"Four…five…six…"

Katniss counted the strawberries under her breath as she arranged them in a spiral on the dessert plate, her fingers working quickly even as her eyes darted away to watch the training taking place across the room. The new guy was not picking up the fine art of lemon slicing very quickly. She'd wonder why Haymitch wouldn't just assign her to the bar, if she didn't already know she was the only person who'd cut him off after he "borrowed" a shot or two. Or five.

"Hey." A low voice in her ear made her jump, and she sighed as one fat strawberry rolled unceremoniously to the ground.

"That's coming out of your paycheck, Gale," she said, mimicking the stern, clipped voice of their district manager, Alma Coin.

Gale laughed and folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the kitchen island beside her. "Have you seen Effie tonight?"

"Just on the way in. Why?"

"Ninety percent sure she's high. No, ninety-five."

"Well it's that extra five percent that really clinches it." Katniss dropped the fifteenth and final strawberry on the plate with a flourish, discreetly nudging the collateral damage under the edge of the cabinet with her foot.

"Beautiful, just beautiful," Gale said, nodding in approval at her dessert plate. "So…you got any plans tonight?"

"Um…" Katniss found her gaze drifting over to the bar again, where Haymitch was watching the new guy try unsuccessfully to pry the broken half of a cork out of a bottle of white wine. That was definitely coming out of his paycheck. "I don't know."

"Me neither." He nudged her lightly with one elbow, pushing himself off of the counter. "So keep me in mind, yeah?"

Katniss rolled her eyes, popping open another jumbo carton of strawberries. It wasn't that she didn't like Gale. They got along remarkably well, in fact, for two people whose romantic relationship had imploded as quickly as theirs had. But after catching them in a client's pantry together twice in one night two months ago, Haymitch had threatened to fire both of them on the spot if it happened again. And Gale was so not worth all the paperwork you had to fill out for unemployment.

Soon she was lost in assembling yet another strawberries-and-Cool-Whip dessert plate, not even noticing when Haymitch gave up on his failed bartending lesson.

"Sweetheart." Her boss' gravelly voice conveyed more than a hint of irritation. She blinked up at him in surprise, then shifted her gaze to the new guy, standing sheepishly beside him. "Show the boy how to make a Strawberry Surprise."

"Um, alright." Haymitch ambled away, and Katniss smirked, placing a sliced strawberry in the center of the Cool Whip dish. "Well, there you go. Strawberry Surprise."

The new guy cocked his head slightly, studying the ring of fruit around the center dish. "What's the surprise?"

Katniss thought for a moment. "That there isn't one?"

He laughed. "So it's ironic. Nice. I'm Peeta, by the way." He stuck out his hand across the counter for a handshake.

"Sweetheart," she said, ignoring the gesture as she spooned more Cool-Whip into a third dish. When his hand didn't retreat, she sighed, taking it for what she thought would be a quick, limp handshake. But he gripped her hand firmly, his skin exceedingly warm against her own. "I'm Katniss."

"Pleased to meet you, Katniss." He smiled, and she couldn't help but crack a small smile in return. He had straight white teeth, dimples, and thick blond hair combed back over his forehead in a style that was almost retro. He was a CW-type for sure, the non-threatening-good-guy-wet-dream of fourteen-year-olds all across America. Not Katniss' type at all.

And maybe not quite The CW's type, either, since he was here on a cater-waiter job at some ridiculous mansion in the Hills instead of a dressing room on the set of The Vampire Diaries.

"So what brought you to the exciting world of catering, Katniss?"

She glanced around the kitchen, desperate for someone with a task to pawn him off to, but they were alone. Fucking Gale and Effie were probably off smoking a joint in the backyard, and Finnick had a greater talent for making himself disappear than anyone else she'd met in this job.

"The paycheck," she said.

Peeta laughed again, though her answer wasn't a joke. Why else would she be arranging strawberries on plates for old men and trophy wives too lazy to do it themselves? "I mean what do you really do. The hiring manager told me almost everyone here is trying to break into the industry somehow."

