Finnick was waiting in the car park when Peeta finished at the bakery. Peeta couldn't even be surprised, he'd been ducking Finn's calls the better part of a week.
He'd been ducking everyone, really. He'd even sent Dels home early, he just couldn't be pleasant with her. He'd barely managed to serve his customers.
Finn dragged him to the pub in the old hotel, and Peeta didn't fight it.
It was too hot and the air quality too poor to sit outside, so they grabbed a table in the back corner. It was cool and dim, the perfect place to brood. Finn ordered a pair of Tooheys, and then waited for Peeta to talk. He'd be waiting forever, Peeta thought. There was nothing to say.
Finnick apparently didn't have the patience for that.
"Never seen you so devo, mate," he said after only a couple of minutes of silence. Peeta would be smug about Finn's impatience, except he really didn't want to talk about this, not even with Finn. "You broke up?"
"There was nothing to break up. We were having fun. Now we're not." It hurt his gut to say the words, but they were true. She didn't want him. Not long term anyway.
"That's not what it looked like," Finnick said, frowning.
"Yeah well, it's how it was for her," Peeta said bitterly.
"Are you sure, mate? She seemed pretty into you."
"She's not." It wasn't quite true, and Peeta knew it. Katniss was definitely attracted to him, and the sex had been explosive, out of this world. The kind of chemistry you couldn't fake. But that's all there was, just lust. In the end, she hadn't been willing to let Peeta in, to treat him as more than a fuck toy. Their relationship, it turned out, had been superficial, just like all of the others.
"Not as into you as you are into her," Finnick surmised, a foul waft of pity in his tone. Peeta scowled. "Did you at least talk to her about it?"
"She knew how I felt," Peeta scoffed, and Finnick raised an eyebrow.
"Does she?" he asked, and Peeta noted his use of present tense, but didn't comment on it. "Did you tell her then, how you feel? That you're falling for her?"
Peeta rolled his eyes and took another pull from his pint.
"Ah," Finnick said. "So you joked around with her. Flirted her up, told her she's special." Finnick threw up a pair of air quotes and winked obnoxiously. "Ol' Peet who's never sincere about anything, who's dated half of Panem but never wanted more than a roll in the hay. How many people d'ya suppose warned her that you've never been serious about a girl? And she was just supposed to guess that you meant it this time?"
"Fuck off," Peeta grumbled. He knew plenty of people had told Katniss he wasn't worth her time. But he'd thought she'd seen past all of that. Seen him.
"I know," Finnick said softly. "I know she's different. You haven't so much looked at another girl in months. But how's she supposed to know, if you don't stop acting all wounded and tell her?"
"She's leaving, Finn," Peeta spat out the words like shards of broken glass. "I'm just a distraction, for while she's here. Just a bit of fun."
"Have you even asked her to stay?" Finn asked, far too rationally.
"Why would she? Her life is over there."
"What life, Peet? What does she have back home? Haven't you ever wondered why she could just pick up and fly to the other side of her planet? She's got no one there." Peeta picked at a crusted bit of gunk on the bar table and refused to look at Finnick. He knew her sister was gone, had pieced together that she was probably an orphan from the bare scraps of her life she'd shared with him. But what did it matter? She wasn't interested in making a life with him, she'd made that abundantly clear. "You're just chickenshit," Finnick said, and Peeta bristled.
"I've heard just about enough out of you mate, you'd best pull your head in," Peeta growled.
"You're too afraid to put yourself out there and risk her saying no. You'll end it instead."
"She'd have ended it anyway," Peeta yelled.
Finnick shook his head, stood and threw a couple of blue swimmers on the table. "Never took you for a coward, Peet. If you love her, fight for her." Then he left, and Peeta ordered another beer.
And another.