Stay with me, always.

Chapter 54. Counting Our Lucky Stars

I didn't ask to be woken up to Petunia dry heaving on top of me.

But I didn't get much say in the matter.

I nervously watched from under the covers as she attempted to hack something up, but came up short, giving me what looked like a glare before hopping off the bed.

Was this what Soarynn had missed so dearly? I know I hadn't.

While the cat and I had formed something short of a friendship while Soarynn was gone, it was clear that I was very low on Petunia's totem pole of important people in her life.

And I was okay with that.

The sun was peeking through the curtains, shining onto Soarynn's sleeping face. I didn't want to wake her up, yesterday had been a lot for her, returning home, the party, my fingers, Lucky.

She'd be lucky if she made it through today. If we made it through today.

Tonight we would go on Lucky's show, and tell all of Panem about " The Tour of Our Lives " and how we were madly in love with each other and couldn't wait to get married.

No pressure.

And I was in love with her, but having to turn it on for the cameras? Well, it just seemed a little...manufactured.

Either way, we were doing the show, there was no getting out of that.

Eudora had planned this interview months ago, and so had Lucky. Then Eudora pushed it back months ago, and so had Lucky. To put it simply, this interview was highly anticipated and I don't know who was more ready to get it over with, me, Soarynn, Eudora, or Lucky.

I hadn't been to my room yet, and I figured now was as good a time as any to check in on things. To check in on my things.

So I quietly slipped out of bed, it had to be at least noon, everyone in the household was most likely asleep still. I crept into the hallway, pleased to see that no drunk partygoers had stumbled their way up the stairs and passed out behind the curtains.

It's happened before.

I opened my bedroom doors and found that nothing had changed, there were two trunks sitting at the foot of my bed, most likely all the clothes I hadn't worn on Tour, the rest were probably in some museum already.

I walked into my bathroom, noticing how inviting the shower looked even though I just had one last night. A quick shower wouldn't hurt.

And besides, while I normally wouldn't complain about morning wood, last night left me feeling...unsatisfied. And I wasn't gonna wake Soarynn up just because I had gotten it up.

I was better than that.

So I rubbed one out in the shower, Soarynn wouldn't know and soon enough we'd be married so we could tackle these problems together .

First, we had to tackle sex.

That's all I thought about in the shower, not even the sexual aspect, but the logistics. Did she want it to be super special? Because I could make it super special if she wanted that.

Did she want that?

Or did she want it to be no big deal? Because I could also do that. Women were so complicated.

____________________________________

I walked out of my bedroom and was greeted by Eudora shoving some drunk partygoer toward the stairs, I guess one did make it up the stairs last night.

"Oh, Coriolanus, could you help me dear?" She called from the stairs, I nodded, if I let her handle this she'd boot this man down the stairs and then we'd have a lawsuit on our hands.