KATNISS POV

"C'mon Katniss, they're gonna be wondering where we are." I hear Peeta call from the front porch. We'd offered to get the food we needed for dinner partly because nearly everyone else was in the lake, and partly because Peeta and I hated being around the others without them knowing. It was like a black cloud hanging over just the two of us and although Gale knowing had lifted a little weight off our shoulders; we still didn't feel right about it.

"It's ok; I told them we'd be back at 6." I say in a calming tone, grabbing the rest of the stuff we needed and hurriedly shoving it all into a bag.

"And it's 6:15" Peeta laughs taking the bag from my hands. I suppress a somewhat guilty smile and laugh a little. We probably would have been back ages ago but we'd gotten a little caught up in the moment, what with being alone for a few minutes and all.

"Come on" Peeta laughs placing his hand on the small of my back and following me down the porch steps.

Our cabins were about five minutes away from where the lake was but we figured the others probably wouldn't even notice our prolonged absence. Besides, it was interesting seeing the Camp grounds at night-time; flooded with groups of people here and there, all soaking up the few short hours of sunlight the afternoon had left in it. I still can't get over the fact that Gale had kept this place a secret for such a long time. The woods around the park were practically calling me to roam though them and that urge was beginning to get harder and harder to suppress. Even after only being here for a week. We had another two weeks left in our own little paradise, so there'd be plenty of time, I figured.

Peeta and I began to make our way back to our friends, standing as close together as possible without triggering any sense of the relationship between us … hopefully. We rounded the corner that saw the cabins begin to disperse into trees and eating areas, bumping face first into someone on my way.

Peetas arm was behind me, catching me before I had the opportunity to fall. I looked up to lock eyes with the tall blonde boy who I'd run into, the blood flooding into my cheeks with embarrassment.

"Sorry." I smiled awkwardly to the guy.

"That's cool, we don't really know where we're going anyways." He smiled, gesturing to the three other people behind him. I looked over to Peeta only to see his eyes light up with recognition as his eyes met the boy's.

"Cato?" Peeta laughed, setting the bag down and extending his hand to the blonde guy who easily towered at least a foot over me.

"Peeta! Dude what are you doing here?" Cato asks taking Peetas hand and pulling him into some sort of hug.

"We're just staying here for a couple of weeks for a bunch of friends from school, what about you guys?" The excitement in his voice was unmistakable.

"We're heading on a bit of a road trip, this is stop two." Another boy announced from next to Cato, holding up two fingers. He had dark hair and was a little taller than Peeta was. A shorter, dark hair girl high-fived the boy from beside him, a big smile on her face.

"Katniss this is Cato and Marvel" Peeta said introducing me to the two guys. "and Clove and Glimmer. We used to go to school together."

Clove was really quite small, her brown-haired tied high on her head. Glimmer, on the other hand, looked like she'd stepped out of a magazine; she was taller and blonde, her piercing green eyes shooting right through me.

"I can't believe we'd run into you here out all places" Glimmer laughed pulling Peeta into a friendly hug. Something about it gave me the wrong impression. Was I really feeling jealous of this girl? Her arms around my boyfriend. Not that anyone knew he was. I couldn't even decide if it was jealousy; the feeling was so foreign I didn't know how to react. I mean, she seemed nice enough…

"When did you guys get here?" Peeta asks the shorter, brown-haired girl. Clove, I think he said her name was.

"About 15 minutes ago" She laughs "But we're only staying here for a few days."

"Oh, well you should come by the dock later; I'll introduce to our friends!" Peeta encouraged with a bright smile on his face.

"Yeah, that'd be great, but we should probably unpack our stuff first." Cato laughed nodding his head toward the small pile of bags the group had next to them.

"That's cool, just come down when ever, that's where we'll be." Peeta says with a smile.

"It was nice to meet you all." I smiled, trying to pull myself together after spending the past few minutes trying to figure out how I felt.

"Yeah, you too, Katniss" Close smiled, following her friends toward the cabins.

Peeta looked at me, gently shaking his head and I was slightly worried that maybe he'd picked up my jealousy.

"What?" I ask him a little too defensively

"Huh, can't believe we'd run into them here of all places. Didn't think I'd ever seen 'em again after I left." he sighs still smiling. It was hard to miss how happy seeing his old friends made him.

"So, I take it you were all pretty close?" I asked as he picked up the bag

"Oh yeah." He smiles as if a flood of memories have come back to him "Got up to all sorts of trouble together. But Cato and Marvel were the reason I pretty much never I had a girlfriend."

"What do you mean?" I ask curiously, trying to figure out how Peeta could last without having a girlfriend. I mean, half the girls back at school liked him that way. I could only imagine what it was like at his old school, which was easily two times the size of ours.

"I basically got 'friend-zoned' by all the girls at school trying to get close to those two. Lame, right?" he laughs.

"Even the two girls?" I asked, still finding it hard to believe than someone like Peeta could possibly be friend-zoned.

"Nah, well, Clove and Cato have kind of had this thing forever, and Glim didn't really have any trouble there. Everyone liked her." Peeta says with a slight laugh this time. At least that made a little more sense.

"What about you?" I smirk, raising my eyebrows

"What about me?" Peeta asks, genuinely not following my train of through

"Did you like her?" I ask, trying to sound as casual as possible while avoiding his eye contact.

