WARNING: The aim of this story is in no way to ridicule or make fun of people with Tourette's or the condition in general. However this story is never going to be classed as politically correct and I have to admit to having twisted the symptoms of Tourette's to fit my story. Saying that, this story is based on a real guy that I watched a documentary about, so there is at least some amount of reality to it. Oh and there will be gratuitous use of strong language from the off-set (and a lot of sex later on) so if that is likely to offend you please don't read on...

Words

September

PPOV

The kitchen door swings open and Rory breezes in with his usual cheery greeting of, "Mornin' boss." He's in another good mood today. I don't know how he manages it, as from the stories he tells, he spends nearly every night down the pub or clubbing with his mates. I honestly didn't expect him to last more than a week of early mornings when he first started here. We only gave him the kitchen job because his mum, Hazelle, has been working at the café since it opened. But give Rory his due, he seems to cope with the late nights/early mornings. He's always on time and almost never hungover. I find it exhausting just thinking about it, perhaps I'm getting old.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fucking slut!" Is the reward Rory gets for his morning cheerfulness.

Rory simply takes my response in his stride, the insult not denting his smile. He knows it's not directed at him. It took him a while to get used to my outbursts and tics when he first started here though, but then it does most people. There are some who will never be fully comfortable around me, no matter how long or how well they know me.

I put down the knife I'm holding, shake my hands out and roll my shoulders, bouncing on my toes in an attempt to loosen the building pressure in my body and relax. It's not working though, not today. I had a terrible sleep last night, and the one before that as well, and my 'unfortunate afflictions' as my mother calls them are always much worse when I'm tired or stressed.

That's when the verbal outbursts - the symptom of my Tourette's that my mother has always found most abhorrent - are at their worst. Sometimes my Tourette's merely manifests itself as a mildly annoying throat bob, like I'm trying to swallow something stuck in my throat, at other times a jerk of my chin and a facial tic that makes me blink. But even those 'mild' symptoms can become so exaggerated that they interfere with what I'm trying to do. My lack of sleep over the last couple of nights is clearly aggravating my physical tics today. No matter how much I hate having to admit defeat to my condition, I know I'm going to have to get Rory to finish chopping the vegetables before I lose a finger.

"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. Delly said can you pop out and have a word with her?" Rory says, thumbing over his shoulder at the door that leads to the café's front of house.

"Yeah sure…FISH…can you finish chopping these," I ask, gesturing at the board of vegetables, relieved to have an excuse to hand them over.

Delly looks up from where she's sat at one of the tables and smiles widely at me. She's got a bit of what looks like chocolate muffin clinging to the lipstick on her top lip, guilty evidence of a morning snack. She keeps moaning about the amount of weight she's put on during her pregnancy but - and I wouldn't be stupid enough to actually voice this - not all of it is due to the baby.

"Fucking slut!" The jerk of my chin throws my head back, the outburst more explosive than the one moments ago in the kitchen.

Like Rory, Delly isn't the slightest bit fazed. She's known me since we were kids, way before my Tourette's started. Our families move in the same circle, go to the same dinner parties and play golf at the same country club. Delly and I went to the same exclusive school together, briefly and unsuccessfully dated when we were about 14 and, after she graduated with first class honours and had become disillusioned with her marketing job, it was Delly who had the idea to open this place together. In fact without her there would be no Café Cornucopia, it was her first baby.

Delly gives me a concerned look. "Didn't you sleep well again last night?"

I shake my head, but the stupid thing nods upwards with a jerk at the same time, confusing the action.

"You did remember that Hazelle is having her operation tomorrow?" Delly continues.

"I've got some…" I blink and nod interrupting my flow, "biscuits for Rory to take home for her tonight."

"Oh well done, that's a lovely idea," she says, sounding happily surprised. "Hazelle's doctor is expecting her to be off work for about two months so whilst she's away her niece is going to cover her hours."

I nod. I already know all this. Delly seems to live under the impression that I get caught up in my work and forget everything else. It's true I have been known to lose track of time and what day of the week it is, but I'm nowhere near as bad as Delly thinks I am.

"Katniss is just hanging up her bag and coat in the storeroom. Oh here she is," Delly says. I turn as the door to my right opens. I was expecting Rory's cousin to be close to his age, a girl in her late teens, but Katniss is clearly older than him, mid-twenties at a guess, and with a figure that is most definitely a woman's and not a girl's.