"I'm not," she said, slightly offended by his assumption, though it wasn't entirely the truth if you counted the open mikes her sister dragged her to every few weeks as part of "the industry."

"Really?" His eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You seem really familiar. Maybe I've seen you at an audition or something?"

"Nope," she said, quelling the low-grade panic that rose in her throat anytime a conversation threatened to head down this road. "You don't look familiar to me at all."

"What, you're not a fan of Sharkicane 2?" he teased. At her look, he deadpanned, "Yes, I was Frightened Surfer Number One in Sharkicane 2, thank you very much."

Katniss laughed, and Peeta grinned widely. "Well, Hollywood's missing out," he said.

Her mouth snapped shut – was he trying to flirt? – but before she could respond, Finnick sauntered into the room, dragging his finger carelessly through a dish of Cool Whip. "Kitty! I didn't know you were working tonight," he said, licking the cream off his finger. His gaze fell upon Peeta. "And you're the new guy?"

"I am." The men shook hands.

"Actor?" Finnick questioned, looking him over.

"You bet. Model?"

"Indeed."

Katniss rolled her eyes.

Peeta and Finnick hit it off, as men who spend 3 hours a day at the gym tend to do, and left Katniss to her own devices in the kitchen as they prepped a few cheese plates on the patio. It was a wrap party for some mid-budget indie, but Katniss hadn't recognized any of the names on the guest list. She wasn't really into movies – or television, or pop music – which made her kind of perfect for this job.

She smiled blandly at the few people who acknowledged her by the dessert table, trying not to wrinkle her nose each time they double-dipped a strawberry in the Cool Whip. Maybe oral herpes was the surprise.

Most of her attention was drawn towards the bar, anyway, where Peeta was just barely managing to placate an increasingly long line of partygoers with his winning smile. Even from thirty feet away she could see that his ratio of gin to tonic was way off, and he kept sticking the red wine back in the ice bucket instead of the champagne. With a sigh, she took quick stock of her table – all the plates more or less full – and sped across the room to help.

"Jesus Christ, what are you, a Mormon?" she hissed through clenched teeth, expertly mixing a sidecar in a matter of seconds.

"Would this be less embarrassing if I said yes?" Peeta muttered back as he fought to insert the corker into a bottle of wine.

"Give me that." Katniss grabbed the bottle from him. "This is a screw top."

Peeta let his hands drop to his sides and watched helplessly as Katniss served a dry martini, French 75, Manhattan, and bourbon on the rocks in under three minutes. When the last girl in line, a little redhead who was clearly more than a few months shy of her 21st, asked nervously for a chardonnay, Katniss stepped back to let Peeta serve her.

He did so adequately, but as the redhead paced away quickly, glass in hand, his shoulders fell. "I should've carded her, huh," he said.

Something about the way he said it – almost sadly – made Katniss feel sympathetic instead of scornful. She patted him on the shoulder before realizing that she was touching a near stranger, and snatched her hand back abruptly. "Yeah. You should've."

Peeta looked at her wide-eyed. "How'd you get so good at this stuff?"

She shrugged. "Practice. How'd you get so freaking bad at it?"

"I don't know!" he exclaimed, bewildered. "I mostly only drink beer, I guess. But no one ever complained when I made them a screwdriver or something."

"They were clearly too charmed by your…well…you know." Katniss' smirk quickly became a blush as she realized exactly what she was implying.

Peeta grinned, resting his hands on his hips, and Katniss scowled. It was completely unfair how people like Peeta and Finnick could look so good in their stupid catering uniforms, with their shapeless white button-downs and silly pink bowties. Her outfit just made her look like she didn't have any tits. "By my what?" he countered.

Luckily Haymitch chose that particular moment to materialize before them, his eyes squinted in suspicion. "What are you doing over here, Sweetheart? Dessert's unattended."

"She was just saving my ass," Peeta jumped in quickly. "I mean, she's incredible. They were ordering, like, these crazy things I'd never heard of, and she made them like that." He snapped his fingers for effect.

