Peeta did take me to his actual place, but I hadn't realized that he lived above his bakery and that gave me a little comfort. I'm entirely sure why I would be comforted by the fact the guy lives at his bakery, but I wave it off. It's like a loft, a one floor home with his bedroom, a small kitchen open to the rest of area, kind of like my own kitchen at the apartment. He has one bathroom and two closets.
The style of his loft is what surprises me the most, it's vintage mostly and very simple, nothing over the top and a part of me wonders why that is. Even though I'm not sure what I was expecting by going to the place where he lives, but I guess by his open personality and by the way he set up the bakery downstairs I thought there would be more. Again, people are full of surprises.
"I know it's not much, but it is home," Peeta says pulling me from my thoughts.
It was then I realized I had zoned out, looking over his apartment and I felt kind of bad for doing that.
I smile softly, "It may not be much, but I like it. It's nice."
His smile makes me feel a bit more at ease, we move over to his dining table where I see he has a few pictures lying around and a scarpbook.
"What's this," I ask curiously as I look over some of the pictures.
There are four boys, two in their mid to early teens, one who looks around the age of ten and one much younger than him. I remember Peeta mentioning his brothers, two older and one younger so I assume the ten year old boy with ashy blonde hair is Peeta. The younger boy has auburn hair and is being held by the tallest of the group, he has dark blonde hair that almost looks brown. The last boy has the same blonde hair as Peeta, but green eyes instead of blue. Peeta stands next to me, he is close enough to where our shoulders just barely touch and I can feel his body heat.
"Those are my brothers," he says sadly and points to the different boys, "We were at our grandparent's lake house down by the shore. The tallest and oldest of us is Jared, he was a total popular guy in school, everybody loved him, he is now a lawyer and not a bad one either. Next we have Christopher, a complete nerd through and through. He had all A's and was basically the all star student in every class, it was so annoying. Chris became a doctor, we all thought he would be a lawyer to, but he surprised us. Lastly there was Michael.."
Peeta pauses and that sad look from earlier returns making me nervous.
There is an edge in his voice as he speaks, "Michael was an athlete, he played every sport at least once in his life and stuck with most of them like baseball, soccer, football, hockey and so forth. He was the nicest kid you would ever meet."
Peeta doesn't say anymore. I know shouldn't ask, but I do anyway.
"What about Michael," I question, "what does he do now?"
Peeta takes a deep breath, I look over at the little boy in the picture. He doesn't have to say anything, I understand exactly what he is trying to say without having to say anything.
In a small voice I say, "I am so sorry, I shouldn't have asked- it's really none of my business."
Peeta looks at me, his blue eyes burn into mine as he smiles sweetly, "It's okay, Michael was a great kid all the way until the end…. Now about that cake, I have an idea about how to shape it, but I need your approval."
I nod and gesture to the seat beside the one I have chosen to sit in. He moves the photographs over to his coffee table and comes back with a picture of a pink primrose. I look at it for a moment and wait for him to explain his great idea.
"I want to make the cake shaped like a primrose, I'm not sure what your sister's favorite color is so I went with pink. If you want to change it go ahead, but first tell me how you like or dislike this idea."
The idea seems pretty good to me, I have no objections towards it.
"I like it and Prim likes the color pink, but her favorite color is yellow. So I think you should make the flower cake, but the icing should be yellow."
Peeta gives me a curious look and smiles slyly.
"The Everdeen sisters have a thing for warm colors," Peeta says to me and it takes me a moment to understand what he is talking about.
I took an art class once in fourth grade and vividly remember the things we discuss such as warm and cold colors, or complimentary colors. Basically all we ever talked about in that class was colors, no wonder I quit after one year, we never did anything. The next few hours continue to this way. Peeta and I talk mainly about the cake, what flavor it should be, how big, how much icing and so forth.
However that only lasted about an hour because around 3:15 I found myself telling stories to Peeta about my past. Nothing serious, I only told him the good memories and he has only told me the good ones he has had with his brothers and parents.
"Hey do you want some coffee," Peeta asks.
