Roommates

Lately

A/N: Life has been busy... thanks for being patient while I took an unannounced week off from this story! Back to regular weekly updates, hopefully.

Tris
January

"Is this seriously how this dude wanted to portray himself?" Marlene asks, wrinkling her nose at Henri Fantin-Latour's self-portrait. "Seriously, he looks totally fucking demonic. Look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong."

I stifle a laugh. "You know, Mar... I can't do that."

Marlene, Shauna and I are hanging out, just us girls, for the first time since their return to Chicago after the winter break from school. They were back home in Wisconsin for just about a month. We texted a bit, and Marlene called me once, but that was the extent of our contact over the holidays. Today, we decided to take advantage of one of the Art Institute of Chicago's free admission days. We started with an exhibition of Japanese black-and-white, ink on paper artwork and are now in the Master Drawing exhibition.

We chat as we make our way through the gallery, and the girls tell me about the parties they went to and things they did back in Milwaukee over the school break. It isn't until we're sitting down with pastries and coffee at a little cafe near the museum that they really start grilling me about what Tobias and I did with our break here.

"So," Shauna says hopefully, "that whole 'we keep our relationship private' thing. Was that just an Eric thing, or does that apply to Four, too?"

I'm not sure how to answer her. I mean, yes, it was Eric that would have been pissed if I had given details about our relationship and he'd heard about it. On the other hand... I have never talked about this sort of stuff before, and I can feel the blood rushing to my face just at the idea of sharing all the dirty details. But maybe I can talk about our relationship a little... just not our sex life. Which, by the way, is really good. Really, really good.

"Um... it was mostly an Eric thing, but I still have my own limits. What do you want to know?" I answer nervously.

"Well... how did it finally happen?" Marlene asks, her eyes bright and hungry for information. "I mean, when we finished up the term you were barely back on speaking terms... but then he stuck around here and when we came back..." She wiggles her eyebrows and the three of us burst into a fit of giggles.

"Uh, well..." I run my fingers through my hair nervously- I'm just not at all used to talking about any of this.

I tell them about some of the things we did together over winter break, and eventually, I get to that New Year's Eve party. "So, do you remember the girl he was making out with at that last party we all went to?"

"Yes," Marlene laughs. "Uriah broke that up by spilling a drink all over her. He told me afterwards that he did it on purpose, for you, Tris."

"For me?" I gasp. "Why?!"

Shauna rolls her eyes. "He saw how you reacted to finding Four making out with that skank; you were obviously upset. And it was so clear to all of us that he likes you, too. Of course, by then, you were making out with what's-his-name. Four saw you and stomped off to the dorm to pout about it."

Wow, okay then. I guess I didn't know about most of the happenings of that evening. "Well, I'm glad that Uri spilled a drink all over her, because on New Year's, not only did she take the drink that Four got for me, right out of his hand. I told her off while he was getting me another... after he got her name wrong when he introduced her to me." Marlene and Shauna erupt into laughter. "But she spilled some gross red punch all over me when we were dancing later."