A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks for being patient with this gap in updates. My life is really chaotic right now—I moved at the beginning of June, and actually now need to move again at the end of July. Throw in a work trip out of state, a short vacation, and a nasty cold on top of all the moving and travel, and I'm going to count it as a victory that I'm even getting this chapter up.

Chapter 7: Are You Ready for a Party?

Madge reached for another gingerbread man and bit off his head.

"You show him," Peeta said in an amused tone. They were sampling some of the Christmas cookies the Mellarks had made for the Undersees' holiday party that night; Peeta had delivered everything in advance and stayed to visit with Madge in the kitchen. He took a bite of his own cookie and nodded at Madge. "So are you going to tell me what happened with Greg?"

Madge scowled at the tray of ginger people, wishing one of them really was Greg so she could drop him on the floor and stomp him into pieces. That also might be easier than having this conversation with Peeta, who'd never been as sold on Greg as Madge had. Madge just hadn't wanted to hear it.

But it wasn't like she wouldn't eventually tell Peeta. With a sigh, she realized she might as well get it over with, like pulling off a band-aid.

"We went out for dinner to celebrate the end of finals," she started, reluctantly. "To that new Italian restaurant on Turner Avenue."

"Oh, that place looks good. Did you like it?"

"Well, it's kind of ruined for me now," Madge said with a frown, reminding Peeta to listen. He took another bite of his cookie so she could continue. "I wanted to talk about which of his shows I could see during the break, and whether he could come to this party." She nodded toward the rest of her house, which looked like the victim of a Christmas explosion. Madge's mother would have hated Greg, but not been able to do anything about it because his parents owned a large chemical company in the northern part of the state and were wealthy and influential enough to be potential campaign donors. Madge had so been looking forward to the introduction. But that plan was out the window now.

"So we ordered, and then he just casually said that I probably shouldn't come to any of his shows over the break and that we'd be better off keeping things between us at school."

She'd felt so stupid—he hadn't even said "our relationship," he'd said "let's just keep hanging out while we're at school." Like Madge was a part-time obligation he could forget about between semesters.

Peeta set his cookie on his plate and frowned thoughtfully. "Did he give you the 'I told you I didn't want anything serious at the beginning' line again?"

Madge nodded. He'd said that, over and over again, but the thing was, he didn't act like it. They spent so much time together! He wrote songs about her, said she inspired his creativity, would turn up unexpectedly in the hallway of her dorm room to serenade her... He even publicly dedicated songs to her at his band's shows.

"Sorry, Madge," Peeta said, shaking his head. "That's not cool."

"It's worse," she added grimly. "He also said I shouldn't call or text him during the break."

Peeta winced. "Why?"

"Because his hometown girlfriend might get the wrong idea." She shifted her tone so Peeta would know those were Greg's words, not hers. "He said he'd probably spend a lot of time with her over the holidays so I shouldn't call him, but don't worry: we could keep hanging out next semester."

Madge was glad to see that Peeta looked horrified. He also seemed too stunned to speak, which made Madge feel slightly better. If even Peeta—no fan of Greg to begin with—was this surprised that Greg had another girlfriend, she could hope that eventually she wouldn't feel like she'd been such an idiot.

"So," Peeta said slowly, "I assume you told him to go to hell?"

Madge nodded solemnly.

"In the restaurant?" he asked nervously.

"Of course not." She was her mother's daughter. She'd never cause a scene in a public place, even a restaurant she'd likely never return to. She had simply pulled her napkin off her lap and walked out. She was done with Greg and that was that. Well, that was the beginning of that being that... After sorting out the restaurant bill, he'd caught up with her on her march back to campus. She hadn't needed to be concerned about causing a scene on the mostly empty quad and hadn't held back when letting him know what a sleazy, reptilian poser he was.

"We had a little chat afterward, back on campus," Madge said with exaggerated blandness.

Peeta, having known Madge all through high school, seemed to know exactly what that conversation had likely entailed. He smiled ruefully. "I almost feel bad for the guy. You can be very... articulate."