I haven't had a cup of coffee in a while, what's the harm. When I was younger, my father would let me take a few sips of his in early mornings keeping it a secret from my mother. She didn't want me to drink coffee, not because of the caffeine though. Now that I think about it, I don't think she ever gave me a reason other than 'because I said so.'
"Sure, I'd love a cup," I reply with a soft smile.
Peeta grins, he stands from his chair and makes his way back to his kitchen and begins to make the coffee. For the first few seconds I just watch him work. I can't exactly place my finger on it, but it seems familiar and strangely relaxing. My throat goes dry when I realize why that is. It's because of Gale. He wasn't necessarily a cook, but I remember being home alone with him and he would start baking or cooking in the kitchen with items he bought and hid in the house. He would move around the kitchen while I sat on the island watching him work.
Neither of my parents were big fans of cooking, but whenever they did cook they did it together. If there was one thing I took from my parents being together was they were really in love. They didn't seem to show it often, but when they did it was obvious how they felt for the other which I find strangely beautiful. I look away from Peeta and back at the picture of him and his brothers. He looked happy in that picture.
The one thing pictures are good for is capturing the moment and sometimes how someone felt in those moments. He looked happy. I know in some of my pictures of me and my parents I looked happy, I was happy. But that was a long time ago, when life was simple and the world didn't seem so cruel. After a couple of minutes, Peeta returns with two cups of coffee.
"Thanks," I mutter as my cool hands grab the warm nearly hot coffee cup.
The smell of fresh coffee makes my mouth water and I take a small sip careful not to burn my tongue. I was surprised at the taste, it was bitter, but sweet. I wouldn't go as far to say bittersweet because the sweet overpowered the bitter. I guess I would say it was sweet with a hint of bitter to take the edge or really overload of sugar. All in all it was really good and I liked it more than I thought I would.
"Good," Peeta asks me after a long silence. I nod in response before taking another sip of the coffee.
Prim doesn't like coffee in the slightest bit, she hates the smell the look and the taste. Our mother wasn't a fan of coffee either which was probably why I liked to drink it so much.
"What got you into baking," I ask curiously.
He told me earlier his older brothers went into becoming a lawyer and a doctor while he became a baker. I find it interesting in such a different choice in fields.
Peeta set his mug and replied, "Well I had no interest in becoming something like that. I always like pastries and baking was something I could do in my free time. It let me forget about the world around me to where it was just me and the ingredients. Nothing specific got me into it other than just liking it. What I liked most about it was being able to take all these different items and making them into something completely different. I found it fascinating."
I nod and glance down at my coffee cup still in my hands. Peeta studies me for a moment. I don't have to look up in order to tell, I can feel his eyes on me.
"What about you," he asks, "What do you do for a living?"
A dreaded question I knew would come up eventually. It's a hard topic to avoid, especially if I'm the one who brought it up.
"I'm a bail bondsperson," I say flatly hoping he catches the hint I don't wish to talk about this.
He grins at me and asks, "I'm afraid I don't know what that is, do enlighten me Ms Everdeen with your bail bondsmanship."
His voice his light and teasing, but they make me feel heavy and stuck. Whenever on the off chance I have to tell people about my work I have to explain why and I hate having to do that because I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it now, but the words leave my lips before I could stop them.
"It's my job to find people who skip bail, I have to make sure they show up in court in order to get paid," I explain briefly, hoping that's enough information. It never is. He looks at me with interest and I can't tell if he's faking it or he is actually interested.
He smiles, "Do go on, I'm curious as to what it is you do."
I sigh, "Finding people is what I do, basically I just find people who run off and bring them back. It's that simple."
His smile shifts slightly to disappointment as he tells me, "You don't like your job."
I glance to the floor, my heart begins to beat faster as the weight of why I started this job comes into play. It's not something I usually like to talk about, honestly I hate talking about it. Yet when I look up at Peeta I feel like I could tell him everything. It's the same way I feel- felt about Gale. And that's what scares me.
"It's not that I don't like it, it's just..." I pause for a moment trying to relax my nerves about the topic, "It's just something I've always done."
