FOUR
I leave Tris's place and send messages to Eric, Christina, Zeke and Lynn, demanding that they are all at my place in the next ten minutes. I round the corner to my apartment and see Zeke and Christina both standing there.
"What the hell is so important that I have to get out of bed to be at your place at this time of night, Four?" Christina demands.
I give her my scary glare and she just pushes past me and walks into my apartment. I must be losing my touch. Wasn't it just a few months ago that she would cringe if I looked at her like that?
"Nice shoes," I point out to Zeke as he follows me into the apartment.
"They're not mine," he says with a roll of his eye.
"Which child did you steal them off?" I ask.
"Don't let Shauna hear you say that," he says, as he sits on my new couch and puts his rabbit slippers onto my coffee table, big floppy ears and all.
"They are the cutest slippers, Zeke," Christina comments.
I can't help but shake my head, trying to clear it from the ridiculousness that is Zeke's footwear. I'm broken from my thoughts as Eric and Lynn come bursting through my door.
"What's wrong?" Lynn exclaims, worry etched all over her face.
Now I am feeling a little overdramatic for dragging them all here so late at night. Which I am sure either Eric or Lynn will point out to me at some point.
"Tris agreed to go on a date with me," I say.
"Dramatic much?" both Eric and Lynn mumble.
"It's tomorrow night and I have no clue what to do or where to take her."
"You got me out of bed for this?" Zeke asks. "Couldn't we do this in the morning?"
"We are here now, so let's just help him out," Eric says.
"Okay, so what did you have in mind?" Lynn asks.
I just shrug.
"Seriously?" Zeke asks.
"Why do you think you are here?" I ask, incredulously.
"Okay, let's think about this. What would Tris want?" Lynn says.
"No!" Eric states. "This needs to be something that is important to Four, something that has meaning to him."
"Shouldn't it be about Tris?" Christina asks.
"It is going to be all about Tris," Eric says. "But it needs to come from Four. If it doesn't mean anything to him, if it doesn't have a story behind it...well, I hate to say it, but he is going to fuck it up."
"Hey!" I call out.
"He is making a lot of sense, Four," Zeke says. "You aren't very good at this dating thing."
"It was one date," I defend.
"You should have said, one and only date," Lynn chimes in.
"You've only ever been on one date?" Christina asks, shocked.
"I don't know if you can even call it that," Zeke says. "Five minutes doesn't really count."
"How could you screw a date up in five minutes?" Christina almost wails.
"Can we please get back to this date?" I say.
"When did you first know that you liked her?" Eric asks.
"As soon as I pulled her out of the net," I admit.
"You knew that soon?" Zeke says, with his mouth hanging open.
"Of course he did," Eric says with a roll of the eye. "Two years in this place and he hasn't ever even blinked at a girl, and she jumps first and you went all gooey."
"Gooey? Where do you come up with these words?" Lynn comments.
"I know," Christina says. "Have the date at the net. We can decorate it and you can have a picnic basket."
"Those pretty light things," Zeke chimes in. "Put them around the net."
"You can both jump off the roof," Christina says.
I start shaking my head. There is no way I am jumping off that roof again.
"What's wrong?" Eric asks.
"No jumping," I say.
"You have to, it will be so awesome!" Christina says.
I just continue to shake my head. I am going to be nervous enough without jumping off that friggin' roof again.
Eric starts to laugh. "Are you telling me, the guy who only has four fears and one of them is heights? You have to be yanking my chain right now."
"You only have four fears?" Christina asks.
"Where else would he get such a name?" Zeke asks Christina.
"I don't know, when I asked he just got all up in my face and acted like a jerk," Christina responds.
"I'll take Tris on the trains and we can both jump off," Lynn says. "I've been dying to do that again."
"Yes, that is a great idea. Tell her you want to have the chance to be first jumper this time and you can jump first, then you can leave and then Four can pull her out of the net and the date can start," Christina says. "Who's working tomorrow afternoon?"
Everyone but Zeke puts his hand up. "Looks like you are going to be helping me decorate the net room," Christina tells Zeke.
"Great," he mumbles.
"Yes, with his manly style of dress sense it should look great," Lynn says with a giant laugh.
"They're Shauna's. I was in a hurry and just put the first shoes on I could find," Zeke defends.
"Where did she get them?" Christina asks. "I want a pair, they are so cute."
"Okay, so Christina and Zeke will decorate, Lynn is taking Tris on the train and I will organise the picnic basket," Eric says.
