I don't own The Hunger Games.
As soon as Clove sat down with the others in the hotel café, she regretted it.
"Hey, Clove." Cato grinned.
"How are you?" Finnick asked, also grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"I ache like a bitch and I have a soccer game in forty five minutes." She snapped, holding an ice pack to her thigh.
"Are you all right?" Cato asked, dropping the creepy act for a few seconds to act worried.
"I'm fine." She waved it off. "I just got how much cheerleading kills your muscles."
"Good." Cato grinned. "Because that leotard was great."
"Absolutely lovely." Finnick winked. Annie rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the stomach, but it only made him grin harder.
"Shut up." Clove mumbled.
"That split…My, my, my." Cato shook his head, a smile still plastered onto his face.
"The way you flew through the air made me want to love you forever." Finnick said, making a kissing face at her.
"Shut up." Clove snapped.
"Leave her be guys." Katniss sighed. "We really don't want out captain off game."
"But Katniss, did you see her? Wow." Cato said, pretending to swoon.
"I said shut up!" Clove yelled, standing up from the table. "I hate you so goddamn much!"
She pushed her chair away from the table and stormed out of the café.
"Um…I think we went too far." Finnick said, rubbing the back of his neck.
"No shit." Cato muttered. "We were just kidding. She was actually really great."
"The one thing you need to know about Clove is that you should never. Tease. Her. On. Game. Days." Johanna hissed. "She's so tense and wound up tight that she gives a jack-in-the-box a run for its money."
"I should go apologize." Cato sighed, and moved to stand up.
"No!" Johanna tugged him back down again. "You'll just agitate her even more. Leave her, she'll cool off during the game and then you can apologize."
"Right. Okay." Cato mumbled. He sat back down again and sighed as he pushed his cereal around his bowl.
"God Cato, you're such an asshole." Glimmer complained. She rolled her eyes, and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "You too, Finnick."
"Hey, we were just having a laugh. How were we supposed to know that she'd get pissy over a few taunts?" Finnick scowled.
"Because she's a girl." Glimmer sighed, as if the answer were obvious.
…
"Alright ladies, game time is in five minutes are you're all looking like a sack of potatoes!" Clove yelled to her team mates, who were warming up on one half of the pitch. Clove had never been on such a great pitch before, and she was thoroughly enjoying every second of torturing her girls on it.
"You are gonna play harder than you've ever played in your life!" Johanna roared, doing dribbling drills with the girls.
"Show the competition that no-one messes with a West Palm girl!" Clove added. The girls cheered in response, and the referee blew his whistle to signal that they needed to get into position. The game started by Johanna flicking the ball to Katniss, who ran the defence and spiked the ball to one of their other team mates. She was then tackled and the ball was intercepted, but Johanna came streaming down the line and gained possession again. She passed to Clove, who scored an easy goal. West Palm High had scored in less than six minutes.
"Go West Palm!" Somebody cheered, and Clove thought it sounded like Marvel.
"Destroy them Clove!" That voice definitely belonged to Cato.
"But try not to hurt anyone!" And that would be Melissa.
"God they're annoying." Johanna grunted, wiping her face. She was still sweating from warm-up.
"Alright girls, keep it up!" Clove yelled, as the opposition passed the ball. Their girl ran and narrowly avoided Cecilia, Clove's best defender. Johanna, who had apparently decided that she wanted to play all over the place, ran at the girl and slide-tackled her for the ball. The ball bounced off of the girl's leg without too much force, but she went down anyway.
"Ow!" She whimpered.
"Oh, get up you baby!" Johanna snarled. "I didn't even kick you!"
"Tell your team mates to keep their filthy feet away from my girls." The girl closest to Clove snarled. She noted the blue armband the girl wore, marking her as captain.
"I'm sorry, but it's soccer." Clove replied sarcastically. "It's kind of all about feet."
The other team were awarded a free kick, which stirred up a lot of cuss words from Johanna that Clove didn't know existed but sounded bad, and they scored.
"Push it girls!" Johanna yelled, pissed. The game got really exciting when West Palm High were 3-2 up, and Clove tackled the other team's captain. She swerved at the last moment, and Clove ended up studding her with her boot.
"Ah!" The girl screamed. "She did that on purpose!"
"No I didn't, you lying bitch!" Clove screamed.
Somewhere at the side lines Finnick muttered to Cato,
"I am going to be coming to way more girls' soccer games."
"Bethan! Bethan, are you okay?!" One of the captain's team mates came running over and shot Clove a glare.
"No, you idiot! I'm bleeding!" Bethan snapped.
"Oh for God's sake. If you're not going to play fairly, why play at all?" Johanna snapped. "It was a freaking accident!"
Clove got yellow carded, which stirred up a lot of cuss words in her that Johanna probably knew existed but thought they were too blunt to use.
"Oh, I am so taking you down." Clove muttered as Bethan ran at her with the ball.
"This is a trick Johanna taught me!" Clove stole the ball from Bethan and booted it into her legs. Because she was at such close range, she screamed and fell onto the ground again. Her legs were already bright red.
"Oh, excellent defence Bethan!" Clove praised. "But maybe next time invest in a proper pair of shin guards?"
After their captain was carried off the pitch to have her legs iced, the West Palm High soccer team won the game five goals to two. As Clove passed Bethan in her dug out, she offered her a sweet smile before mouthing the words 'revenge is a bitch'.
…
Cato threw his arm around Clove's shoulders as she was walking to her track meet that evening. Of course, she was quick to wriggle away and dead-arm him.
"Ow!" He rubbed his arm and mock pouted at Clove. "You hurt me, darling. You really do."
"Well, you constantly feel the need to take the piss out of me!" She hissed, bending over to lace her running shoes.
"Look, Clove, Finn and I are really sorry about that. We were just joking around with you and we pushed it too far. I'm sorry." He crouched down in front of her, and tied her right shoe as she tied her left.
"Whatever." She mumbled, and straightened up again to carry on with her walk to the track.
"Come on Clove, don't be like this." Cato pleaded, catching her wrist as she tried to walk away. "I really am sorry."
"Prove it." She smiled humorlessly and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Fine." Cato shrugged. "You, Clove Kingston, make a way hotter cheerleader than I, Cato Stone, ever would."
Clove couldn't help but laugh hysterically at the thought of Cato in a split leotard.
"So does this mean I'm forgiven?" He grinned.
"Sure." She shrugged. "But I was never really that mad."
"Huh?"
"Tricked you." She smirked. Cato narrowed his eyes at Clove and stepped forward, crushing her in a huge hug.
"Okay, can't breathe." She gasped.
"That's the idea." Cato laughed.
"We're not here yet. Can't breathe. Let go." She rasped. Cato let go, and she gasped for air.
"Thanks for that Cato, now I have to run with a broken rib." She snapped.
"Liar." He laughed, but Clove clutched at her ribs and fell into a sitting position on the floor.
"Ow." She winced.
"Oh my God, Clove I'm so sorry!" Cato knelt next to her and grabbed her hand. "I'm such an idiot, I'm sorry."
Clove pulled her hand back.
"Tricked you." She smirked and stood up. She walked off in the direction of the track.
"Again." She added without turning around.
Cato started after in awe. Was he ever going to win against that girl?