Peeta eyes me curiously and it makes me uncomfortable. My emotions are starting spin out of control; but I refuse to let it show on my face.
"It's an interesting job, I'm sure you have plenty of stories to tell," he says lightly and I notice the hesitance in his voice. "How did you fall into it," he asks me and I feel ready to burst.
I can't tell him because my mother abandoned me and my sister and I want to find her and confront her. The anger of her abandonment makes my blood boil and I want to yell and scream. The questions I've been asking myself for years swirl inside my mind as I struggle to find my voice.
"It's just what I've always done," I say flatly, "Can we talk about something else?"
I didn't mean to sound so frantic when I said that last part, but I need to stop thinking about this.
Peeta nods and says softly, "I'm sorry if I stepped over the line."
I meet his gaze and can tell he means it. I didn't say anything, only nod. He changes the subject to other things and we talk about lighter topics. For example, what sports did we play in high school. He played football, I did archery. It was nice, we swapped hobbies and things we like or liked to do when we were younger. The world seemed to fade from view the longer I spoke with him, it was nice not having to think about anything for a little while. It's 5:23 when I look at my phone again, I check my messages and Prim has sent me one at 4:56.
Prim (4:56): Hey Katniss, just letting you know Madge is taking me out for pizza in a few minutes. She'll bring me home at around 6:00 or 6:15 depending on the traffic.
Katniss (5:24): That's fine, save me a slice. Also text me if anything happens or if you're going to be late. See you later, I love you.
I put my phone away. "I should get going, Prim's still out with Madge and I need do some of my work before the end of the night," I say and grab my cup.
Peeta frowns, but nods in understanding.
He takes my cup and tells me, "It was really nice talking to you today. And if you ever catch a minute in your schedule you could stop at the bakery and see how the cake is coming."
I smile at the idea, it would be nice to have something else to do besides wait around for Prim and work.
He leads me to the door and I say, "I might have to take you up on that offer bread boy."
He smiles at me, "I look forward to seeing you again Katniss. Stay safe."
I nod and walk down stairs and out of the bakery into the streets. The air is warm with a soft breeze blowing my flyaways into my face. I put my hands in my pocket and walk home.
*7:48*
"Prim," I say over the phone, "Where are you? Why haven't you or Madge answered my calls or text messages? Answer your phone, call me back."
I hang up the phone and sit on the couch. Prim is late, incredibly late and hasn't answered any of my messages. I've called her a total of 37 times in the last two hours, sent her over 40 text messages asking where she is and what is going on. Madge hasn't answered her phone either and she knows better than to do that. Once I began to trust her, I made it very clear that when I call while she has Prim she better answer unless she wants to deal with me.
A million scenarios race through my mind and I don't know what to do. Why hasn't she answered her phone? What if she's hurt? Did something bad happen? What happened? Are they lost out there? Were they taken away and kidnapped? All the horrible possibilities of what could have happened play through my mind. I wait five minutes before calling Prim again.
"Prim, please answer your phone. I'm really worried about you, just tell me you're okay. That's all I need to know," I say trying to hide the edge in my voice.
I hang up the phone. Tears prick my eyes as I sit on the kitchen counter, something bad must have happened. She would never not answer her phone after I've tried to reach her so many times. Her record was two missed calls in the same week. I hope she's okay, she has to be okay. My phone buzzes on the couch and I all but sprint from the kitchen over to the phone. It's a number I don't recognize, a part of me thinks it's a client. I don't want to answer but have to, it could be important. What if it's Prim and she had borrow someone else's phone?
I hit answer and say shakily, "Hello, who is this?"
"Are you Katherine Everdeen," the man over the phone asks me and I grimace.
I hate hearing my birth name.
"Yes, but I want to know who is this," I snap my voice hard and angry.
I try to keep my emotions at bay and stay calm for whatever this man has to say, but the words he says was not something I was prepared for.
"I'm calling from Hartsfield Hospital, I'm sorry to tell you your sister, Primrose, was in a car crash."