Chapter Text
After he left, Peeta sent Annie to check on me. She told me he had been a wreck when he knocked on her door and confessed the whole thing. He couldn’t bear the thought that he had hurt me. But he needn’t have worried. I was startled, sure, but there was no lasting damage.
What’s worse is the hollowness in my chest at his absence, even if just for a day. I find myself wishing his crushing weight were back upon me. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t exited his room since it happened, and he refuses to answer any of my calls or texts. The tray of food I brought him yesterday is untouched and wilting on the floor outside his door. He should be in the kitchen practicing for the semi-final, not holed away in here like he’s Quasimodo. I pound on the door again.
“I know you’re in there, Peeta!” I yell. “You can’t hide forever!”
There’s no response, but I know he hears me. I can sense it. I kick the door with my old leather hunting boot. “Ow,” I mutter as my foot collides with the heavy oak. Then with a groan, I stomp off in the direction of the tent. I didn’t want to have to do this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I return twenty minutes later with a drunk and disgruntled Haymitch in my wake. He had fallen asleep at the editing desk and was not happy to be awoken by the contents of his half-drunk water bottle cascading over his head.
“Gonnae no’ dae that!” he shouted, as I seized his arm and started dragging him out of the sound booth toward the dormitory. Haymitch’s Scottish slang gets completely out of hand when he’s drunk. I can hardly understand a blessed word he says. “Yer aff yer heid!”
“Well, yer oot yer face on the job, you want me to tell Crane?” I threatened. Crane has already given Haymitch several stern warnings about his Scotch intake. Haymitch is skating on thin ice and he knows it. I guess that’s why he didn’t put up too big a fight when I insisted he try to talk to Peeta.
“He might listen to you,” I wheedle, trying not to pass out at the smell of Haymitch’s stale whiskey breath.
In response, Haymitch just lets out a string of curses so long and crass that it’d make a sailor blush. I gulp. Maybe this was a bad idea. But it’s too late. We’re outside Peeta’s door and I don’t know what else to do.
“Peeta!” I shout, pounding on the door. “There’s someone here to see you!”
Silence.
“Peeta, you–you boggin...gommy…” I search my brain for the foulest Scottish insults I can muster. “Lavey heided numpty!”
Haymitch raises his eyebrows looking mildly impressed. “Jesus Christ, yer serious about this aren’t ya?” He fixes me with a piercing silver-eyed stare. Haymitch knows I don’t ask for favors unless I’m completely out of options.
“Just talk to him, ok?” I say wearily. I’ve been so worried that I’ve hardly slept in two days. My braid is lumpy and frayed–more like a mat than anything. “I’m going to wait over there.”
— — —
The sun is sinking low in the sky, casting long shadows through the arched windows in the corridor, when Haymitch finally rounds the corner to find me sunk on the floor, my back up against the cold stone wall.
“The kid’s askin’ for ya,” he says, kicking the sole of my boot. “You can thank me later.” He takes a swig from his hip flask and turns unsteadily toward the exit.
My heart lifts. I leap to my feet and throw my arms around an unsuspecting Haymitch’s shoulders before he can lurch away.
“Oof!” he grunts.
I squeeze him tighter. “Thank you,” I say, my voice muffled against his ratty flannel.
“Yeah, yeah,” Haymitch mutters, but he taps his hands against my back awkwardly in what I think he intends to be a comforting manner. “Go git yer lad.”
— — —
This time when I knock on the door, Peeta cracks it open immediately. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his skin looks slightly ashen, but he must have at least managed to get himself into the shower, because his hair curls around his ears in wet little ringlets.
“Hey,” he says, attempting a smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Hey,” I say back, fighting the urge to pounce on him and burrow into his chest. Probably not the best idea, given the circumstances. So instead I say, “It was the car crash sounds, wasn’t it?”
Peeta rubs the back of his neck and nods. “I should’ve told you earlier.”
I shrug. “Wouldn’t have mattered. A trigger’s a trigger.”
“I mean so that you could have stayed away from me,” he says bitterly.
I blow out a puff of air dismissively. “You think I’d need your help avoiding you if I wanted to?”
Peeta shakes his head in disbelief. “That’s what yer Uncle Haymitch said you would say.”
“Yeah, well, it’s rare, but sometimes he’s right.” My lips quirk in a half smile and I reach out for his hand, taking it in mine and running my thumb over his knuckles. I like the way his hand is so soft on the top and then rougher underneath, his palms callused from rolling out cookie dough and cranking out chin ups.
Peeta flinches at my touch but then relaxes into it. “When it happens, I can’t tell what’s real or not real. I could have really hurt you,” he says, his voice cracking in a way that makes my heart clench.
“You’ve seen me with a bow and arrow,” I remind him. “I can hold my own.”
“I’m serious,” he says, bringing my hand to his mouth and kissing it with trembling lips.
“So am I,” I say firmly, staring straight into his eyes and refusing to look away. “Besides…it seemed like you were–I dunno–trying to protect me or something. Am I right?”
Peeta closes his eyes for a beat and sighs deeply. “Yeah.” He hesitates. “Can we–d’you want to take a walk?”
We beat a familiar path across the lawn and down the gravel perimeter trail, now bathed in dim yellow light emanating from the old-fashioned lamp posts lining its edge. I grip his hand as he tells me about his childhood. The darkness is so incongruous with the lightness that is Peeta Mellark that I’m having trouble reconciling it. He grew up on eggshells; his world a minefield of ways to trigger his erratic mother. One step out of line and… boom!
His oldest brother Bannock was away at Uni by the time things got really bad. The middle brother, Rye, was the favored one. And Peeta was the fuck up. Her words, obviously. The unwanted third child who could do nothing right in her eyes.
“Peeta…” I soothe, when he tells me about the time she caught him eating a sugar cookie his dad had slipped him. Peeta’s mum used to tightly restrict his food–not because they didn’t have enough like in my family–but just to control him. After shouting herself hoarse at Peeta’s cowering father, she forced Peeta to eat dozens upon dozens of sugar cookies until he threw up so hard that he burst all the blood vessels around his eyes.
“I still can’t even look at a sugar cookie to this day,” says Peeta dully.
I put my hands on his shoulders to stop him walking and then wind them around his back, hugging him to my chest and holding him fast. Peeta returns the embrace, bending his neck to bury his face into my hair.
