****IMPORTANT****

1- Before you read this chapter, please go back to chapter 6 and make sure you read that one first. FFn did NOT send out notifications for chapter 6 for some reason (grumbles) so be sure you catch chapter 6 before this one.

2 -ALL of my writing is on a brief hiatus this summer while I move. My house is officially on the market so writing will be a little tough in the weeks to come. I WILL be back, never fear, I just wanted to keep you all updated. Now READ!


Chapter 7

Week 1

"Want to tell me the real reason?"

Her question had knocked him completely off guard. She watched his reaction, her chin tucked up on one of her knees. She blinked but otherwise held his eyes as he fought to come up with something to say. He drew a complete blank for a moment, losing himself in her gaze. Panic set up. Dropping his eyes to the mat he sat on, he shook his head and felt himself get red in the face.

"I…just want to lose weight. Um…" he felt himself start to cave and made the mistake of looking her in the eye again.

No response. Just the silent quirk of an eyebrow as she watched him.

"There's…this girl," he blurted, instantly cringing. What was worse than getting shot down by a hot girl? Well, apparently getting shot down and then whining about it like a little wimp to the next beautiful woman he came across.

I'm going to be single forever, he groaned internally.

Katniss sighed, stretching out her leg. "I see."

Her pause left silence in the room, silence that felt so big he felt the need to fill it. With anything.

"She…well she would come into the bakery where I work…and-"

"You work in a bakery?" She asked, her eyes lighting up slightly. "That's awesome!"

"Well, my family owns it which is undoubtedly a little less cool, but more or less, yes. There was uh…this girl that came into the bakery all the time. She was nice and…well I asked her out one day," he said, jumbling the words together as he fought to get them out.

"Oh," Katniss said, her eyebrows raising. "And she said…?"

Peeta gulped.

"She said…that she didn't go out with guys like me."

Katniss' eyes narrowed slightly. "Like…what?"

Peeta had to swallow before he could find the courage to utter the word Glimmer had been too polite to come right out and say. She hadn't said it, true, but it had been written all over her pretty face.

"Fat," he finally uttered, looking back down at the mat.

The girl across from him looked gob smacked.

"Peeta…" Katniss replied, her voice low and soft. Her eyes registered surprise and…pity.

Great.

Just what he needed. Another beautiful girl on the planet that pitied him.

"Yeah, so…I guess…I guess I could sit here all day and…and tell you reasons why I came here today and what finally made me do this but…that's the real reason. That's why I'm here. I asked a girl out and she told me she…." He gulped, trying to force himself to say the words. Trying to say the most mortifying, slicing words he'd ever heard. "…didn't date fat guys."

Peeta stared at the mat on the floor until the color blurred, making his eyes hurt. A tiny bit of weight felt like it had been lifted from him, yet at the same time it was like re-living the time-stopping moment all over again. Suddenly he wasn't in the little room with the bright sunlight and Katniss; he was in the bakery, surrounded by the smells of everything warm and delicious and satisfying. He could feel the rush of bravery he'd felt that day before asking Glimmer out and then the sinking gut he'd gotten when he'd heard his answer. It was followed by a storm cloud of self-doubt and despair and seemed to linger over him as he waited for her to speak again.

He risked a look up at her again and saw that the look on her face now registered pity and even shock.

The silence in the room felt heavy.

He should have just shut his mouth and stuck to his original story.

"Coming here is a big deal, Peeta. Don't…don't think that it's not. You came here to change and…and I'll do whatever I can to help you with that," she offered, her voice soft. He liked it, he thought. It was raspy and low and somehow soothing to him. The sound of her voice and the look of her pale, piercing eyes was like a temporary balm on his frazzled soul.

"I can't fix you, but…maybe I can help you fix yourself."

That's deep, he thought.

"It's a crappy reason though, right? Doing this for someone else?"

Katniss was struggling in an entirely new and unexpected way. She was used to the vapid trophy wives and self-absorbed body builders coming into the gym and dealing with them and all of their drama. Somehow though, Peeta had challenged her in a manner she hadn't expected. While she'd known it would be a trial to help a client one on one to sculpt their entire body, the challenge of how to help his clearly battered emotional state was a new surprise she hadn't anticipated. It hadn't even occurred to her that a client would need mental and emotional help on their journey until that moment. Of course people came into the gym with feelings of self-doubt, but Peeta had more than that. Much, much more than that. Glancing over at his shattered expression, it was evident to her that his experience with the girl in the bakery had left his heart beaten to a pulp and his self-confidence a battered mess.