Madge was fully aware of how effectively words could be weapons and didn't feel bad in the slightest about how she'd skewered Greg. It had worked; he'd spent the next two days trying to either apologize or defend himself or both. She hadn't listened to much of it—nothing he could say would change what a dirtbag he was, or, more troublingly, why she had stayed with him as long as she did. After a few days at home, she'd finally deemed it safe to turn on her phone again and promptly deleted all of his text and voice messages without reading or listening to a single one.

"Well," Peeta said, "I say you avoid musicians next year. Those artsy types are trouble." He smiled at her over his gingerbread man as he took another bite. Madge smiled weakly in return, appreciating the mild attempt at humor—Peeta himself was a creative type, always decorating cookies, coming up with new recipes, and snapping pictures. He had even made homemade Christmas presents for her and Katniss.

"But, you know," Peeta said thoughtfully, "that really was very considerate of Greg to tell you in advance that he was planning on cheating on you with the girl he'd been cheating on to be with you."

"You're right. What a stand up guy. Best ex-boyfriend ever." Madge nudged her plate farther away and slumped back in her seat. She thought she'd liked how free spirited Greg was—always going on enthusiastically about the greatest new band (that nobody else had ever heard of; if they did, he lost interest on grounds that the band had sold out), blowing off his classes to hang out with her because he 'couldn't get enough of her gorgeous eyes,' surprising her with song lyrics she'd supposedly inspired... He'd been impulsive and romantic and the complete opposite of the handful of guys she'd dated in high school who, more often than not, wanted an in with her father.

The worst part was that the very things she'd liked so much about Greg—his impulsiveness and creativity and intense emotions—had been starting to annoy her. She didn't like when he'd flake out on their plans because he'd been "so caught up with a new song idea" or when he'd start humming a new melody while she was in the middle of telling him something. She hadn't wanted to acknowledge her fading interest because she'd been counting on him helping her escape her house over the break, and to needle her mother. It didn't feel great to admit to herself that she'd been using him, or planning to, and that was part of why she wasn't as upset about losing him as much as she was upset at how she'd lost him. And of course, it helped fuel her anger to remember that he was a cheating bastard who'd put her in the position of being the other woman.

Peeta pushed his plate away and leaned forward. "Hey. Madge. That friend of Katniss's who moved to North Dakota—"

"Gale," she said sourly. She was already in a bad mood; she didn't want to think about Gale Hawthorne.

"Yeah, him. What's their story? I ran into him and Katniss at the mall outside Twelve Springs the other day. He... wasn't what I was expecting. The way she talked at school, they were best friends and she missed him like crazy. But he seemed kind of... mean."

"To her?"

"No. To me. He wasn't real friendly."

"Hmmmm, Peeta, I wonder why?"

Peeta swallowed. "How worried should I be?"

Madge cast her gaze around the kitchen for an excuse to avoid this conversation. The room already looked like a battle staging area, serving dishes and wine glasses neatly lined up on the counters, ready to be deployed. And this was just what her mother had set up from the Undersees' collection; the caterers hadn't even arrived yet. There were going to be more people at tonight's party than at any of her family's previous events—more eyes on her, more people scrutinizing her family and their lives.

Eventually Madge turned back to Peeta and shot him a pleading look. "Do I really have to get involved in this?"

"You could have warned me," Peeta scolded. "Hey Peeta, there's a surly guy in town who looks like a movie star and has some deep history with Katniss. A little head's up would have been nice."

"I didn't get any warning either. He just showed up at our dorm room looking for Katniss when you guys were at that retreat. Then he gave me a ride home when my car broke and wouldn't even talk to me. We don't exactly get along."

"What's his problem with you?"

Madge blew a frustrated breath out of her mouth so hard it hit her bangs. "Too many things to count. Not a fan of my dad, takes it out on me. Bitter about hurting his knee and losing his track scholarship, takes it out on everyone else. I think a lot of it is that he doesn't even want to share Katniss as a friend." She looked pointedly at Peeta. "So. You're probably not high on his list of favorite people."

With a sigh, Peeta mumbled, "Should be fun tonight." At Madge's questioning expression, he explained that Katniss had invited Gale to the Undersees' holiday party.

Great. Another reason to dread the party. She'd have to put up with an evening of not only Gale glaring at her, but her mother suspiciously watching her every interaction with him. On the other hand, from the way Peeta was griping, it sounded like Gale might be so focused on making Peeta's life miserable that he wouldn't have time to be rude to Madge. And it was possible that Madge's mother would assume Katniss and Gale were an item.

