Chapter 26

--Tobias

I came home from work to find Tris passed out on the couch. She hasn't been sleeping much lately, so I lurk around the apartment quietly, knowing that she likely can hear me due to being such a light sleeper, and already knows it's me due to recognizing my footsteps.

Hoping that she will fall back asleep, I clip Indy's leash to his collar and take him outside for a walk around the compound. He has been cooped inside all day, as have I, and I told Mom that I wouldn't be picking up Tom for another half hour. Closing our front door quietly, Indy and I walk up the stairs a few flights, exiting at the level of apartments at ground level to get to the actual outdoors. The door creaks loudly as it opens, and a car wizzes by as we exit onto the sidewalk of a main road.

I haven't talked to Tris about it, but I secretly have been eying the apartments on the ground level and above to see if any of them become available. I love our current apartment-- we have had so many memories there, and there is nothing physically wrong with the space. It's just that being underground with no windows to the outside can be hard. We have talked about moving out to the suburbs by Caleb, Cara, and her parents, but logistically with our work in the compound and my mother in her own space here it would just not make sense for us to be so far away, or expect her to move in with us out there while her work is still here too. It's a dream, and it probably won't happen, but an apartment in the compound that is larger and above ground could be a happy medium.

Indy catches a scent and begins to pull me up the street, clearly on a mission. I put some pep in my step, picking up our pace as we walk down the road. It's overcast today, and the wind makes it a little chillier than I expected it to be.

That's another thing about living and working underground that I have grown use to-- the weather never affects me much. The air conditioning is blasting to the point we are freezing in the summer months, and the heat is blasting so much in the winter months that we are sweating in the wintertime. I do have seasonal clothes, but there's times where a week can go by and both Tris and I will have not seen the outside world. At least in an above ground apartment we could open the windows for fresh air, see the weather that we can disregard, and have a change of scenery.

I make a mental note to suggest it to her at some point. We both have so much on our plates right now, it might not even be worth bringing up. I don't want to upset or stress her out further.

Indy stops immediately, his head diving to the ground on a patch of grass. I look, seeing that there is a dead bird lying there, it's wings outstretched, flies buzzing around it.

"Come on," I pull Indy but he does not budge. "Let's go," I say, my voice stern.

We continue walking at a less brisk pace around the above ground space of the compound. There is not much, just roads, patches of grass here and there, and a small park with a play space that Tom loves to come to on the weekends. It's so bazaar that there is a whole world that is buzzing with energy below the ground we are walking on. Someone who isn't from the city might not even know that Dauntless exists besides the few apartment buildings and houses in our section of the suburbs that are labeled ours.

Often I find myself running through a checklist of the things I have left to do today, what I'd doing tomorrow, and what I'm doing for the rest of the week. Today I am done with work, I need to pick up Tom after this walk at mom's, if Tris is still sleeping by then I need to cook dinner for us, and I want to have some alone time with Tris tonight since we both have off tomorrow. It's Thursday, but since it's been such a week, we decided to take a day for ourselves. Tomorrow I noticed that there is no classes on the training room schedule for a couple hours in the afternoon, so I was planning on bringing Tris over to work with guns if she is up for it. I wasn't going to tell her about this plan until just before we go, just because I know she will be anxious and worrying about it all night if I tell her now. I'll gage how she is in the morning, and maybe abandon the plan all together, but I need to find a happy medium between pushing her, but not pushing her too much. I want to help her get over this fear, especially for her own safety, but I also don't want to send her into a bad mental health spiral by helping her.

Indy and I come up to another door to enter the compound, and we go back into our underground base. Mom's apartment is another few floors below ours, and we walk down stairs with the sound of Indy's toenails clicking echoing in the stairwell. I knock on Mom's door before letting ourselves in, dropping Indy's leash as Tom gets up from whatever he was doing to come say hi to me.

"Thank you so much for watching him," I say to my mother, and she waves her hand at me, brushing me off. Usually Tom comes to work with Tris or I and can hang out in our offices or with our coworkers, but Tris has been uneasy with being in the office herself, yet alone Thomas, and I had a lot of meetings today that Thomas could not attend.

"I cannot get over how big he is getting," Mom shakes her head. "He's growing up to fast!" She laughs, picking up Tom and giving him a big hug.