“Why didn’t he stop her?” I ask, my voice shaking with anger. “Your dad?”
“He–he did his best I think,” says Peeta. “It was hard for him, too.”
I reel back, my eyes wild. “Hard for him?!” I practically shout.
This time Peeta soothes me. “Hey,” he says. “It’s ok. I’ve…made my peace with it.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from screaming, irritating the wound from two days ago. I can’t stomach the thought of Peeta as a terrified, round-faced little boy left to fend for himself with that monster.
Peeta takes both my hands in his as he gets to the last part of his story. The part that I’m not sure I want to hear. The day he lost his leg. “It wasn’t much of an accident,” he admits. “That’s just what I tell people. No. It was intentional. When I walked round the back of the car to open the boot and get the groceries out–you know, to remake all those puddings I ruined?–well…she just put the car in reverse.”
I can’t help it. I gasp.
Peeta tightens his grip on my hands. “And she rolled right over my left leg.”
Suddenly the warm summer night feels oppressive. It’s like the dark sky is twisting around me, pressing all the air out of my lungs. I taste bile. “Peeta,” I whimper.
Our arms find each other again, and I pull his body so close to mine that it’s almost like I’m trying to climb inside and root out all his pain.
“So…I guess that’s why when I have an episode I react how I do…” Peeta tries to hang his head in shame, but I force his chin back up, caressing it between my thumb and forefinger. “That feeling of not having someone to look out for me…well, my psychologist says that wound runs deep. He, uh, thinks that's why I get really protective when I'm triggered. It’s like I'm trying to make up for it or something.” Peeta pauses and searches my eyes. “Am I making any sense?
“Yeah. I get it. Actually, I think I get it too much,” I say, thinking of my mom's mental illness, the dizzy feeling of taking responsibility for my family at such a tender age, and the way I can barely stand to let Prim out of my sight even now that she's grown for fear I might lose her, too.
He chuckles. “Guess we’re both card-holding members of the traumatized kids club.”
“It's good company at least,” I agree, drolly.
Peeta and I finish our lap of the perimeter trail hand-in-hand and our conversation turns to lighter subjects. It’s funny how you can do that with very old traumas. One minute they’re bringing bile to your throat and the next you just…turn down the volume. They’ll always be with you, but you can’t live in those shadowy moments too long or you’ll never live at all. So that’s why, when we emerge from the forest at the far end of the white tent, I shoot Peeta a wicked grin and start pulling him inside.
“Katniss,” he protests half-heartedly, glancing around nervously, as we dip through the back entrance. “What are you doing? We’re not allowed in here after hours!”
I giggle. Peeta is such a rule-follower, a trait I normally find incredibly endearing, but tonight I have other things on my mind.
“We got interrupted the other night,” I say as we creep down the dark aisle between the rows of baking stations until we get to Peeta’s. I run a hand down his chest pointedly, and a look of understanding dawns on his face. His eyes widen and then darken almost imperceptibly.
“Yeah?” he breaths.
“Yeah.” I step in closer, pinning his back up against his baking station counter. Despite his reticence about trespassing, his right hand comes up immediately to grip my hip, while his left tangles in my braid.
“This feels wrong,” he breathes, but it doesn’t stop his fingers from dancing at the hem of my tee, inching up the material until the cool night air kisses my bare abdomen, making my skin pebble with goosebumps. Peeta caresses the sliver of exposed skin in a way that is so tantalizingly soft and chaste that it sends my mind to the very opposite end of the chaste spectrum.
“Very wrong,” I agree in a low voice. Then I stand on tiptoe to put my lips right next to his ear. “Bad even.”
Peeta groans, flipping me around so suddenly that it takes my breath away. He presses me against the counter and I can feel the length of him, hard and insistent against my belly, as he slants his mouth against mine. Peeta kisses me with abandon. He is a man on the verge, and I'm right there with him. But then, with difficulty, he wrenches himself away, bringing his hands up to frame my face and forcing me to focus. “Is this ok?”
I whimper in response, pressing my core against his muscled thigh, but it's not enough for him. “No, you have to tell me,” he insists, and underneath the passion, I hear the note of uncertainty, see the doubt in his eyes.
“Yes, Peeta. This is what I want,” I tell him firmly, my voice shaking with need. Then, terrified by my boldness, I take his hand and move it down my body, sweeping over the thin cloth of my shorts and then creeping under my knickers. I’m so wet it’s almost embarrassing. “See how much I want you.”
Peeta’s eyes roll back in his head as his fingers find my slick folds. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he pants. “D’you know how many times I’ve played this fantasy in me head. How fuckin’ hard it is to focus in here with you hovering over my station like some kind of sexy siren?”
“R-really?” I ask, not because I don’t know the answer, but because the way he is talking is turning me on.
“I’ve imagined taking you against every surface in this tent,” he growls, his thick fingers teasing my entrance then sliding up until they find my clit. Peeta swallows my gasp with another wet, open-mouthed kiss. I don’t want his lips to leave mine, but I also want them to keep talking.
“Feel how hard I am?”
I nod vigorously, bucking toward him, but the height difference is frustrating. I strain up on my toes, desperate to feel his hardness against my core.
He chuckles teasingly. “No, now you have to wait. Just like I have every damn day in this tent. Thinking about what you look like under those cute oversized band tees. Imagining how good you’d feel between my legs. The sounds you would make when I would pleasure you with my fingers…Just. Like. This–”
“Ah!” I gasp, as he slides a digit inside me, then two.
“God, it’s even better than I imagined,” Peeta says, nuzzling my neck, moving his fingers inside me so deliciously slowly.
“What–what else did you imagine?” I say breathlessly, my legs trembling with the effort of staying upright.
Peeta scoops me up like a paperweight and deposits me on the counter. My ass hits the smooth surface and he steps immediately between my legs.
“This,” he smirks, parting my knees and kissing up the inside of my thigh. I gasp again. My hands grip his golden curls with increasing tension as his lips wend closer and closer to the aching cleft between my legs. “Can I?” he whispers, his fingers glancing over the waistband of my shorts.
“Y-yeah,” I stammer, so intoxicated by him that I don’t even stop to think about the compromising position I’m in, spread before last week’s Star Baker in the iconic white tent–my place of work. Peeta tugs my shorts down, knickers and all, and continues his assault up my thigh. And then suddenly, he is there. Licking up my slit, lapping at my arousal, circling my clit with his tongue. I fall back on my forearms as he throws my calves over his shoulders for better access.
