Cole’s hand that wasn’t entwined with Brennan’s settled at the nape of Brennan’s neck. “I know,” he said. He didn’t need to tug Brennan down, because he was already moving to meet him. Against his lips, Cole said, “But I could bear to hear it.”
So Brennan kissed him, and told him, quite a few times and in quite a few ways.
BRENNAN’S PHONE
Brennan
Hey, wait.
What happens when I’m done with Breaking Dawn?
Cole
Lol. There’s a spin-off book, and the first book from Edward’s perspective, and we’ll obviously have to watch the movies.
And there’s always The Vampire Diaries, Vampire Academy— we can move on to werewolves, if you want!
But I have endless recs to give you, as long as you’ll have them, and you can keep sending me poetry. I think it’s a pretty neat little arrangement.
Brennan
It is pretty neat
Sometimes they were so in sync it was scary. Like when they met up at the library, and Brennan had picked up coffee from the bougie place Cole liked. Except, when he arrived at their meeting spot—a corner in the third-floor stacks with a table that was rarely occupied—Cole was waiting with two coffees from the less-bougie placeBrennanliked. That happened twice before they decided to implement a turn-taking system.
And then there were the quiet moments. Like Cole’s head in Brennan’s lap as he read a book for class while Brennan scrolled on his phone on his latest Wikipedia odyssey. They were in Cole’s room, curtains open wide to let the deceptively bright sun in, warming up the room despite the ice outside. A record played, softly, because Cole couldn’t deal with complete silence. Across the bed, his foot tapped absently to the beat. Brennan had one hand resting in Cole’s curls, idly twisting strands around his fingers.
“You’re comfortable,” Cole said at one point, leaning into the touch like a cat.
He was right. Brennan was comfortable.Theywere comfortable. Something bright and light was expanding in Brennan’s chest and he was a bit worried he might want this comfort for the rest of his life. Which, of course, was hard when the rest of his life was supposed to be forever.
He looked down at Cole, the shadow his lashes cast on his cheek, eyes scanning left and right across the page. After a minute, Cole caught him staring, but didn’t say anything. Just smiled and went back to reading.
Brennan tried to memorize the feeling, the corporeality of Cole’s weight in his lap, hair around his fingers, heart beating a rhythm that Brennan could hear loud and clear if ever he let himself listen.
You’re comfortable,Cole had said.
“You are, too,” Brennan whispered.
It was snowing the day Cole left to go home for winter break, finished with his finals a few days ahead of schedule.
Brennan approached Cole and Mari’s place to say goodbye for the break, and he had a brown-paper-wrapped book in his backpack to give to Cole.
In the distance, Cole emerged from the brownstone with two hefty suitcases, struggling through the doorway and down the porch steps.
With no one else around on the street, Brennan was free to nearly teleport to Cole’s side with vampire speed, easily scooping the bags from Cole and carrying them down to the sidewalk.
“Well, thanks,” Cole said, wearing a bashful smile and a beanie pulled over his curls.
“Knew you kept me around for something,” Brennan said.
Cole punched him in the arm, then collapsed into his chest, wrapping his arms around Brennan’s middle like he was a giant, lanky teddy bear. Brennan’s brain broke down a little over how soft Cole was, how lucky Brennan was, and took a beat to catch up and get his arms around Cole’s shoulders.
“I don’t want to go home,” Cole said, voice muffled against Brennan’s chest.
Brennan couldn’t say he felt differently. He dreaded facing his mom as much as he knew Cole dreaded dealing with his own parents. Brennan smoothed a hand down Cole’s back.
“It’s just a few weeks,” Brennan said.
