Katniss regarded her image in the mirror skeptically. Usually, she liked what she saw there, but today it was all a mess. Lines under her eyes, and around her mouth. And when did her hips get that wide, her belly that big? Time, she thought, was a traitorous bitch.
"Mmmmmmmm" came from the bed. She scowled, and then smiled. Visible in the mirror, Peeta looked like some cartoon rendition of a Roman god, the sheets having tangled around his hips in his sleep. His curly hair, left unfashionably long to her preference, was sleep-tousled. She itched to run her fingers through it. "Didja get any texts yet?" he asked sleepily from the bed.
"Diana texted. I called her back. She's still in Alabama. She says the land's gorgeous, invites me to spend a week or two there during summer break. Wants to see if her old mom can still hunt." Katniss sighed. "She thinks I've sold out."
Peeta shrugged, more awake now. "Jason thinks I've sold out, too. He says I should have started a bakery, so he could take over the family business now." Peeta and Katniss shared a rueful smile via the mirror. Children! Must be nice to know everything.
"Mmmmm, he does make amazing morning buns. But he'll start his own bakery eventually, and you love teaching."
"I do. I really do. Imparting knowledge to fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds, some of whom have never read an interesting book in their lives; spending time thinking about redemption in Doctor Faustus; using John Donne's words to tempt my wife back into bed… 'License my roving hands and let them go before, behind, between, above, below!'"
In the mirror, Katniss could see Peeta's hands reach out, as if she were close enough for him to touch. She smiled and turned part way towards him, tempted, but caught sight of a new wrinkle on her cheek, and touched her face tentatively. Fresh-faced. 18-year-olds. "Would you ever trade me in on a younger model? Like James and his twenty-two-year-old girlfriend?" she asked plaintively. Embarrassed, she followed it up with a laugh, but it sounded forced and hollow.
"What!? Katniss, no! Come here, love. I didn't realize turning forty was hitting you so hard." Peeta gestured again for Katniss to come over, and when that didn't move her, got out of bed to stand behind her at the mirror.
She appreciated the compliment of his erection, she really did, standard morning occurrence though it may be. But still, it was ridiculous. His face in the mirror was incredibly handsome and, other than character lines around his eyes, didn't look a day over twenty-eight. She looked like she was robbing the cradle, or perhaps like she'd lured him to her forest gingerbread home in order to cook and eat him.
Peeta curled his hands around his wife's rib cage, under her breasts, and placed a gentle, stubbly kiss to the exact spot where her neck met her shoulder. When this tried-and-true maneuver didn't draw her attention away from scrutinizing her image in the mirror, he sighed. "I think I need to change my plan for how I'm going to pamper you for your birthday. I'm going to take a shower and organize a bit, and then we'll head out." Katniss nodded, still reviewing her own reflection with a baleful eye.
When Peeta turned left onto the main drive of campus an hour later, Katniss said, "Hey, I didn't think we were going to work today."
"We're not; I want to show you something," Peeta replied as he pulled the car into a staff parking space near the main lawn. It was early, so some of the coveted shady spots below trees were still available. He sat on the grass under a small tree that offered a shady spot only big enough for two, and patted the ground next to him, pulling a plastic snack box out of his satchel. She sat beside him and began devouring the proffered cheese and crackers.
A few minutes passed before his wife knocked her shoulder against his and asked, "so what are we here for?"
"To watch the game," Peeta replied, gesturing with his chin at the frisbee players on the lawn. There was already a game in progress. There was always a game it progress. In fact, it might have been the same game for as long as they'd been teaching here, with the players just switching out occasionally.
Katniss regarded her husband skeptically, but decided not to ask.
Peeta gestured with his chin towards a player with dark, shaggy hair and broad, bare shoulders. "He's pretty ripped, would you trade me in on him?"
Katniss turned to glare at him, bright red spots rising on her cheekbones. "I'm not… I wasn't…"
"Humor me, love. Maybe the blonde?" Peeta asked, nodding towards one of the other frisbee players.
"NO!"
"OK, good, why not?" Peeta pulled a pair of bottles of water from his bag, and offered her one, then sat back.
