I arrived at the bakery Saturday morning to find the back door propped open to let the heat out of the kitchen. The weather was getting warmer every day, and I was already starting to dread what it would feel like in there in the height of summer. Peeta was in the kitchen, working alongside Rye, and I hovered in the doorway, watching the two of them. It only took Peeta a moment to realize I was there, and he flashed me a shy smile before turning away to finish unloading the ovens.
We worked together through the morning, though Peeta disappeared to the back porch more than once when the heat started getting to him. That was the real reason the back door was propped open. For the rest of us it wasn't anywhere near unbearable yet, but Peeta was still overheating too easily. When the lull hit before lunch I joined him, and we sat side by side on the edge of the porch, splitting one of the sweet rolls that had just come out of the oven.
"So what brought on this burst of energy?" I asked.
"I bet you c-can guess," he smirked, slipping his arm around my waist.
"Peeta," I jabbed my elbow into his ribs and cast a glance back toward the open door. He just chuckled and pressed a kiss to my temple. We'd gotten adventurous the night before, struggling to keep quiet as he moved in me while the evening rush kept Twain and Rye busy in the bakery.
"Better than the first t-time, right?" he said, pulling his hat off and raking his fingers through his sweaty hair. I just sighed, shaking my head and refusing an answer. He nudged me with his shoulder. "Well?"
"Yes," I said, fighting back a smile as my skin flushed at the memory of how it felt to come with him inside me. He pulled me closer and pressed a kiss against the corner of my mouth. I laid my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes as a breeze rippled past us across the yard. The sound of voices inside interrupted the moment, and he and I looked at each other before getting up to go investigate.
Darla was in the kitchen, Little Twain balanced on her hip as she argued with Rye over whether or not he could handle the massive cookie Rye was holding up just out of LT's reach. As the baby's fussing got louder Darla finally relented, turning to move LT close enough to grab it. The motion turned her toward us and she just rolled her eyes, nodding toward the baby as he began gnawing on a cookie the size of his face.
"Hey, you two," she smiled, holding one arm out to pull Peeta into a hug as we walked inside. As soon as she let go of him she pulled me in as well. I was too surprised to react, and just let out a nervous little laugh, shooting a confused look in Peeta's direction as soon as she turned away. Twain kicked Rye out of the kitchen, sending him out to the storefront so he could speak with Darla. Peeta and I got back to work, keeping to one end of the kitchen to stay out of the way.
"Katniss, would you mind giving me a hand upstairs?" Darla asked as Twain took LT from her arms.
"Sure," I said, glancing at Peeta. He was fully absorbed in filling the pastries he'd spent most of his morning working on. He looked up as I walked past him toward the stairs, smiling at me before turning his attention back to his work. I followed Darla to the second floor.
"I want to switch out the winter linens and get the curtains washed today," she said, glancing over her shoulder as we went into the laundry room. "I did most of the cleaning earlier this week, but that part is easier with two people."
"I was wondering why you were here on a Saturday," I said. As far as I knew, Darla only stopped by on weekends with Phyl in tow, and even that seemed rare.
"Well, Phyl's in the Capitol for another week or so," she said, pulling a low stool out of the corner of the room and climbing onto it to reach the shelves above the washer and dryer. She pulled down a few quilts, passing them to me before hopping down from the stool. "There's only so much time I can spend with my sisters, and an eleven month old isn't the best company." I smirked, following her out of the laundry room and into Rye's bedroom. She stopped inside the door, huffing and muttering under her breath as she stooped to snatch clothes off the floor. "Honestly, I was here three days ago."
"What does Phyl do, exactly? I mean, I didn't really think anyone went to the Capitol. Besides the Mayor, I guess," I said. Darla dropped the bundle of clothes in her arms on top of Rye's dresser before turning around.