“God, you taste amazing,” he praises.
I respond with an incoherent string of moans and curses. If he keeps this up, I’m not going to last much longer.
“That’s it, lass. Let go,” Peeta urges, latching onto the sensitive bundle of nerves at my apex and alternating between swift strokes of his tongue and suckling at the swollen nub.
“Peeta!” I cry out as I come, the release washing over me with a force I didn’t realize was possible.
He takes his time helping me ride out my finish, coaxing pleasant little aftershocks, until he finally emerges from between my thighs to capture my lips once again. I taste myself on his tongue, but I’m so giddy that I forget to be embarrassed.
I slump against his shoulder, completely spent, and let out a breathy giggle. “Holy shit.”
Peeta’s resonant laughter rumbles against my chest in response. The shadowy shapes of the Bake Off set come slowly back into focus. The pastel refrigerators clothed in darkness…the judges’ table at the head of the room…the sound table covered with a protective canvas cover…
“Eep!” I squeak, as reality sets back in. Seeing the sound equipment has given me an unsettling reminder of my boss. “I really didn’t think this through,” I groan, hopping off the counter and hastily tugging up my knickers and shorts.
Peeta chuckles, running the back of his hand tenderly across my cheek. “I’m so glad you didn’t.” He attempts to pull me back in for a kiss, but I dodge him.
“Oh my god,” I fret. “How am I going to keep it together during filming now, knowing that I–that we–” I can’t seem to form a coherent sentence– “that you–”
“Sampled a new type of dessert?” he suggests saucily.
“Peeta…” I moan, my face burning.
“You’re kind of pure for someone who just lured a poor, innocent lad into a dark tent and had her way with him,” he teases.
I roll my eyes at him, then grab a bottle of kitchen cleaner and start spritzing the counter desperately.
“Besides, you think this is bad for you?” he says incredulously. “What about me?! I’m the one that saw your gorgeous face when you came. It’s imprinted in my mind forever. How am I supposed to look Effie Trinket in the eye now, eh?”
I scrub the counter furiously with a kitchen towel. I think I’ll literally die if anyone finds out about this. “I’ve never done anything like that in my life,” I tell Peeta, horrified.
Peeta smirks at me again. He is enjoying this waaaaay too much. “And how did it feel?” he says in a low voice.
“It felt like…” I swallow thickly. “It felt...” Peeta puts his arms around me from behind and kisses the spot that I like right below my ear. I swoon against my will. “Oh, hell,” I finally snap, slamming the towel down on the counter. “It felt like I want you to take me back to my room and finish the job.”
Peeta grins. “As you wish.”
— — —
Back in the dormitory, we undress each other slowly. I thought I wanted this quick and dirty, but now that I feel him move his body so steady and sensually against mine, I’m glad we got our desperation out in the tent. Every movement feels deliberate, every quiver of pleasure a precious discovery. Peeta lavishes kisses across my chest, seeking out the sweet spots until I keen for him. Then he lets me take off his prosthetic leg. He starts to apologize for it, and it pains me to think his “sorrys” are instinctual, a habitual utterance even in this intimate space. I silence him with a kiss that I hope expresses everything I don’t know how to say: That I think he’s beautiful. That I want to be in his corner, protecting him where no one else did… And that I want him to protect me, too.
When we finally collapse against each other on my bed, our naked bodies boneless and damp with sweat, he pulls me into his chest, and I rest my head in the spot that feels like it was made for me. Then later, when the thick tendrils of sleep start threatening to pull me under, I hear him whisper, “D’you want me to–should I go?”
I’m surprised by how loudly every fiber of my being screams “no.”
“Stay,” I say, snuggling into his chest.
Peeta’s powerful arms come around me and I think I hear him sigh. “Always.”
— — —
I wake up to a gentle rustling beside me. Through bleary eyes I register the gentle slope of Peeta's shoulders, so strong and sturdy. Neither of us bothered to put a shred of clothing back on last night, so his bare skin burns into mine so hot I might as well be in a bread oven
“I’m going to take a shower, hen,” Peeta says, carefully extracting his arm from underneath me and kissing my temple. I make a sleepy attempt to pull him back. “Sorry,” he chuckles, kissing me again, this time on my lips. “I gotta get down to the kitchens for practice.”
I fleetingly wonder if I’ve made a serious mistake here. Hen? One fuck and we’re on to Scottish pet names? But it wasn’t just a fuck, and Peeta knows it. And I know it, too, which makes me even more annoyed. So I just grumble something incoherent and roll over, pretending I’m still in the throes of sleep.
Peeta sits on the edge of his bed and reattaches his prosthesis. It must be waterproof, I think. I wonder what the procedure is for maintenance–like does the joint get sticky? Are there special products you should use to clean it? I have a fleeting thought about calling my mom, who was a nurse–bet there are lots of things you can do to prevent irritation…Yikes! Am I now imagining myself in the incredibly intimate position of, like, supporting Peeta in his healthcare routine?! I try to stop this train of thoughts, but it’s careening down a hill and the brakes are cut. I’m a goner. I really am.
I listen to Peeta pad to the bathroom with his heavy, uneven tread and then the sound of the tap turning.
And then I hear something else. Peeta is singing. Not particularly well, to be honest. But there is something about it…something familiar. A lilting melody, haunting almost. It makes me think of misty meadows and rugged coastlines, their margins rimmed with the steel gray sea. It makes me think of—
“Peeta!” I cry, leaping out of the bed so quickly that I tangle in the sheets and nearly topple over. I wrench the steamy glass door to the shower stall open. “What is that!?”
Peeta’s startled for a moment, his hands stilling on the bottle of shampoo, but then seeing me buck naked before him, he cracks a cheeky smile and looks down. His rather-ahem-prodigious member is semi-erect. “After last night I’m thinking you don’t need me to explain the birds and the bees…” he begins.
I roll my eyes and slide into the shower with him. “Not that.”
“Well, even so,” reasons Peeta. “If I had known my god-awful singing had such a powerful effect on you, I would’ve tried it sooner.” Peeta starts soaping up his hair and I'm momentarily distracted by the way the suds run down his chiseled chest, and then even more distracted when he lathers his hands with said soap suds and begins massaging my shoulders with them.
I close my eyes and will myself to focus. “Where did you learn that song?”