I'm constantly conflicted when seeing her love on my son. It's not jealousy I feel, but more of confusion between the childhood I had with her in Abnegation and the grandmother she is in Dauntless. I am so glad my son and potential future children get to have this side of Evelyn, and I just wonder how things would have been if I grew up outside of where I did.

"I know," I exclaim, shaking my head. "I like to think if I ignore it maybe he'll just stay this little forever."

"What were you two up to today?" I ask, changing the subject.

"Tom helped me shop for groceries, which was an event, and then we just hung around here, he played with his toys there, nothing crazy."

"That's good," I smile, chuckling at her calling taking Tom to the store an "event".

I stick around for a little while, chatting with mom and letting her tell me about a customer she had at the store she works at in the Pit the other day. As much as I want to go home, be comfortable, and eat after being busy at work all day, I am so appreciative of her willingness to take Tom almost whenever we ask, and I feel bad just picking him up and leaving.

"Are you working tomorrow afternoon?" I ask her.

"I get out at one, why?"

"If you're willing, would you be able to possibly watch Tom for an hour or two tomorrow?"

"Of course! What are you two up to? Aren't you both off tomorrow?" She asks, and the second she does ask I see the panic in her eyes, clearly assuming we might be using the time to make her another grandchild.

"Tris has been wanting to work with guns, it's a big PTSD stressor for her, and there's no classes scheduled in the training room from two to five tomorrow so I was hoping to take her down there and just do some stuff if she's up for it," I elaborate, knowing Tris wouldn't mind me sharing this with Evelyn. It's easier to ask Evelyn to watch Tom because I do feel comfortable sharing this with her, compared to if I were to ask Zeke or Uriah they would want these details before saying yes.

"Yeah, I'm flexible, Just let me know what you end up doing."

I stick around and chat for a few more minutes before Tom, Indy and I take the opportunity to leave. I thank mom again and we head up the stairs to our place.

"Mommy was asleep before I left to walk Indy and get you, so can you be super quiet when we go in in case she is still asleep?" I tell Tom.

He nods eagerly, putting his hand to his mouth and tiptoeing in exaggeration when we walk through the door. It's an action he clearly saw on a TV show or something, and it takes everything in me to not laugh as we walk in to find Tris still asleep on the couch.

"Go take your shoes off in your room and play. I'm going to cook dinner," I whisper.

"Okay," Tom whispers back to me, continuing to tiptoe with his big steps to his room.

I look at Tris for a moment and contemplate waking her up. She expressed to me earlier in the week that she wants to try to get back into a schedule of sleeping at night instead of these sporadic naps during the day, however, regardless of if she does or doesn't nap during the day, she hardly sleeps at night. She does see her therapist regularly, but it has just been a lot for her lately. I wish I could take some of the stress away from her.

"Tris," I mumble quietly, hoping to not startle her as I walk over to the couch, squatting down by her face. "You told me to not let you nap during the day, but I did let you sleep while I walked Indy and got Tom, but this is me not letting you nap now," I chuckle, clearly failing at my instructions, but knowing she needs to sleep.

"Hi," she mumbles, yawning. I brush her hair out of her face and put my lips to her forehead, enjoying this state of calm that I haven't seen her in these past two weeks.

"I was going to start cooking dinner. What are you in the mood for?" I ask her.

"You cooked last night, it's my turn," she says, her voice more awake.

"If you insist," I respond, knowing she enjoys cooking more than I do.

"What's Tom up to?"

"He's in his room."

Tris hums, standing up and heading to the kitchen. I stay on the couch, checking a few texts before I go to help her make dinner. None of them are really important, just one from Josh about a meeting the leaders are having over the weekend.

"There's a lot of chicken here for the three of us, Tobias. Would your mother want to come for dinner?"

"Probably not, she was already starting to cook when I picked up Tom and is likely eating by now," I respond as I walk into the kitchen to see Tris placing breaded chicken into a frying pan. I stand leaning on the doorframe for a moment, just watching her work. She places some dirty dishes in the sink, then returns to the chicken on the stove, along with two other pots that have something in them.

"It smells good," I say, walking over to her at the stove and wrapping my arms around her waist and pressing my lips to the area below her ear on her neck. "You smell good too."

