This chapter has a mature parallel in the separate book I have created for mature scenes. Feel free to read both versions!

✨✨Please skim my authors note at the bottom... I'm a little sentimental and I promise it may not be a complete waste of your time to read. Happy 2019! ✨✨

Chapter 50 - New Year's News

— Tris

I find myself growing extremely anxious as I prepare everything for tonight.

A week ago we told my family at Christmas.

Tonight we tell our friends.

"Tobias?" I call from the kitchen, looking over the list of things we still need for tonight. "Being the pregnant one in this relationship, I think it'd be best if you got the beer from the store. I think that's all we need," I scan the list one more time questioning what other drinks we have in the cabinet.

"Okay," he calls from down the hall. I hear his footsteps and a high pitched squeak from one of Indy's toys.

"And we have to pick up his toys before tonight," I say mainly to myself.

I find myself messing with a gold plastic table cloth in its wrapping, trying to open it and get it across our island in the kitchen so food can be served on it.

"Tris," Tobias comes in and grabs the other end of the table cloth, helping me spread it across the surface. "It's barely ten and people aren't coming until seven tonight. There's plenty of time for all of this." His hand snakes around my waist as he presses his lips to my forehead. "You need to relax."

"Yeah?" I feel my voice grow seductive. His hand trails over my hair and loosens it from my ponytail. His hand on my cheek, our eyes are locked.

"Do you think you could help me with that?" He presses his lips to mine the second I finish my sentence.

We become a mess of tangled hands as our kiss escalates.

"What about the baby?" He says breathless as his hand comes between our colliding lips.

"The doctor said it was fine," I say shortly, my raging hormones practically forcing my lips onto his.

"Jump," He says when my arms find their way locked around his neck. He lifts me off the ground, his hands on my ass, as he moves us across the apartment without breaking our lips.

He brings me into the bedroom and lays me down before crawling on top of me, his hands roaming my body.

And yes, I do forget about all the things that I have to do before tonight.

+ + +

"Tobias you have to get the drinks!" I exclaim when I exit the bathroom, my hair in a towel which is wet from my shower. He has yet to leave the bed since we fell asleep hours ago.

"Yeah, yeah," he stretches as he stands up from the bed. Upon passing me to go into the bathroom he runs his hand down my hair, his hand stopping at my waist as he presses his lips to my forehead.

The next few hours before everyone arrives fly by. I spent the time mixing dips, putting chips in bowls, and putting appetizer-like foods in the oven. Tobias leaves for an hour to get the drinks and paper products at the store, and he picks up some dinner for us on the way home.

Our friends begin to show up just minutes after Tobias cleans our plates from dinner, Indy greeting our guests at the door before we even get the chance to leave the kitchen.

Amar and George are the first to show up, and Zeke and Shauna come in right after them.

I find myself eying the single gold box under the tree: the box that contains a picture of the child growing inside of me.

We asked everyone to not bother bringing gifts, mainly because of all the gifts we were just given with our marriage, but also because we wanted to be the ones giving the gift tonight.

I kind of hate that out of all of my female friends, I'm the first to be pregnant.
I mean, besides Cara, but still.

As the rest of our friends show up, I'm glad to see they all actually listened and didn't bring gifts.
That's rare.

"This is cute," Christina comments tugging on my sweater lightly. "Thanks," I smile. "Is Rose coming?"

"She just moved out of my place yesterday," Chris leans against the wall as she talks. "So I mean I haven't seen her today to ask but as of yesterday she was meeting up with other friends."

I nod but find myself questioning Chris's statement.

Rose really never has mentioned friends since she's moved to Dauntless.
She's always kind of just hung around Christina, therefore implying that she hung around with me and all of our friends.

I shrug it off.
It's good she has people her age, I guess.

"Did Lynn ever tell you if she was coming?" Shauna joins Chris and I.

"She said she was 'partying out at the fence', so to speak, so I assume that means she had to work."

"Nice of my sister to tell me," she rolls her eyes and I smile.

