After that we move to the front of the bar, to play up to our part of the lie to the peacekeepers, and drink. I'm quite pleasantly buzzed when I decide to make my way back to the training center. I bid Stealus, the ex-gamemaker/barkeep goodbye, and stumble out into the night.
It's colder than I remember it being when I left the training center, but I begin the trudge back to my makeshift home.
I've been walking for about five minutes when I feel a warm hand slip into the crook of my arm, I look up to see Quinn smiling at me, obviously drunk.
"Aren't you scared of us being mobbed by 'fans'?" I ask her, copying Plutarch's air quotes. She giggles.
"I don't think anyone is really looking for the pair of us together, 'Tana." She smiles and tugs at my arm, and I realise I'd stopped walking.
We walk slowly through the gradually thinning out crowds on the streets of the Capitol, chatting idly about this and that. The entire walk back to the training center I'm painfully aware of her hand resting against my arm, and the warmness I feel radiating from it. I can barely concentrate and what Quinn is saying to me, instead focusing on the heat of her skin against mine, and wondering how the rest of her skin feels.
Try as I might, I can't escape these thoughts, even though they still make me feel guilty as hell.
"'Tana? You gonna get that?" I hear her raspy voice ask me, and when I snap out of my thoughts, I realise we're standing in front of the elevator in the training center.
"Oh, sorry!" I chuckle, embarrassed. "I kinda zoned out there for a minute." I lean over slightly and click the button. Quinn is humming a familiar sounding tune under her breath.
Once we're safely in the cab, Quinn turns to face me, eyes burning with something I can't quite put my finger on.
I open my mouth to make a joke about awkward silences but before I can get a word in, she surges forward, covering my mouth with her own. Her lips are soft on mine, and my head swims at the sensation. Her tongue darts out and sweeps across my bottom lip, and I moan slightly, leaning further into the kiss.
Then the bell for her floor rings, and she darts out the cab, leaving me standing stock still, eyes still closed.
By the time I'm standing in front of the mirror in my own bathroom, it hits me fully. Quinn just kissed me. On the mouth. With tongue. I look at myself in the mirror, and raise my hand to my lips, remembering the smell of her skin so close to me. I find myself blushing slightly.
I fall into bed smiling.