When I get back to the apartment, Tobias is lying in bed staring at the ceiling.
"Oh my God! When you didn't come to dinner, I thought you were dead," Tobias cries as he leaps of the bed and grabs me into his strong arms. "I thought you were dead," he repeats into my hair.
"I'm not. I'm right here," I whisper into his chest as I wrap my arms around him.
"It's like you're an expert in making me think you're dead," he laughs, but I can still hear the pain he was just going through.
"I can't help it. I'm sorry," I whisper. He begins to play with the bottom of my hair, but doesn't break his eye contact with me. "If it makes you feel better, I would never leave someone as handsome as you," I murmur.
"Mmmmm," he hums as he twists my hair around his fingers. I stare into his intense eyes and notice the flecks of black in them. Before, his eyes intimidated me, but now I see years of abuse and secrets lying beneath his deep blue irises.
"Or someone as funny as you," I continue.
"Oh?" he asks.
"Or someone as smart as you." I say with a smile.
"Is that so?" he whispers as he leans down to kiss me. I can feel his smile against my lips, but the kiss quickly becomes more serious as our lips part.
As we kiss, I absentmindedly play with the hem of his shirt around the small of his back. Parts of my fingers touch his muscular back, and I imagine tracing the roots of the Amity tree.
I pull apart from him, but our faces remain inches from one another. I can feel the muscles in his chest contracting and relaxing with each breath, our bodies are pressed up against one another. "I love you, Tobias," I whisper.
"I love you too, Tris." He smiles and leans back down. He scoops me into my arms, and I laugh, forgetting the events of the last two days in the warmth of his embrace. Or, maybe I don't forget. Maybe I just want to be distracted, maybe I just want to live in a different world, if only for a little bit.
He lies me down on the bed, and I get nervous for a moment, not knowing exactly what he wants to do. He flops over me and onto his side of the bed, and I know that he isn't going to push me any farther than I want to go.
I flip onto his chest, so that I'm straddling him, and look into his eyes. "Tobias?" I ask.
"Tris?"
"Why are you so freaking amazing?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows in mock amazement.
"I didn't know amazing until I met you," he says, smiling an adorable lopsided grin. I think about the fact that our bodies are only two layers apart. Two layers.
"You're so freaking great," I mumble as I lean down to kiss him. Our kiss consumes every inch of my body, making me want more, and quickly. When his hands touch the small of my back, I don't only want more; I need more.
He kisses the side of my neck, and his hands lightly trace along my back, leaving a trail of tingling skin. This time I don't just play with the hem of his shirt; I pull it over his head as he rises off the bed to meet my demands. I fling it to the side, glad to now only have one thin layer of fabric between us. I glance down at him muscular, toned chest, and smile.
"Like the view?" Tobias smirks.
"Yeah. A lot," I grin.
When I wake up Tobias is stroking little circles on my back. I snuggle closer to his chest and run my fingers across his chest.
"Morning."
"Morning, handsome," I reply. I haven't felt this carefree and happy since our beautiful night on the net. I realize that that night was only a couple of days ago, but it feels like years ago.
My stomach lets out loud, attention seeking growl. "I'm so hungry," I say, as if my stomach didn't just announce that, and remember that the last food I had was a dry sandwich with Jenn when we were working.
"We should fix that," Tobias says, but he says it as if he has other things on his mind.
"I think we should fix that, like, now." I don't want to leave this bed and Tobias's embrace, but I can feel the hollow in my stomach where food should be. Tobias doesn't respond, and I practically roll off of the bed and onto the carpeted ground. His arm, which was wrapped around my back, remains laid out across the bed as if he wants me to fit my body right back next to his. He gives me a pitiful face, nothing at all like the Tobias I know.
I raise my eyebrows at him, and he groans as he gets out of bed. I walk over to my dresser and throw on some clean clothes as Tobias does the same. I don't take the time to put on mascara and eyeliner, but do run a comb through my tangled hair.
With his slightly tousled hair and wrinkled shirt, Tobias looks incredibly disheveled as we walk out of the apartment, but his adorable grin remains on his face, and he still looks handsome. He always does. He takes his my hand into his, and we walk like that into the Pit, hand and hand. We smile at each other as we walk, and Tobias leans down to kiss my forehead. In this moment, my life is as perfect as it is ever going to get, I think. And that's pretty damn perfect.
We move through the line quickly, and I grab a big waffle, two pieces of bacon, and a big cup of orange juice. I appreciate good food so much more, coming from Abnegation.
The people we usually sit with aren't in the dining hall yet, so we sit at an empty table. I like it better this way, because Tobias and I can just enjoy each other without everyone else around.
"This is perfect," I state, voicing my earlier thoughts. He squeezes my hand, which rests on his knee beneath the table.
"It is," Tobias agrees.
We have a couple of minutes like this, eating, laughing, and occasionally kissing before Uriah and Zeke slide into the seats across from us.
"This is disgusting." Zeke says after a minute, motioning at us.
"What?" I ask.
"The gooey eyes, the star struck faces. It's truly awful. What are you, Dauntless, or puppies?" Zeke says, the disgust evident in his voice.
"For real. You need to announce you're love to the world, and end all this adorable love crap," Uriah agrees.
"And how does one go about announcing love to the world? Should I inform the press?"
"Why yes. That's exactly what you need to do. Inform the press, via a huge 'Four and Tris are Gettin' It On" party," Zeke says. At first I think he's kidding, but quickly realize he's being serious.
"Maybe a party isn't such a bad idea?" I look up at Tobias. He frowns, and then smiles a devilish grin.
"Yeah. Maybe it's not. You haven't, after all, experienced a Dauntless party in all it's glory."
A/N Reviews are wonderful!