I try to focus on her face and not the evident curves of her body. Her face - tanned by the months that Hazelle told me her niece has been overseas - is framed by messy tendrils of dark hair that have spilled out of a rough ponytail. Her hair looks as if it hasn't seen a brush once in the entire time she's been travelling and is one step away from becoming dreads. Her eyes are rimmed and smudged with dark eyeliner, and there's a small ring through her left nostril. Yet somehow, despite her more than casual dress and unruly hair, she doesn't look at all scruffy. There's something about her assured, confident demeanour that states she wouldn't care if I, or anyone else, thought she was anyway.

As Katniss walks towards us her loose-fitting, wide necked top slides off one shoulder to expose an expanse of smooth, sun-kissed skin. The vest top, that she's wearing beneath her baggy top, is low cut enough to offer a glimpse of cleavage and my eyes linger there a second too long until I drag my gaze away to the floor. She's wearing an impressively kick-ass pair of biker boots which end mid-calf where a pair of faded black leggings begin, clinging to her toned legs like a second skin. They're so worn that in places they are practically see-through and there's a tiny hole just on the inside of her right thigh, that for a second I become fixated on, before once again I force my gaze to move on. It lands on the tiny, grey, strip of stretch jersey material masquerading as a skirt that is wrapped about her hips. Although she's facing me I know it must hug her ass in the same way. I blink hard as my face tics and I fail in my attempt to stop myself picturing what she is going to look like when she turns around.

My chin jerks up again and I press my fingers to my lips desperate for the words not to come out in front of her.

I've lived with Tourette's for over a decade now, yet I still struggle on a daily basis not to let it define me. To be me and not just 'that guy with Tourette's', which I know is how people invariably refer to me. I think I've succeeded to a certain degree. I have good friends, Delly - who is more like family than my real family, and a successful business doing something I love. It's more than a lot of other people can claim. Whilst it's true I keep myself to myself a lot of the time, I don't intentionally hide away from the world. Perhaps my skin could do with being a little thicker, but over the years I've come to terms with the fact that people will either accept me for who I am or they won't, and that is entirely up to them. I'm not going to change for them. I can't.

Yet it's suddenly, desperately important to me not to embarrass myself in front of Katniss, or worse embarrass her. I don't want to have to witness her reaction to one of my tics and see the inevitable sign of pity, embarrassment or amusement in her eyes.

It's a pointless fight though. If she's going to be working here for two months I'm sure it won't take long for her to witness my Tourette's in all its freakish glory. The way I've been behaving this morning she'll have probably heard the full repertoire by the end of the day. It would just be nice to get through the introductions first.

There are certain phrases, words that tend to explode from me more often than others. Not all of them are offensive, some are completely random. Fish has for some reason always been a recurring favourite, but sometimes it's whatever has been bothering me or if I've had something on my mind for a while. But offensive or not all, of them can be annoying and embarrassing.

"Slut! Fucking slut!" Well that didn't take long, she knows now.

Katniss doesn't act at all shocked though, just raises one eyebrow, watching me with dark kohl rimmed eyes as if waiting for me to say something else. I search her eyes as she watches me. They aren't full of the expected disgust, embarrassment nor thankfully pity. I'm not even sure that it's amusement glowing in her interested grey eyes. I don't know what she's thinking right now, but I wish more than ever that I could have avoided exposing my Tourette's to her. That for just one moment – right here, right now, in front of her - I could have been someone else. Someone who could make an impression on her for the right reason.

"Katniss this is Peeta. Peeta, Katniss," Delly introduces us, a bit pointlessly as I think we already know.

Katniss sticks out her hand and her top slips a little further off her shoulder so that I can clearly see the round of her breast beneath her tight vest top. "Nice to meet you Peeta," she says.

I put out my hand to take hers and unintentionally, loudly, blurt the very worst of my stock phrases, "COME ON YOUR TITS!"

My heart sinks as my colour rises with the sure knowledge that there is no chance now that this beautiful, self-assured woman will ever see me as anything other than 'that guy with tourette's'.

KPOV

"Slut! Fucking Slut!"

I'm not shocked by Peeta's words. Hazelle warned me all about Peeta's Tourette's, so I was expecting it. But she did leave something out, something just as bloody important if you ask me. It would have been nice if she'd given me a heads up about how bloody hot he is. If I'd known I was going to come face to face with some sort of gorgeous, golden angel, I might not have been rendered speechless unable to respond in any way other than to raise my eyebrows in an attempt not to look an overawed moron, shit I might have even brushed my hair.

If there is a god, which honestly I've always been a bit dubious about, then he has got one sick, twisted sense of humour, creating this beautiful creature and then giving him a filthy mouth that he can't control. A beautiful, filthy mouthed angel. Damn, that's a thought I know I'm going to be revisiting when I'm in bed alone tonight.

