Chapter 7

About an hour and several tequila shots later, Peeta and I were standing in the kitchen. And I was definitely feeling those shots.

Peeta was laughing at me, but for the moment, I didn't care. The house apparently didn't have air conditioning, and since people arrived it had only gotten hotter, despite the cooler night.

I was leaning over with my face in their fridge. No, I wasn't looking for a snack. If I were any amount of sober, I would be kicking myself; but as it was, drunk me was "too damn hot" and innovatively decided to cool off by sticking my face in the fridge. I was probably going to hate myself in the morning for embarrassing myself like this, especially in front of Peeta, but I guess all I can say is it was really hot in the house.

I heard Madge's voice in the other room, and for some reason that snapped me out of it. I stood up and shut the fridge, looking over at Peeta sheepishly.

"You're funny," he laughed. "I kinda wish I'd thought of that myself." He opened the freezer and pulled out a couple popsicles, handing me one. I took a bite and my eyes flew open again as I realized I was moaning from the relief. What the hell are you doing, Katniss? Acting like some crazy sorority girl… Peeta snorted a laugh again as he was eating his own popsicle. Thank God I was smashed right now; I would've felt so awkward otherwise.

I finished my popsicle and tossed the stick in the garbage. "Feeling better now?" Peeta asked with a smile. I nodded shyly before Madge and some of the others finally came into the kitchen.

She looked back and forth between us before walking over to me and whispering, "so, why do you both look so flushed and embarrassed, hmm?" I shoved her lightly and left the room to find Annie sitting on the couch in the living room. She smiled at me as I stumbled over and plopped down next to her.

"So? How's it going? Madge told me all about your little crush," she teased.

I groaned and mumbled "I'm going to kill her in her sleep," and Annie laughed at me.

"Awe, I think it's cute. And I'd love to have someone to go on double dates with besides Johanna and her creep of the week," she said. I was about to ask who Johanna was before Finnick marched back into the room with Peeta in tow.

He pointed at Annie and me. "Get up, we're playing a game," he said. I vaguely registered the thought that I probably didn't need to drink more, but at this point I'd already broken most of my rules.

"Girls against guys, flip cup," he announced. I'd seen people play the game before, but never actually played myself. Luckily, Madge was at my side in seconds explaining it to me. I guess you had to down what was in your cup before setting it on the edge of the table and flip it over until it landed on the other end. As soon as you did that, the next person on your team did so, and so on down the line. Whichever team finished first won.

Winning didn't mean much – nobody really won anything and we all had to drink. The only thing about losing was listing to Finnick shout and get way too excited about his victory.

We only played a few rounds and, thankfully, only filled the cups a little with beer, so as not to put most of us on the floor by the end of round two. Peeta walked over to me as I leaned back against the wall, trying to calm the dizziness I was feeling.

"You okay?" he asked. "You're a small girl, you should probably stop…" he sounded nervous, like he was afraid to tell me what to do, but he was definitely right.

I nodded. "Yeah" I said, opening my eyes briefly before closing them again. "Ugh. I have a 9am tomorrow, I don't know how I'm going to make it."

He laughed, "so do I," and I remember that my 9am class was public speaking, with him.

"How do you do this all the time?" I asked, starting to sink down to the floor before Peeta put an arm around me and held me up.

"Um, you probably don't want to sit on these floors…" he said. Oh, right. I'm in a house full of college boys who probably don't know how to operate a vacuum cleaner. "We can go upstairs… um, I mean, if you want," he continued. I nodded again and he led me upstairs to the room we were in before. I plopped down on one of the beds, immediately sighing into the pillow.

"I'm sorry, I don't usually get like this," I apologized.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "It's alright, it is your first week of college. Trust me, almost everyone in this house is in a much worst state than you are right now on a weekly basis." I couldn't tell if he was really trying to reassure me or just being polite to the drunk girl inviting herself into whosever bed this was.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence (well, as close as you could get to silence with a party raging downstairs), I sat up and stretched. Peeta was still sitting there with a small smile on his face before there was a vibration and he pulled his phone out of his pocket and chuckling.

"Another cute girl send you a snapchat?" I asked him. I don't know why I seemed to have no filter tonight.

He looked up. "Um, no… just my brother being an ass," he said.

"Oh… sorry, it's just, you seem pretty likeable," I said, scooting over to sit next to him.

He blushed again and looked at me, "I'm 'likeable' huh? Wow, what a compliment. Kind of makes me feel like a teddy bear or a kitten."

"That's not what I meant! It's just, uh, you're comfortable to be around… I don't know," my words were really failing and I was probably talking slower than usual.

He was still smiling at me. "Wish I could say the same about you. To be honest, when I first ran into you, I thought you were going to hit me or something."

"What?! Why?" I couldn't be that scary… It's not like I walked around with a scowl on my face. Or did I?

He chuckled, "it's just, you had this look on your face like 'why is this guy talking to me' and I guess I'm just not used to that response."

"Oh," I said. "Um, don't take it personally. Madge says I have the social skills of a sloth." I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it made him laugh anyway.

"Well, I'm glad to hear I was wrong," he said softly. "How are you feeling now? Do you want to go back downstairs?" Was he nervous to be alone with me?