Peeta stood up suddenly. "I need to make a move," he announced to the kitchen. "I can't wait any longer. I need to... ask her out. On a date she knows is a date, not just us hanging out together by coincidence at school, or like when I saw her the other day at the mall. I'm going to do it tonight."

He seemed to be trying to psych himself up, but Madge had heard this speech before, with equal vehemence from Peeta each time. She reached for a sugar cookie in the shape of a star and broke it in half before taking a bite.

"So do it already."

"No, Madge, I'm really doing it tonight. I need your help."

Chewing, Madge studied him to see how serious he was. Could the threat posed by Gale be the motivation that finally pushed him into action? He looked the way he did before an important rugby match, when he really wanted to win. She thought she saw a hint of anxiousness in his eyes, too.

"What do you think I can do?" she asked skeptically.

Peeta paced between the refrigerator and the island in the center of the kitchen. "Get him away so I can talk to her."

"How? He doesn't like me."

"I don't know," Peeta said with a vague hand-wave, "show him your piano."

"My piano?" Madge couldn't stop herself from snickering. What was she going to do, breathlessly whisper into Gale's ear that she needed him to come with her away from the rest of the party so she could show him... her piano? It sounded like a creepy euphemism.

"What?" Peeta paused mid-pace to look at Madge.

"Did you mean for that to sound dirty?"

"No." The beginnings of a smile tugged on his lips. "But feel free to use whatever tricks might work. Think you could pull off handcuffing him to your bed?"

"Peeta," she said in a scolding tone, feeling her face flush. She hadn't meant to encourage this line of thought. She was half-horrified that her own mind had opened this door.

"Maybe you could just sick your mom on him," Peeta suggested with a smile that bubbled over into a laugh.

Normally Madge would have laughed along with him—her mother intimidated everyone, including Peeta, and Mrs. Undersee liked Peeta—but Peeta's joke hit too close to home after last week's drop-off fiasco. Madge didn't want her mother anywhere near Gale, and didn't want to admit to Peeta how badly her mother had behaved. There was a huge difference between Peeta's impression of her mother as potentially threatening, and Madge's recent knowledge of how actually nasty her mother could be.

Before Peeta got a chance to realize that Madge wasn't entertained or why, they heard the front door of the house opening. Moments later Madge heard her mother and her aunt, their voices distinguishable because Mrs. Undersee usually spoke in a calm, deliberate tone while Maysilee tended to be more clipped and upbeat. Their voices faded, though, so Madge moved to open the kitchen door and greet them. She saw them standing in the hall like two matching blond trees growing up from a lawn of shopping bags. Madge's mother was digging through her purse while Maysilee frowned and spoke quietly. Then, in perfect synchrony, they both turned to look at Madge at the same time, even though Madge hadn't made any movements or noise to attract their attention. Their faces wore identical expressions of surprise.

Maysilee recovered first. "Hi, Madge," she called brightly, stooping to collect some of the bags, conversation with her sister abruptly over. "You seen Haymitch?"

"In Dad's study." The study was serving as campaign headquarters until they could sign the lease on office space downtown after the holidays. Madge kept her eyes on her mother, who closed her purse, collected the rest of the bags, and started walking up the stairs to the second floor, all without looking directly at her daughter.

"Great. We need to make a few calls, but holler if you need us." Maysilee's tone was light, but she spoke pointedly to Madge as she followed her sister up the staircase. Madge watched them, her anxiety increasing with each step they took. If her mother got one of her migraines today of all days, after all the planning her parents had done... Madge didn't want to think about it. The best course of action was what her mother was already doing: retreating to her darkened room in an attempt to stave it off. Madge could, and did, cover for her mother as hostess at smaller events, but that wasn't an option today.

As far as Madge knew, her mother hadn't had a bad headache recently, but then again, Madge had been at school. Madge realized that she'd been hoping, or assumed, that the absence of headache news meant there weren't any, but now, home again, that seemed ridiculous. Her mother would never go out of her way to tell Madge, or anyone else for that matter. She clearly didn't even want Madge to know today.

