The Odair boy is all her father and Gloss gush about, citing his intelligence, good looks and poise as something enviable of all men, particularly for a man who just lost his father. However, when she lays eyes on him above her champagne flute at the annual Reitz & Odair company Christmas party, none of her father's praises seem fitting for the fourteen-year-old that stands too tall and too straight at his mother's side.

She's sure it's all true: that Finnick Odair is as smart as they say - he is certainly as good looking - but it doesn't come across as readily. He smiles when he should, flirts to make the ghastly wives of the dispersed elite giggle like they are his peers. If she weren't blatantly aware of the metaphorical mask wrapped tightly around his face, she'd wrinkle her nose in disgust for his lack of finesse; however, having just sworn himself into this nauseating circus he had to be like every good performer and play the part with uncanny precision.

And yet people would trample over each other to be in their shoes.

Downing the rest of the champagne, she reaches for another one off Castor's silver tray. In the split second that it takes for her to turn back to watching the crowd, Finnick looms over her bringing his shadow to encompass her.

"Long legs carry you fast." She breathes out, collecting herself before her eyes gaze up to meet his. Expecting a verbal response, he continues to surprise her by only offering a shrug.

(nothing comes crumbling down).

The silence that lays between them baffles her. With his mask still intact, where did all those words frivolous words go? How could he have forgotten them so soon? But as she scrutinizes, trying to figure him out, she finds something puzzling in his features - like there are a million gears turning in his head while simultaneously having none turn at all. Is he testing her; that's what Gods do in disguise, no?

"What are you thinking about?" Finnick asks, almost making her giggle.

"I can't decide who you remind me of more… Adonis or Narcissus."

Something breaks along his features, a muscle twitch if-you-will, the cellophane peels off all at once; falling to their feet in neat waves. She sees the poise as Finnick walks (almost floats) back to the ballroom floor.

They don't meet again until his mother's funeral two years later.

If possible, he stands impossibly tall as he shakes hands and accepts condolences from the people who whisper their pity of the Odair's between themselves. His elder sister weeps furiously as his younger brother tugs on the elbow of Finnick's blazer asking to go play.

Finnick doesn't shrug like she expects him to, but bends down and scoops up Sebastian and holds his tight at his side. When he catches her staring, his smile is small yet, subtly inviting, it draws her to him like the red string of fate. She makes her way through the crowd slowly, weaving around bodies until she is standing behind him. Sebastian waves and she waves back.

"Thank you, for being here. Dad would've appreciated it." Finnick doesn't turn to speak.

"Y-yeah, of course." That's the first and last time he makes her stumble.

She doesn't shift from her position as the crowd disperses and the house empties, even agrees to help him clean up at the end of the day - which makes her father extraordinarily proud.

When eight o'clock rolls around, his sister Penelope offers to put Sebastian to bed, leaving her and Finnick with steaming cups of tea in their hands at the kitchen table.

"I've thought about what you said, and I think you're incorrect in your assumption," Finnick mentions, his nose deep in a kitchen cabinet filled with medication. Plucking a bottle off the top shelf that's hidden behind a larger one, he twists the cap off and taps two pills into his open palm before swallowing them dry.

"In regards to what exactly?" It's been two years; though they haven't said much, his reference could be to anything.

"That I am some sort of god." He takes his seat across from her, leaning back against the chair with more confidence than she's seen in some chief executives. "Because I'm not."

"Really?" Her lips pull back in a smirk as she rests her chin on her folded fingers. "And why is that?"

"The gods aren't tragic," he claims after a pause. "They create tragedies by enforcing their absurd sense of justice for ludicris crimes. I didn't create my tragedies, let alone others', I'm just a victim that now has to carry the weight of them on my shoulders."

"That makes you a Titan then, no?" She lifts herself from her place, swaying briskly to the other side of the table where she makes herself at home in Finnick's open lap. If he minds, he doesn't say. His glistening gaze finds her alluring one while the hands that rest in his lap wind around her waist, drawing her flush against his chest (still in his shirt and tie and she in a dress with a modest skirt).

Their mouths find one anothers', the kiss is chaste initially before bold curiosity gets the better of him. His teeth bite down on her glossy, lower lip. Her whimpers carry along the walls. He wants sounds back between the walls that aren't desperate sobs of despair.

Pulling her tighter against him, Finnick caresses her thighs as his hands follow the lines of her thin frame, and flirting with the seam of her skirt. Another moan rumbles between them and a fierce thrust of her hips into his hand has him smirking.

"Do you mind if I call you Cashmere?" his voice is like a firecracker.

She shakes her head as she dips back in to capture his lips, but he breaks away yet again.

"Cashmere…"

"If you're going to tell me you've never had sex before just shut your mouth and I'll show you what to do," she growls impatiently.

"That's part of it… but, do you think I'll be enough to hold up my world?"

Dropping her head on his shoulder, she presses her lips to his neck. "We'll just have to see, Atlas. Personally, with those sexy, broad shoulders, I think you'll be just fine."

What she didn't know was how wrong she was, how he snaps under the weight of his responsibilities like a branch in a hail storm. And that impossibly tall boy she once knew, now with a puckered ring around his neck, is no God, no Titan but the hunched, tragic hero he so badly wanted to be.