Chapter Twenty-three: The Dinner

4K 101 20
                                    

Chapter Twenty-three: The Dinner

A knock sounds on my door and I shoot out of the couch that I was lying down on in an instant, moving towards the door and opening it as quickly as I can. I've been lying down on the new couch that I bought - that arrived yesterday - for the past few hours as I waited for the last of my orders to arrive, so I assume that a bored looking delivery man will be at the door.

Instead, Mags is standing there with a small smile on her face. She tilts her head to the side, probably at the speed of me opening the door. "Expecting anyone?"

"Yeah, nothing important. Come on in." I move to the side, which allows her to walk into the house.

Her eyes flick around my entryway before she lets out a small grunt and moves to the right into my kitchen. "Finnick told me that you threw out all the furniture, but I didn't realize you were stripping the entire house."

"I can't stand the lifelessness of it." I respond, closing the door and walking over to meet her in the kitchen. "Painting is also one of my guilty pleasures, so I figured it would give me something to do if I got some paint and kind of stripped the house."

"People react differently to being given such a uniform house." She grunts out, glancing up at me, before setting a basket down on the counter. I frown at it, making her move forwards and reach into it, starting to pull out its contents. "He also told me you weren't eating."

"Oh, you didn't have to bring me anything." I start to refuse her but she shakes her head and I fall silent. My eyes flick to my kitchen counter as she pulls out a wide array of fruit: some fresh blueberries, raspberries, a few apples, and two heads of lettuce. "Do you have a garden?"

Mags nods.

That makes sense, actually, because I bet that was where Finnick got the fruit to cut up and put in his granola. I hum in understanding.

She drops her hands from the basket and turns to walk over to the adjoining dining room, taking a seat in one of the red chairs in it. I follow suit, sitting in one of the chairs a few seats away from her; I turn the chair sideways so I can easily face her, a small smile on my face as she speaks, her soft voice rumbling across the room towards me. "You can take fresh food from me anytime, but the rule is always that you have to come to me. Spare me a morning of company, and you get all the berries that you so desire."

"A fair trade." I remark, making her give me a gummy smile.

Some silence settles between us before she speaks again. "You look like you're doing better."

"Then when I first got here?" I ask for clarification and she nods, causing me to continue with a small shrug. "I mean, I guess so; I'm just busying myself to get my mind off of things."

Mags hums and then speaks; for her, someone who most people can't even understand, I'm surprised by the joking tone of her voice. "I heard about your dinner tonight."

"Yeah, Finnick told me that he was quite a cook so of course I had to take him up on the offer." Then, suddenly, a solution to the problem I was grappling with flies into my mind. I was honestly considering flaking tonight or sending Finnick some feeble excuse, solely because I don't want things to be weird between us, but if I ask Mags to come then it's a sure sign that I'm not into him - or that I see him as anything different than I see Mags, which is as a friend. I've known Mags for a while, and I bet she'll see through whatever fake excuse I try to sauce her way, so I decide to just be honest. "Why don't you come?"

"I didn't get an invite." Mags replies, her eyebrows rising.

I shift in my chair, a small smile flickering through my expression. "Well, I owe you a prolonged period of company for the fruit and I doubt it will be hard for Finnick to make double the food. I also don't want to give him the wrong impression."

The Assassin (Finnick Odair X OC)Where stories live. Discover now