"He's one of the District liaisons. Specifically, the merchant liaison," she said, pulling the blankets out of the tangled mass at the foot of the bed. "For us it's just him and someone from the mines, but he's said most of the other Districts have five or six. And I think Three only has two." She paused thoughtfully for a moment before tossing the blankets to the floor. "Doesn't really matter. It sounds more important than it is. Lots of paperwork in the District, plenty of brown nosing in the Capitol. Two things he excels at." I smirked as she took the pile of quilts out of my arms and handed one of them back. She nodded toward the bed. "Would you mind?"
"Sure," I said, draping the quilt over the foot board to straighten out the sheets. I took care to avoid the side of the bed near the wall. "Does he go to the Capitol a lot?"
"Just a few times a year," she said, folding the blankets she'd pulled from the bed. "The longest trip is always right before, um, the Reaping." I glanced at her and nodded. It was just a little more than a month away. Prim's first. I'd been doing my best not to think about it, and to keep her from thinking about it as well, but the closer the date got, the harder it was to keep it out of my head.
"Have you ever gone with him?" I asked, swallowing back my fear and tucking the sheets under the mattress before spreading out the quilt over them.
"Once," she said, laying the lighter of the two blankets she'd folded across the foot of the bed. "And once was enough. It's worse than it looks on television." I smirked, picking the two quilts up off of the floor and following her down the hall to do the same change in Twain and Peeta's bedrooms.
"Really?" I asked, trying to imagine how much worse it could be than the garish, decadent glimpses I'd caught on television. As we took down the curtains to be washed Darla described smooth paved streets crowded with people and lined with stores. Where we had one place to buy clothes, or shoes, and one restaurant, the Capitol had one or two on every street. Most buildings hardly had any space between them.
"It seems like they have everything," she said after describing the apartment buildings most people lived in. "But they don't seem very happy. There's people poor and starving there, too. At least out here we have space. We can see the stars at night." She paused, loading up the washer and frowning to herself. "Ups and downs everywhere, right?" She dropped the lid to the waster before turning it on.
As the cycle ran we cleaned out the kitchen, the one room she hadn't gotten to in her cleaning earlier in the week. She waved me off for most of it, and eventually I found myself sitting at the table just to stay out of her way as she whipped through the cleaning on her own faster than it would have gone if I tried helping.
"I want to ask you something," she said, turning away from the counter to face me. I looked up at her, raising my eyebrows questioningly. "How's Peeta doing in school? I don't mean his grades, I know those are better than they've probably ever been. I mean with your classmates. He won't talk to any of us about it."
"Um," I chewed the inside of my lip, wondering how much to tell her. If Peeta wasn't sharing, there had to be a reason. That seemed to apply more to his father, though. Both he and Rye were more relaxed around Darla. "It's not as bad as it used to be."
"Has that little Miller bastard learned to keep his mouth shut, then?" she raised an eyebrow. I couldn't help but laugh.
"No," I shook my head. Apparently she knew a little more about the situation than I thought. "He's just not as bad as he used to be. And it's mostly just him now. And the Whitaker twins. Everyone else seems kind of annoyed with them."
"At least they're losing their backup," she said, turning back to finish wiping down the counter. "When I was in school it was Loraine Ayers making everyone's lives miserable. And now she's in the Justice Hall continuing to make everyone's lives miserable. Now she's just getting paid for it. She never got knocked down to size."
"Merx, uh, quieted down a little after I broke his nose," I said, biting my lip and smirking at the memory.
"I forgot about that," Darla smiled at me before tossing the towel she'd been using into the sink. "Good for you."
"I just wish it had actually kept him quiet," I said, getting up to follow Darla into the laundry room.
"Next time you'll just have to break his jaw instead," she said, shoving my shoulder lightly when I started to laugh. She pulled the curtains from the dryer, passing Peeta's to me to hang back up. When I finished she led me into the living room. It had taken both of us to take then down from the wide picture window on one side of the room, and it would take both of us to hang it back up. "So, things are moving along with you and Peeta, hm?"
"Wh-what?" I stammered, nearly dropping my end of the heavy wooden curtain rod before I was able to drop it back into the bracket on the wall. I tried to play it off and straighten out the curtain. "What, um, what do you mean?" Darla just laughed.
