Dr. Morris would ask him why he was so afraid of rejection. Nellie would tell him that he had to communicate with Cole if he wanted to move forward. Tony or Mari would tell him to stop being a coward and do it, but with more colorful language.
Weirdly, that one worked.Pull yourself together, Brooks.
He straightened up and went to the door, flung it open, and—
Ran right into a walking stack of boxes. The boxes started to topple but Brennan’s arms shot out reflexively and caught them, scooping up the top one and stabilizing the rest of the pile in the kid’s arms.
It all happened in a second and, with the top box in Brennan’s hands, Cole’s face poked out above the stack, and Brennan forgot to breathe.
“Hey,” Cole said, and he sounded kind of breathless, too.
All of Brennan’s preplanned speeches left from his mind with an audiblewhoosh.
“Hey,” said Brennan.
“Good catch,” Cole said, flushing. But maybe that was from carrying the stack of boxes, which Brennan realized, glancing at the box in his own hands, were full of heavy textbooks.
“Let me get those,” Brennan said, and scooped up the boxes in his other arm, stacking them on top of the box he already had. The tower ofboxes was heavy, but being a vampire came in handy on rare occasions, it seemed.
Cole watched Brennan in something of a daze, eyebrows shooting up at the display of strength. He was definitely blushing now, and not just from exertion. Interesting.
In a more devastating turn of events, Cole was wearing a suit, navy jacket over white shirt with a printed bow tie.
Cole really was unfairly handsome, boyish but angular, eyebrows thick and expressive, unruly curls and old Converse the only part of his usual wardrobe that had made the cut. Was it the light, or did Cole’s hair have a reddish tint?
“Can you, like, not block the door?” a disgruntled voice rose from behind them.
A cluster of students stood a few feet behind them in various degrees of annoyance, and Brennan and Cole sheepishly darted away from the door, lingering outside the library. It was starting to get dark and, as if on cue, the streetlights that lined the path around the quad flickered on.
At least Cole looked half as flustered as Brennan felt, shoving his hands in his pockets and then taking them out again and then fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket while Brennan carried the boxes.
“Where do you want these?” Brennan asked.
Cole directed him to a side storage room around the corner from the front entrance, and Brennan followed him, heaving the boxes up onto the shelf Cole pointed out, feeling Cole’s gaze on him the whole time.
“Thanks,” Cole said.
Without the boxes as a shield, the nerves came back full force. And there was Cole, looking every bit the sexy librarian he was, and in all Brennan’s contingencies of how this might go wrong, he had not accounted forthat suitand the way his brain short-circuited.
“What’s with the suit?” Brennan asked. Did not wince, did not facepalm, but it took effort.
“I had an interview for an internship,” Cole said, waving his hand dismissively.
“Oh, how’d that go?”
“Fine, it was good, it’s, you know, kinda stuffy.”
“Right, yeah.”
This was awkward.
Then Cole said, “I’m really glad you came by. I wanted to see you.” Cole searched Brennan’s face for some response and Brennan didn’t know what his face was doing, but it encouraged the rest of the words to spill out. “I feel so shitty about what happened with Mari. She’s so insistent and protective, and I don’t know how to say no to her. And I didn’t know how to talk to you, after I let her say all those awful things about you—”
“Hey, you’re not responsible for what she said.” Not that Brennan could even blame Mari, when her reaction was the most normal response so far.
“But more than that,” Cole insisted, “I fucking missed you. Isn’t that pathetic? I missed having someone to shelve books with, and I missed watching you organize the pamphlets you don’t even let me touch, and I kept findingTwilightmemes I wanted to send you but wasn’t sure I was allowed.”
“You can always send meTwilightmemes,” Brennan said, because his brain was stuck onI fucking missed youand might be there for a while. And god, how casually Cole could say something that made Brennan dizzy. It made him want to be honest, too. Maybe that was why he blurted, “I’m sorry I scared Mari.”That I’m not normal.