Tris hums as I continue kissing her neck playfully. Her attention doesn't leave the pan of chicken, making me huff.

"If you give me a hickey, Tobias Eaton, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

"Hm, that's a good idea. We should sleep on the couch tonight," I smirk, sucking her neck a little harder, but not enough to leave a mark.

She elbows me in the ribs, turning around and grabbing my face in her hands, kissing me on the lips. I smile, moving my lips in sync with hers, being careful to not press her against the hot stove. We separate quickly, to my disliking, for Tris to return to cooking. I know we can't do anything with Tom awake right now anyways, but I take the victory of getting her attention.

"That's better," I chuckle, wrapping my hands back around her waist from behind, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"If you wanted some attention, all you had to do was tell me," she rolls her eyes, chuckling. "You're as bad as Tom at not using your words."

"I've got a lot of words I could use to describe you," I lower my voice, making my breath tickle her neck. "All good things, of course. And the words I could use to describe what I want to do to you--"

I see her try to brush off the effect I have on her, but the hitch in her breathing and her inability to look at me says it all. I love having her wrapped around my finger like this, and I know she hates it, or at least acts like she hates it.

I rub circles on her lower stomach where my hands embrace her, continuing to press kisses over her neck and cheek. She feels physically warmer to me, and I like to think it is because of me and not the heat of the stove.

"You'll have to share your vocabulary with me later," she smirks, raising her eyes to meet mine for only a second. The chicken begins browning in the pan as she fries it, and I now notice that she has rice in one of the pots, and vegetables in the other on the stove.

Tris's cooking never changed much outside of Abnegation meals, but she does use more seasoning than they would have had in Abnegation, making them much more delicious and enjoyable. She is a good cook, and I am grateful that she enjoys cooking more than I do, although she insists that I am the better cook out of the two of us.

"That can be arranged," I raise my eyebrows, bringing my voice back to it's normal tone, laughing lightly and kissing her head, deciding to stop my lusting over her and leave her to cook while I set the table.

"You're off tomorrow too, right? I confirm with her from the other room, wondering if any meetings popped up on her schedule since we spoke about it a few days ago.

"Yeah, I just have my yearly appointment with Dr. Scott over in Erudite in the afternoon. You don't have to come to that though."

I hum, filling up two glasses of water for her and I, setting them on the table, and then filling up Tom's sippy cup with water and putting it at his spot. We did recently start using plastic cups with him that do not have lids, but I do not feel like cleaning up a mess if he spills tonight, so I opt for a lidded cup.

"What are your plans for tomorrow?" she asks me.

"Sleeping," I say, gaining a snort from her as she removes the chicken from the pan, placing it in a bowl.

"Okay, besides sleeping."

"I know mom needed me to help her with a few things at her place. Maybe we could go work out if there's time and you're up to it," I suggest and she seems to be open to the idea. I don't like being dishonest with my plans I am disguising as "training", but I think she will understand after the fact.

"How's the staff classes been going?" I ask her.

"I haven't been to any in a week or two. Super busy, Tobias. Remember?" she says sharply.

"Right, sorry." I say, knowing that I should have known better. She has been working around the clock since the murder of her two ambassadors, and the looming trial of the ambassador that killed those two has been causing her to not sleep.

"Maybe you should go to one," I suggest lightly, hoping to not upset her by the suggestion, "It could be a good distraction."

"You're the only distraction I need," she throws my lust back at me from earlier, pressing her lips to mine forcefully, forcing her hands up my shirt and pulling me close to her. Before I can even begin to move my lips against hers, she pulls away, sticking her tongue out at me mockingly.

I laugh, shaking my head at her, constantly wondering how I got so lucky to find a woman that can challenge my whit, match my sarcasm, and offend me back when I have offended her.

"You started a dirty game," I shake my head, taking the pot of cooked rice to the table.

"Oh, I started it? From what I remember, you were the one who was trying to give me a hickey while I was innocently trying to cook."

"Hm, you must've remembered incorrectly then. Guess we'll have to put you under arrest and give a fair trial," I lower my voice again, holding her wrists behind her in my one hand as I pin her against the countertop, pressing my body against hers. Her eyes stay locked on mine, and I smirk knowing I have her full attention since the meal is now cooked and growing cold on the table.