When Mrs. Undersee and Maysilee had disappeared, Madge stepped back and let the kitchen door swing closed. She looked over at Peeta, who had moved next to his delivery cart to make sure all the plates and cookies were in order.

"Everything all right?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, nodding enthusiastically. Probably a little too enthusiastically; Peeta wasn't an idiot. "But I have a lot to do to get ready for tonight. My mom gave me a list this morning and I should get started on it." Especially if her mother was going to be out of commission for the afternoon.

Peeta watched her carefully. "You sure?"

"Absolutely." Madge smiled again.

He seemed to understand that she wasn't going to talk about whatever was bothering her, and focused on flipping through his folder for the delivery invoice to leave for her parents. Madge appreciated that he understood that she'd tell him whatever she wanted to tell him, on her own schedule, like she had about what happened with Greg.

Pulling his jacket off the chair it was draped over, Peeta slipped his arms inside. He hesitated for a moment and then said quietly, "About Katniss... I just need the right moment. You'll be one of the only other people Gale knows tonight—could you just introduce him to other people so he won't be guarding her the whole time?"

Another situation to juggle. Another demand for her to delicately manage. "I'll see what I can do," Madge promised. She wanted to help Peeta—she was on his side, unquestionably. He and Katniss got along so well, and were already almost together anyway. And Gale, well, he was a jerk at least 75% of the time and lived in North Dakota. Of course Madge was pulling for Peeta.

But inwardly she wondered if she could take some of her mother's migraine medicine, because this party was probably going to give her a headache.

#

Gale was not in the best mood ever when he pulled up to Katniss's house to drive her to the Undersees' holiday party. He'd been out late the night before with high school friends and drank too much, so he ended up having to sleep over at Steve's house. He'd forgotten he had to take Vick to the dentist while his mom was at work and had been woken from his hangover by a barrage of phone calls from his family asking him where he was, when he was going to get back, and did he remember about the dentist appointment? He felt like such a jackass. He did get Vick to the dentist, though they were pretty late and Vick griped afterward that he thought the dentist had been extra mean with the scraper because of it.

Then at some point during the day, Katniss's mom had called his mom to make sure he knew to wear a suit to the Undersees' party—it was that formal—and that hadn't been pleasant, either. The last time he'd worn a suit had been to his father's funeral. He had to dig the suit out of the attic. Of course the damn thing didn't even fit anymore, forcing him to dig farther into the attic to unearth one of his father's old suits, which his mom had to scramble to alter when she got home from work. So he was late picking up Katniss, feeling guilty about causing stress for his mom and Vick, and wrestling with more memories of his father's funeral than he'd counted on.

Katniss didn't seem to be in a great mood either, her expression stony and distant as she climbed into the truck. She didn't look directly at him and instead stared out the front window.

"Hey," he said. "You all right? What's up?"

"Nothing."

"You sure?" he asked. "You seem a little tense."

"We're late. My mom and Prim left a half hour ago."

"Sorry, I had a problem with my suit." He started the truck and explained to her the whole saga as he began the drive to Madge's house. He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. If they were going to a normal party rather than a snooty political shindig, he wouldn't have had to dress up.

Katniss glanced over at him. "The suit looks all right," she said in a flat tone. "Fits and everything."

"Thanks to Ma," he said. He took a moment to look at Katniss, who was wearing a dark green, knee-length dress. He couldn't see what the top half of the dress looked like because she was wearing her multi-colored puffy nylon snow jacket, zipped all the way up. It didn't exactly match her dress, but the effect was kind of adorable in an unpretentious way and, most importantly, was probably keeping her warm. He smiled. "Hey. You look good."

Katniss frowned and crossed her arms, sitting back in her seat again. "Thanks."

Well, something was still bugging her. "Are you feeling all right? Do you want to skip this party? Because it would be fine with me to do something else."

"I can't skip it," Katniss snapped. "My family goes every year. Madge would be so hurt. I don't want to skip."

"Okay, then," he said, backing off. "You just seem like you aren't in a party-going mood."

"I'm never in a party-going mood."

Gale laughed lightly and accelerated as he merged onto the highway. "I won't argue with that."

