Finding the Missing Piece: Book 2

Chapter Thirty-One

Katniss POV- (A few hours later)

Peeta is cooking dinner and I'm sitting at the dining room table, watching him from across the room.

I see a little crease in his eyebrows.

He's concentrating.

I only see that look when he's baking or painting.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask him out of nowhere.

Peeta comes out of his concentrated state and stops cutting the vegetables on the island.

"I'm just thinking about you." He says softly, embarrassedly.

I smile slightly and look down at the floor in a blush.

Peeta comes over and puts his hand on my head in my messy hair, "I'm always thinking about you. In a non-creepy, non-stalker way of course." He says with a wink and a chuckle.

He ruffles my hair and goes back to the island and begins preparing the food once more.

I wrinkle my nose at him, "I always think about you too. Of course in a non-stalkerish way." I say.

Peeta just smiles at me.

I look down again and see something on the floor.

It's an earring.

It's not just any earring, it's Prim's.

I immediately pick it up and my hand goes to my mouth.

"Aw, Peeta. Look." I say.

He gives me a confused look and comes over.

I put the tiny little diamond stud into his hand.

"What is this?" He asks.

I smile, "It was Prim's, well sort of. I found it there on the floor. She lost it when she was like seven, it was mine and she felt terrible about losing it." I explain in excitement.

Peeta gives me a grin, "That's really cool that you found it after all of these years."

I smile at the memory.

I was so upset with her for losing this stupid earring.

Peeta wraps his arms around my shoulders into a warm embrace and kisses my cheek roughly.

I smile and give his stubbly jawline a kiss.

"I love you, Peeta and that mustache-beard-thingy you have going on is really attractive but it's kind of scratchy." I tease him.

I actually do find his facial hair attractive but it does make kissing him a little uncomfortable.

Peeta lifts his head up and gives me a look.

"Then just for you, I'll shave later." He laughs.

I smile, "Thank you." I say satisfied.

*Beep! Beep! Beep!*

I instantly break away from Peeta and hear the smoke detector going off.

The smell of burnt cheese and bread finds it's way to my nose.

Peeta rushes over to the oven and opens it quickly and smoke fills the room.

I run over to where the smoke detector is hanging high on the wall and stand on a chair to turn it off.

I get it turned off and Peeta is getting the smoke cleared and the burnt bread out of the oven.

"Well, at least we know the smoke detector works." Peeta says innocently, totally embarrassed.

I laugh and walk over to the burnt pastries and look at Peeta again.

"I guess I can just scrape off the burnt part?" He chuckles with a red face.

I grin at his red face.

"Sorry, Katniss. I lost track of time." Peeta apologizes.

"You're eating them too so it's fine and that was really funny actually." I say with a grin.

Relief floods his face.

"But I just ruined part of our dinner." He says guiltily.

"We." I say interrupting him.

"We?" He asks.

"We ruined part of our dinner, together. We lost track of time together." I say with my hand on his cheek.

"How about we eat some burnt bread and some of your favorite lamb stew?"

"You have no idea how perfect that sounds." I tell him truthfully.

The rest of the night we spend laughing and cuddling with each other, making up for lost time I suppose.

Though I had nightmares and the day didn't start out good it sure ended well.

Perfect actually.