Uh uh... what about Lyssa being single, and she, in fact, does want Haymitch, and she flirts with him trying to get him in her bed and Effie is all crazy, and sad because she knows that when Lyssa wants someone, she has them. It's not like Effie has told her that she's in love with Haymitch so Lyssa doesn't think that she's hurting Effie. And in the end, Haymitch is like "I'm sorry, but I don't want you" and then goes after Effie.

Of Sisters, Bending & Pool Tables

"Well. I am separated. No matter what Mother says, our marriage cannot be mended. I am entitled to some fun now." Lyssa huffed, jutting her chin in the air. "Rufus certainly never let a little thing like marriage stop him from finding a lover."

Effie toasted to that, happy that her sister seemed to have found her backbone at last. Tired of being cheated upon maybe or, perhaps, it was the fact that the last affair had been made public in a few gossip rags. Lyssandra had grabbed her children, slammed the door and showed up at their parents' house. Needless to say their mother had been desperate to salvage the situation as best as possible by urging Lyssa to go back and let Rufus apologize. He was wealthy and powerful, asking for faithfulness was going a little too far according to her.

Effie had unfortunately been present for the latest lecture and had cringed when Elindra had pointed out that she didn't want to know what their father did behind her back as long as he was discreet about it. She had taken pity on her sister and had invited her to come along to a Games party.

The new victor, the rude girl from Seven who had pretended to be weak only to come at the tributes with an axe when they slept, was in the clinic still and the Gamemakers filled the time with parties and interviews so it was the right time to go out and celebrate.

Of course, Effie had remembered why she seldom went out with Lyssandra when she had picked her sister up. Lyssa looked so fabulous in her blue muslin dress that Effie felt underdressed. Heads and eyes had turned on her sister's wake when they had entered the party and she was very aware that more than a few people were eyeing them. Or, she supposed, Lyssa.

"Good for you." Effie smiled nonetheless because her sister was upset and she needed the attention more than Effie did at that moment. "You should find someone else. When was the last time you even had good sex?"

"Oh, Effie!" Lyssa half-chided, half-giggled. "How improper! Shocking!"

"You're being shocking behind my back, sweetheart?"a familiar voice snorted behind her and Effie didn't startle exactly but she stood a little straighter.

Lyssa instantly turned on the charm. "Hello, Haymitch. How nice to see you again."

Effie chanced a glance over her shoulder at her victor, disappointed that Chaff wasn't with him for once – and she had never thought she would ever feel that way. Haymitch, as it turned out, was smiling back. Not smirking but smiling with something akin to fondness.

"Lyssa, right?" he asked, outstretching a hand. "You're Effie's sister?"

Trust him to remember that when she couldn't get him to remember a sponsor's name for more than two minutes.

He must have seen Lyssandra three times in all. In ten years, she had been very careful to keep them separate.

Lyssa shook his hand, her smile brightening. "You remember me."

"You're hard to forget." he answered.

Effie almost rolled her eyes. Annoyed by the handshake that was stretching to long, she bumped her hip against Haymitch's. Accidentally, it went without saying.

"And what are you up to, this evening, Haymitch?" Lyssandra asked, tilting her head to the side. "Effie claims you are always involved in some mischief. We could use some mischief tonight. Isn't that so, dear?"

The question was directed at her so Effie lifted her eyebrows. "It depends on the mischief."

Haymitch clearly hesitated. Effie wasn't sure what was planned – and with the victors something was always planned between the Games and the Crowning – but he obviously didn't want to invite them along, which was just as well. Her he might have brought if she had nagged him long enough but her sister wasn't part of the group and…

"Drinks and pool in a bar downtown." he offered. "We can find more mischief after if that's not enough for you."

"Oh, downtown!" Lyssa clapped in delight. "How deliciously scandalous! I haven't been in years. Effie, let's go with him!"

Effie looked at him and he shrugged his permission. That was easy. Too easy. "Who else will be there?"

"Chaff. Finnick. Beetee… Maybe Blight if he can get away." he replied. "Look, you don't want to come, that's fine. Stay here. I'll take good care of your sis…"

"Certainly not." she huffed. "I will not abandon my sister to Chaff's grabby paws."

"He only has the one hand, you know." he snorted, his grey eyes sparkling with amusement.

"And yet he is very talented at pretending to be an octopus when it comes to groping defenseless women." she deadpanned without a blink.

"You ain't defenseless." he mocked before turning to Lyssa. "And I'll protect you. No need to be scared of Chaff."

"Why would I be scared of Chaff?" Lyssandra dismissed with a flirty smile. "He is not who I am interested in."

Effie almost gasped.

Could she be even plainer?

Granted, she had agreed Lyssa should find a one-night-stand but…

"Right…" Haymitch said and, for the first time, he didn't sound so smooth. If she hadn't known better, Effie would have thought he was uncomfortable now. He offered her his arm – out of reflex, she was sure, she had trained him well after all – and she grabbed it before Lyssa could. Unfortunately, her sister didn't take the hint and linked her elbow with his other one.

Effie made a point of sitting next to Haymitch in the car but that only left Lyssa facing him and that meant they could talk more easily.

Lyssandra was flirting and Haymitch was teasing.

Effie wanted to strangle someone long before they even reached the bar.

As luck would have it, the other victors had already escaped the party and had grabbed a table in a corner. The bar was shady and it made Lyssa hesitate but Effie, used by now to their choices of venues, marched on straight to the table and grabbed the shot of tequila that was waiting in front of Finnick without even a proper hello. She didn't feel much better once she had drunk it and Finnick's raised eyebrow meant she would probably have to explain herself at some point.

