Katniss glanced around her,checking to make sure his witch of a mother wasn't in the bakery kitchen before she carefully knocked three times on the back was Christmas time in District 12 and the merchants were all hustle and bustle,flitting from shop to shop,sorting out last minute preperations before the big was the busiest time of year for the merchants that owned shops,not to mention Katniss' busiest time of year as the merchants had a little spare cash to treat themselves to a squirrel,or a bird that survived the harsh sometimes felt pity on these small creatures,surviving the winter against all odds,only to be pierced through the eye by one of her arrows.
She began to shiver,wondering whatever was taking Peeta so long to answer the door must be important as normally she hadn't time to finish her knock before the door swung open and she was ushered rubbed her hands together as her teeth began to chatter and she rested her forehead against the freezing steel of the of snow began to flutter down and she had just reluctantly turned to walk away from the bakery in defeat when the door was flung open.
She turned around and grinned at Peeta's look of had been days since she had seen snow had been falling too heavily for a couple of weeks and since it was so close to Christmas,the school decided to give up and officially declare the midterm was hard enough to get seam children out of bed and into school,let alone when there was snow seeping through the holes in their shoes,causing them discomfort all course,Peeta's mother took advantage of this so instead of an early Christmas break,Peeta got more shifts in the bakery meaning he was working the morning shift as always and then went straight into the afternoon understood that the bakery was busy and needed him to work but she couldn't comprehend how it was always left on Peeta to do,and never his two older brothers,Jace and Phil.
However,she managed to forget about that when Peeta bounded up to where she was standing,flour still speckled on his cheeks and his apron clutched in his obviously barely had enough time to take it off before he was rushing to answer the door. He gathered her in his arms and pressed a kiss firmly against her hair,which was tied back in her usual ,Peeta made her untie it so he could run his fingers through could never understand his facination with her hair,but then again,there were occasionally times when she longed to just ruffle his usually tidy,combed back blonde tucked her nose into the crook of his neck,soaking in the aroma of sugar and cinnamon which always seemed to radiate from his clear,pale skin.
"I was hoping it was you" he murmured against her hair,hugging her tighter.
"So you have many teenage girls calling at the back door of the bakery looking for you?" Katniss teased.
"Just a couple"
"Okay then,as long as it's no more that three,I need to have limits to how many girls my best friend has in his life."
"You know there's only you" he whispered.
Katniss could tell their joking had taken on a new had known Peeta for years,since they were little remembered immediately being taken with the friendly wide blue eyes of the little was sometimes hard to believe that the once little boy is now towering over 's not overly tall but as much as Katniss hated to admit it,she was than small,she was spent her whole childhood giving all the food she had to her younger sister,Prim,that she guessed her own height had been constantly teased her about it but she knew he was only joking and didn't mean to offend ,she knew all too right that the merchants from the school did mean to offend her as as much as she hated to admit it,it bothered wasn't only small,she was friends like Madge,the mayor's daughter,who was all curves in all the right places,one could not afford to be had virtually no breasts and although she pretended she didn't mind,at sixteen years old,all Katniss wanted was to fit didn't want to be friends with the cruel merchants,who watch their seam classmates wither away with hunger every winter,but she did want to blend in and not attract attention,which was sometimes hard to accomplish.
She remembered all too well a couple of weeks ago where she completely panicked and was worrying constantly that Peeta would hate her and refuse to speak to her anymore.
It was early in the morning,Katniss had called at the bakery to walk with Peeta to had been acting nervous and wouldn't quite meet her eyes.
"Is it your mother again?"Katniss inquired.
Peeta didn't answer.
"Peeta,tell me the truth,has she done something?If she has,don't you dare listen to her,you and I both know she has severe issues and she doesn't deserve a son as good and kind as you"
Peeta breathed out slowly and said quietly,
"She didn't do anything."
Katniss's brow furrowed in wasn't was a cheerful,optimistic wasn't silent and forlorn. She closed her eyes for just a second,her hands reaching up to rub her temple when she felt a pair of soft lips press gently against her eyes fluttered open in disbelief,her headache forgotton,as she stared at Peeta in had he been thinking?Did he mean anything by his kiss?
"Katniss,I'm sorry" he stammered.
Katniss looked away in course he didn't mean anything by it,he was upset and he had made the embarassing mistake of kissing wouldn't willingly kiss her if there wasn't something course was merchant and she was if he wanted her...NO! He doesn't want her and she's just making a fool of herself staring at him,her mouth still hanging open in closed it quickly and stepped back.
"I have to go" she whispered.
Peeta was staring at the ground,as if he wished a hole in the ground would magically open up and swallow him whole.
Katniss turned on her heel and began to run back in the direction of the Seam,forgetting completely about was surprised to see her mother out of bed and cleaning at home,for once she was slightly disappointed that her mother was making an effort as she had to make as excuse and say she was sick and not going to her excuse wasn't a truly felt sick at Peeta's kept replaying the words he said after their kiss and she rested her head against her pillow in her bedroom as a tear leaked out of her right had to stop Everdeen hadn't cried since her father was she just kept hearing those words.
"Katniss,I'm sorry"
"Katniss,I'm sorry"
"sorry"
Katniss hadn't seen Peeta for days after had called around about a week later to her shack in the Seam,smilling hesitantly at her as he handed over a bundle of dandylions tied around the stalk with a ribbon.