"Honey, I know what you two have been up to," she smirked. "I do the laundry, remember?" I just stared at her, my eyes wide. Once she set down her end of the curtain rod she looked over at me, immediately bursting into laughter at the expression on my face. "I'm not your mom. And I'm not going to say anything to her. Or Twain, for that matter."
"Thanks," I said, casting a nervous glance toward the top of the stairs as I stepped down from the armchair I'd been standing on.
"And good for you, by the way," she smirked. "I think it goes without saying that I'm a fan of the Mellark boys." I just smiled and ducked my head, unsure of what to say. She picked up the kitchen curtains from the basket of freshly dried laundry and tossed them at me. "Are you okay with it?"
"What do you mean?" I gave her a look, pausing in the door to the kitchen. She stopped in the hall, the curtains from Twain's room folded over her arm.
"With having sex," she said. "I mean, you're both smart and responsible and clearly care about each other, but I also know your friends. I've known Madge her entire life and she's—a handful. And don't get me started on Delly and Rye. I'd just hate to think of you two rushing anything to catch up to them."
"No! No, that's—no," I paused, letting out an embarrassed little laugh at how awkward I felt and sounded. "Madge hasn't shut up about sex since she started having it. That's not new. She didn't—no. We decided on that on our own."
"Just checking," she smiled, continuing on into Twain's room. I had a hard time not thinking of Darla as an adult, even though she wasn't that much older than me. It was more than a little strange to hear her talking so freely about sex. She almost sounded pleased that we'd made that step, which was definitely not something I expected to hear at all. It made me wonder about her relationship with Phyl. They started dating young, I knew that much, but thinking about Phyl acting like a normal human being, let alone like either of his brothers, seemed impossible to me.
How different had things been when Phyl was still living there? I tried to imagine the three of them crammed into that bedroom, with Lilith still in the house, as well. The idea of a time before all of this was hard to wrap my head around. The glimpses I had gotten on my morning trades in the past were tiny windows into what that life had been like. Twain on his own, or with Peeta, had always been laid back and welcoming. More than once though, Gale and I had gotten a brief, tense refusal when we'd knocked, only to hear Lilith's shouts as soon as the door was closed in our faces. I had to remind myself that was what the majority of their life had been. As much as they'd welcomed me, and as easily as I'd fit into the routine, I was still a recent addition to the bakery landscape, and the shadow Lilith had left with Peeta's brain injury had been slow to clear. It was even more recently that the last of it was finally leaving.
"I just can't believe you got him working in the bakery," Darla said as we shook out and folded the heavy winter blankets to put them away.
"I didn't do that," I said, running my fingers along the edges of the blanket off of Peeta's bed as I folded it up. "He just sort of started to."
"You still have no idea just how much you do for him, do you?" Darla said, her voice softening. I looked up at her, unsure of what to make of the look on her face. Her faint smile widened and she took the blanket from my hands, stacking it with the others before carrying them into the laundry room to tuck back onto the shelves. Little Twain's cries drifted up from downstairs, getting louder along with the footsteps climbing the staircase.
"Mamaaaaa," Rye called, imitating LT. "Maaamaaaaaa." When they reached the top of the stairs LT stopped, staring at Rye with an indignant puss on his face. He looked over at me, pouting even harder and letting out a pitiful little whine. "I promise she's up here, little man."
"Is someone getting cranky?" Darla called from the laundry room. Little Twain perked up immediately, his face lighting up when she poked her head out of the doorway.
"See? I told you," Rye said. Little Twain pushed his face away, leaning out of his arms toward Darla. Rye looked over at me as Darla took the baby, nuzzling kisses against his cheek and bringing a smile to his face. "You're wanted downstairs. I need a fucking break."
"Okay," I said, reaching out to tickle the bottom of LT's foot as I moved past them to the stairs. He jerked away.
"Thank you for your help, Katniss," Darla said, turning away and poking Rye in the chest before I could even respond. "And you. Could you try to refrain from the f-bombs around your nephew now that he's figuring out how to talk, please?"
