Chapter 9
It was quick and kind of awkward. She bumped his nose with hers and couldn't help feeling stupid when he jumped in surprise. She pulled back, wide eyed.
"Oh noooo. I'm sorry! I… I thought you wanted to kiss…. You said I was breathtaking! You were googly eyed!"
Mortification began creeping in. He was shaking his head but grinning at her like an idiot and trying to speak even though he couldn't get a word in.
"Katniss… Katniss. Stop. KATNISS!"
Suddenly his hands were back on her face. "I DO want to," he said, then without any hesitation he leaned in and kissed her. A real kiss. He kissed her like he had wanted to his whole life. He kissed her like there was no tomorrow. Katniss was pretty sure she saw stars. She felt the kiss throughout her entire body and suddenly understood why the slag heap was such a popular place. She forgot her embarrassment. She lost herself in the sensations. There was nothing but Peeta. Finally, he pulled away. She opened her eyes to find him already gazing at her, a smile stretching from ear to ear. "Googly eyed huh?"
Katniss covered her face with her hands but couldn't stop herself from smiling. Peeta pulled them away and said, "Are you feeling shy now," in a tone that let her know he was joking.
"It's what Prim said we looked like after the harvest festival, while we were dancing with each other."
"Smart girl."
They stared at each other. Both wondering what the other was thinking. BANG! They both jumped. There was a rumbling, grinding noise followed by the sound of glass shattering. "What was that," Katniss asked. They both jumped up from the couch.
"I don't know," Peeta grabbed a flashlight off the coffee table. "It sounded like it was downstairs."
She had completely forgotten the storm, but now that she wasn't so focussed on Peeta she was surprised she had. The wind was positively howling. They made their way down the stairs to the bakery kitchen but everything looked alright. She followed Peeta through the door to the front of the shop to find glass and snow covering the floor. A tree, heavy with the weight of the snow, had blown down across the front of the shop. Branches had crashed through the display window and the front door to the shop was blocked. The bottom of the window frame and part of the wall was crushed, glass was everywhere, and snow was blowing in.
"Shit! Quick Katniss can you help me move some of this so it won't get ruined."
Peeta put the flashlight down on the counter so they could see then rushed toward the front of the shop where he started pulling tables and chairs away from the open window.
Katniss helped move a few then went to the front display only to see most of the cakes and pies smashed. She had hoped to save something but everything was ruined. She looked up at the wall next to the display and saw a framed painting scratched, barely still hanging. She looked at the floor just below them and there were four more mostly destroyed the glass having shattered when they fell. The frames, broken. She picked them up anyway and brushed the glass from them. She could see they were a set. What she first thought were lithographs of fruit were actually hand painted. Each one was different, an apple on a branch, a peach with peach blossoms, grapes on a vine, blueberries with several leaves and a branch from a pecan tree with nuts and a cross section showing what the pecan looked like out of its shell.
She walked across the shop and put them down on the counter by the door to the kitchen. Peeta had already pulled the remainder of the chairs away from the front but was standing there staring at the gaping hole where the window used to be. She walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"We have to put something over that hole to stop the snow from piling up in here anymore than it already has. I just don't know what, " he said looking upset.
"Do you have any kind of tarp or anything?"
"I guess I could get a blanket. I just don't think a blanket will cover the whole thing."
"The rug! It's big enough." Katniss pointed at the old rug that ran through the middle of the shop. Peeta looked at it then hurried from the room. He came back a moment later with a toolbox. Katniss grabbed the end of the rug and pulled it up to the top of the window. Peeta hammered a few nails in then said, "I think this could work; at least until tomorrow. We can get a better look once it's light outside" Together they finished nailing it all the way across the opening. They had to break off some tree limbs at the bottom, but they managed to cover most of the the gaping hole that used to be a window. It would have to do.
Katniss's fingers were starting to feel numb. She hadn't realized how cold she was while she was in the rush to save things. Although the rug blocked most of the snow from blowing in, unfortunately it did little to block the cold. She looked to Peeta. "Let's go back upstairs. There isn't anything else we can do now."
She was right, he knew but he couldn't help feeling a little sick over it. As they walked past the counter towards the kitchen something caught his eye. Shattered glass and broken frames. Immediately realizing what they were, his paintings. He stopped and picked one up. It was too much. Tears sprung to his eyes. He grabbed the rest and headed for the stairs.
Peeta stoked the fire without really seeing it, then threw a few more logs on. His mind filled with worry. He couldn't believe the damage the tree had caused and he was sure it would cost a pretty penny to repair it. He knew the bakery was doing well financially, but he also knew how his father was going to take the news. He'd worry himself sick over the damage. He turned around to Katniss who was back on the couch wrapped up in his comforter watching him.
"You know, I painted these our junior year," he said as he sat back down next to her looking at the pictures he'd sat on the coffee table. "They were a Christmas present for my family."
"They're beautiful."
"I did one for everybody. My Dad loves pecan pie, so those were for him. Rye's favorite are those blueberry muffins we make. Jordan, grapes, I love apple fritters and my mom loves, loved peach cobbler. Now they're ruined." Tears sprang to his eyes again. He wondered what Katniss would think of him. Get it together Mellark.
"They're not ruined," Katniss said. "You can get new frames. You can repair the paper on the back. So they're scratched and torn a bit. Frame them anyways. They're survivors." He looked at her silent tears falling from his eyes.
"You must think I'm such a baby crying over these pictures," he said with a bit of embarrassment.
"No, I don't. I'm sure they took quite a bit of effort to paint. They really are beautiful."
Peeta shook his head, " No, it's not that." He wasn't sure if he really wanted to open up to Katniss about his relationship with his mother. It was a complicated one that was sometimes very unpleasant, to say the least. But, hadn't he always wanted to be close with Katniss: to be able to confide in her?
"My mom… well, she wasn't the most affectionate person." He faltered. Katniss patiently waited for him to continue. "I mean she was angry a lot. She was abusive, physically and mentally. I guess, she was just hardened,you know? Her life wasn't easy. I'm not going to make excuses for her, but she could also be great." He suddenly felt very young again as memories of his mother flashed through his mind.
"I tried very hard to get her approval. I guess we all did, Rye, Jordan and myself. Sometimes I hated her and sometimes all I wanted was to know that she loved me." His tears were falling freely now.
Anyways that Christmas, I spent weeks and weeks painting these. Whenever I had the time. Then, on Christmas morning she was the first one to open a gift from me. She loved it. She told me how beautifully done it was. It made me so happy to hear that. So happy. Anyways, as everyone else got theirs she kept raving about them. She was the first to pick up on the fact that each one was the favorite of the person I had painted them for. Afterwards, she told everyone that she really wanted to hang them up in the front of the shop. She asked if they would mind and everyone had agreed. She even insisted that I paint one for myself, so that I could be included."
Katniss put her arms around him and hugged him. "That's a wonderful memory Peeta."
"Yeah. It's one of the good ones."
"Well, then you have to hang them back up," she said.
"What's my dad going to do when he sees that window?"
"Fix it."
Peeta layed down backwards on the couch, pulling her with him and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you," he said. She picked her head up from where she was resting it on his chest and smiled at him then kissed him again. It felt so good to be with her like this. He still couldn't quite believe it. When she pulled away he decided he could no longer take the uncertainty.
"You… you… really want to be with me, like this?" Sure his nervousness was evident in his voice.
She smiled back at him and said simply, "very much."
