some unsuspecting victim.
"Fine." Annie agreed reluctantly.
"Excellent." Cassidy grinned, her eyes lighting up. "Go big me up to that guy over there."
Annie walked over to the guy at the end of the bar that Cassidy had pointed out and smiled warmly at him. He was cute, with black hair and warm brown eyes. He looked to be in his early twenties, Cassidy's preferred age range.
"Hey." He greeted her.
"Hey." She slid into the seat next to him. "What brings you here?"
"Well, I was having a guys' night." He pointed out two guys, both of whom were making out with girls in tight dresses. "See how well that turned out for me. I'm Jack, by the way."
"Well, you're about to get a whole lot luckier Jack." Annie laughed. "See my friend over there? She's a cheerleader. You wanna know a fact about cheerleaders?"
"Always."
"They're very flexible." Annie shrugged innocently, and his eyes went wide.
"She's cute. I wouldn't mind getting to know her." Jack sent a smile in Cassidy's direction.
"Trust me, that's not what she wants to be doing with you." Annie winked at him and smirked.
"Really?" Jack looked like a child in a candy store.
"Really. You know, I was with her in New York last week." Annie lied. "She totally turned down Ryan Gosling."
Annie raised her hand and waved Cassidy over.
"You should buy her a drink. Something with an umbrella." Annie slid off the chair and passed Cassidy on her way back to the others. She shot her a subtle thumbs up and Cassidy winked back.
"What have you done to the poor guy? He'll never be able to shake her." Glimmer joked, pointing as Jack handed Cassidy a cocktail.
"Just told a few fibs, I guess." Annie shrugged.
"You are so doing that for me in the future." Johanna said, and she high-fived Annie.
"In the meantime, that guy's been checking you out all night." Clove pointed at a tall brunette guy sat on a couch ten metres away, nursing a beer bottle.
"I'm not really up for it tonight." Annie shrugged.
"Go over there and he will be." Johanna smirked, earning herself a jab to the stomach from Annie.
"Seriously. I don't want to." She shrugged and sat on one of the stools.
"Fine. But if you won't, I will." Glimmer picked up her drink and sashayed towards the man, who smiled brightly when he saw her approaching.
"So, who's the guy?" Johanna asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" Annie asked, feeling the tips of her ears going red underneath her loose hair.
"I mean who are you banging that's got you passing on a guy like that?" Johanna rolled her eyes.
"Johanna." Clove scowled.
"What? She's obviously got someone good! I just want to know who it is, mom." Johanna shot back. If she didn't know that they had been good friends for years, it would always seem to Annie as if the two hated each other.
"There's nobody." She insisted. "I just don't feel like it."
"Fine, but when you're ready to share the identity of your mystery man with us, we'll be waiting." Johanna winked at her before spotting a blonde guy walk into the club that she deemed attractive.
"See you." She winked again before hopping off her bar stool to go and talk to him.
"Clove, you need a wing woman? I'm sure Annie would be happy to do it." Marvel grinned as Clove shot him a death glare.
"No. I have an early morning tomorrow; I'm shooting some ad for running shoes. See you, losers." Clove picked up her purse and made her way through the masses of people, waving over her shoulder as she left the club.
"Guess that just leaves us." Marvel shrugged.
"One sec." Annie felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. She answered it without checking the caller ID. "Hello?"
"Hey, Angel."
"Oh, Parker. What do you want?" She asked.
"Well, that's no way to speak to your best friend." Parker said, pretending to be offended. "I've been trying to contact you all night."
"Sorry." Annie apologized. "I only turned my phone on twenty minutes ago."
"Have you seen the news?" Parker asked.
"No, Parker. I haven't seen the news." She held the phone away from her ear for a few seconds. "Does it sound like I'm watching the news?"
"Okay, good point. You mustn't know what happened then."
"What? What happened?"
"A new football team's formed, with a cheer squad, from somewhere in LA." Parker explained.
"Yeah? Do they look decent? What are they called?" Annie asked, pressing her other hand over her free ear to block out the music.
"They've been training as a team for years, so yeah; they'll be ones to watch for the Super Bowl. They're called the Capitol Lizards, but that's not the interesting part."
"So what is?"
"They've named Panem as their biggest rivals."