Peeta's cheeks flush a gentle shade of pink against his otherwise pale complexion. Strawberry ice cream and cream. I wonder if he tastes as good. My eyes fix on his offending lips. They've just the right fullness for a man. I can imagine taking the plump bottom lip of that dirty mouth between my teeth and….

Shit! Delly is still talking to me and I haven't heard a word, having let my wayward fantasies - of one of my new bosses, for Christ's sake! – overtake me. I need to get a grip and behave, this is Aunt Haze's job I could screw up here. I listen as Delly makes introductions, even though it's pretty obvious that I'm Katniss the new girl and he's Peeta the co-owner. The beautiful, hot, built, co-owner. I quickly stick my hand out to shake his before my thoughts can stray again.

"Come on your tits!" Peeta splurts, as his chin juts upwards.

He looks utterly mortified. The delicate strawberry blush of his cheeks instantly darkens. He's gone this colour, I'm not quite sure what you'd call it, He's not red exactly but really really fucking pink. If it was a paint colour it would be something like 'humiliated flamingo' or 'kill me know salmon'. The involuntary jerking nod that accompanies his look of pure horror and the way his eyes screw shut as he blinks looks uncomfortable to the point of painful, it makes me want to save him from his discomfort. I know Aunt Haze instructed me to just ignore the things Peeta says but my natural tendency to lapse into teasing banter kicks in, partly to alleviate the situation and partly because I just can't help it.

"You should probably buy me dinner first," I smile. Despite my desire only seconds ago to lessen his unease there is something cruelly adorable about the resulting panicked confusion on his face.

"Only kidding," I wink. He looks mildly more relaxed but I can't resist, it's just far too easy. "A drink will do."

.

.

PPOV

If there were any justice in the world at all, it would be easy for me to keep out of Katniss's way. After all how hard should it be? The reason why this place works so well is because I stay in the kitchen and Delly deals with the public.

People who know me well, which includes our more regular customers, have become used to my 'condition'. They know I don't actually mean any real insult from the words I say. "He can't help it." Jeez, how many times have I heard that excuse? I hate it and its implication that I'm some sort of hapless imbecile unable to control himself. But strangers are not expecting to encounter my Tourette's when ordering their coffee, so it's better for everyone that I leave the customer facing part of the business to Delly. Besides, the kitchen is where I want to be anyway.

I suppose it was unrealistic of me to hope that in a place this small, within a small team of staff, that I could avoid Katniss. Yet I still don't understand how the very opposite happens instead, that no matter how much I try to hide out in the kitchen, somehow our paths seem destined to cross with increasing frequency on a daily basis.

Funny thing is Katniss doesn't seem to need time to get used to my Tourette's. She just takes it in her stride, like me cursing at her is nothing. She never looks shocked or insulted, her lips always turn up like she's amused or something but never in a malicious way, as has happened with others in the past.

"Two soups of the day, with tomato bread and two chicken baguettes," the object of my thoughts orders, breezing into the kitchen.

'Shit-sticks!" I spit to my horror. Why is there never any warning with her? Usually I can feel it building inside me, like the pressure mounts to the point where my fingers pressed to my lips are futile and then it bursts out, but with her it's always instant. I now it's because she makes me nervous. Her demeanour, the ways she holds herself, it's intimidatingly confident. I don't think I've ever met anyone who is so sure of themselves. She epitomizes everything I am not.

And I never fail to curse at her. I haven't managed one single interaction without expelling some expletive at her. Katniss always just lifts that eyebrow at me, like she did the first time we met.

As Katniss reaches across the counter to pin her written order to the waiting list, I start ticing. My facial tic, that makes me blink, is more severe with her than anyone else, and my chin juts viciously into the air practically every time I have to I interact with her. Oh god, please, I silently plead. Can't you just give me a break when it comes to Katniss Everdeen.

She breezes back out of the kitchen, as if nothing happened, which for some reason makes the whole thing worse. Perhaps masochistically, I wish she wasn't quite so wholly unaffected by me.

As she leaves the room I can't help dropping my eyes to that tight, ridiculously tiny skirt she's wearing again today. Her ass looks incredible, so much better than I first imagined. My mind instantly strays to fantasizing about what it would look like when it's not covered up by those threadbare leggings and ludicrously small skirt. Ugh! That thought is definitely not going to help me the next time I have to speak to her. Please god, don't let me blurt out anything about her ass.

So what do you think? Worth continuing with? Let me know if you would like to read any more.

Thank you for reading

D