"Oh, are you now?" she says, her voice mocking mine. "It would be hard to finish what you have planned for tonight if I were in a jail cell."

"Well, I didn't get that far into the plan yet," I say, pressing my lips to hers before she can respond.

She sighs against me, resisting at my hand that holds her wrists behind her. I know she wants to run her hands through my hair, caress my face, and pull me closer, and it frustrates her that I won't let her do what she wants. I hold her at her waist, my hand wrapping along her rib cage and holding her where I want her. If she showed any discomfort by me holding her like this, I would release her in an instant. However, the shrivel of her nose and the furrowing of her eyebrows in annoyance at me gives me the okay that I am not passing a boundary.

She gives in sooner than I expected, accepting that I won't release her hands from behind her. Her tongue moves against mine, the lines in her face disappearing as she moves against me.

This is what we do best-- we wind each other up, and we explode. Sometimes it can be good, sometimes it can be difficult, but it is how we work. I loose myself in her, my grip on her wrists loosening as her hands find their way up to my hair.

As fun as it was to wind her up with the frustration of not touching me, there's something about the way she touches me, not just now, but always, that makes me loose control. I know we have to stop and eat dinner, take care of our son, and do countless other chores before we can have some time for us later. With her hands in my hair, and her against me, still pressed against the counter, I am loosing my ability to turn back.

And she knows this, moving her hands to my chest, slowing down our kiss before pulling back, our foreheads resting against each other's.

"Guess you're using me as a distraction too?" she teases, knowing I've been super busy with things advancing on the building investigation that took her from me all those years ago.

"You got it," I say, pressing my lips to her forehead and pulling myself off of her, releasing her from her spot against the counter.

"Well, if we're both on the same page, I guess there's nothing wrong with it," she laces her hand in mine, her eyes meeting mine once again.

I don't respond and just smile at her, squeezing her hand before going to find Tom in his room and bring him to eat.

"Time for dinner, Thomas," I say when I walk into his room and find him, as I expected, playing with his cars.

"Okay," he says, not moving from his place on the floor. I stand for a few moments, watching him continue to play.

"Now, Thomas," I say with more urgency.

He drops his cars and comes up to me, dragging his feet to the kitchen. I ruffle his blonde curls with my hands.

"You need a haircut," I say, making him laugh.

"His curls are too cute to cut them off, " Tris resists. She stands over Tom's plate, cutting his chicken into small pieces.

"It would be a lot easier to bathe him," I suggest, knowing how Tris and I have to fight him to comb through his curls every time his hair is washed.

"Yeah," she says, her voice defeated, knowing I am right.

"Do you want a haircut, Tom?" I ask him, letting him have a say in the conversation; something Tris and I did not have the privilege of growing up.

"Yeah!"

"He always agrees with you," Tris laughs.

"What can I say, he's a smart boy," I shrug, sitting at the table and putting some pieces of chicken on Tris's plate and then on mine.

Tris brushes Tom's hair out of his eyes from when I messed it up, then sits down at the table, scooping some vegetables on her plate, then on mine.

We eat in silence for a few moments, both famished from our long days at work.

"What did you do today?" She asks.

I hesitate, knowing that all of the work I did do today was regarding the building. I don't know how much she wants to know about the investigation, and I don't want to upset her by bringing it up. She knows I'm heavily involved, and I know she is grateful that I am involved, but I know it is an uneasy topic for her due to all of the trauma she had in that building.

"How much do you want me to talk to you about the building investigation?" I decide to ask her and let her decide. "I can pretend it doesn't exist if that is easiest for you, or I can tell you everything I know, something in between, whatever you want. You're in the drivers seat."

She hesitates, her eye contact drifting down to her plate as she scoops some peas onto her fork.

"Just tell me," she says it like she's ripping off a band aid. "If things get to specific or gory I'd rather not hear, but I'd assume you're not to that point yet."

"We were able to successfully hack into the cameras of the building last night. There's no signs of life, at least in the rooms of the cameras we got into. We don't know if there's more we could hack, but it's a huge step."

"That's great," she smiles, and I can tell she's genuine by the look in her eyes.

"So it's Erudite and us working together on this?"