"Whatever," Rye chuckled.
When I reached the kitchen I found Peeta sitting at the worktable, a half eaten pastry on the table in front of him. Twain was out front with customers, leaving the two of us with the kitchen to ourselves. Peeta looked up at me, nodding to the stool beside him before sliding a second pastry resting on a napkin in front of it.
"Dad just wants you t-to, um—eat," he smirked.
"This had better be one of the ones you made," I said, pulling out the empty stool to sit beside him. He nodded, smiling and dropping his eyes to the table when I backhanded his leg. The glaze still hadn't set, and it dripped onto my fingers when I picked up the pastry to take a bite. It was perfect—soft and flaky, the center still warm. I raised my eyebrows and looked over at him, wiping a bit of the raspberry filling off of my lip before taking another bite.
"Good?" he asked, smiling at me as I sucked a bit of glaze off my thumb. He raised an eyebrow, his smile getting a bit wider, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. I felt a blush rise in my cheeks and backhanded his arm. "Glad you're, um—enjoying that."
"Shut up," I covered my mouth with the back of my hand, joining in his quiet laughter.
"Gale, these tracks are old, you are not going to find anything," I huffed, shifting my game bag on my shoulder. The warm weather over the past few days had brought out plenty of game for the two of us, and between what we'd brought down during our hike, and what we'd picked out of our snare line, there was more than enough to call it a day.
"Are you really going to pass up the chance at a hog? Even a slim one?" he shot me a look over his shoulder, pushing ahead through the trees.
"Today? Yes, I am," I huffed. "Especially on a cold trail that's just going to make our walk back even longer."
"Well, not all of us have the luxury of a steady paycheck, Catnip," he muttered.
"Do not pull that shit with me," I snapped. "You don't get to refuse my offers to help and then be bitter that you need it." He stopped, turning around to face me before thinking better of whatever he was about to say and shaking his head.
"Sorry," he pushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face. "It's just—graduating soon and all that, Mom's on me about where I'm going to work-"
"Do not go into those fucking mines," I said, giving him a look.
"You, too?" he raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. Me, too," I mirrored the expression right back at him. "Take whatever Madge's dad is lining up for you and be grateful you don't have to spend the rest of your life underground. Do it for P-"
"Don't play the Posy card," he snapped, pointing in my face. "Do you even know what the job is he's trying to push me into?"
"What is it?" I asked.
"Capitol liaison," he deadpanned.
"No," I burst into laughter, trying to imagine Gale in any of the places Darla had described to me the day before. Or spending any time with Phyl. "And you know who you'd get to work with, right?"
"Yes," he rolled his eyes, redirecting our course back toward the District fence. "I'm not fucking doing it. Stop laughing."
"There has to be something else," I said, quickening my pace to keep up with him. "You're too smart to be a miner."
"He's got about a month to scare something up," Gale said. "Because I'm heading down to the office as soon as it opens after the Reaping."
"I bet Madge was happy to hear that," I frowned. It had been a given for us both that we'd end up in the mines. There were no other options for most in the Seam. Jobs occasionally opened up in the general store by the west mine. Rarely someone would be hired in town when one of the merchant families got desperate enough. I'd honestly been relieved when Gale told me Madge's father had started pushing the work issue with him. Even if it was just because he didn't want his daughter marrying a coal miner, anything to keep from losing my best friend the way we'd both lost our fathers made me happy. And it seemed like the Mellarks were desperate enough to take me on. I wondered if that was something I could count on in the future.
Gale and I split up before we hit the fence, sneaking through separately and meeting up along the way to the Hob. Sales and trades were slow and cheap; we weren't the only successful poachers that had been out that morning. The market was flooded on Sundays without fail, when the few miners who knew how to hunt had the day off to get out into the woods, and Gale's field trip to check out those tracks had us arriving a solid hour too late to garner much interest in our haul. As much as I wanted to just call it a day and head home, I had one purchase I needed to make before I left, and it wasn't one I was looking forward to.
