A/N - Part 2 of Love in a Grocery Store, written for everlarkbirthdaydrabbles

Peeta's pink tongue was peeking out from between his lips as he applied glue to the groove in the wood. He jammed the wooden tongue of a second piece of wood into the groove and held out his hand to his girlfriend, who was seated beside him on the mattress.

"Pass me the hammer, Katniss."

Scowling, Katniss rooted around inside the plastic bag they'd gotten during their early morning trip to the hardware store until the hammer surfaced. She passed it to Peeta. "Quietly, please."

Peeta rolled his eyes. "Just how exactly do you propose that I hammer quietly, Katniss?"

"I don't know," she hissed. "Tap rather than bang? Give me a minute to see if they're home."

Katniss poked her nose outside the door and looked up and down the hall of the apartment she and Peeta shared with their friends Johanna and Finnick. Seeing no one, she slipped out the door and padded toward the kitchen on silent feet. Both Finn and Jo's rooms were empty. Crossing her fingers that they hadn't come home last night, Katniss entered the kitchen. She failed to suppress her scowl when she found them sitting at the table, grinning like maniacs.

Instead she shuffled to the cabinets and pulled down two mugs. She started the kettle for Peeta's tea, dropped a teabag in the cup and then poured what was left of the coffee into her own mug. Keeping her back to Finn and Jo, she added sugar to her coffee and then turned to get the milk from the fridge.

"Did you sleep well, Princess?" sneared Jo.

Katniss ignored her and grabbed the carton of milk.

"Guess not," said Finn mildly as he lifted his mug to sip a syrup Katniss knew was more sugar than coffee. "I was wide awake after that big crash around midnight. Did you hear it, Katniss?"

The kettle whistled and Katniss went back to the cabinets to shut it off. She poured hot water on the tea bag and crushed it against the side of the cup with her spoon. She watched the water swirl to brown and contemplated her reply to Jo and Finn.

"Are you deaf as well, Brainless?"

The sound of hammering filled the air.

"That's it!" Jo slammed her hand against the table. "What the hell is going on down there? Crashing and banging half the night and then again in the morning..." Jo grabbed her mug and stomped down the hall toward Katniss's bedroom, her robe swirling behind her like a cape. Ignoring the brief mental flash of Jo in a pointy hat and riding a bicycle, Katniss grabbed her mugs and chased Jo down the hall to her room, but it was too late.

Jo threw open the door. There stood Peeta, the cross piece of Katniss's footboard braced between his knees as he drove a nail through one of the legs to reconnect it. He paused mid-swing and looked up, three nails pursed in his lips. Mortified, Katniss caught his eye from over Jo's shoulder and he had the decency to look guilty.

"Fuuuuuuuuck." Jo dragged the word out for so long, Katniss was certain she'd added four more syllables.

Katniss heard Finnick whistle behind her and felt her face grow even warmer. "Well done, Peet."

Peeta shrugged and pulled the nails from his mouth. "Sorry about the noise."

Johanna's eyes flitted between them. "You broke the bed?" Peeta shrugged again. Jo snorted and began to laugh before turning to point at Katniss, who gaped at her wide-eyed. "You broke the fucking bed!"

"It's been getting a lot of use lately," Peeta pointed out, his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. Katniss was so grateful that he'd managed to divert Jo's attention back onto him, that she didn't bother to care about what he'd implied.

"Peet, you're a legend," grinned Finnick with an approving nod.

Jo continued to howl. "Brainless, you need to keep this guy," she called as she headed back to the kitchen, a chuckling Finnick in her wake.

Katniss stepped into the room and closed the door behind her with her toe. It clicked softly closed and she handed Peeta his mug.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "When you didn't come back, I figured we were busted."

"Yeah," she admitted. "They were waiting for me. You know I have no swagger."

They each took a long sip of their drinks, watching each other over the rims of their mugs. Their lips twitched as they tried to drink. When the laughter finally overtook Katniss, she put her mug down on the bookshelf to keep from spitting her coffee on the floor. Peeta wasn't quite fast enough.

"Well done, Peet," she snorted and then broke into giggles again.

"Fuuuuuuuuuu-uuuuuk," he chuckled, setting his mug on her dresser before dropping onto the mattress. Katniss plopped down beside him and lay back. Soon she was looking into his bright eyes. They were filled with mirth.

"You're a legend," she told him with a grin.

"You need to keep me," he reminded her.

Katniss laced her fingers with his own and stared up at the ceiling. "I was was planning on it." She looked back at Peeta. "Are you sure you can fix it?"

He nodded. "Are you sure you want me to? This puppy made a whole lot less noise once the box spring was on the floor."

She kissed his nose. "Have to. If my mother shows up and I'm sleeping on the floor after she gave me a bed, I'm gonna have some explaining to do." Peeta laughed and asked if she'd notice the repair job. "She's not that observant," Katniss replied.

Peeta rolled toward her and wrapped an arm around her waist tugging just enough to cause her to wriggle over to him. "Well, maybe we should enjoy it once more before put it back together," he said, wriggling his eyebrows and smoothing her hair away from her face.

His thumb traced her cheekbone and Katniss threw her leg over his hip and rolled him onto his back. "We could do that," she replied, taking his lower lip into his mouth and tugging gently. "Take advantage of the situation and all."

Peeta's hands slid under her t-shirt and pulled it over her head. "Sounds like a good idea to me."