“Oh,” says Peeta, puzzled. “I don’t know, lass. Feels like I was born knowin’ it.”
“We have to go see Haymitch,” I say, without preamble.
Peeta barks out a laugh and looks down again. “No offense, but I really don't want to think about your uncle right now.”
I scowl at him so hard I feel certain it could take the pep out of anyone’s dick.
“Och, this is really important to you, yeah?” says Peeta, his face growing more serious. He catches my shoulders in his hands and searches my eyes. “Sorry for playing. What is it?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” I say slowly, the melody lilting around in my soul and stirring up the ghosts there. “Just–will you come with me?”
— — —
I push the door open to Haymitch’s room with some trepidation. The room is strewn with clothing–half a dozen tartan shirts in the same muted color scheme–plates of half-eaten food, and of course, the ubiquitous empty bottles of whiskey.
“Haymitch?” I call, shielding my eyes in case he’s starkers, per usual. I hear movement and an irritated grunt from a pile of blankets on the sofa. Throwing caution to the wind, I march over and seize the quilt, tearing it off him.
“Ah, piss off!” he cries, blinking in the half-light and trying futilely to tug the blanket back over his head. “What do you want now?”
“Peeta was singing in the shower,” I say abruptly, as if this is an appropriate explanation for why I have barged into his room before 8 am.
Haymitch throws his hands into the air as if to ward off a demon. “Spare me the imagery!”
The tips of Peeta’s ears turn red, but I just wave off Haymitch impatiently. I’ll be embarrassed later.
I poke Peeta in the chest. “Sing,” I prod.
“Katniss, are you going to tell me wha–”
“Just sing!” I demand. “Er, please.” I correct myself, regarding him sheepishly.
Peeta looks mystified, but he decides to humor me. He clears his throat and sings the verse again in his off-key baritone. The words are in Scots, the dialect obscure.
Haymitch pulls a face. “Pretty pitchy. No offence, lad,” says Haymitch to Peeta, who gives a little mock bow to affirm that none is taken. Then he turns to me. “Look, I know he’s cute and all, but are ya really this desperate for a back-up singer?”
I smack Haymitch in the shoulder. “No, listen. Sing it again Peeta,” I urge, feeling the hope well up inside me in spite of myself.
Dutifully, Peeta lilts out the tune again. He really is an awful singer, but even so, there is no mistaking it–I know that song!
I look excitedly at Haymitch. “It’s the one, isn’t it? It has to be!” Haymitch still looks skeptical, and I get why. We’ve been here before, and every time it turns out I’m wrong, I get sullen and moody for weeks. “Come on, open up the file, Haymitch.”
He heaves a sigh. “Alright, Sweetheart.” He stands up from the sofa, cracking his back so loudly I’m almost afraid he’s broken something, and shuffles over to the table to grab his laptop. Peeta and I peer over his shoulder as he selects the folder that I know contains my most precious possessions and clicks on the sound file labeled “the last òran” (‘song’ in Scottish Gaelic).
I hold my breath as the music begins to play. The recording is scratchy and old, but his voice is still pure as a dove. The kind of voice that my mother always said made the birds stop to listen. Though Peeta is still in the dark, he must understand intuitively that something significant is happening because he puts a comforting arm around me, and I let him, even though Haymitch will see and be an absolute nightmare about it later.
As the last syllables of my dad’s plaintive voice vibrate through the room, something changes in Haymitch’s expression. “Where did you say you were from, lad?” he says slowly, glancing sideways at Peeta.
“Oh-er, well me family’s from Papa Westray,” says Peeta, with a shrug. “Lived there till I was ten.”
Haymitch raises his eyebrows. “Huh.” He clicks open a Google map and scratches at the stubble on his chin. “Papa Westray. Interesting. Haven’ checked there yet, have we, Sweetheart? Remote place.”
“Very,” confirms Peeta. “Knew everyone on the entire island when I was a wee bairn.”
Haymitch and I exchange meaningful glances, while Peeta looks between us suspiciously. “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on here?” he says, a note of exasperation in his voice.
Something tweaks in my chest, and I know that it’s not fair to keep up this one-sided conversation. Peeta has trusted me with the deepest secrets of his past, and I can’t even manage to share a single one of mine? So I pull him down beside me on the sofa and Haymitch and I begin to tell him about my dad’s life’s work. Not the mining, no. That was a job. It was the song catching that he considered his real work.
It was a passion so caught up in his love for my mother that it became hard to tell which had his heart first–the songs or their collector. You see, when she came over to West Virginia from Glascow in the 80’s, she was a young musicologist on a mission to uncover the old Scots-Irish ballads preserved in the hills of Appalachia since the colonial era, and my dad, he was the handsome coal miner with voice like honey who knew how to find them. Together they traipsed through the Blue Ridge Mountains, lugging their heavy recording devices, in search of the dozens of songs on her list. And they found them.
All except one.
“I think–I think this is it, Peeta,” I say, my eyes shining. “The missing song. An ancient Scots ballad they found passed down for generations in a tiny hollow in North Carolina. They could never trace its origin. Mom and dad were saving up to come to the UK to search, but then …” I swallow heavily. “Anyway. Me and Haymitch have been looking for it ever since.”
A long silence follows. Then Peeta says, “So when do we leave?”
“What?” I say blankly.
“To go find it,” he replies patiently, as if explaining something obvious. “Me granny will be as chuffed as can be to have us.”
“Peeta…” I breathe, shaking my head. “I didn’t–I’m not asking for anything–”
“You don’t have to,” he cuts me off. “I’m offering.”
— — —
Peeta and I part ways in the corridor, him to the kitchens, me to meander listlessly around the grounds lost in my thoughts. I don’t know what to make of what just happened, the rollercoaster of emotions from the comfort of waking up in Peeta’s arms, to the euphoria of coming within a centimeter of my parents’ lost song, to the compelling yet terrifying thought of a future with Peeta outside of the Bake Off bubble. He’s not going to take me to his ancestral home, I scoff. The idea is absurd. We’ve known each other just shy of two months, and besides, I’m so emotionally constipated I can hardly tell him my favorite color. A kind, open person like Peeta deserves better. Sure, I’m good for a quarantine fling, but undoubtedly, he would tire of me in the real world… wouldn’t he?