"They're babies" was Katniss' very first thought. But they're not. She's pretty sure the blonde one was in her graduate seminar last semester. They're perfectly civilized adult people, just very, very young people, compared to her. And her husband is not. She looks more closely at his face and wonders how she could have thought he looked twenty-eight just an hour or two ago. His eyes have gotten smaller and sharper looking since he was these young men's age. His entire face is sharper, in fact, angular bones visible under thin skin. His face is still extremely attractive, but has entirely lost the thin layer of fat that cushions the frisbee players' faces and makes them look, despite their muscular bodies, somehow overwhelmingly sweet and young.
Katniss turned to her husband and traced his sharp cheekbone with the fingertips of her right hand. His eyes are so blue, it was always hard to avoid getting lost in them. She finally whispered, "he's never handled dinner, bath, and bedtime for a three- and five-year-old so I could write just one more page on my thesis."
Peeta grinned mischievously. "He could. I'm sure you have two more babies and another doctoral degree in you."
"Ugh!" Katniss recoiled as if the idea had been a physical object launched at her face. "He could, with someone else. For me, that's, uh, moving backwards. You're my forwards."
A more genuine smile lit up his face. "Yes, exactly. James is an idiot, love. Or unlucky. Probably both." HIs eyes were wide now, and slightly watery, and the corners of his mouth turned down a bit at the thought. "I mean, he and Delilah clearly didn't have what we do. Happy people don't start over." His mood turned and he smiled again, a secret smile that would have seemed annoyingly smug to her if she weren't its intended target. He reached for her hand to twine his fingers in hers. Katniss likes that, she likes that he's always been the one reaching for her, baking her treats, trying to tempt her back into bed after she's woken early and finished three loads of laundry and an hour of research notes before he's even awake. She clasps his hand and rubs her thumb against his, and he responds with a blinding smile, like she's just given him the best gift ever. He always responds that way to her smallest gestures. Always.
"The best time is now, Katniss. I get to sleep in. I have time to teach and time to research and pursue tenure, children who call, evenings free to bake and kiss my wife. The next-best time was just before, with teenagers who needed their dear old dad's advice and celebrating my brilliant wife making tenure. A few years from now will probably be even better; there's always a chance for all of this plus grand babies' toes to eat, and maybe my one-woman dynamo of a wife will slow down just a tiny bit and choose to laze in bed with me more often." He tugged her braid.
Katniss smiled at him in return. She'll never be quite sure how Peeta changed her mind about having children, because he made it clear that he wanted a life with her far more than he wanted babies, but she's quite glad he did. She's enjoyed motherhood more than she could have ever imagined, and she's looking forward to the joys of spoiling grandchildren. Still, she wouldn't want a three- and five-year-old along with a doctoral thesis to write again for all of the bread in the country.
Maybe she should laze in bed more often. Come back to the bedroom after her productive first hour awake, ignore the traitorous mirror, let Peeta worship her navel with his tongue or whatever other devious, erotic ideas percolated in that large brain of his underneath his gorgeous curls. Whatever else this birthday means, it means that she's survived her starved childhood and her and Peeta's hungry first years together. They survived Peeta's brutal early schedule as a lecturer and her masters, two children, his masters and her doctorate. She deserves to slow down just a little, right? Smell the roses and her husband's skin?
"The best time is now," Peeta softly concluded. "The best person for me is you." He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. "Not even you of twenty years ago could compete."
She shamelessly ignored their usual rules about displaying affection on campus to lean over and kiss him for that, hard. "This isn't where you were originally planning on taking me for my birthday," she said, standing up and dusting off her jeans. "Where are we going next?"
Peeta tucked the snack remnants into his bag and stood up as well. "For a picnic in that clearing in your woods."
"Diana's favorite clearing, from when I used to take her on my data collection trips?"
Peeta leaned in close, his hot breath brushing her ear as he whispered, "I was thinking the one she was conceived in."
The married, middle-aged professors walked back across the campus lawn to their car, laughing similar throaty laughs. Perhaps this aging thing wasn't so bad.