Breakfast tomorrow sounds…great; scary, terrifying and great! And the fact that it was his idea, well that makes it even better.
I pace around the kitchen thinking about how Peeta and I have had breakfast a million times before and how this particular breakfast makes me feel so giddy and nervous and excited at the same time.
"Greasy Sae" I think. She'll probably be here tomorrow, like she is every morning. "Hmmm" Maybe it's time I make my own breakfast.
I used to do it before, and it seems so long ago. It's kind of bizarre how something so simple, even mundane, became a struggle, a burden. And I realize that I miss that, being self-sufficient, doing things on my own. I want that part of myself back.
I call Greasy Sae and tell her that I'm ready, that I can do this myself. I explain to her that I want to start with something small like breakfast, and confess that I'm not ready to renounce to her delicious cooking yet. We both laugh and hang up. Even if I wasn't used to it before, I have to admit that it feels nice to be taken care of, to lean on someone else.
It's still light outside, so I make a quick trip to town and buy everything for tomorrow's breakfast. I haven't been food shopping since I went to buy the ingredients for my birthday dinner. The whole thing seems ironic, but I don't duel on it.
The Hob is as alive as ever, full of people, smells and noises. Being here gives me a sense of normalcy that I haven't felt in a while; and I become aware of how lucky I am to be here, alive, surrounded by all these people who are just as lucky. In a way, we have a duty to move on and keep living for all of those that can't.
I sigh. I didn't expect this trip to be an emotional one, and I blink back the tears I feel coming. I make sure to walk around and distract myself. I greet people here and there. Some of them I remember, there are others I don't, but having them around; strangers or not, feels nice.
I go back home with eggs, cheese, some vegetables and bacon. I put everything away and go upstairs feeling suddenly tired. A hot shower seems like a great idea, and it's the next thing I do.
My eyes feel heavy. I call it a night, but not before I set the alarm for tomorrow morning; there's no way I'll miss tomorrow's breakfast. I'm not leaving anything to chance. Once my head touches the pillow, my whole body relaxes with the promise of sleep. I close my eyes and go to sleep thinking about Peeta, and what tomorrow may bring.
But, just like many times before, before tomorrow arrives, I still have to deal with tonight and the visit Peeta pays me in my dreams.
We are in the lake, facing each other, the water up to our chests; I can't feel the coldness, but my whole body trembles. My wet underwear clings to my body, my hair is tangled and some strands cover my face. Peeta moves closer to me. His movements are gracious, effortless; as is the water between us is nothing but air. He moves the damp hair out of my face; his hand brushes my cheek and makes its way down my neck, my shoulders, down my arm until both of his arms encircle me. The heavy fabric of the wet bra comes off; and my body feels weightless.
Peeta moves even closer, pressing his body against mine, pinning me to a wall of smooth rock that I don't remember being there before. There are no words between us; we don't need any.
His mouth moves hungrily across my neck, and I can feel his hardness taunting me, letting me know how much he wants me. He thrusts against me slowly; one of his hands cups my breast as the other moves down my stomach and stops between my legs. He looks me in the eye as his hand caresses me, teases me. His fingers move faster, faster, until they go inside me. I bite his shoulder hard. I'm dizzy, drunk by the delicious pain.
I press my mouth on his, kissing him, sucking and biting his lips. Our breaths are ragged, as his movements drive us both to the edge. The silence is broken by our moans, we are so close…
The sheets are damp and stuck to my skin, as I wake up to the sound of the alarm drilling a hole in my head. I turn it off and grunt. "What is the point of having these dreams if I can't even enjoy them until the end?" I ask myself annoyed.
A light sheen of sweat covers my skin. I can feel my body burning; I haven't felt that way since that night, the night Peeta and I spent together. The truth is that no dream comes close to that night, but I can't deny this was a good one, so good in fact that I need a shower. I better get cleaned up before Peeta gets here.
The warm water falls over my body. I trace Peeta's hands with my own. I close my eyes as they move over my breasts, my stomach…between my legs; and it's almost as if he were here.
I could do this. Touch myself and pretend that his hands are the ones on me, but that would feel like a fraction of what he makes me feel; the real Peeta, his hands, his lips; his hard body next to mine.
"He'll be here soon" I remind myself, and I don't want to be late.
I get out of the shower, bowing not to think anymore about the dream, and instead have a serious debate with myself about what to wear. Do I stay in pajamas or do I change? I don't want to look sloppy, but I don't want to look like I'm trying too hard either.
"Are these the kind of issues I'm going to face from now on?" I shudder at the thought. Pajamas it is. It's not like Peeta hasn't seen me like this before. I look at the mirror and fix my hair, then go downstairs and start cooking.
The bacon is toasted and the scrambled eggs are ready, fluffy and hot, when there's a knock on the door. My stomach turns "this is just breakfast. This is just breakfast." I tell myself over and over, but it doesn't help at all. I take a deep breath and open the door.