— — —
There are three more days until the semi-final and I’m determined to make the most of them. Every time Peeta brings up the last òran (which is often), I deflect. Fortunately, I know plenty of ways to distract Peeta, most of which involve me pinning him to the lumpy mattress in his dormitory. But after, I can tell by the way he furrows his brow that he knows the game I’m playing.
The semi-final is biscuit week, so Peeta has been turning out sheet after sheet of cookies down in the dormitory kitchens. Him and Rue have fallen into the most adorable big brother-little sister routine and love to take the piss out of each other every chance they get. Today Rue baked a giant gingerbread man in Peeta’s likeness and is now jabbing lollies into it as if it’s a Voodoo doll.
“The time for being cute lil’ allies is over,” announces Rue, with a sly smile. “Gotta fight dirty now.”
Across the kitchen, Glimmer tosses her hair over her shoulder. “You two plonkers finally caught on, eh? I’ve been playing dirty since day one.”
Blessedly, Glimmer has completely lost interest in Peeta, but I don’t think it has anything to do with me. She can’t stand the way he’s so nice to everybody. Nice in the way that is so genuine that you can’t even hate him for being a self-righteous prat. By the fifth time he helped one of the other bakers salvage their crumbling macaron tower or frantically pipe flowers to beat the clock, she got so annoyed that she discarded an entire bowl of leftover brownie batter onto his head. I smile at the memory. Failing to understand how Peeta can be so unflaggingly kind may be the only thing Glimmer and I have in common.
After Peeta is satisfied that his signature bake–two types of rugelach: one batch filled with sweet fig jam, cardamom and orange zest, and the other with savory herbs and gouda–is ready to go, we say goodbye to the other bakers and take a walk to the hillock to watch the sun go down.
Peeta is acting weird. He keeps rifling his hand through his ashy blonde waves in the way he does when he’s nervous and losing the thread of our conversation.
“Are you worried about tomorrow?” I ask him, slipping my small hand into his big one and squeezing.
But Peeta hardly seems to have heard me. He continues on a few steps until we reach the very edge of the hill, now painted in a shade of muted orange from the sunset; then he turns to me with big, soulful eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hmm?” I murmur, looking up at him, confused.
Peeta doesn't say anything, just holds up a familiar green and gold flyer.
My stomach drops. “Where–where did you get that?”
“Haymitch,” says Peeta simply, his eyes boring into me. “He assumed you’d already told me.”
My mouth feels full of cotton. “Why does it matter?” I say, carefully avoiding his gaze. “It’s the week of the final. Everyone knows you’ll be in it. Come on, Peeta. You’re the best.” I swallow the lump in my throat, wishing I wasn’t feeling so pointlessly upset. I know that, regardless of the final, there is a difference between this weird quarantine situation we’ve been playing house in and the outside world. Peeta's not my boyfriend. And he's not going to do boyfriend things with me. I have to accept that, and the sooner he does, too, the better.
“Katniss,” he says, drawing out the esses on my name, his voice full of meaning. “This is big. Your first solo show at a major festival?” His face breaks into the most heartbreakingly genuine smile. “I’m so happy for you.”
“It's nothing,” I mutter, scuffing my foot against the grass. A puff of dandelion seeds erupts and sails away on the wind.
“It's not nothing, Katniss,” says Peeta, holding out the flyer and tracing over my name. Below it is an announcement that this performance will launch the release of my first solo album, “Mockingjay.” Peeta looks back up at me with shining eyes. “Did you think this would mean nothing to me?”
I let out a skeptical sigh and try to turn away, but he grabs my shoulders and spins me back around so that I have to face him. “You know I like you, right? Like, really like you.”
His words pierce me like arrows. “I mean…yeah, sure,” I say, trying to sound dismissive. He has to stop this line of questioning. This is dangerous territory. If I had thought that someone like Peeta could develop real feelings for someone like me, I never would have gone down this road.
“No, I don’t think you do,” he snaps, and the harshness in his tone surprises me.
“I’m not just a shameless flirt.”
I snort. “Right.”
“And I don’t do casual sex.” Peeta steps closer, trying to disarm me with his stupid pheromones.
“Oh, please,” I scoff. But deep down I know he's telling me the truth. No one-night stand has ever worshipped my body like that.
“Dammit, Katniss, seriously.” Peeta grips his curls, then throws his arms down in frustration. The blonde locks stand on end, making it impossible not to be charmed in spite of the circumstances. “Why is this so hard for you to believe?” he continues angrily. “It’s actually starting to annoy me.”
“Ok, well, it’s starting to annoy me, too,” I fire back, his tone making my hackles raise.
“Why? Because you want me to leave you alone?” says Peeta bitterly, his face twisted with emotion. “Then why send your drunk-arse uncle to pry me out of my pity party and get me to talk to you again, huh?”
“I was worried about you.”
“You care about me,” he clarifies, putting words in my mouth. “And I care about you.”
“Don't do this. Why are you doing this?” I plead, surprised to hear the words coming out as a whimper. He's confusing me. It's not fair for him to talk like this when he must know as well as I do that this whole thing is just a–
“This isn't a game, Katniss,” he hisses, almost as if he's reading my mind
“We’re in a bubble, Peeta. Bubble’s burst.”
“I don’t care!” he cries, seizing my hands in his again. “I want to see you outside the bubble.”
“Easy for you to say now,” I spit, feeling my heart rend in two. “Everything’s…nice here. Friendly and safe and–and fake. This is TV, Peeta. It’s not real.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s. Not. Real,” I repeat, emphasizing each word so he can’t possibly misunderstand me. I know the phrase is triggering and I say it anyway. Because I just want him to drop it. I want him to leave me alone now before he realizes what a mess I am. I want to leave him with this shiny Bake Off version of myself that is flirty and fun and not burdened with responsibilities and nightmares of my past.
“Were you even going to say goodbye?” he asks quietly.
I wish Peeta still sounded angry because the hurt in his voice is so much worse. That, combined with the pain in his eyes, is almost too much to bear. So before he can say anything else with his silver tongue to sway me, I wrench my hands away and run, the tears prickling in the corners of my eyes threatening to spill over.
— — —
“Brr, you two have got some warming up to do,” says Haymitch the next day in the tent, as he checks the volume on my boom mic.
Peeta and I have been exchanging pained, furtive glances all morning. I wish he would just focus on baking so he doesn't mess up his chances. His Signature Bake was already a bit dodgy. The judges didn't like the hint of Szechuan peppercorn in his rugelach. Effie can never tolerate spice. Peeta should have known that.