She thought a moment, still reeling from the surprise of his admission. In that moment, Katniss wasn't entirely certain she would have been fearless enough to make such a brave statement in front of someone she'd just met. The fact that he had come here and courageously declared the real reason to her was awe-inspiring to her. Sometimes she felt as though her shyness and reserved attitude would make her the most unlikeable person on the planet.

"I'm not here to say. I'm just here to help," she finally said. Peeta gave her a tight smile and she returned it.

"Thank you."

She could barely nod. She didn't tear up easily, but the sincerity laced in the two little words did more to her than she cared to admit.

"Enough talking. People are…" she trailed off. She'd been about to say 'assholes' but was trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism.

"Assholes," Peeta sighed.

A laugh slipped out before she could stop it and he chuckled along with her. A small bit of the tension seemed to ease from the room as they laughed together. His shoulders visibly loosened and she felt herself relax the tiniest bit.

"Right. What you said. So let's just…take it day by day. We'll start easy today so that you're not so sore you can't walk and never want to come back and…you don't have to step on a scale til next week. How's that?"

Peeta nodded slowly, his eyebrows raising slightly. "That sounds….completely doable."

And so they got to work.

They did more stretching to make sure he was all loosened up, then Katniss eventually convinced him to take his 'before' pictures against the plain blue backdrop, gently instructing him to turn to the side, put his arms one way, pose this or that way. It was a mortifying experience, at least to her. The thought of someone taking pictures of her at her weakest and documenting them was something she hoped to never have done. Once they were finished, she led him back downstairs to the gym floor and past dozens of machines and weights. Glancing over at him, she saw that he was glancing around nervously, the tips of his ears all red. His cheeks were ruddy with color as well.

He must be embarrassed. Poor guy. He sounds like he has had a humiliating few weeks.

She started off by putting him on a treadmill at a brisk walk, half to warm him up and partly to get him to focus on something other than what everyone else in the room was doing. Not a soul was paying any attention to what Peeta was doing, but she knew by the downcast look of his eyes and the bright flush on his cheeks he wouldn't have believed her if she told him.

"Shoulders back. Try to breathe," she instructed. It was the same advice Gale had given her a thousand times while teaching her the ropes at Panem Fitness. She'd always been slim and athletic. However, the slimness was more from not enough to eat and the athletic tendencies came from trying to keep up with her father while he was alive. He lived for hiking in the woods, shooting bows, running on country roads, and just generally staying active. Her devotion to him and desire to keep up had driven her activity level since she was a child.

But she'd never tried to really bit fit before it was a requirement of her livelihood. Starting work at Panem Fitness hadn't been easy as she'd had to learn all over again how to first be active and then how to instruct others to do it. At the end of her first week of teaching, she'd been so exhausted she'd slept through an entire weekend. Teaching yoga and Body Pump classes all day sounded like a breeze, but eight or nine hours of it had taken its toll on her body at first. Gale, being the pushy best friend he was, started her on rounds of endurance training to help her body get accustomed to her new career. Katniss knew all too well what it felt like to go into a workout full of hope and motivation and then have the body hit a wall where it refused to do more.

Peeta was beginning to sweat a little as she increased the incline and speed of the treadmill. He didn't look as uncomfortable and seemed to have settled into what they were doing.

"This will be our routine – we'll stretch, warm up with cardio, then switch it up and work on different things so you don't get bored."

"Bored?" he chuckled, breaking his focus.

"Well, like…your body responds better when you don't do the same thing every day. We'll switch it up. Work on weights, legs, then core building, endurance…"

"I'll take your word for it," he smirked, facing forward again. She shook her head and smiled at him before reaching over and switching the treadmill a little faster. "Five more minutes. Focus on your breathing, your posture, and make sweat your new friend."

He nodded and did as she instructed. Today's workout would be light to not burn him out. She would avoid that with him at all costs. Determination had set in, and she promised herself that she would help him reach his goal.

Once they'd done half an hour of cardio to warm him up, she moved him on to the weights. Her knowledge of weights were limited; she would have to make a mental note to ask Gale or Finnick for some pointers. But, she knew enough to get him started and take some notes on where his limits were and what he wanted to work on.

"You're like….really strong," she muttered at the end, looking over her notes. Her chicken scratch handwriting was difficult for even her to read, but the numbers were impressive. "Do you do a lot of lifting?"

