Call Me Six

35: 'Safety' -Tobias

TOBIAS-

We left the party a only a few hours after arriving - deciding that it was a waste of time. So now we were back in Tris' room, tenderly nursing half a bottle of wine between us.

She was sat opposite me, cross-legged on the bed. Her hair kept falling into her eyes; each time she'd brush it back; each time it'd fall again. I watched in amusement as her head dipped and jerked quickly upwards as she continued to laugh childishly.

This is the Tris I met in Chicago.

This is the Tris that made me fall in love.

She pouted as I failed to suppress a grin. "Stop laughing at me," she mumbled, attempting to shove me back by planting her hands firmly into my chest.

I flopped back, my bent legs sprawling awkwardly and accidentally knocking her off the bed.

"Hey!" she protested, clambering back up onto the pink duvet and lightly punching my chest once more.

"Serves you right," I said, catching her thin wrists and halting her petty protests. "Now..." I smirked and pulled her down closer to the point where she was perched just below my abdomen and her face mere millimeters from my own. "I think you need to apologize..."

"Do I?" A grin adorned her face as her lip rolled between her teeth. "And how do you suppose I do that?"

I could almost smell the sweet scent of alcohol as our breaths mixed. It's like my chest was preparing to explode... My lungs not able to function at a steady pace.

"A formal, written, apology would be good."

"Writing's not really my thing."

"How about this then?"

I pulled her closer and in a moment of complete and utter lust, she gave in. My lips found hers and for a moment, we just stayed there - absorbing the familiar warmth.

Slowly, we started to move, melting into each other. My hands released her tense wrists and traveled down to rest on her hips. I could feel the slight tugging sensation, as her thin fingers wove themselves into my short hair.

It was a moment of bliss. A familiar feeling that reminds you of safety.

Her legs uncurled and rested either side of me as she paused briefly to throw her hair back once more.

"I love you, Tris," the words just tumbled out, catching the air between breaths.

"I-" she gasped, as my thumb brushed a bare patch of skin as her navy knitted jumper inched upwards. "I know."

"Do you? Do you really? Because I don't quite know how else to tell you."

"I do, Tobias. I do," she said as my lips found their way down her neck and onto the soft skin of her collar bone.

"I love you," I repeated, because the words just felt so right.

The small patches of warmth from where her hands touched my skin felt like fire. She was tugging at my shirt - inching it up as her hands slid under it to the point were it was merely gathered in bunches at my neck. In the fragments of time where we stopped for breath, it came off - getting chucked to the floor.

My hands traveled down, hooking under the elasticated waistband of her shorts and gently tugging them down until she wriggled out and kicked them off.

Her body shook, I could feel the goosebumps crawling up her bare legs.

"You cold?"

"No," she said; sat upright; and slowly, with ever so much grace, removed the baggy jumper from her small, pale frame.

She came back down, her hands cradling my neck and bare chest as her lips found my own once more.

She was so cold, her soft flesh pressed flush against my own.

It was growing too much - the nagging throb in my trousers. She must have realized... her hip accidentally brushed against the swelling and I winced, the restriction of a few layers of material already being painful enough.

"No," she mumbled as I nibbled down on the soft pink flesh of her neck. "Wait," she said. "Tobias stop, stop!" She launched up and curled up in a ball at the other end of the bed, trying desperately to hide under the corner of the un-tucked duvet.

"What's wrong?" I asked - flustered. My hand reached out to stroke her small foot but the second I made contact, she flinched away. "What's wrong, Tris?"

"I can't," she said, her voice muffled by the sheet. "We can't."

"Can't what? Have sex?" I said, the words coming out with more force than intended. "Tris, I wasn't gonna make you-"

"I'm a virgin."

"What?!"

"I'm a virgin," she repeated, this time, a little louder, un-tucking her head from the masses of fabric. "Don't laugh at me... please?"

"What- No- I'm not laughing- But... How?" She let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes at me as if I'd just asked the stupidest question ever.

"It means I've never had sex before, dumbass."

"I know that but... Everyone at school?"

She ran a hand through her hair before grabbing the navy sweater from the floor and pulling it over her head. "I didn't sleep with them..."

"But they all said-"

"Exactly!" she cut me off and let out a short laugh. "They all said.

"All I did was take them to Harvey's, get them drunk out of their minds and leave an empty condom wrapper for them to find in the morning. For some reason, boys being able to say they 'got laid' is such a big deal that all it takes is a little nudge in the right direction and their imaginations run wild.

"Not once, did I claim to sleep with any of them. All I did was not correct their theories."

My jaw fell open. It was almost too much to process. Almost.

"So Uriah... And Zeke?"

"Yep. And Peter, Eric, Al, Lewis, Dean, Tom, Drew, Harry, Jack and Radley."

"But... How did you get them so drunk?"

"Ahh..." she grimaced, contemplating whether or not to tell the rest or the story. Thankfully, she continued, "You boys also have a thing about being able to 'keep up' when it comes to drinking.

"So... You start with a bottle of beer each - obviously you drink that. And then move on to shots... Only, I don't swallow them, instead I spit it back out into the empty bottle. Then, towards the end, I kind of give them the spittoon drink... So they end up having twice as many shots as they think they took.

"Then I just drag their asses home and well- yeah... That's it, really."

She just sat there, curled up in the quilt, hair shielding her face.