That at least earned him a small smile. But it faded and Katniss's sour expression returned within a few minutes. He tried to get her to talk about her shift at the store ("Fine") and her Christmas shopping ("Done") and finally just decided to be the one to converse, since she wouldn't. He shared updates about their old classmates he'd seen at the party the night before. Katniss had barely paid any attention to most of them, but she did seem at least sort of interested in hearing what people had been up to since graduation.

"How's Ashley?" Katniss asked.

Gale had been absentmindedly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel but stilled at Katniss's question. Her tone, trying much too hard to be nonchalant, gave her away. But what he couldn't figure out was who she'd talked to—he didn't think she kept in touch with many of their classmates.

He must have taken too long to answer, because Katniss said, "Delly came into the store this afternoon. Gushing about how sweet it was that you guys got back together last night, how most high school sweethearts don't make it, but it looked like you guys were going to beat the odds."

Gale pinched his nose. He really didn't want to think about this, much less talk about it. "We aren't back together," he said carefully.

"That's not what it sounded like."

"Who knows better, me or Delly?" he asked, irritation edging into his tone. "It's nothing. We drank too much, fell into old habits, it's not like it means anything." He and Ashley been together for the last few months of high school; she'd been his last girlfriend before left for North Dakota. She was single, he was single, they were doing shots at the party... So what if they ended up making out fairly publicly, it wasn't a declaration of true love.

"Did you tell her this time that you're not together?"

"She knows."

"Did you tell her?"

"Jesus, Katniss, why do you care anyway?" She never used to bother him about his girlfriends or his breakups.

"Because I'm the one who she'll ask if you didn't! That's what happened before. She bugged me all summer, asking if I'd heard from you, if I knew how you were doing, when you were coming back. She was always coming into the store. She'd pretend to be shopping but really she'd just ask me about you. And she would never buy anything!" Gale knew the not-buying part was probably almost as much of a crime to Katniss as pestering her about Gale.

"I broke up with her when I left," Gale said firmly, annoyed that either Ashley or Katniss had gotten their facts wrong. "Sorry she bothered you."

"She was really annoying," Katniss huffed, arms still crossed in front of her.

"I could not have been clearer that we were done," Gale said. "And last night was just an accident, a mistake. We're not back together," he repeated. He'd been too busy today with the dentist appointment and the suit disaster to return Ashley's messages, but he made a mental note to do it tomorrow and to be crystal clear that they'd just had a relapse, not a restart.

More interesting, though, was Katniss's reaction. As annoyed as he was by the whole situation, he did wonder if it was possible that she was jealous. She'd never cared in the slightest about his dating life when they were in high school. Had absence made the heart grow fonder? But then there was that preppy blond cookie kid and the way she'd been looking at him at the mall...

Katniss seemed to be mollified if not happy with Gale's answers, though the atmosphere in the truck felt strained, a far cry from the easy silence they used to share when they were running together or carpooling to the mall. In the quiet, Gale felt Ashley-inspired guilt creeping up on him. He should have been more careful at that party last night. He'd been complaining to her about how the ratio of men to women in North Dakota was approximately four million to zero, and the next thing he knew they'd been tangled on the couch in Steve's basement together. He didn't want to hurt her, and hadn't realized how hard his departure last spring had been for her. She hadn't even called him that often over the summer, probably consciously trying to not seem clingy.

Katniss reached for the radio dial and twisted it a few times before remembering it was broken. He took it as a sign that she was ready to think about something different and said lightly that he was planning on finally getting the stereo fixed over the break. Then he racked his brain for a safe conversation topic. Finally he settled on their high school team's showing at the cross-country state championship. Everyone had been worried about how they'd fare without Katniss, but the girls' team had actually taken third place.

He could sense Katniss mellowing as she talked about the new varsity squad and which runners were the most promising. He speculated right along with her about the rival teams that posed the biggest threat to theirs, but in the corners of his mind he mulled over the possibility that Katniss didn't only think of him as a running partner or friend anymore.

A/N 2: I feel bad that people were looking forward to the holiday party and this chapter still didn't get us there, but at least the Greg backstory came out here. The party does start in the next chapter. I'd been hoping to get all the party chapters in decent enough shape that I could post them without a long gap in between, but with this imminent move I don't know what I'll be able to pull off. Thanks for reading despite my updating gaps, and thanks for all the support and reviews!