Through These Doors (PeetaxCato)

Chapter 4- Mr. Maverick

Cato

     He hadn't seen me. He didn't even notice I was there. But I knew he was there. Why was he here though? I didn't understand what on earth could have brought him to Plum Creek again after what happened. And this time Finnick had nothing to do with it.

    Let me explain how I know Gloss so there are no misconceptions. Gloss was a guy who had gone to school here at Panem High when I was in ninth grade. He was a junior then and was the quarterback for the football team. I remember this because I had two class periods with him then and he was always leaving last period for practice...however he was no klutz. He was in honors classes like me and the teacher would always partner us together. He was cheerful and just the all-around good guy he genuinely was. I had no hard feelings towards him at all. In fact, my heart skipped a beat to see him back in town.

Eventually, we traded numbers so we could go to each other's homes to work on homework and class projects. It was a pretty normal start for us to begin with, but then I started looking at him as more than a friend. He had a tan girls would kill for and his body was like perfection. His blond hair and physique hadn't changed a bit from high school,( save he had grown a little taller. But then again, that was to be expected. I mean he was only four years older than me. I was a senior and he was twenty-two now,)and I remember falling hard for him. He also unbeknownst to me had a crush on me but I don't see how. I mean, yea I worked out and stuff but like I wasn't like him. He worked out constantly.

Then one day, I was so desperate for him that I spied on him in the locker room and I pushed him into the lockers and kissed him passionately. The same way that I kissed Peeta these days. But where Peeta was mellow and soft, Gloss was young, wild, and free. He wanted to travel the world, to try new things, and his spirit of adventure was what attracted me to him. He was also the one I lost my virginity to. I'm still not ashamed of what I did with him.

Then during senior year, someone took a video of us making out in the hallway and put it everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, the whole kit-and-caboodle. Everyone started to shun us except for loyal Clove and Cashmere. no one had expected the star quarterback to be gay. No one expected the kid on the wrestling team to be, either. At his graduation, someone threw a rock in his car that read "FAG" during the ceremony. That was it for us. The next day, he came to my door and told me goodbye. That broke my tenth-grader heart. I swore that I would never love again. Obviously, Peeta solved that but the pain was still there.

I walked back to the bakery sort of nervous about the whole ordeal. I wasn't watching where I was going either because I ran smack into Clove.

"Bitch, watch where-oh, Cato, hey" Clove stammered from the blow.

"Hey yourself" I answered, rubbing my shoulder where her nose had implanted itself into it.

"Peeta's worried about you." she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Just talk to him, he will tell you." was all Clove said as she walked off.  Some days she was like Clarisse McClellan from Fahrenheit 451. Appearing only at a mystical time....

Peeta

Gloss walked in the bakery with a smile on his face and said, "Hey, neighbor."

"You know Mr. Maverick?" Johanna asked shocked to the bone.

"I'm his neighbor, Johanna." Gloss said in a cool tone of voice.

"Oh, no, I thought you were his landlord. I'll see you two tomorrow." Johanna said as she took the box of bagels she connived out of me and left.

"Bye, Johanna!" Me and Gloss said at the same time. We laughed at this.

"So, if you didn't know..."

"I know, Gloss. You are a teacher."

"Wow, the first person to call me by my real name!" Gloss laughed.

"Oh, I forgot, I'm sorry..."

"Don't be. I like that about you. You got balls..."

"Big ones."

"Mine are bigger." he said as he took my hand and continued "We are gonna have some fun, Baker Boy."

I pulled away, "Gloss, I have a boyfriend."

"So? I respect that. I know him."

"Cato?"

"Yep, you have no idea how much I know him." he laughed again.

He got a box of donuts for his new economics class and then left, but not without giving me his number. I put it in my pocket and went to turn off the open sign. It wouldn't hurt to have Gloss' number...after all we were friends, right?

Song of the Day; Burning Up by Madonna