Haymitch just looked at them for a moment, then jerked his thumb towards the dessert table. "You're needed, Sweetheart. And you," he said, looking pointedly at Peeta. "You might not want to tell your boss you can't do your job on the very first night you're doin' it."

A deep red flush crept up Peeta's neck. "Yessir." Katniss had to hide her smile behind her hand. She was pretty sure no one had called Haymitch "sir" in…well, ever.

Once Haymitch turned his back Katniss made to leave, but Peeta caught her hand, halting her. "Thanks," he said sincerely.

She tugged her hand away, but his touch left a light tingle on her skin. "No problem," she said. "But get your shit together."

Katniss sighed, letting her head tip back against the wall as she checked her cell phone for the thousandth time. It was 9:42 pm, and they still had two hours of party time to go, not to mention additional time for clean up and breaking down the bar and banquet tables.

Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed the makeshift dance floor before her. Finnick was right in the thick of it, letting some middle-aged woman pull his shirt up his chest as they danced so she could gawk at his abs. Typical.

He did it for tips; rare was the night that Finnick clocked out without a fistful of fives jammed in his back pocket. It wasn't like Katniss would ever do anything like that herself. Hell no. But it pissed her off that Haymitch let him get away with it, even though technically they were all supposed to agree as a team whether they'd take their chances with a tip jar or just accept their flat hourly wage for the shift.

"Finnick's good for business," was all Haymitch would say about it.

Katniss had seen Gale and Effie only sporadically through the evening, weaving amongst the guests with trays of bruschetta and bacon-wrapped scallops balanced on their arms. Effie's beatific smile confirmed Gale's suspicions that she'd smoked up at the start of her shift, while Gale's bloodshot, sleepy eyes confirmed Katniss' suspicion that he'd convinced Effie to share.

Peeta appeared to be doing little more than killing time behind the bar; they'd reached the point in the evening when the patrons had seized most of the liquor for themselves, eschewing frills like glasses or mixers. Katniss had been shocked the first time she'd seen it happen, but according to Haymitch, the client had to pay full price for anything taken from behind the bar, and that was only a good thing for their bottom line.

She watched with growing interest as Peeta picked up a bottle of champagne and, keeping his eyes on her, popped it. He nimbly filled two flutes to the brim and then, with a quick glance around, swung around from behind the bar and approached her.

Katniss accepted a flute with narrowed eyes, and they clinked glasses before each taking a careful sip. It wasn't good champagne. "You looked pretty sure of yourself with that bottle."

Peeta's neck flushed slightly again. "Well, I may have…exaggerated my inexperience a little."

She tilted her head, eyeing him suspiciously. "Is that so."

"It happens." Peeta shrugged. "So. Anyhow. Having fun yet?"

Katniss froze. He said it so casually – so innocently – that at first she thought it might be a coincidence.

But then his lips contorted and, after a valiant attempt at suppressing it, a delighted smile broke out across his face. He knew. He knew. "Goddammit," she muttered, downing the rest of her champagne in one gulp.

"It is you!" he nearly shouted, and she swatted her hand at him in a warning to keep it down. "Sorry. I knew it," he whispered, leaning over the table as if they were confidantes. "I was standing over there watching you and it just clicked."

"You were watching me?" she said, mostly sure that the odd feeling in her stomach was just the champagne settling in.

"Will you say it?" he pleaded, ignoring the question. "Please? That show was basically my childhood."

Katniss sighed heavily. People always asked her to say it. And she always gave in. "Get me another glass of champagne first."

She dragged him out onto the empty patio before she'd say it. She'd made the mistake of saying it in front of a crowd before, and they'd needled her into singing the Fuzzy Bunny song, the Pretty Kitty song, the Shoelace song…it had gone on for hours. And they hadn't even tipped her. Apparently the former star of a beloved, 20-year-old children's show still wasn't as impressive as Finnick Odair's six-pack.