This time Peeta looks at me, square in the eyes, and shakes his head a little as he tries to suppress a smile. "Glimmer's nice and pretty and all, but she's missing something." He smirks back at me continuing toward the lake.

Missing something? How could Glimmer possible be missing something? Everything about her practically screamed 'drop dead gorgeous'. Her long blonde hair, her bright greens eyes. She was tall and had a body that most girls would probably kill for. And on top of that, she seemed nice enough. Were Peeta and I talking about the same girl? Was he walking around his old school with his eyes closed? How could she possibly be missing something?

I run up the path back to Peeta where he was now walking through another eating area. He looks at me and smiles when I reach him.

"Wait, what do you mean 'missing something'"? I ask him, intently biting down on my bottom lip and wondering what he thinks about my sudden outburst of 20 questions. Peeta simply lets out a little laugh, puts the bag on the table behind him and gently puts his hands on my shoulders.

"She's not you, Katniss" he smiles. I take a moment to take in what he says but it must look like I don't understand because he continues talking before I even have a chance to think of a reply.

"I've never felt this way about anyone, ever before, Katniss There could be a thousand other Glimmers out there, and there probably are. But I wouldn't care because the only girl I want to be with is standing right in front of me." He says looking right into my eyes.

I look up to him, trying to think of a reply, but nothing seems to be functioning properly at the moment. Beside, I'm nowhere near as good with words as he is. So, I slide my arm around his waist, pull him closer to me, and close the gap between our lips. The kiss feels different to others we've shared, more meaningful and urgent somehow. Peeta's arms make their way around my waist, pulling me that little bit closer to him. I can feel him smiling, which makes it that bit harder to pull away from each other. I look up to meet his eyes as I bite my bottom lip, still smiling. Peeta takes my hand "C'mon" he says, leading us back toward the dock.

We do our best to act casual when we reach the others but under the pressure of seven pairs of eyes all trained on us, we must look suspicious, to Gale at least.

"What took you two so long? Did you go hunt the food down and kill it and cook it yourselves or something?" Johanna asks raising her eyebrows.

I look to Peeta, hoping he was at least a step ahead of me. "Yeah, we were just about to hunt down a pack of wild animals, but we ran into a couple of friends from my old school" he says placing the bag on the table nearest us "But while we were talking the pack got away, so hamburgers it is, sorry Jo."

"Well, we'll cook then" Finnick suggests raising his eyebrows at Gale as if to ask for his help.

I head over to Madge and Delly while Peeta decides to give Gale and Finnick a hand with dinner. The girls each ask me questions about Peetas friends, most of which I can't really answer because I talked to them for all of five minutes, if that.

"It's ok, you'll probably meet them after; Peeta told them where we'd be." I tell them, trying to avoid the hundreds of questions they're asking. I turn my head slightly to find Peetas eyes on me; he smiles and winks at before turning back to the guys. I bite my lip to suppress a laugh and look away, shaking my head slightly.

After dinner we were all seated around one of the table in the eating area, laughing about various things that had happened over the week, in particular something that had happened a few days ago. Finnick had been standing on the dock in only shorts, preparing to jump in, when he caught Annie's eye and started making ridiculously provocative poses in her general direction, his usual beaming smile planted on his face. Finnick was an overly good-looking guy and he knew it and had absolutely no probably 'flaunting it' as he would call it. That was until an older couple walked past us and gave him the death stare of all death stares, causing him to turn slightly red and jump into the water without a second thought.

"Hey, Peeta" a voice called from somewhere beside us. Both Peeta and I knew who it was, but the rest of the group shared the same look of confusion as Peetas old friends made their way up to our table.

"Hey guys" Peeta says with a smile before turning to us "This is Cato, Marvel, Glimmer and Clove, they're the reason we didn't have a chance to personally kill out own food tonight, Johanna." Peeta says, giving Johanna a smirk that made her laugh. Clove shot me an odd look, obviously having no idea what Peeta was talking about, which I returned with a smile. They each took a seat along the table, telling the group about where they were heading for the next few weeks. The group seems to be genuinely interested, which was nice to see, but left me consumed in my own thoughts about Peetas friends and his old school. Whatever reasons led to his family's decision to move here were what lead to us meeting, so I couldn't complain, but the thought was still there in the back of my mind.

"Well, it's nice to see the Peet moved on from us so easily and made friends" Marvel joked, placing his hand over his heart and feigning disappointment. "Looks like he's even got himself a girlfriend" he says, looking between Peeta and I.

Instantly I feel my face growing red and look up trying to catch Peetas eyes, but instead I find 11 pairs of eyes on me. Busted.

Hey!
Here's chapter 11, its earlier than usual, but thought i may as well upload it now, considering my laptop charger literally just exploded ... somewhat. They're busted! What did you think? How did you like the Careers? Would you like them to appear in the next couple of chapters as well? Sorry for all the questions, I just like hearing what you guys have to say. I'm guessing not many people were into the whole Finnick/Annie thing from the previous chapter? That's a shame cause I have a few ideas between them for later in the story. I was also thinking about maybe making a sequel to this, once the gang is back home, having to meet parents and finishing school and whatnot? what do you guys think? please R&R and enjoy! :)