"Well, hello to you too, love." Chaff snorted. "Didn't know you were coming…"

And he wasn't pleased about it but Effie ignored that and smiled, ready to apologize for her rudeness when all the eyes turned away from her and she knew, without having to check, that her sister was standing behind her. Even Beetee, who was by far the oldest man at the table and also very much taken, was staring.

Since he was too busy gawking at her sister, Effie decided Chaff wouldn't miss his shot of tequila and downed that one too. Haymitch's hand was resting at the small of Lyssa's back and Effie was dying to say something she had no right to say.

Introductions were swept out of the way quickly while Finnick rushed to grab chairs for them. The fact that Lyssa sat right next to Haymitch and that she was batting her eyelashes at him wasn't lost on anyone.

Chaff went to grab his glass, found it empty and tossed her a knowing look.

"Your sister knows she's stepping all over your toes?" he snorted in a miraculously low voice.

"I do not know what you mean." she snapped right back and pointedly turned to Finnick, leaving Haymitch and Chaff to compete for Lyssandra's attention. Even Beetee was desperate to buy her a drink, it seemed, but she was secured in the fact Finnick had been crushing on her ever since he won and…

…she felt extremely disappointed when he jumped on the seduce Lyssa bandwagon.

At long last, she finished her drink all the while trying not to listen to the general flirting and eventually stood up to go hustle money she didn't need out of unsuspecting gullible men.

She liked pool, she was good at it and nobody ever thought she would win because she was too pretty.

The two guys she beat to dust were young and had thought she would be an easy prey. Still, she felt bad about taking their money because they weren't in the richest part of town and those people clearly weren't healthy. She settled for their cigarettes instead because she didn't have hers.

She was just lighting one and fighting the urge not to look toward the victors' table when she felt a hand on her back, wandering dangerously low for a public place.

"Take it off." she warned, knowing perfectly well who it was.

The man was close enough that she could smell him and he smelled like whiskey, cheap soap and faint sweat.

"Ain't that my line?" he snorted in her ear, stealing the cue from her hand. "That dress would look better off, alright…"

She pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, blew out smoke and crossed her arms, the cigarette carefully angled between her fingers so she wouldn't burn herself. "Are you seriously flirting with me right now?"

He shot her a warning glance. "I don't flirt."

Flirting was too close to admitting he actually liked her, she supposed.

"You certainly flirt with my sister." she retorted, waiting for him to lose the shot before snatching her cue back, her cigarette held tight between her lips. She bent over the table to take the winning one band restart another game. She felt him staring at her ass and regretted, not for the first time, the lack of pool tables in the penthouse. They could have had fun with one. Or, at least, they could have had fun with it if he hadn't been attracted to her sister. "I told you once that if you ever slept with her…"

"I ain't gonna sleep with her." he scowled.

"No, you are just going to flirt with her in front of me all night, isn't that it?" she snapped. "And when you are done, you will take me to bed and you will think about her while you do unspeakable things to me. Things, by the way, that she would not let you do. She is quite conservative in that area."

He watched her for a few seconds, his face unreadable, and then grabbed the cue back from her even though it wasn't yet his turn. He didn't try to play either.

She wondered if he was drunker than he looked. She would have said buzzed if pressed but buzzed was pretty much normal for him. The night was young yet.

"I was just being nice." he said quietly.

"You are never nice." she scoffed, looking around for an ashtray. "And certainly not with sponsors."

He frowned. "She's your sister and your asshole brother-in-law cheated on her. It's on every gossip channel. Thought you'd want me to be nice." He shrugged and took an angry shot that missed its mark. "Never mind. Don't know why I even tried to do something nice for you. Think I like bringing Capitols along to a victors evening?"

"You bring me often enough." she retorted, glancing at the table where Finnick and Chaff were competing for Lyssa's attention. "And they are not complaining."

"You're different." he grumbled.

"She won't sleep with them." she warned, finally locating an ashtray on a nearby empty table. It was half-full already but that was the quality of services in that part of town. She crushed her cigarette and turned back to stare at him. "Finnick is too young and Chaff is too Chaff. You, on the other hand…"

"Ain't interested." he said firmly, his eyes never wandering away from hers.

She wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wanted…

But when it came to Lyssa… Men were never not interested. She had learned that the hard way.

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Princess. You know better. If there's a woman I want bent in two tonight, it ain't your sister."

"Bent in two?" she repeated with a mocking huff. "How very confident of you. I am not in any mood to bend for you tonight, Haymitch."

He took a step closer, very much in her space, trapping her against the pool table. "Maybe I'll go down on my knees for you first…"

Now, that…

She pouted, her eyes darting from his amused face – because he knew he had her – to the table in the corner where Lyssa was laughing at whatever Beetee was saying.

"She ain't prettier. She ain't smarter. And she ain't more attractive." Haymitch said slowly. "That's in your head, Effie."

She flinched but didn't try to deny it. She stepped around him because they weren't exactly inconspicuous pressed together against a pool table, even if the bar was shady and most people didn't care – that was why the victors always chose that type of places. Discretion.

She slowly leaned over the table to take the winning shot, making sure Haymitch had a good view this time.

"Perhaps we can convince the Gamemakers we simply need a pool table in the penthouse next year…" she hummed.

His hand briefly ran up her spine and coiled around her nape in a possessive and affectionate squeeze she pretended not to notice.

She trusted him, she decided. For this and for everything else. It might not have been the cleverest move but it was too late now. She trusted him.