Peeta is there, a huge grin on his face. He looks as handsome as ever and he's wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. He looks great. In an effort to distract myself and not stare at him, I concentrate on his jeans "Why does he get to wear jeans and I don't? Cinna never mentioned jeans, but he was responsible for Peeta's wardrobe too…maybe I do have them, but haven't looked through all my drawers." I tell myself, and make a mental note to do so.
"Can I come in?" Peeta asks, reminding me he's standing in front of me and we are about to have breakfast.
"Um of course. Come in" I say shyly.
Peeta comes inside the house and moves close to me, closer, until his mouth is almost on mine. He moves his head to the side, slowly, and kisses me on the cheek. I can hear the air escaping my lungs, and I swallow hard. The huge grin is on his face again as he goes to the kitchen. I thought he was going to kiss me, really kiss me. "What a tease!" I scream in my head, wishing he really had.
There's a loaf of bread sitting in the counter. Peeta must have brought it, but I completely missed it. I was distracted.
'Let's eat!" Peeta says. "I'm starving."
"Ok. Sure." I answer back, still a bit shaken by the almost kiss.
I move around the kitchen looking for plates and forks, while Peeta gets a knife and slices the bread. I look at him while he's occupied with the bread, and notice how at ease and comfortable he seems, while I'm a mess. I envy his composure.
"Just pretend to be comfortable too." I tell myself and decide to do my best.
I place the food on the table and Peeta does the same with the bread. We sit and begin to eat in silence at first, but I break the ice.
"How was your meeting?" I ask Peeta.
"It was good, good." He says shrugging.
"Tell me. What did you talk about?" I ask, genuinely curious.
"Actually…I didn't pay that much attention. To be honest, I kept thinking about…other things." Says Peeta sheepishly.
I frown. "What other things?"
He looks at the table, his eyes fixed on the breakfast.
Peeta finally looks up, there's a twinkle in his eye. "I kept thinking about the sunset."
My heart starts beating fast, really fast. I was not expecting that. I don't know what Peeta is trying to do to me or what he wants to accomplish with this. I will not lose it. I have a plan and I'm going to stick to it. I keep pretending to be composed, and choose to ignore Peeta.
"You didn't listen to anything?" I ask, and stuff my mouth with eggs and bacon.
Peeta smiles; he knows I avoided getting into a discussion of his comment.
"Well, yes. I do know they want me to bake stuff for the celebration afterwards." He says not looking at me.
"Oh that's great! Are you excited?"
"I am, but I probably bit more than I can chew." He says scratching his head. "I'm gonna need help. Your help, if you don't mind."
'Of course I'll help you! I'd be more than happy to." I say. A whole day baking with Peeta sounds really nice.
"That's settled then. But that's for tomorrow. What do you want to do today?" He asks enthusiastically. I put more food in my mouth. I have no idea what to say.
"I don't know. What do you have in mind?" I say; my mouth full of food.
"I need to go to the Hob and buy supplies for all the baking tomorrow, but we can do that later. We have some time to kill before that and" he says with a smile "I thought we could go to the lake."
The lake, the same like I dreamed about last night. I was in the process of swallowing my food when "we could go to the lake" came out of Peeta's mouth, which resulted in my throat closing and me choking; again.
Peeta hands me a glass of water. "Maybe you should stop eating when I'm around." He says; the huge grin on his face. I finish drinking the water and glare at him.
"So what do you say, the lake?"
"Sure, why not?" I say with a shrug. "I don't know what's his playing, but he's going to lose." I think.
"I need to ask you first" Peeta grabs my hand as he says this, and there's a serious look on his face. "Do you think you can handle two days with me without choking to death?" He can't help smiling now.
"Let's go to the lake" I say squeezing his hand. "Maybe I can choke you to death there."
"Ooooohhhhh is that a threat?" Peeta says laughing. His happiness is really contagious.
"Maybe. They didn't call me the girl on fire for nothing." I say looking at him, and we both laugh.
Peeta goes with me upstairs and, since we have identical rooms, he shows me exactly where he found the jeans and t-shirt in his room. Well, it seems Cinna planned for every occasion imaginable. As it turns out, some of the drawers are full of jeans, pants and shirts.
I knew where the underwear and the pajamas were, and every time I did laundry I put the clean clothes back where I found them, so I never searched through the rest of drawers.
I go to the bathroom and change into a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt and my boots; while Peeta is sitting on the bed waiting for me. I realize this is the first time he's been back in my room since my birthday. The butterflies return to my stomach. I close my eyes and try to keep pretending I'm as composed and comfortable as he is.
"All done" I say with a smile.
Peeta smiles back "let's go" he says, and we head to the lake.
