I know it's been FOREVER since my last update, but here's a chapter. Please please please please please please don't hate me :/
Chapter 20
Katniss
Today Peeta and I are moving into our new apartment. It's been a week and a half since I got out of my 'trance'. I shut the car door after I have placed the last box inside. I don't have that much stuff; bedding, clothes (I don't like clothes, therefore I don't have that many), toiletries (most of which I stole from Johanna), and other random things I had brought with me from home.
Home.
What was my home is no longer mine. I thought once I had moved out and into a college dorm room that I would no longer need a different home. I guess I was wrong.
This morning I realized…I have a home now. I have a new home and will soon begin a new lifestyle with Peeta.
Am I ready for this? Screw it, I don't give a flying fuck if I'm ready. But what happens after this? Does he propose? Do we get married and have kids? I never wanted any of this, but now that I have it, I want it more than anything in the world.
I get in the passenger's side of the car. Peeta is smiling next to me. He had already moved most of his stuff in the previous day since he has more crap than I do.
I guess he can tell that I'm uneasy as I struggle to buckle my seatbelt. "Would you like some help?" He asks while giving me a small smile.
I hear a click and sit back. "Nah, I got it."
Peeta starts the car and starts driving. After only like thirty seconds, his grip tightens on the steering wheel. "Katniss?"
I look in his direction. His eyes stay on the road ahead of us.
"Something's up. What's bothering you?"
"Nothing." I answer quickly. We stop at a light. He doesn't take the conversation further, so I take it that he has dropped it.
At the next light, Peeta unbuckles his seatbelt quickly and leans over the center console. He grabs either side of my face with his hands and kisses me so passionately that I suddenly feel a warmth between my legs. Someone honks at us and Peeta pulls away, attempting to buckle himself while driving. "Will you tell me now?" He asks quietly.
I cover my face with my hands and shake my head. I take a deep breath and look at him. When I open my mouth, no sounds come out.
"Can I at least guess?" He smiles slightly. I nod and look out the window. "I think you are scared. You are scared to move on into a new chapter of your life. Especially since that person is me. You are worried that something bad will happen and leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and nowhere to go."
I glance back to him with teary eyes. My throat is tight and I cannot find the words to speak. He knows me so well and I barely know myself.
Peeta continues. "Hell, if I were you I would be running off back home." He chuckles and keeps going. "If I were you I when you found out, uh, my plan for us, I would have done exactly as you had done."
"No you wouldn't have." I say, my voice loud and shaky.
"What makes you say that?"
"I just know you. You wouldn't run away. You have stayed with me though everything." My mind flashes back to that night we spent together, after getting drunk and meeting each other for the first time.
"I think about that all the time, you know." Peeta doesn't take his eyes off the road. "I made a promise to you, Katniss." He whispers.
"What was that?"
"That I would never leave you."
This, obviously, isn't the only time Peeta has rendered me speechless. Oh, Peeta, I what I want right now is for you to make me scream your name so loud that the whole neighborhood can hear me us.
Peeta laughs and pulls into a parking lot. "Your wish is certainly my command, babe."
Fuck. Shit, did I say that out loud?
"Yes you did." Peeta parks the car and turns off the engine. "I don't have a problem with it, Miss Everdeen."
"Peeta, I-"
"Don't worry about it. We're here." He gets out of the car and opens my door for me.
What I see is not what I have expected. "Where are we?" There's what looks like a two story abandoned building. There seems to be a storefront on the ground level. When he doesn't answer, I rephrase my question. "What is this place?"
"Our apartment." Peeta says with a shrug of his shoulders. He opens the trunk of his car and grabs some boxes.
"I guess so, but," I walk up to the building and put my hand on the glass, "what are we going to do with the downstairs?"
"I'm opening a bakery." I see Peeta's reflection in the window. He has this huge smile plastered on his face. I don't say anything and keep staring into the store and his smile fades. "You don't like it?"
I can tell in his voice that he is genuinely worried that he has royally screwed up. "No!" I turn and put my hand over his on the box. "I think it's a wonderful idea." I get on my toes and kiss his nose. "Let me get some things and I'll come in with you."
Meh. I know it's like a filler chapter. But I haven't had any time to write. Like at all. It took me the whole week to write this little bit. Let me know what you think and I will TRY to update next Sunday on time.