I scowl at Haymitch. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“So how'd you do it?” he grunts, jerking his head in Peeta’s direction. “Pull apart his heart artery by artery, or just tear it out whole and stomp on it?”
“What the fuck, Haymitch,” I say through gritted teeth. “Since when do you care?”
“He wanted it to be real, you know.”
“It was real. Real fun. And now it’s time to move on,” I say, determined to keep my tone clipped and practical. Damn Haymitch and his sudden concern for my non-existent love life. Effie Trinket must be doing a real number on him.
Haymitch gives me a long appraising look and then calls my bluff. “Bullshit.”
“You sound like Peeta,” I say, shooting daggers at him.
“Good, maybe I’ve evolved,” he retorts.
A bell chimes, signaling that break is over, and before I can open my mouth to say something smart back at him, the director is calling action.
— — —
Peeta bombed the technical bake, too. The challenge was macarons. I've seen him make them dozens of times before, but as Plutarch Hollywood reminded viewers in the explainer interview we recorded, anything can happen in the tent and macarons are notoriously fickle. No one is safe going into the Showstopper tomorrow, says Plutarch. All the bakers have something to prove…but perhaps Peeta Mellark most of all.
I wish I could comfort him, but I know that's the last thing he would want right now. So when I finish editing that night, I creep past his dorm room door without knocking.
— — —
The atmosphere is charged the next morning. This is it. The last challenge in the semi-final. In the next eight hours, we’ll know which of these four talented bakers will compete in the final showdown….and who will go home. Rue and Annie both look nervous. I notice that Annie has this anxious tick where she tilts her head down and right shoulder up at the same, while Rue is standing poised on her toes, with her arms slightly aloft as if she’s a startled bird about to take wing. On the other side of the tent, Glimmer looks outwardly poised and aloof, but I can tell it’s an act by the way she taps out a little pattern on her leg out of sight of the cameras.
Only Peeta looks truly relaxed– surprising, given his less-than-stellar performance in the first two challenges. He is standing tall, wearing a crisp blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The way his beige Bake Off apron is cinched around his tapered waist only serves to accentuate the broadness of his chest and shoulders. It makes me feel weak in the knees. I decide to venture an encouraging smile in his direction, and he beams back at me with such force that I almost have to take a step back.
“On your marks, get set, BAKE!” cries an enraptured Caesar Flickerman, immediately launching himself down the aisle to harass Annie with bad puns as she measures out her ingredients.
The tent is soon filled with the sounds of crinkling flour bags, clanging pots and pans, and the whir of kitchen aid mixers. I maneuver between the stations with the mic trying to capture it all. I wish my hands would stop shaking. It’s as if all the nerves that Peeta is not showing have found their way into my own body. At the back of the tent, he has already filled his oven with two sheets worth of lemon ginger biscuits cut into precise geometric shapes and is getting on with the next batch.
The Showstopper challenge is to construct a biscuit diorama of a scene that is meaningful to you. I’ve watched Annie practice hers. She is making the iconic Brighton Pier, complete with a (hopefully) working ferris wheel, where she loves to spend warm summer days with her husband, Finnick, and their young son. Rue is making her family’s orchard. She grew up flitting between the trees picking apples and churning out huge tubs of applesauce and apple butter with her mum. I can’t quite tell what Glimmer is up to, but it looks complicated and extremely delicate. She has created a bunch of trapezoidal cookie frames that she’s filling with isomalt to look like glass and then soldering them together with a sticky caramel cement. When Flickerman pauses at her station to admire her handiwork, she swats him away viciously. Director Crane cackles at the slapstick comedy, checking a playback of Johanna’s footage to make sure she captured Flickerman’s abashed face when he beat a hasty retreat from Glimmer.
And then there’s Peeta. He’s been coy every time I’ve asked him what he’s planning, and even today, I notice him subtly shifting his blueprints out of sight when I move past him with the mic. I badly want to hover, but I don’t want to jinx things for him. He’s really got to pull out all the stops if he wants to stay in this competition.
— — —
Flickerman has just made the “ten minutes remaining” call and the tent is a flurry of activity. I imagine the frantic version of the Bake Off theme song that we’ll overlay in editing. It gets higher in pitch and faster in tempo the closer the bakers get to time. This time Haymitch and I won’t do the final edit, of course, since we have special permission to leave early for the festival.
I gnaw on my nails nervously as I watch Peeta out of the corner of my eyes. He still looks cool as a cucumber, piping on his final decorations with a remarkably steady hand. His lemon-gingerbread diorama box appears fully constructed and stable, but he keeps angling his body so that I can’t see what’s inside.
Then finally… “TIME!” shouts Caesar Flickerman.
Cue the relieved sighs of four exhausted bakers. I hang my boom mic over the group hug to capture their heady laughter and murmurs of congratulations. And then it’s time for the judging.
Annie, Glimmer, and Rue have all hit it out of the park, truly. There are minor flaws here (I wish you would have gotten that ferris wheel to actually turn, Annie. Now that would have been a real triumph!) and there (Pity the piping’s a little messy, isn’t it Glimmer?), but overall, the mistakes are pretty superficial.
Peeta is up last. I hold my breath as he picks up his massive cookie construction and walks very slowly to the front of the room, trying to minimize his limp as much as possible. Who the fuck is in charge of accessibility on this set?! I think wildly. Where’s that bitch with the rulebook? Shouldn’t there be reasonable accommodations? But Peeta is fine. He makes it to the front and sets it down with a flourish in front of the judges.
“Well,” says Plutarch Hollywood, grandly. “Would you look at that!”
I crane my neck, trying desperately to do exactly as he says. Under the pretense of capturing better audio, I inch forward until I finally have a clear view.
Wow.
I gasp audibly, then curse myself, knowing I’ve messed up the recording. But I can’t be that bothered. Because I’m too busy gaping at Peeta’s creation.