"Yeah, when we were originally trying to break in and get you guys we were given the code name 2836 by the Erudite. 36 was and still is the number for the building investigation, and 28 was the original group of people working on the technology to get inside. Us along with group 12, a group of Erudite detectives, were labeled 1236 for that specific investigation. Super weird way of labeling, but Erudite was the backbone and we were the numbers and manpower, so it was what worked. Now all of us working on the investigation in Dauntless are 3036, and Erudite is 3136."

"That gives me a headache," Tris flinches at all of the numbers, making me laugh.

"Yeah, me too."

"Who of our friends are involved?" she asks.

"Zeke, Amar, George, obviously Josh and the other leaders, Bud, Marlene and Uriah, and probably about a dozen other dauntless members," I list off and she nods.

"They are looking to send a group out to the building in the next month or so," I say, ripping off the band aid that I know will upset her.

She takes the news better than I expected, nodding and looking at me. I've been trying to prepare her for that step, but now the steps are being put in place for people to travel to Kentucky.

"If there are people physically in the building, they can take DNA samples, pictures, and dig for more paperwork. Some of us did grab stuff when we were rescuing everybody, but the priority was getting you all out--"

"I know, Tobias," her voice is heavy, tired, "I'm never going to be comfortable with the idea of people going back there."

She's really not going to like what I have to say next then.

"They really want me to go, but I know your discomfort, and I don't want to put you in that situation so I'm declining. I can help keep watch from here."

I struggle to judge what she is thinking. She's better at reading people than I am, and although I often can read her like the page of a book, the expression she's giving me is hard to understand.

"You're already to the point of deciding who goes?" she finally says.

"Yeah."

She returns to her food, taking some rice into her mouth. The action seems drawled out, like she is killing time to give herself a moment to think.

"Thank you for declining. Who else is going?"

"It's not set in stone yet," I preface, "But those dozen dauntless I didn't list off, and out of people we know, Amar, George, Uriah and Bud."

"Uriah?" Tris drops her fork, and I fully understand her shock. He is the only one out of all of them I listed that was actually imprisoned in the building. To Tris, going back would be like choosing to walk into a nightmare.

"He really wants to go, so did Marlene actually, but he was cleared by his therapist, she wasn't."

"What does Zeke think about that? Zeke isn't going?"

"No, he's got the kids and doesn't want to leave Shauna. He's going to be helping with me from here."

"What does he think about Uriah going?"

"I don't know, Tris. He didn't like the idea at first, but the more I talk to Uriah about it, it's almost like he's seeing it as closure, and I'm pretty sure that's how his therapist is seeing it for him too."

Tris swallows hardly. I contemplate my words over in my head. I want to tell her that everyone deals with trauma differently, and just because she can't even imagine me, yet alone herself, stepping foot near that building, doesn't mean that that is the same feeling that Uriah and Marlene have towards their trauma.

"What do you think?"

"I think he's a grown man who can make his own decisions," I say matter of fact like.

"Tobias--"

"Tris. Nothing is set in stone yet. He knows his limit, just like you know yours. You're sure you don't want to join 3036?"

"Yes," she says without hesitation.

"You know your limit."

"Tobias, stop, please."

"Okay, okay," I say. She wanted me to tell her about everything, but I guess she isn't fully ready yet. And that' perfectly fine.

"What did you do today?" I put a piece of chicken in my mouth.

"I didn't want to change the subject," her voice is sour, as if it's my fault that she was unclear about what she meant by "stop".

"Okay, what else do you want to know. I thought stop meant change the subject."

"No, stop meant stop talking to me in that way. Like my thoughts aren't valuable."

"I'm sorry," I say, half meaning it, half just saying it because I am not interested in picking an argument.

She's stressed out about a lot of stuff too, Tobias. Don't pick this battle, it's not worth it. You have off tomorrow, it could be a nice long weekend, or you could fuck that up. Don't fuck that up. Let her win this one.

"I'm sorry, I just worry--"

"And it's okay to worry, Tris. I don't want you to think you can't talk to me about your worries."

"I get that they're irrational half the time. I'm glad that you guys are investigating the building. Deep down somewhere I am, I just can't get it to surface."

"We aren't sending anyone out there until we do much more research. These past few days it really has just been those of us who aren't traveling making that clear to the group. Everyone else is up in the air."

She nods, and now I can tell the conversation is done.

"What did you do today?"