He shrugged, his face turning slightly pink again. Handing him a towel, she watched as he bashfully wiped the sweat from his face and neck. He avoided her eyes. He did that a lot. She felt her brow furrow slightly.

"I uh…do a lot of the lifting, yes. Dad is getting up there and he's already had one hernia, not looking for him to have a second," he grinned. "Flour bags can be heavy."

"Wow. Well you can certainly lift."

Peeta swallowed, Katniss watching the lines of his neck. It was thick, but not fat. He had weight to lose, yes, but she could see as he moved (through the baggy t-shirt he'd worn) that Peeta did have quite a bit of muscle. His arms weren't defined, but were thick and solid looking leading up to thick shoulders that were broad but somehow not overly so. What had really struck her about Peeta was the way his dark blue eyes seemed to reflect an array of emotions at any given moment. They flashed with a bit of mirth as he reached up and pinched his own side.

"Hmm, so you're saying that under my layer of chub there might be some muscle after all?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "Hey, go easy on yourself. It takes a lot of work and dieting for muscles to show up clearly. It's not easy."

"Right," he nodded.

She motioned for him to stop. "I don't want you to be sore," she explained, handing him a bottle of water. He downed it eagerly, looking up at her as he sat on the weight bench panting slightly. His eyes were suddenly soft.

"I'm coming back tomorrow," he said softly, taking another sip. His gaze shifted around the room self-consciously.

Katniss looked over her shoulder at the rest of the gym – it was somewhat quiet, save for the blaring electro-annoying brand of music thudding through the main workout area.

"A lot of people who come here are so…"

"So…what?" he inquired.

"So…self-centered," she shrugged. "That….I shouldn't have said-"

"-No, what were you going to say?" he asked, screwing the top on his water bottle. Katniss leaned against the side of the bench, running her fingertip against the heavy weights.

"Well…this place can be scary, but…look around….no one is paying any attention to you. Will you….answer me something? Honestly?"

He nodded. "Seems that the theme of the day is Peeta laying it all out for the world to see," he said wryly, "What do you want to know?"

A tiny smile played on her lips. Cocking her head, she looked at him. "You're kinda funny. Sarcasm…"

"I speak it fluently. But that wasn't a question."

"Fine," she acquiesced, "On a scale of one to ten…how bad was today?"

Peeta's eyebrow rose as he looked up at her, then shifted his gaze to the rest of the gym. "It wasn't….as bad. I mean, parts of it were worse than I'd imagined, sure. Crane, getting weighed, just…coming to terms with why I'm here. I'm rambling…" he shook his head. A sweaty piece of hair fell into his eyes and he quickly brushed it away. The ends that had grown sweaty had started to curl, she noticed.

"You were….amazing. You'll be a great teacher to me, so you had no reason to be nervous. And…it feels like I have a little bit of hope for once. So that's nice."

His words surprised her. While she understood that she wasn't the most natural personal trainer on the face of the earth, Peeta had picked up on her uneasiness despite his own emotional dilemma and that struck a chord with her. He was clearly having one of the most miserable days of his life (or so he thought) and yet he'd managed to notice something about her. The weight of that didn't escape her as she led him to the locker room.

"Here's where we part. Same time tomorrow?"

Peeta nodded. "Yes. I promise," he gave her a crooked smile.

"Good. Now – rinse off, take some ibuprofen, and drink lots of water tonight. Take a hot shower before bed…it'll help with any soreness. When you get up in the morning, try to stretch. Two minutes," she added, "You can fit that in."

He gave her one final nod and he looked almost boyish as he listened to her instructions with wide, nearly owlish eyes.

"And….this will be hard work. Maybe….find another reason besides that…." She wanted to say heinous bitch, but somehow caught herself. Any person who could judge someone based on their appearance had earned a much harsher title in her mind, but she had to remember this was her job. Crane was paying her for her work, not her thoughts on life.

"Girl," Peeta said slowly his voice almost sheepish. "Let's…forget I told you that. Can we pretend I said all the right reasons about why I wanted to lose weight in that room back there?"

"Sure," she agreed.

"Thank you Katniss," Peeta offered her one last smile and a tiny, bashful wave before pushing through the door to the locker room.

For some reason, she caught herself staring at the door he'd just gone through a second too long than was normal.

He smells like cinnamon when he sweats, she realized.