On one side of the diorama there is a backdrop of misty blue mountains and deep green pines piped so delicately that they almost look real. In the foreground is a rustic cabin emitting what look like real puffs of smoke out the chimney (“Dry ice,” Peeta confirms, when Effie remarks on it). There are three realistically painted gingerbread figures on the front porch: a man bouncing a tiny baby on his knee and a woman holding a bulky 80’s recording device. But before I can fully process the scene, Peeta is spinning the diorama around to reveal a rugged gingerbread coastline that is unmistakably Scotland. And in the front…it’s the stage at the Orkney Folk Festival! A single figure is center stage, a long braid hanging over her shoulder, a microphone at her lips. But that’s not all. The figure has a long thin stick attached to her that Peeta controls like a puppeteer from above. He lifts her up, then taps her foot down on a real switch. Carefully arranged Christmas lights blink on, illuminating the stage as if it's a real concert. And then I hear it. My own voice, clear and resonant, singing the “The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond.” Peeta has hidden the tiny bluetooth speaker behind the gingerbread bar.
The judges are talking to Peeta now, but he’s not looking at them. He’s looking at me. His blue eyes are bright, almost defiant. I can’t look away.
When Effie asks Peeta who the singer can possibly be, I see Johanna pan the camera over to me with a massive self-satisfied smirk on her face. Behind the scenes, Crane is losing his mind with enthusiasm. We’re breaking the third wall and fans are going to love it.
Finally, Plutarch and Effie finish exclaiming over the ingenuity of Peeta’s design, the refinement in his painting technique, the sturdiness of his construction. The last step is the taste test. They each snap off a corner of the roof and pop it into their mouths.
I’m expecting another round of effusive praise, but instead, Effie makes a hacking sound. She actually has to pick up a handkerchief and spit out her bite into it. My eyes fly to Peeta in dismay, but he just looks mildly perplexed. “Is there something wrong?” he asks, a little too nonchalantly.
Plutarch coughs. “My boy, pardon my bluntness, but it tastes like I’m actually eating a cardboard box.”
“Such a shame,” intones Effie, dabbing her mouth primly. “It really is a lovely diorama. And a lovely story,” she says warmly, nodding toward me. “But I’m afraid it’s style over substance, Peeta.”
— — —
The next morning when I go down to the kitchens to fill my to-go mug with coffee, I'm not really surprised to see Peeta there. He's been waiting for me, I'm sure of it. Banking on my hopeless coffee addiction to ensure that I don't escape without at least saying goodbye. It's kind of him to even give me the chance after what an arsehole I've been to him.
Peeta barely looks up as I enter, but he obviously knows it's me. “Sweet or savory?” he asks.
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
I head straight for the coffee machine and fill up my mug wordlessly. It's fresh. Peeta obviously made it for me. He doesn't drink coffee, just tea– black, no sugar.
“Snacks. For the trip. Sweet or savory?” He finally looks up at me and there's a glint in his eyes. A challenge.
“Peeta, what the hell,” I sigh.
“Ok, both,” he says, shoving both a bag of crisps and some lollies into his rucksack.
“You’re not coming.”
“Tell that to Haymitch,” says Peeta, without missing a beat. “He canceled your train tickets.”
I wheel around on my heel as Haymitch saunters into the room carrying his own rucksack. “Excited for our road trip, Sweetheart?”
I round on Haymitch. “Are you kidding me right now?”
He puts his hands up. “Hey, I got a bad back. The lad’s car is plush.”
I swivel back to Peeta. “Talk,” I demand.
“Listen, it’s simple,” says Peeta evenly. “I drive you to Orkney. You sing at the festival. I’ll wear ear plugs and keep you fed and watered. Or I’ll stay in the car. Or I’ll fuck right off to the pub for the whole thing. I don’t care, ok? But when you’re done in there, you’re getting back in the car and I’m taking you to the wee hamlet of Papa Westray to find yer dad’s song, got it?”
Peeta glares at me, daring me to argue. I open my mouth to protest, but Peeta wrenches the zipper shut on his rucksack with such force that I know he means business. Well, fine. Let him drive us to the festival. I can shake him after that. And it's true Haymitch has a bad back. Besides, Peeta has to head north to Inverness anyway, I reason, it's not technically that far out of his way. Well, except for the ferry…
But I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of a reply. I fold my arms across my chest and follow him morosely to the car with my coffee and duffle bag in tow.
— — —
“You’re angry,” Peeta says to me, when we're well on our way to Orkney, speeding through the emerald green countryside. Haymitch has already passed out in the backseat and is snoring gently.
I catch Peeta's eyes in the rearview mirror. Somehow it's easier than looking directly at him. “I’m not angry. I’m just…argh, I don’t know. I’m just confused.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Peeta sounds more prickly than usual, but there is a warmth underneath and his eyes look soft. If he's trying to convince me he's angry, then he's failing miserably.
“I'm sorry about the semi-final,” I say, trying to change the subject.
Peeta shrugs, a wry smile on his face. “It happens. Can't believe I forgot the sugar on that last bake.”
“I just hope Glimmer doesn't win,” I burst out before I can stop myself.
Peeta barks out a laugh. “You were so jealous of her,” he teases.
“I was not–” I try to protest, but when Peeta raises his eyebrows at me, I fold. “Ok fine. A little.”
Peeta looks so adorably pleased to hear it confirmed that I find my defenses melting.
“I liked your diorama,” I tell him in a quiet voice.
Peeta's eyes flicker to mine in the mirror again. “Was it too much?”
“Well…maybe it was a little thirsty.”
Peeta laughs again. His full, barrel-chested laugh. The sound makes me feel like I've just had a warm cup of cocoa.
“Look, I’m not trying to rush you, Katniss. I know this is new. But I just want to take you on a date someplace that isn’t in view of the Bake Off tent, is that so much to ask?”
“I live in Glasgow.”
“So? I have a car,” says Peeta, gesturing to the dashboard in front of us. “And I love Glasgow. Best haggis in Scotland,” he adds.
“Ew,” I say, crossing my arms and staring resolutely out the window.
“C’mon, hen. What are you afraid of?”
It’s that bloody term of endearment again. My lip wobbles and I know I’m not going to be able to hold out much longer.
I hug my middle tightly and whisper, “I'm afraid that I might fall in love with you.”
His reaction is less dramatic than I had feared, just a tightening of his hands on the steering wheel, a heavy swallow. Peeta opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again to say something that once again convinces me he has mind-reading powers. “Thinking about yer mum, are ya?”
I nod slowly, wondering how he guessed. How is it that it’s been only eight weeks and already this man seems to know me better than I know myself?
He sighs heavily. “You think she regrets it?”
“Wh-what?” I say, though I heard him perfectly well. Nobody’s ever asked me that before.