"Oh," Chris remembers something, looking at me. "I put the cake in your fridge. Found some room, but barely."

I nod, making a comment about how much stuff is in my fridge between the drinks and food for this party.

I look over and notice Zeke and George arm wrestling on the counter, Tobias Amar and Uriah stand around them laughing while Indy circles them barking, confused by the excitement. I also notice Marlene by then, bending down trying to entertain Indy with a beer in her one hand and a stuffed toy in the other.

Chris and Shauna carry out a conversation that I have neglected to pay attention to, and I suggest that we move to the living room instead of standing around.

I find myself listening more than engaging in conversation as I sit in the one chair in our living room. I spin my wedding band around my finger, occasionally joining Chris and Shauna's talk about a new store in the pit.

Eventually the commotion calms in the kitchen and more people join us in the living room. I get up momentarily to get a glass of water from the kitchen, and out of hope that someone will take my seat so I awkwardly won't be sitting there when we ask them to open our gift.

As I pour the water I look at the clock on the stove.

11:45pm

I hear Will in the living room say something which makes everyone laugh. When I reenter the room I feel as if I have missed something, for half of the people are in tears laughing, and Marlene is on the floor practically sobbing.

I laugh at just looking at our friends, not even knowing what they're laughing about. I move over next to Tobias sitting on the floor near the Christmas tree and sit next to him.

As people calm down from laughing, Tobias looks at me and then at the golf box.

My heart is pounding excessively for no reason.

I nod to him, and I hope that he does the talking just because of how anxious I'm growing.

"So, I know we said no gifts, but we did wrap a little something for you all," Tobias leans over and puts the box on the coffee table.

Uriah makes some comment about how it's not fair that they get a gift when they couldn't bring gifts and makes everyone laugh.

"Well who's gonna open it?" Amar asks. He's also sitting on the floor on the other side of the tree from Tobias and I. He leans on the chair that George sits in.

"That's your guys' problem to figure out," I'm surprised by how steady my voice is.

Tobias places his hand on top of mine on the floor, his thumb rubbing over my knuckles.

Uriah starts the yelling, of course.

Him and Zeke begin bickering over the box with the argument of Zeke being older but Uriah being the "favorite son" or something like that.

Then George chimes in, attacking Zeke's argument and saying that he's the oldest one in the room.

"For Peet's sake," Shauna rolls her eyes. "Is it breakable?" She looks at me and I shake my head no.

While the others don't even notice as they bicker, Shauna takes the lid off the box and dumps it upside down on the coffee table.

"Who said you got to do that!" Uriah whips around and she rolls her eyes at him.

I put in a bunch of pieces of colored tissue with the picture, so now they are all scattered around on the table and on top of the ultrasound picture.

Amar is curious. He moves over from her spot on the floor and starts messing with the tissue bits. The guys and Marlene stop bickering when Christina literally jumps from her spot on the couch and runs over to me.

"Is that what I think it is?!" She practically yells in my ear as she wraps me in an embrace.

"Wait," I head Amar through Chris's excitement. Then I hear him start laughing. I look from over Chris's shoulder and see the picture in his hands.

"Would you look at that," George says and starts laughing with him.

Chris finally lets me go and I notice the picture hasn't moved past George and Amar. Standing with Chris, Shauna looks at me excitedly, but she still has no clue what was in the box.

I look at Tobias and see he's laughing at Amar and George while Uriah starts another argument to see the picture.

I look back at Shauna and Zeke seems lost as he looks at her.

"We're having a baby!" I smile.

That's the first time I've ever said it out loud.

"Wait, what?" Zeke moves his eyes from Shauna to me, then he rushes over and shoves his brother from his view of the picture which is still in Amar's hands.

Shauna hugs me and my face hurts from smiling.

It's a relief that it's not a secret anymore.

"How far are you?" Marlene sees the opportunity to come over and hug me herself.

"Eighteen weeks, so like four months. The picture was at ten weeks," I motion to the picture that Amar refuses to release.