"I hope you didn't buy these" she had told him,hating the thought of him giving his hard earned money to the stuck up florist,Mrs had always hated Seam children with a passion,and used to screech profanities at poor,sweet,innocent Prim,for walking past her shop window and glancing in awe at the vibrant colors of the didn't take Katniss long to glare back and threaten her with her bow that her father had bestowed upon her before he took his last breath in those wretched Davis never spoke to Prim again but that didn't stop her from causing other young Seam children to cry for doing the same as Prim,admiring the flowers,which made Katniss's blood boil in anger.
Peeta had reassured her that no,he did not buy anything from that old biddy,and he had felt she would prefer flowers from their meadow,the same one they had been visiting for had felt a rush of warmth from how well he knew her.
Although that was weeks ago,there was still a slight tension between the both of rubbed her shoulders and frowned at how cold she was.
"Where are those gloves and scarf that I gave you Katniss?" he asked her,looking at her in concern.
Katniss sighed.
"At home" she Katniss understood that Peeta was her best friend,and it is normal for friends to give each other gifts,she still saw expensive items such as gloves as charity and she desperately wished she could afford to get him something that would actually come in useful.
He took both her hands in his and rubbed them smiled up at him in gratitude and he reminded her to please remember to wear the gloves next time as the last thing he wanted was her to have to get her fingers amputated as a result of frostbite.
"Want to go to the meadow?" Peeta suggested.
"Are you allowed?" Katniss wondered in ,Peeta wasn't allowed to go anywhere with her as his mother had forbidden him from seeing her several times,but what Katniss really meant was if he was allowed a break from the bakery.
"I'm sure I'll get away with it just this once" Peeta said playfully.
He linked his large warm hand with her scrawny one was he pulled her along until they reached the meadow,on the outskirts of District 12. Although Katniss had brought Peeta into the woods with her before,his large thumping footsteps meant no animal would dare set foot in a fifty metre radius for the next week so usually they went to their meadow which was technically legal to go to as it was still inside the fence but for some reason,the meadow's only visitors were Katniss and hated to think that it was his fault Katniss wouldn't go outside the fence when she was with him but he also liked to think that the meadow was a sign of how much she cared for him as she had mentioned briefly before that her father used to take her to pick flowers when Prim was still a baby and her mother was kept busy minding her.
The meadow wasn't as pleasant as it normally was as it was covered in winter had killed the flowers that reached knee high in the summer,the the trees were also lbare,and not as beautiful as it usually was,in Katniss's ,Peeta liked the snow as it was a good excuse for him to offer Katniss his jacket,as there was nothing more he liked to see than his masculine jacket surround her feminine figure.
Peeta had been planning this moment for always knew how he felt about Katniss but he felt that sixteen was a good age to see if there was a chance that she reciprocated his ,randomly kissing her all those weeks ago was a bad wasn't supposed to go so was supposed to actually kiss him back but he suspected that she had been so overcome by surprise that she was reluctant to kiss him back. He knew it wasn't normal,how his heart swelled with happiness whenever Katniss was automatically smiled whenever he thought of her and he had recently started having dreams about her, dreams about things he shouldn't be thinking about and he hated himself for but he couldn't bring himself to stop indulging in his fantasies of harm was there in it really?
Peeta knew Katniss was pure as they technically Katniss had been his first kiss when they were only six years old, he has admittedly taken the odd girl that showed affection behind the slag heap. He didn't care for them,and he felt awful afterwards but he needed to have practice for was the girl of his dreams and he couldn't stand the thought of biting her tongue on their first kiss or squeezing her nipple too hard if she ever let him get that far. The thought of causing Katniss pain was unbearable on so many levels and he wouldn't allow it to happen if he could stop it by any means necessary.
Katniss was holding her palms to her mouth and breathing heavily,heating her hands.
"Remember when we came here when we were kids?"Peeta reminded her.
"Yep" Katniss ,substantial answers weren't her style.
"I think I'd like to take my kids here someday"Peeta looked over at Katniss staring at him with her eyebrows raised.
"Not anytime soon" he rushed on. "but someday,in years to come."
"Get past reaping age first"Katniss said wirily."Then worry about kids, they're certainly not a part of my plan."
Peeta looked at her in had heard this explanation several times,about how she didn't want kids, because of the reaping, and the hunger problem in the Seam and how it would be simply cruel to bring a baby into this had always wished she would change her mind but it looked like she would need more convincing.
"Well then they're not a part of my plan" he said,staring at his feet.
Katniss sighed in confusion.
"What do you mean Peeta? You literally just said you want to bring your children here?"
Peeta swallowed was it.
"I don't want children if they're not your children too" he took a deep breath.
"Katniss,I'm in love with you.I always have been and I always will be."
He watched her expression change from shock to an expression he didn't recognise.
The last thing he expected was Katniss to lunge towards him,her hands gripping his shoulders and pressing her lips to automatically reached for her waist to pull her closer to him and he couldn't help sweeping his tongue across her bottom lip,and he moaned when she opened her mouth slightly,granting him access to her right hand reached to stroke her braid as his tongue rubbed gently in a pattern with knew he would be replaying this moment in his head all day, and most likely in the shower that night. He was panting slightly as she pulled away.
"Bet you didn't expect that,Mellark"