“Do you think she regrets it…” Peeta repeats patiently. “Falling in love with yer dad.”
A heavy silence hangs between us. Peeta keeps his eyes carefully trained on the road, giving me space.
“No,” I finally admit. I don’t elaborate. What else can I say?
— — —
I don’t make Peeta fuck off to the pub during my performance. Instead I let him sit right up front in one of the two seats performers get to reserve for friends and family. With Prim sitting her exams and my mom in no condition to travel, it’s nice to have someone there. A friendly face in the crowd when the nerves set in. I don’t think he stopped smiling the whole time.
I sang all the songs on my new album, and as an encore, one new one: Dandelion in Spring. It got me a standing ovation.
Afterwards, we enjoyed the other artists, including Haymitch’s band, where I provided back up vocals and fiddle. Peeta spun me around the dance floor again and again in vigorous Scottish country dances. Neither of us were any good at it, but we laughed our heads off all the same. And then a day later, Peeta and I said our goodbyes to Haymitch and made our way to Papa Westray.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place quite so beautiful as this. The emerald grasses undulate in the salty breeze, distinguishable from the waves on the sea only by their color. Clouds of arctic terns hug the coastline, rising and falling on the wind, calling out to the puffins peeking out from the stony outcroppings on the beach below.
The entire island is only four miles long and one mile across at its widest point. How hard could it be to find a single song here?
We stay in the drafty stone house Peeta grew up in until he was ten. It was the last place he felt truly safe with his family, he tells me. His lovely gran was a warm presence in his life, a buffer for his mother’s rage. And Peeta’s gran is still lovely. She stuffs us full of all kinds of hearty Northern Isles fare at the roughly-hewn table in the kitchen. There is not a single plate or bowl that matches. Each painted ceramic vessel has a story. There’s even a tiny, misshapen teacup and saucer in the shape of a puffin that Peeta made in school for his gran’s birthday.
By day, Peeta and I roam the island, talking to the locals, catching snatches of melody, and picking our way through Papa Westray’s long oral history in search of the last òran. By night, he kisses me to sleep in the rickety twin bed of his childhood room.
And then finally, on our third day in Papa Westray, we meet Maude Ivory.
She lives in the most remote corner of the island in a small stone house with a tin roof. There is a collection of weathered leather boots dotting her courtyard, all blooming with herbs– lavender, sage, and rosemary. All the lovely things Peeta smells of when he holds me close. A single fat chicken pecks at one of the mangy faux flower pots, then at my own hunting boot. Maude Ivory herself is wizened and stooped, with a mane of long silvery hair cascading past her waist. Her face is deeply creased, skin leathery from the insistent saline winds off the sea, but I can tell from the structure of her face, her full lips, that she was surely a rare beauty in her time.
“Guid efternuin,” Peeta greets her in Scots.
Maude Ivory's head, draped in a tartan cloak, perks up in our direction, but her eyes look milky and unseeing. Peeta moves closer, crouching with some difficulty until he is face to face with the old woman. She brings her veiny hands to his cheeks and feels the contours of his face. Then her cheeks split into a gummy smile.
“Young Mellark!” she announces.
I'm surprised by the tenor of her voice– clear and high, where I had expected the low rasp of age.
“Aye, m’am. The very same.”
Maude Ivory hums in approval. “And the lass?” She looks somewhere over my right shoulder, but must sense my presence. I stoop down like Peeta did so that she can caresse my cheeks
The old woman gasps. “Lucy?”
I look over at Peeta in confusion.
“No, Maude Ivory, m’am. This is Katniss. My–” Peeta glances sidelong at me and then tries it out–“girlfriend.”
I don't correct him. He smiles.
“You seem thin, Lucy,” says Maude Ivory, feeling my wrists, my knobby elbows. “You aitin’, wee ‘un?”
“Aye, m’am. Peeta's keeping me well fed,” I tell her warmly.
“Lucy was her older sister,” Peeta clarifies in a whisper. “Disappeared a long time ago, before I was born. Voice like a bird according to the lore.”
I wonder where Lucy has gone… and whether her song went with her. But I have a tingling feeling inside me, rising from my toes to my aching heart, and so at Peeta’s encouragement I decide to try once more.
I open my mouth and sing.
— — —
We found it. We found it!
Maude Ivory tells us that the song has been in her family for generations, passed down matrilineally. And later, with the family name in hand, Peeta and I find a box of artifacts in the decaying one-room museum in the heart of the village. Inside are dozens of sheets of yellowing parchment, the words of the last òran scribbled on one of them along with a date: Year of our Lord, 1659.
After making our discovery, Peeta and I stroll out to the cliffs overlooking the roiling sea.
“See this little purple flower?” says Peeta over the din of the crashing waves. He plucks one of the delicate blooms and hands it to me. “Scottish Primrose.”
I smile at the blossom, then tuck it into my braid. Peeta threads an arm around my waist and we both look out towards the horizon. There is a long silence. Then... “You threw the competition, didn’t you?” I say softly. I suppose it’s as good a time as any to confront him. “Forgetting the sugar? Really?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his lips quirk up. “I’ll neither confirm nor deny.”
“Peeta!” I cry, smacking his chest. He catches my hands and holds them fast.
“I’ve got loads of cake stands at home,” Peeta says dismissively. “I’m a baker’s son.”
“You idiot,” I sigh, shaking my head as he brings my right hand to his lips and kisses each knuckle.
“I got what I really wanted, didn’t I?” he reasons. “So let’s just put it to rest, ok? My semi-final was a dog’s dinner and that’s that.”
Could it really be so simple, I wonder? With my heart in my throat, I voice what I’ve been worried about for so long. “But what if– what if you saddled yourself with another dog’s dinner? A living, breathing dog’s dinner of a person?”
Peeta frowns as he considers this, then pulls me tightly into his warm chest. “Well, then that makes two of us,” he says simply. He presses his forehead to mine and grins. “Besides, I’m a dog person. Want to get a hound or something?”
I can’t help it. I laugh.
Maybe it’s ok that we’re both a bit messy around the edges, I realize. That our piping is shaky, or our technical bake is too dry, or our chiffon batter got ruined by a wayward microphone. And maybe, just like my mum and dad knew, you’ll never really regret taking a risk for love.
So with my lips against his I murmur, “Make it a Beagle, and I’ll allow it.”
~Fin~