“That’s tough.” Then he crossed over to the cart of books, scanned the spines, each clearly labeled with numbers and letters. At this point, Brennan probably owed Cole one, and he could use a distraction. “Can I help?”
Cole placed a protective hand on the books on the cart. “You don’t have to do that, it’s my job.” Brennan plucked a book from the end of the stack and scanned the shelf for its home. “Besides, it’s not alphabetical, it’s—”
Brennan slotted the book into place and Cole’s mouth shut with a click. A beat passed and Cole inhaled a shaky breath. Brennan worried he had somehow offended him.
Behind him, Cole spoke, voice low, “You know the Dewey decimal system?”
Brennan turned. Cole was eyeing him with a strange intensity that made his skin prickle the same way it did under the sun—strange, but not unpleasant.
“I practically grew up in libraries.” Brennan shrugged. “They were the one thing that was the same no matter where we moved.”
It was why libraries always felt like a safe space—why here, at night, he and Cole alone on the floor, he dared to let Cole know him.
Brennan peered back at the books and focused on the task at hand, methodically scanning the cart and shelves. Cole stepped up beside him and reached for a book, shifting it back and forth in his hands.
“You moved a lot as a kid?”
Brennan huffed a dry laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. As a kid, as a teen. Basically until I came here.”
“That must have been hard.” Cole joined Brennan in shelving. Brennan kept his attention on the books so he wouldn’t get distracted by the heat of Cole’s eyes on him.
“I read a lot,” Brennan said. He meant,I was lonely.
“Me, too,” Cole said. “I had this little group. Me, Mari, and my brother, Noah. We grew up together and we’d trade and take turns reading books.”
“Like a little book club.” Brennan smiled.
“Yeah.” Cole went a little quiet, took a little too long staring at a book’s spine, before he added, “But then in high school, Mari started getting busy with all her APs, and Noah started hanging out with these, like, cliché bully assholes. I joined the school book club, but it wasn’t the same, and eventually I got used to reading on my own.”
“Like the rest of us losers,” Brennan joked.
They shelved books for a few minutes, Cole moving the cart down the aisle as they progressed. Brennan liked the easy monotony of it. Straightforward, repetitive, absolute, a predefined system that Brennan could easily fall into. He could almost be absorbed by it, and ignore the annoying flutter in his chest whenever his eyes caught on Cole’s hands for a beat too long, which was happening more and more often. What could he say, the guy had nice hands.
Brennan went to break the silence. “You know—”
“Um, actually—” Cole started.
“Oh,” Brennan said. “You first.”
“I was just gonna say,” Cole said, mouth twisting sideways as he considered his words, “if you need someone to talk to about all the vampire business, you know, my metaphorical door is open. What were you gonna say?”
Brennan suppressed a smile. Somehow, they were on the same page. He had set out to do this thing right—on his own. But Cole already knew, and maybe Brennan needed a second opinion. Or a friend.
“Just, uh…” Brennan started. “Kind of a lot happened with that meeting. I don’t know how to make sense of it. Do you…?” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence without sounding pathetic.Do you wanna hang out with me?
Cole didn’t miss a beat. “I’m off as soon as I finish this cart.”
Brennan glanced down. There were only a few more books left.
“Okay,” Brennan said, grabbing one of the remaining books. “Then let’s get waffles.”
The Waffle Den was a twenty-four-hour breakfast dive outside of campus, alongside a Walmart, a gas station, a cannabis dispensary, and a single stoplight.
Small-town charm with access to urban adventures,the Sturbridge University marketing bragged. It was a pretty way of saying they lived an hour away from the nearest hospital.
Most people who went to the Waffle Den were either intoxicated, on their way to intoxication, or recovering from intoxication; it fulfilled a need for both late-night munchies and morning hangover cures. It always smelled like burnt coffee, pancake batter, grease, as well as cigarette or marijuana smoke, depending on the time of day.
“I love this place,” Cole said. “It’s the closest thing to a Waffle House y’all Northerners have.”