"Perfectly healthy, even with everything that has happened," Tobias adds as Zeke congratulates him.

"You were pregnant when you were deployed." Amar stares at me as if he's seen a ghost.

"And I had no idea that I was."

He grows emotional really quickly, finally giving up the picture for others to see and quickly making his way over to me. He holds me like a child, towering over me from his height, but he holds his head to his chest as if I would be gone if he let go.

"That pole literally was crushing you—"

"And yet the baby and I both ended up alright," I laugh and he releases me, shaking his head.

"I'm going to be an Uncle!" He throws his hands in the air and moves on to Tobias.

"I've seen you so many times the past month," Chris is shaking her head at me sitting on the couch. She looks between me and the picture again and again.

"Baby Eaton," Shauna reads from the top of the picture.

"That's why you've been so sick, it make sense." Chris looks at me. "How the hell were you able to not tell anyone for a whole freaking month."

"It wasn't easy," I reflect on the times I almost slipped up and told her.

"Guys, it's almost midnight!" George exclaims, standing and pointing to the clock.

11:58pm

Only half of us head George, and Amar and Tobias continue to talk excitedly by the Christmas tree while Uriah finally gets a good look at the picture.

Here's to whatever this year may bring.

"Keep it PG-13!" Zeke jokes, eying Tobias in particular when the clock almost reaches twelve.

"You know what—!" Tobias begins to defend himself but is interrupted by everyone yelling.

He sighs and I join in the yelling to celebrate the new year. I laugh as he pouts and I press my lips to his pouting ones.

"Happy New Year, Tobias," I whisper when we separate. His hand lays on my small bump.

We don't have to hide it anymore.
I smile, putting my hand over his.

"This is going to be a big year for us," he chuckles almost nervously. I press my lips to his again quickly.

"It's nothing we can't handle," I smile.

-

Hey guys!
Sorry, this is a little lengthy... I was going to make a separate chapter but honestly was too lazy... the important stuff will be pointed out with emojis or little icon things

⭐️So I know the Tuesday/Friday updates were specifically intended for the holiday season, but I think I'm gonna keep going. Chances are in the future it will end up just Fridays, but for now, let's see what happens if I keep going at this rate.

Happy 2019! Wow, it's crazy to think that LTT started this time 4 years ago!Ugh, it feels like yesterday I can't believe I'm still kicking at this series all this time later!

This year will be the second full year I am working on this book, and I can't wait to grow as a writer with you all as we go through what I have planned for this year! Looking back it's actually insane to read and see how much I've learned about myself just writing this, and how much I have grown personally just from the start of LTT 4 years ago to this point in time right now.

💫Now as 2019 begins, TTAA is at 199k, LTT at 119k, and AFY. is at 19.9k.

🎉^^ Kind of ironic all the 19's in the amount of view reads to start 2019, so I thought I'd share.

New Years is sentimental for this series because so many years past my memory is staying up till midnight pre-writing before I go back to classes in a day. Looking back, it feels just like yesterday that I was just getting started on TTAA, writing chapters waiting for midnight, and then starting my first sequel on New Year's Day, which meant pre-writing the whole night before I posted it just as 2015 began.

2015 was a real long time ago, my dudes.

>>Okay, Yes, TTAA was not started on New Years, but it was pretty darn close, and after I posted the first few chapters of it I didn't post again until around New Years when I got the chance to write, so fight me.

I guess I'm just getting really sentimental about this because this most likely will be the last New Years for this series, because AFY isn't going to go on forever and we are already nearing chapter 50, and I pre-wrote to chapter 60 today.
No, this isn't goodbye, hell, we ain't even close yet to this ending.
It's just that this series will be complete by 2020, or maybe even before 2019 is halfway through... who knows!

❤️❤️That's six New Years of writing, six New Years of growth, and six New Years of friendship with each one of you through this series. And, I mean, I'm not good at math, but that's kind of a long time.

Here's to 2019, and here's to my sixth year of this series.
And here's to whatever the hell might happen.✨

All the love,
Kat 💚