"Um… yeah," I said. As I stood up I suddenly realized how tired I was. "Actually," I said and he turned around, "do you think I… I should probably, um, head home…"

He seemed to understand and took a step closer to me. "Okay, do you want me to walk with you?"

"I can take care of-" I stopped myself. He was just trying to be kind… and having him a little longer didn't sound too bad. "I mean, um, yeah, that would be nice."

He smiled and we went downstairs. I found Madge sitting on the arm of the couch talking with Annie. "Hey, um, I'm gonna head home now, if that's okay with you," I told her.

She smirked, "Not by yourself, I hope?"

"No, no, uh, Peeta's walking with me," I said without meeting her eyes.

I could still feel her smirk on me. "Alright, I'll just walk with Annie in a little while. You two, be safe." I thought I saw her wink at Peeta, but I wasn't in the best mindset to differentiate between real and imagination at that moment.

As we starting walking down the sidewalk, I stumbled and surprised myself when I caught my balance and grabbed Peeta's hand. He didn't seem to mind, though, and I told myself I was doing it just to keep myself from face planting. We walked in a comfortable silence until I felt Peeta start swinging our hands back and forth a little. I looked over at him and realized he was pretty tipsy too, but holding it together much better than I was. He seemed to notice me looking at him and mumbled an apology and a giggle before he stopped the swinging. He had nothing to apologize for.

"So, um…" he started. "How are your classes going so far?"

I was surprised that he wanted to talk about something like that right now. "Oh, uh, they're fine. I just, um, really wish we weren't required to take that stupid CAS 100…"

He laughed again. "You'll make it through. You at least one friend in the class with you," he smiled a crooked little smile that made me feel warm.

"Yeah, I guess I do," I sighed. As we continued walking, Peeta told me about his classes. He had a freshman English professor whose name was Dr. Abernathy, and apparently came into class each day with bloodshot eyes and a 'not a single fuck given' (actual quote by himself) attitude. This made me laugh, and we joked about how a guy like that ended up with this job.

"Where did you say you were from again," I asked as we were turning onto the street where my apartment was.

"Uh, it's this little town about two and a half hours from here. I'm kind of the outcast of my family… they're all West Virginia fans," he said. I guessed that must be some kind of rival school to ours.

"Ahh," I nodded, "a house divided."

He snorted but his smiled dropped a bit as he mumbled, "tell me about it."

"What do you mean?" I asked. He looked up like he didn't know he'd said that out loud.

"Oh, um… it's just my mom," he sighed. I waited for him to continue, and he shook his head. "See, my dad's like this genuine kind and caring man, but my mom… I probably shouldn't say this, but she just might be the devil's long lost sister."

"Oh," was all I could think to say. I didn't doubt him, though. If a boy as warm and kind as him was saying it, it was probably true.

"I'm sorry, she's just so cruel. I can't remember a single time in my life where she said she loved me, or said anything nice about me really. She's like that with my brother, Rye, too. I don't know how my dad ended up with her. Or why he's still with her," he sounded a little angry, but took a deep breath and stopped himself. This was obviously an argument they'd had several times before. "I'm sorry. At least I'm away from her here."

"It's okay," I said. I wasn't exactly good at comforting people. "Sometimes parents suck." Nice. That was all I could come up with.

He laughed softly, though. "Yeah, they do. Are we getting close to your place?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry, we're um, the very last one on the left," I said. As we walked by there were a few guys sitting out on their balconies, smoking weed. Peeta commented on it and I said, "Yeah, I don't know. Those guys have been out there doing that every day this week. I don't know when they even go to class. Yesterday they were out there at, like, 8 in the morning lighting up."

"Yeah, Finn said these apartments were kind of known for that," he said.

"Where do you live?" I asked.

"Oh, um, in the dorms. In North," he said. That was a long way from where we were now.

"Are you okay to walk that far this late at night, all alone?" I asked. It didn't sound too appealing.

"Oh yeah, it's fine. I just take the white loop up, it's not much walking," he said. We came up to mine and Madge's door and I had to finally let go of his hand. I fished the key out of my pocket before turning to him, unsure of what I was supposed to do.

"Um, well, thank you for walking me back. I had fun tonight," I said, looking down at my shoes and fiddling with the keychain.

He inhaled deeply and sighed. "Yeah, me too. Um, maybe I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, maybe," I smiled, and with a sudden burst of completely un-Katniss-like confidence, I stood up on my toes and kissed his cheek before quickly turning around and sliding in through the door. I said a quiet "bye" over my shoulder and saw him still standing there, his eyes half closed.

"Goodbye, Katniss," I heard him say as I shut the door and grabbed myself a water bottle before heading to bed. My head was still spinning when I finally laid down, but I couldn't tell how much of it was from the alcohol and how much was from the look in Peeta's eyes right before I shut the door. Yep, his eyes definitely got bluer every time I looked at them.

Hey! So, we're still kind of in the opening stages of this story. There's just a lot that has to develop before I can get into the main conflict of it all. So expect at least a few more chapters of getting to know Peeta and adjusting to college life. The real issue begins around Halloween, but that's all I'll say.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, I'd love to hear it! I have no idea how I'm doing so far with this – I'm pretty new to writing fanfiction, so everything helps.