"Candor wants me to still hold visiting week, and Josh and I agreed we were going to do whatever they suggested to keep the tension between us at a minimum."

I nod, agreeing with the decision to agree with Candor.

"We will have extra soldiers on just in case things go south at any of the panels. I'm sure it'll go fine."

"Am I making the right decision though?"

"I think you are."

She seems to relax after my response, and I realize that tension she had during the conversation of the building was underlying from this.

"Is there any news on the trial yet?"

"It was postponed a few weeks until Jacob is deemed mentally stable, but I think I told you that yesterday," she says and I nod, already knowing the information.

We sit in silence and finish our meal. Tom could clearly sense the tension as he stayed quiet while Tris and I talked.

They say to balance what your kids see, and not to hide your emotions from them. Let them see you happy, sad, angry, frustrated, successful, unsuccessful, and so on. Tris and I grew up very differently, where she mainly only saw the happy side of her parents, and I only saw the anger, tension, and failure of mine growing up. We are trying to do the best we can with our past experiences to do best by Tom, and whatever potential future children we do and don't have. Being four years old, this is probably the most tense of a conversation he has experienced us having, but I don't see anything wrong with him hearing it. We weren't yelling or angry at each other, just stressed and tired.

"What did you do with Grandma today, Tom?" Tris turns to Thomas, as if she knew I was thinking about him.

Thomas seems hesitant to answer with the shift of the conversation being on him. For a moment I regret everything. We should've talked about this later once he's asleep or maybe tomorrow when he's in another room--

"We go to store in Pit, got Grandma food!"

I exhale. He's fine Tobias. You can't possibly fuck up with parenting more than your parents did.

"Oh, you went grocery shopping! That sounds like fun! Were you good for Grandma?"

Tom nods his head, using his fingers to put a carrot in his mouth.

"Use your fork, please," Tris corrects him. Tom giggles, picking up another carrot with his hands and eating it.

"Thomas," Tris's voice is sterner.

"What kind of food did you buy?" I ask Thomas, seeing what he remembers. At his age he should be able to remember some things, especially since they were shopping only a couple of hours ago.

"I don't know," he says giggling.

"You don't remember anything? Grandma had a kitchen full of food when I picked you up. How do you not remember a single thing you bought with her?" I exaggerate.

"Uh," he hesitates, clearly thinking. "Apples." he says confidently.

"What color apples did you get?"

He hesitates again, and it is like you can see the gears turning in his head. For a minute I think Tris might've asked too specific of a question for him to recall, but then he shouts out, "Green!"

"Green apples, huh?" I confirm and he nods.

"Yeah, and ba-- ban nans."

"Bananas?" Tris says and he nods.

"Can you say bananas, Tom?"

"Ban nans," he says more like a question.

Tris works with him for a second trying to sound out the word bananas, but eventually decides that's another day's battle. Bananas is a big word, especially for a kid who is just learning to speak in sentences.

"What else did you get? Anything other than fruit?"

"Crackers!"

"Yummy," Tris says.

"What this?" Tom asks, holding up his napkin.

"That's a napkin. You use it to wipe your face when you get food all over it," I say.

"Napkin!" Tom repeats.

"What this?" Tom points to his plate that he has almost cleared.

"That's a plate. You have a blue plate, daddy and I have glass plates that can break, so we have to be careful." Tris says, tapping her nails on her plate, then on his so he can hear the difference between the plates.

"Plat!"

"Plate," I say it again so he can hear it.

"Plate!"

"There you go!" Tris praises him.

Thomas is at an age where he wants to know what everything is. He has so many questions, and just wants to know what everything is, how it works, why it works, and what you use it for. It's such a fun age, and the things he says sometimes make me just laugh.

"I'll wash the dishes if you wash the kid?" Tris asks, standing up and taking her and Thomas' plates.

"That's a fair trade," I agree, throwing Tom over my shoulder and taking him to his bedroom to get his pajamas. The action has peeked Indy's attention and he comes trotting after myself and squealing Thomas to see what is going on.

Tom's curiosity and questions don't when I take him in the bathroom for his bath. I keep him thrown over my shoulder as I turn on the water and let it warm up.

"Towel!" he says pointing to his towel on the back of the door.

"Yup, you'll use that once you're all clean," I tell him. "Arms up," I say and he raises his arms, allowing me to take his shirt off.