So far as I knew, Ripper was the only source for condoms in the District. I had no idea where she got them from, but without fail she had strips of those little foil squares emblazoned with the Capitol seal nestled in her ever-present bag alongside her homemade liquor. For someone missing a limb she blended in entirely too well, and it took me a full lap around the Hob to spot her.
"Ripper!" I called, jogging a few steps to catch up with her. She stopped in her tracks, looking around for a moment before she spotted me.
"Hey," she said, hooking her thumb in the strap of her bag. "How's that stupid fuckin' cat?"
"He's fine," I smirked, looking over my shoulder toward where I'd last seen Gale, hoping he wasn't anywhere nearby.
"Why are you being so twitchy?" Ripper raised an eyebrow. "I am not selling you booze, Everdeen."
"I don't want—booze," I snapped, glancing at the vendors to either side of us. They seemed preoccupied enough. A slow smile broke out over Ripper's face.
"Is that so?" she asked, drawing the phrase out.
"Please don't be weird," I rubbed my hand over my eyes.
"So what might I have that you would be interested in, Katniss?" she grinned, tugging her bag to the front of her hip, jostling the bottles inside.
"Ripper, please just sell me some condoms and let me go home," I sighed.
"Do I need to tell the baker what you intend to do to his son?" she smirked, pulling out a strip of condoms and dangling them in the air in front of me.
"What she's already done to his son," Gale chimed in. His voice made me jump; he was right behind me and I hadn't even heard him approach.
"Shut. The fuck. Up," I squeezed out through my teeth, shooting a glare at him and flipping back the flap of my game bag. I held it open for Ripper to peer inside. "What do you want?"
"Uh, money," she said, without even bothering to glance down. "These aren't a trade item, honey."
"Fine," I grumbled, reaching into my pocket for what little I'd managed to make that morning. She nearly cleaned me out, and I snatched the strip out of her hand before dropping my meager pile of coins into her open palm.
"Hey, why does she get a discount?" Gale demanded, pointing at me.
"Because she's better looking than you," Ripper flashed him a toothy smile before turning to walk away. I shoved the strip into my bag, burying it as deep into one of the side pockets as I could manage. She turned around as she walked and raised her voice. "Hey! Make sure he gets your oven good and hot before he goes slipping his loaf in there!" I pressed my eyes closed, sagging as the people around me chuckled.
"I hate you," I shot Gale a look that only made him laugh a little harder. "And you people need to find a better joke that that stupid loaf thing." I shoved him out of my way and made for the door. He was a few paces behind me, calling for me to lighten up. I just rolled my eyes and picked up my pace.
The next day, once Peeta and I were upstairs in the privacy of his room, I tossed the strip down on the bed between us. "You'd better appreciate what I went through for those, because I am never doing it again."
"What d-do you mean?" he chuckled, glancing down at them before looking up at me.
"Ripper, the woman who sells them, is a nightmare," I said.
"Rye likes her," Peeta smirked.
"You've met her, haven't you?" I asked.
"I've seen her in the b-bakery a couple of times," he shrugged. "But not—very often."
"She doesn't really like coming into town," I said. There wasn't a single person in the Seam who didn't know who Ripper was. If the arm wasn't enough, she was the sole supplier of liquor, condoms, and a few other odds and ends of contraband in the District other than the Maynards. And no one wanted to deal with the Maynards. Everyone did business with her at one point or another; it seemed strange to think she was relatively unknown in town. "She's the one I got Buddy from."
"Really?" he asked, smiling at me before looking over to where the cat lay stretched across the top of his dresser. "Then I like her, too." Peeta laughed, picking up the strip and tucking it into his dresser drawer before dropping back to lay down. I lay down beside him, pressing a kiss to his jaw before draping my arm over his chest.
Peeta closed his arms around me, angling himself closer and tangling our legs. I felt him nuzzle against my hair and closed my eyes. The rhythm of his breathing lulled me to the edge of sleep. As much as I enjoyed how close we'd become, and every new, intimate step we'd taken together, there wasn't much I enjoyed more than just laying in his arms.