Peeta watched in wide-eyed anticipation as she stood before him and cleared her throat. She couldn't meet his eyes as she said in a childish, sing-song voice, "Are we having fun yet?"

"Yes!" Peeta cheered, fist-pumping the air in joy. Unfortunately, he chose to fist-pump with the same fist that was holding his champagne, and the fizzy liquid splashed onto both of their white shirts, leaving an unappealing yellow stain in its wake. "No! I'm so sorry!"

Katniss shrugged it off; of all the possible outcomes from admitting she was Kat Everdeen of Funhouse fame, being drenched in champagne was one of the least offensive.

"Are we done here?" she demanded.

"Yes. Wait, no. Will you sing?" he asked, giving her puppy eyes. "You had the most beautiful voice," he added wistfully.

She looked at him oddly. Most of the people who recognized her remembered the goofy lyrics, or the ridiculous costumes she'd had to wear, or Buttercup the kitten who never seemed to age but definitely changed color every few weeks. No one had ever said anything about her voice.

"What song?" she said, surprised by the uncharacteristic softness in her own voice.

"Um…the Shoelace song," Peeta said. "You basically taught me to tie my shoelaces, you know."

She glanced down at his shoes and laughed. "Double knotted. You learned well, grasshopper." And then she sang it for him.

Peeta listened to her in respectful silence through the whole song; he didn't mumble the words along with her or snicker when she got to the endless "loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loop" part, like everyone else did. And when she finished, his smile was so bright it filled her with a warmth that rivaled that of the three glasses of champagne she'd already guzzled.

"Thank you so much," he said seriously. "That was amazing."

Katniss looked down at the pavement, kicking a stray pebble with her toe. "No it wasn't," she snorted. "But thank you for saying so."

"Wow." Peeta still looked startruck, to the point where she wondered if he'd even seen an episode of television in the two decades since Funhouse went off the air. "I really…I never thought I'd ever get to meet you."

Now she was starting to get a little worried. Had she had a stalker all this time, and never known it? He'd have to be a really bad stalker – she'd been living in the same apartment with her sister Prim for the past six years.

"Sorry – that probably sounds weird," Peeta said, catching on to her silence. "It's just, um. You were my very first crush."

Katniss looked up at him, startled by the sudden flip in her stomach. "Really?"

"Really. I remember telling my dad I was going to marry you. I was like, six." He laughed, and reached out to touch the end of her braid, hanging over her shoulder. "You had two braids back then, not one."

"Yeah, I did." Katniss smiled slightly. "Well, I guess –"

She was interrupted by the grating slide of the glass door. They both froze in place, guilty, as Haymitch peered out at them in the darkness. "What are you kids doing out here?" he demanded, sounding more as if he thought he should care, than as if he really did care.

"I spilled some champagne on myself, and Katniss thought maybe chlorine from the pool would help get out the stain," Peeta said easily.

Despite the utter stupidity of the answer, Haymitch seemed willing to buy it – or at least to give him credit for trying. "Well. Some redheaded kid threw up in the middle of the dance floor and it turns out she's the director's nineteen-year-old daughter, so we're packing up." He eyed Peeta warily. "I'm just going to assume she got hold of a bottle from one of her older friends out there."

Peeta swallowed, nodding. "I don't remember any redheads."

"Good. Let's keep it that way."

Haymitch disappeared back inside the house and Katniss moved to follow, but Peeta stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. "Um, Katniss."

"Yeah?"

"My six-year-old self would be pretty upset with me if I met the girl of his dreams and didn't at least ask for her phone number," he said. "And he's just a kid, so…I don't want to disappoint him."

She fought hard to stop the smile from taking over her face – and she almost managed it, at least until she made the mistake of meeting his gaze. She looked back at him for a long moment, then rolled her eyes.

"Well, lucky for him I'm a sucker for kids."

This was SUPER fun to write, so I really hope you enjoy it. Sorry that Katniss rolls her eyes every 5 minutes. ;) As always, would love to know your thoughts!