prompt for Hads : after all these years hayffie still check each other out
Taking Her For Granted
Annie's house gave out directly on the beach and Haymitch's favorite spot was definitely the deck that overlooked the ocean. If Twelve's Victors Village had been as pretty as Four, he might not have minded so much his self-imposed exile.
He nodded his thanks to Johanna when she slammed a bottle and two glasses on the small wooden table but didn't really take his eyes away from the people fooling around on the beach below. Katniss and Annie had gotten roped into playing soccer with little Finn while Peeta and Effie were talking at the edge of the water, waves regularly coming to wash around their ankles.
"How long have you been fucking her?" Johanna snickered. "Shouldn't you be past the ogling stage yet?"
It had been eighteen years of sex and, no, he wasn't past the ogling her stage yet.
He accepted the glass Jo handed him and didn't bother commenting, letting his eyes trail down Effie's legs instead. She was wearing a loose white dress over a red bikini and the wind kept plastering it to her front or to her back, making it flow around her body…
Forty-two and so fucking gorgeous…
They had slipped into a different kind of relationship lately. One that was less about passion and pinning the other to a wall and more about tenderness and complicity – and he loved it. He was thinking about offering her to toast some bread in the fireplace nowadays, as stupid as it sounded at their age.
Seven years and peace was still holding… Nobody had come for any of them… He was really starting to believe they had pulled this rebellion off… And the most perfect woman was willing to share his life…
So, no, he hadn't stopped noticing how gorgeous she was because it would be easy to forget, to sink into domesticity and let it swallow them into something that would be little more than companionship. And he was done taking her for granted.
She was gorgeous and he loved watching her, he loved checking her out when she wasn't looking – or pretending not to look. The day he stopped doing that was the day he would be dead in the ground.