"What am I supposed to do?" I ask.
"Just turn up. It's the safest thing," Eric says.
"But―" I say.
"No!" Zeke says. "Eric is right. You just turn up and wear a nice shirt."
"A nice shirt? What's wrong with my shirts?"
"You only ever wear T-shirts. Go and buy one with buttons down the front," Christina says.
"Fine. Shouldn't I get the food, make the food or something?" I ask.
"I will get the chefs at Top Deck to do something for you, Four," Eric says.
"Oh yeah, that food is incredible," Zeke says enthusiastically.
"When have you been there?" Eric asks.
"Last week," Zeke replies.
"So, you ended up going?"
"Yep, as soon as I got some clothes on Shauna dragged my ass out of the apartment. Said something about that if we stuffed up the booking we would never be allowed back there."
"That is true," Christina said, sounding very disappointed.
"Had a bad experience?" I asked.
"Yeah, seems the chef there doesn't like it if you are late. I mean we were only a few minutes late, for goodness sake. Wouldn't serve us and charged us a booking fee for not turning up."
"That was you?" Eric asked.
"How did you know?"
"It seems you caused a scene. I got dragged out of a meeting to go up and try and calm the chef down. You had left by the time I got there."
"And he is going to make up a picnic basket for you?" I asked.
"Of course he is. It's a perk of being a leader, people will do all sorts of things for you. It also might help that I gave him my direct number so that he can call me if he has any other problems with crazy patrons."
"I wasn't crazy," Christina defends.
"You were if you were late for your booking at Top Deck," Zeke said.
"I wasn't that late," Christina mumbled.
"You were forty-five minutes late," Eric states.
"That is completely reasonable to normal people," Christina says.
"Yeah, glad I'm not normal then," Lynn says under her breath and I see Eric nodding.
"Alright, that seems about all we need. Let's get out of here," Eric says.
"Thanks," I say.
"Just don't fuck it up," Eric says as he is walking out.
"No pressure," I say.
"Welcome to the team, Four," Max says, shaking my hand. I just agreed to join leadership.
"Come on," Eric says as we start to walk out of Max's office.
"Where are we going?"
"Shopping," Eric replies.
"Shopping?"
"Shopping. Christina is meeting us in the Pit. She wants to make sure you look good for tonight."
I can't help but groan. If I thought shopping with Eric was bad enough, the thought of Christina is a hell of a lot worse.
"It won't be that bad Four," Eric says. "You try on a shirt, you buy it. All is well in the world and Christina will be happy and quiet."
"You really think she is going to stop at one shirt?"
"I have no idea. Never been on a shopping trip before."
"I haven't either, but from what Zeke tells me, you never go shopping with a woman. He advises that you either let them buy the clothes or you don't tell them you are going."
"I suppose we are going to find out."
Zeke was right. Not only did Christina try to make me buy a whole new wardrobe, she also had Eric trying on clothes. Which would have been totally amusing except I was going through the same hell as him. We both ended up with a few more bits of clothing than we would have ever thought to buy ourselves, not to mention the shoes she made me buy. Bloody uncomfortable things if you ask me. My combat boots are fine to wear as far as I'm concerned.
I then had to leave my points card with Christina while she bought the things she needed for my date tonight. At least this time when she went shopping it was with Zeke. I gave her strict instructions not to let Zeke or Uriah near my points card or I threatened to put moths throughout her apartment.
I then went up to Top Deck with Eric to organise what food I wanted for tonight. The chef was very accommodating and even offered us wait staff for the night. I quickly declined as I really didn't want anyone to witness my date with Tris, just in case I made a complete fool of myself. I also didn't want strangers listening in on our conversations. We are both private people and I would like to keep it that way.
Eric and I then made our way back up to the leadership offices, where Max was waiting to show me my new office and explained that my new apartment should be ready by the end of the week. I was about to refuse the new apartment when I found out that I would be moving in next door to Tris. Which at least made me feel that if I did stuff the date up tonight she would eventually have to see me and hopefully give me another chance at trying the date thing.
I also found out that I will be shadowing Eric for the next six months, which means spending a lot of time with Tris. Max thinks that while I could jump straight into the job he would rather have me with Eric and Tris. Or as he said it, "his dream team." He seems to think that we will be extremely intimidating and will keep the other factions off his back. He also hinted that he would like Tris to take the next leadership position that comes up but that he is wary of breaking up her and Eric as a team as Tris seems to be able to keep Eric somewhat under control when out of the faction.