Fractured | Tobias Eaton ✓

46 | My Darling

I get away from Christina and Tris when I can–following after Tobias. I've spent so much time around him the last week, it's weird being away from him. He doesn't look back but I know he's aware I'm following him to his apartment.

Then I realize what I'm doing is silly. I'm no longer an initiate. We don't have to hide what we are anymore. Then I'm stumped again, because... what are we?

"You're very bad at sneaking up on people," Tobias says as he unlocks his door, I snort.

"I wasn't trying to sneak up on you," He looks up and smiles, nodding his head toward the inside of his apartment. I follow him inside and shut the door behind me. Tobias sits on his bed, untying his boots and I follow suit. It feels nice to have my shoes off, I flop backward and sigh loudly. "I hate those stupid shoes," I admit.

Tobias leans back with me and I look at him with a smile. "45 seconds." Is all he says. I can hear the pride in his voice.

That little part of me that thrives on praise swells. My ego begins a slow rise as I turn away from him–smiling even wider than before.

I feel his hand reach for mine and I connect our palms again. It's soothing for me now that we've been holding hands more. "What was your time?"

"I think... two minutes?" He shrugs, "I can't remember, it was two years ago."

"Hmm, I'm sure Eric remembers. He looked like he wanted to bite my head off for doing so well." I roll into my side, holding a hand under my head so I can keep looking at Tobias.

He squeezes my hand, "Shh, don't bring his name into my place." The way he says it makes me giggle. Tobias whining is definitely not something I ever expected to hear.

"You're so much whinier than you let on." I mumble and he rolls his eyes, "Oo, rude too. Well–I knew that already."

Tobias pushes me over so I'm on my back again. "Respect your elders."

I gasp, "Woah, if you think there's such a large gap in age then let me down easy, Tobi."

"Tobi?" I can't help but snort loudly when he asks that.

"I'm getting lazy with names, I've been calling Christina; Chris." I explain, "Tobi is cute too, it reminds me of Tamino's nickname. Tammi." I exaggerate my accent when I say his name. Tobias falls silent and I look over at him, his eyes are on me–but he looks a bit dazed. "You okay?"

"Do you know any Arabic?" He suddenly asks.

I shrug, "Just a little. I'm terrible with languages, I understand more than I speak." This reminds me of the tattoo on my forearm. "Have you seen my tattoo?" Sober, that is. I remember when he was drunk by the chasm–he was acting so funny.

Tobias' face crinkles, "I vaguely recall seeing it before?"

"Yea? Surprised you remember at all," I say, I unzip my jacket and push my heels into his bed–arching my back upward as I fight to get out of the jacket. The sleeves are the easiest part but when I roll over to pull it off the rest of the way, I tumble to the floor. "Oh, what the fuck?"

The only sound I hear is Tobias' loud laughter, I lay on the floor just listening to him laugh at my shame. "You're an ass," I try to say over the sound of him chortling. I can only imagine how he's rolling onto his side–clutching his stomach due to the pain.

His head appears over the edge of the bed–his face is completely red and when he sees my irritated expression, I swear it sends him over the edge. The sound of his pure enjoyment makes it really hard to fight my growing smile.