We talk on our way there, always making sure to choose safe topics; District 12, Haymitch, Greasy Sae's cooking, the Naming Ceremony and so on. As long as it doesn't involve us as in "US", it's a safe topic.
"It's beautiful." Peeta says looking at the water.
"I know"
We sit under the trees that are closest to the water, and just enjoy the view. We stay in silence and I wonder what Peeta is thinking about. Why did he want to come here? Did he just want to spend time with me? I have no idea, but I'm glad we're here. This is a special place for me, a place I shared with my dad, and now I can share it with Peeta.
I look at him and realize he is looking back at me. "What?" I ask defensively.
"I was thinking that I haven't had any swimming lessons in a while." He says matter-of-factly.
I raise my eyebrows "So that's what you brought me here? So we could resume your swimming lessons?"
"Could be" He says shrugging. "That and…I really wanted to spend time with you."
I look at him and smile. It's taking all my strength not to pull him close to me and kiss him like I did in my dream. Keeping this friendship as a friendship is harder than I thought. "You can do this, you need to do this. You are his friend. He needs to believe you." I tell myself, and I know it's true. "Stop thinking about the dream and concentrate on right now." And I do so. I ignore the dream, the butterflies; my growing desire to kiss Peeta and concentrate on today, on our friendship.
"Let's go" I say to Peeta as I untie my boots.
"Go where?" He asks frowning. "The water" I say "where else?"
Peeta looks shocked. "Right now?" I start unbuttoning my pants. "Katniss! Stop. Wait. You mean go in the water…naked?" He says this last word in a whisper, his face red.
I laugh. "No silly, in our underwear. Don't tell me you are all pure now. That's not the Peeta I remember."
He glares at me.
"Not at all" Peeta gets up and takes his shirt off. "I'll race you to the water." He says and we start undressing faster. I finish first and running to the lake, but Peeta is close behind me. I get into the water and make a huge splash, making sure to get Peeta all wet before he even gets into the water.
We stay near the shore playing in the water and splashing each other. Peeta challenges me to wrestle and we do that for a while, but I decide to stop when I realize there's no way I can win.
"You're a really bad loser girl on fire" says Peeta splashing water on my face.
"Whatever. Let's swim." I say and go under water. I grab Peeta's legs making him stumble. He goes down while I go up for air, laughing as he gets back on his feet.
"That was not fair!" he yells at me.
I pay no attention to Peeta's whining and grab his hand, moving him closer to me.
"Do you remember the basic stroke I taught you?" I ask.
"Of course I do." Peeta answers, rolling his eyes.
"Well, let's practice that. You have no flotation device now, so it'll be tricky."
Peeta practices going back and forth for a while. I notice that it's a bit hard for him in the beginning, but after a few tries he gets the hang of it.
I swim next to him and dare him to race me. I end up winning, which is no surprise. We swim around each other, for what seem like hours. It's nice being with him like this; no complications, not having to worry about what will happen next or what he'll say or think if I say or do the wrong thing. Part of me wishes we didn't have to go back, but I know we need to.
"I think we should get out of the water so we can get dry before going back to town." I say because I have to, but wishing again we could stay here.
"You're right. I still need to buy the supplies for tomorrow. You know what? After all this heavy swimming I'm exhausted. Maybe we should take a nap." Says Peeta, and I can't tell if he's joking or actually being serious about the nap.
"A nap?" I ask frowning.
"Sure, just while we get dry. It'll give me back the strength to do all that shopping. Come on, just for a little while."
"You know you can't say no to that face." I tell myself. And I truly can't. "Ok, but just until we get dry."
We find a spot of soft grass under the trees and lie next to each other, looking up at the branches above us. And it hits me, I am lying on the grass, next to Peeta and only wearing my underwear; my wet and probably see through underwear. I feel exposed, shy; even a bit embarrassed. I want to cover myself with my hands, but I don't move.
"You can move closer to me, if you want" Peeta says in a small voice, and I forget what I was thinking about.
"I'd like that." I tell Peeta without looking at him.
I move my body closer to his and lie on my side. Peeta puts his arm around me and the weight of it makes me think of home "I am home" and right now, there's no other place I rather be.
Hi everyone! Sorry for making you wait for so long, but this was a hard chapter to write. There are 1 or 2 more chapters left (not sure yet) and I knew how the story was going to end, but had no idea how to get there. Also, I heard a song that made me think of Gale and when I tried to write this chapter I kept thinking about Gale, so I had to write something based on the song. It's a (really sad) one shot about Gale on Katniss's wedding. I hope you'll like it! Thank you for your support, all the reviews, the alerts and adding the story to your favorites. See you soon! ;)
P.S. I wasn't planning on writing Peeta's POV, but after reading a couple of reviews for this chapter I'm starting to consider it, so it's up to you the readers :D would you like to read Peeta's POV or would you rather read the next chapter (which will probably be the last one) let me know!