"Take your pants off. I know you know how."

I turn around and take a washcloth and soap out of the cabinet. Tom managed to get his pants off and I scoop him up, plopping him in the tub.

"Soap!" He points to the soap. "Water, tub!" he points to each one.

"Mommy's been teaching you some of these, hasn't she?"

"Penis!"

"Yes, that's your penis."

Tom giggles when he sees my shock and I move along with his bath, laughing to myself as I figure out how I'll ask Tris why Thomas knows what his penis is.

I skip over his hair since Tris said she washed it yesterday and get Tom clean and out of the tub.

"This is your shirt," I pull his shirt over his head.

"Shirt!"

"What's this?" he points to the counter.

"That's the counter."

"Count," he repeats.

"Counter," I emphasize the end of the word.

"Counter," he repeats me with the exaggeration on the "er" and I laugh.

"Exactly. Alright, go say good night to your mom," I open the door and see Tris sitting on the floor petting Indy.

"Speaking of boys who need baths, I think this guy needs a bath soon," Tris says and Tom sits next to her. "He's stinky."

"Stinky Indy!" Tom squeals, making the dog jump up from his comfortable place next to Tris.

"You can't scream like that, Tom. You hurt his ears. Dogs have much more sensitive ears than people do."

"I sorry Indy," he pets Indy's head apologetically.

"It's time for you to go to bed!" Tris grabs Tom, wrapping him in a big hug.

"Good night baby, I love you," she gives him a kiss on his cheek.

"Night night mommy!"

Tom runs into his room, Indy following him like he always does. Sometimes Tris or I will read him a story, but it already is getting pretty late so I just tuck him in, turn on his night light, give him a kiss, and shut the door.

I come back out with Indy and see Tris stretching on the living room floor, her legs in a straddle as she wraps her fingers around her left foot.

"So when did Tom learn what his penis was," I ask, failing at hiding the laugh in my voice.

Tris spits, giggling a sound that she rarely ever makes. It's one of my favorite sounds when she laughs like that.

"I mean, he asked me what it was! What was I suppose to do?!" she continues to laugh and I join her.

"At the end of the day it is a body part that he does have," she says when she finally catches her breath. We look at each other for two seconds, then break out laughing once again.

"I never want him to grow out of this stage," I say sitting down on the couch.

"Me either," she agrees, switching legs to wrap her fingers around her right foot. I check my phone and see no new texts or calls, so I put it back down.

She finishes stretching and sits across from me on the couch. Her knees are propped up, but not pulled tight to her chest. She rests her elbow on the top of the couch, leaning her head on her hand as she looks at me.

>>>

I look at all of her, from the wedding band on her hand, to her ponytail that is falling out, and her blue-grey eyes that never leave mine.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks, clearly having put thought into the question.

"Kissing you," I answer without thinking, as if I were on truth serum.

"What's stopping you?" She asks innocently.

"You're all the way over there," I say, waving my arm exaggeratedly at her from the other side of our not so large couch.

"You're pathetic," she laughs.

"I'm pathetic, hm?" I challenge, moving across the couch in one swift motion, pressing my forehead to hers as I gently push her onto her back on the couch.

"You're beautiful," I say, our breaths mixing. "How did I get so lucky to call you mine."

She moves forward to kiss me, but I dodge her lips, wanting to wind her up once again.

"There's not one thing I don't love about you. You drive me crazy, Beatrice."

"You drive me crazy, Tobias. I love you," she pulls my head down with her hands behind my neck, forcing our lips to finally meet.

We are one. No matter how many times we butt heads, have different opinions, and see things in different ways, we are one.

I feel like there is electricity coursing through my body as she slips her hand under my shirt, running her confident fingers along the flames on my ribs.

I want to say more to her, tell her how much she means to me and how exactly I find her beautiful, however, I don't have the control over myself to remove my lips from hers, or my hands from her hair, or her body from mine.

So I don't.

Actions will have to speak louder than words.

I know how much she loves me, and she knows how much I love her.

.

Thank you for being here!

Don't forget to check out the M rated scene that this chapter continues into if you're into that stuff!

35k reads!

Hope you all have a wonderful, healthy, and safe start into your 2022.

xoxo

Kat