KATNISS'S POV

Our families disperse throughout the cave to unpack. I go to Room 1 (the bedroom) first. I put my bags on a flat "bed" rock in the middle of the room.

"I call this as my bed!" I exclaim, not wanting a bed by the wall, where spiders or mice may be crawling. Not that I've seen any, but still. I unpack my bags and lay all my bed sheets on the rock. This boulder will need some major padding if I'm going to be sleeping on it. I lay my pajamas on my bed. After I'm done, I go to the kitchen, where the moms are. I see that they've already started the fire.

I tilt the cover off the "fridge" and I place the cool foods in it: the meat, the goat's cheese, and the goat's milk. Wait, did Prim even bring her goat? I hear a distant "bah-h-h" echo off the cave walls, and I smile. I bet that means she brought her scrawny cat, too.

"Where are we putting the dry foods?" I ask Gale's mom.

"Up on that rock shelf," she says, pointing up at several rock shelves carved into the wall. Wow. Gale's dad must have worked forever on some of this. I place the bread, salt, flour, sugar, and yeast on the shelf. There's just a bit of basic supplies left in my bags. I walk to Room 3, which is the living room.

I put the candles, matches, soap, and other things on a shelf above a huge "couch" rock. "Hey," Gale says. I turn around and see him in a dim corner, sitting in a "chair". I smile. "Hi," I walk over to him, "This place is really cool. Did it take your dad a while to build it?" Gale shrugs and motions for me to come closer. I do, and he pulls me into his lap. I lean against him, and place my head on his shoulder. Gale's arms are around my waist.

"I'm not too sure. I was little. But Timmy and I would come here with him, and for hours he would be chiseling away at the rock. We didn't really know what he was doing until later," he explains. I nod. Then we sit there, listening to our siblings and mothers talk.

Finally, Gale's mom calls, "Supper's ready!" Well, she didn't really call. All you have to do is talk a little louder than you normally would, and your voice echoes across the cave. Gale and I get up to go to the kitchen.

I take a deep sniff when I enter. It smells so good. Fresh baked bread, a little squirrel meat, and Prim's goat milk. We huddle around a huge flat rock (our table), and sit on spheres of rock (our stools). We have to eat off the table, but it doesn't really matter. The table looks clean.

TIME PASSES

It's a little past sunset (I can tell by looking up out of the opening in the roof) by the time Gale walks up to me and grabs my hand. "Hey, Katniss, you have to see this," he says, a grin on his face. He's leading me to some part of the cave when I notice I have a fuzzy feeling in my stomach. Gale has held my hand years ago, why am I always getting this feeling when he holds my hand recently?

"Tah-dah!" Gale exclaims, stretching one hand wide, showing me Room 4, the "cave" room. I know the whole cave is a cave, but this room has no carved-in furnishings like the other three rooms. I gasp.

GALE'S POV

Katniss gasps. I smile at her facial expression as she studies the glistening cave features, the dripping stalactites, and the draping ribbons of rock -- a cave feature my dad called "bacon".

I bring Katniss over to a wall covered in hand and foot holds. I let go of Katniss's hand so I can start climbing up. Then I climb onto a ledge near the top of the cave ceiling.

"C'mon," I call down to Katniss. She bites her lip and starts climbing up. I help her onto the ledge, which is about a leg span away from the foot holds. I reach up and move a rock that's been covering another entrance into the cave. By now the stars are coming up, and from the ledge, you can look up through the hole and see the stars.

"Pretty, huh?" I say quietly, watching Katniss. She nods, still looking at the stars. But then she looks at me, and notices I was staring at her. We both look away and blush.

But then Katniss leans against me and rests her head on my shoulder, so I put my arm around her. We sit staring at the stars for a while, then when I feel Katniss starting to breathe deeper, I realize she's starting to go to sleep. I decide it's now or never to tell her about how I really feel about her.

"Katniss, I think I'm in love with you," I say quietly, so it won't echo around the cave. How embarrassing would that be??

But Katniss doesn't say anything. Crap. Is she asleep already?

"I think I love you too," she whispers. I sigh in relief that she heard me, and I'm smiling like an idiot. She likes me too.

Katniss turns her head to look up at me. Simultaneously, we slowly reach of each other's lips, and as we make contact, it's as if fireworks exploded in my lips. But not in a painful way. More like a tingling way. This has to be the best kiss yet, even though I've kissed Katniss plenty of times before. We pull apart, gasping for breath, but Katniss moves in to kiss me again. A couple minutes later, we hear giggling from below. Katniss and I break apart and look down. It's Timmy and Prim. They're laughing and pointing up.

"Katniss and Gale sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" they sing. Katniss's whole face turns red with embarrassment. "Shut up!" she hisses. Timmy and Prim run off giggling.

"At least they're getting to know each other," I shrug. Katniss curls up next to me again and kisses me.