"Isn't, um—isn't your b-birthday soon?" he asked, training his fingers over my arm lightly.
"Next week," I smiled to myself, pressing a little closer to him. "How did you know that?" I felt him shrug, and tilted my head to see him smiling, a faint, splotchy blush rising to his cheeks.
"J-just wanted to make sure I remembered that right," he said quietly.
"You didn't lose that," I laid my head back down and closed my eyes. "Though I'm not sure how you knew it to begin with."
"I p-pay attention," he said.
"Yeah?" I smirked. "What else have you paid attention to?"
"You squint when you c-concentrate," he said. I felt him smile against my hair. "And you c-close your right eye when it's s-something hard. When you're n-nervous you pull at your braid. You d-drum your fingers when you're bored. Used t-to be just at school, but you d-do it on the worktable now."
"Well, you guys are boring," I said, smiling and turning my face toward his neck.
"And I know when your b-birthday is because you wear that ribbon in your hair," he said, chuckling quietly and lifting my braid before letting it slide through his fingers and drop against my back.
"That's Prim's doing," I protested. "It's not worth it to fight her off."
"I know," he said. "I've heard you c-complaining about it to Madge." I laughed quietly, and he joined me after a moment, the sound rumbling through me. We lay in silence for a few minutes after it died down.
"You know, this is the first year I won't be at the Justice Hall the Saturday after my birthday to register for tesserae again," I said quietly, worrying the soft cotton of Peeta's shirt between my fingertips. "Thanks to your dad." Peeta took a breath and shifted toward me, tightening his arm around my back.
"How—m-many entries will you h-have?" he asked, his voice barely audible.
"Seventeen," I said. I felt Peeta's lips brush over my hairline. "It's Prim's first."
"I know," he said. "Um, D-Dell went through th-that with Cord last year. You could, um—talk t-to her."
"Maybe," I said, tightening my arm around Peeta and burying my face against his neck. I didn't want to even think about it, let alone talk about it. He went still, tensing up under me, the lazy movements of his fingers on my arm and back stopping completely. After a moment I lifted my head to look at him. He was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused, jaw clenched. "Peeta?" I set my hand on his cheek.
"Hm?" he looked at me, worry vividly etched on his face.
"Are you okay?" I asked. He chewed on his lip, turning his eyes back toward the ceiling.
"N-not—really," he squeezed out. I knew what he was worrying about, and I felt like an asshole for bringing it to mind. There wasn't anything I could do to comfort him, either. The odds didn't matter, the Reaping still brought panic along with it. I combed my fingers through his hair, pressing a kiss to his cheek and trying to imagine what was racing through his head. Was he worrying over me or his own five entries? Would the Capitol even take him with his injury? That just seemed like a cruel joke.
"Hey," I set my hand on his cheek again, waiting for him to look at me. "I'm sorry I brought it up."
"S'okay," he said. I gave him a weak smile before leaning down to kiss him. Peeta turned toward me, rolling onto his side and pressing closer to me. I snaked my arm around him, turning so we lay face to face on his pillow. His eyes fluttered closed as I rubbed his back, the hard frown twisting the corners of his mouth slowly relaxing. Buddy let out a quiet mewl, cautiously stepping off the dresser and onto the bed. He nuzzled against the back of Peeta's head and purred, drawing a smile to Peeta's face as he stepped up and onto his shoulder to force his way in between us.
"Okay, then," I laughed, moving back a little as Buddy settled down between Peeta and I, tucking his feet under and yawning. Peeta let out a short laugh, scratching the top of Buddy's head before looking up at me.
"I'm okay," he said, his expression dramatically softened. I smiled, waiting for him to return it before I leaned forward and kissed him.
Busy week, late update. Sorry guys! Just six chapters to go now. Thank you all for taking the time to read, review, and follow. As always, find my husband and I on tumblr. He's yourpeetaisshowing, I'm alonglineofbread.