Page 24 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends
ONE EASY THING
brENNAN’S PHONE
Dr. Mom
What do you mean? You always come home for Thanksgiving.
Brennan
Yeah, and we usually just order Chinese food. Do you really need me for that?
I’m way behind on school things! I need to focus on that.
You know how it is.
Dr. Mom
How behind are you? Is it serious? Maybe you should set up meetings with your academic advisor, and each of your teachers.
Brennan
I’ll be okay. I just need to stay on campus.
Library access and all that.
Dr. Mom
Okay. No repeats of last semester, promise?
Brennan
Yep.
brENNAN’S JOURNAL, THE BACK PAGE
COLE
Reasons not to like him???
Obviously, Twilight is an absurd waste of time and is objectively terrible.
He’s distracting when he laughs.
Or smiles.
Sometimes he drinks his coffee with the lid off and gets whipped cream on his upper lip and it makes me want to light myself on fire.
He waves to me from across the library shamelessly and I get secondhand embarrassment.
When his hair is messy and there’s a curl sticking up and I’m not allowed to smooth it down, that is also very distracting and frustrating.
Southern accent is deceptively charming.
brENNAN’S PHONE
Sunny
I’m deeply sorry in advance about Nellie
Brennan
What? What happened?
Sunny
I upgraded her flip phone to a smartphone. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Nellie
[a blurry, too-close photo of Nellie’s chin from below]
How to send text on iphone
Text Sunny
Send text to Sunny
How to wi-fi
What is wi-fi
Brennan
This is Brennan, not Google.
Nellie
Text Brennan
My bad Sunny got me a new phone and I’m still figuring out how to youth it send send send why isn’t it sending oh god it’s still listening hold on
Brennan
Well. At least you’re not signing your name anymore.
Nellie
Sincerely, Nellie send send message send wait Sunny can you help me send this it’s not working
By the time he walked through the wide doors of the first floor of the library, he was already overwhelmed.
He hadn’t really thought this through—midterms were this week, so everyone was in hell.
The library was crowded, students gathered in groups across every piece of available furniture and counter space, chattering about group projects or complaining about homework.
The air was ripe with the stench of body odor, energy drinks, coffee, and, most likely, tears.
Brennan himself wasn’t in the best shape with classes, that hadn’t been a lie. Even with all the extra hours from not being able to sleep, school felt impossible to focus on in the scheme of things going on in his life.
He didn’t know how to find Cole in this mess, if he even should. Cole probably had his hands full enough on a night like this without Brennan’s own angst. He hovered in the entryway, cracking his knuckles, debating turning around. But he’d come here for a reason.
Right as he thought it, his eyes fell on Cole, who was kneeling next to a baby-faced freshman girl wrapped in a blanket and crying openly.
Cole was talking calmly and soothingly to her and offering a steaming mug of something.
Brennan’s heart panged with equal parts concern and affection, because here was Cole, the Cute Library Blanket Guy, in action.
But he had dark smudges under his eyes. His curly hair looked especially wild, like he’d been running his hands through it, like he did when he was bullshitting his way through a procrastinated essay while Brennan finished shelving as an apology for distracting him.
He entered the library, trying to keep the noise from overwhelming him as a tight pain started to form in his temple. He needed to focus on something, so he focused on Cole. If he let his instincts take over, he could zero in on the conversation from afar.
“—and I know Jane is reasonable, she’s really an old friend, she’ll grant the extension, sweetheart—” Cole was saying, and only he could pull off calling a stranger “sweetheart” as something soothing instead of creepy. It was either the Southern charm or the rainbow pin on his denim jacket.
Brennan lingered a ways back, until the freshman gave a sniffle and a watery smile. Cole turned to leave, visibly deflating as he did, cheery mask slipping. He looked… exhausted.
Brennan went to make his presence known but a girl with blue hair beat him to it, looking frazzled with a pen stuck behind her ear and a stack of books weighing her arms down. Brennan paused and listened.
“Take a break, Cole. Go shelve the three hundreds and then go home. That’s an order.”
“You’re not actually my boss,” Cole said, but he didn’t seem to have much fight in him.
The girl turned to wherever she was lugging those books, gave Brennan a bored once-over, and disappeared.
Cole perked up a little when he saw Brennan, but Brennan didn’t know if it was real excitement or the same polite mask as with the girl earlier.
“God, Brennan, it’s good to see you. Do you mind talking while I shelve?
” Cole said, already walking toward the staircase to the stacks.
“It’s been so busy, and we’re behind on everything, and I kind of procrastinated on an essay due at midnight, so the sooner I get done shelving, the sooner I can go work on that—”
Cole was talking so fast, Brennan felt winded trying to keep up, following him up the stairs two at a time. Brennan almost tripped over a pair of girls crouched over a laptop together on one of the landings.
“Okay, slow down a sec.”
Brennan reached out against all better judgment and put a hand on Cole’s shoulder to get him to stop for a second, and it worked. Cole paused on the top step and turned toward the touch.
“Just breathe,” Brennan said. “Slow down. Are you alright?”
Cole blinked. His eyes went to Brennan’s hand and then back to Brennan’s face in a slow, sleepy processing of events. If he had to guess, Cole was running on two hours of sleep and an ungodly amount of caffeine.
His mouth took over and blurted, “Cole, you look tired. ”
Cole blinked up at him for a beat, dark circles under his eyes. He inhaled one shaky breath, and then his lower lip quivered, and that was the only warning before he burst into tears.
He immediately buried his face in his hands, bowed head and shaking shoulders, and Brennan tried to keep up with the rapidly changing emotions.
“Oh my god,” Cole was saying into his hands, shaking his head, but his shoulders were still trembling. “Oh my god this is so embarrassing, I’m fine. ”
Brennan’s hand was still on Cole’s shoulder and his other hand fluttered awkwardly, hovering, uncertain. He wanted to pull Cole in to him, to hug him until he stopped shaking, but he wasn’t sure he was allowed.
He finally gave in to the urge to comfort and wrapped an arm around Cole, which, in practice, didn’t feel that awkward.
He tried to rub a hand up and down his shoulder in a way that he hoped was comforting, and he must have been somewhat successful because Cole fell into his chest like he was waiting for the invitation.
“I’m sorry,” Cole said again, sobbing and dripping snot on Brennan’s shirt. “I’m fine, I’m really fine.”
“Yes, I’m seeing all the trademark signs of a person who’s fine,” Brennan said, which was probably not the right thing to say, but Cole snorted a small wet laugh.
Brennan looked around the crowded library. It wasn’t like Cole was the only college kid on the verge of a breakdown during midterms, but he was sure Cole didn’t want to be on display, with the way he kept his face buried in his hands and turned his whole body into Brennan’s side.
“Hey, let’s go to the break room, yeah?” Brennan said.
Cole sniffled loudly and his red face emerged from his hands at last. He nodded and Brennan led the way, Cole keeping a loose hold on Brennan’s arm that Brennan was hyperaware of. Was Cole’s touch always this hot?
No, bad Brennan, he scolded. He needed to ignore his ill-advised crush and help comfort his friend and act like a normal person for once in his goddamn life.
Brennan hoped things were still where he remembered them.
He pushed open the door to the storage room and held it open for Cole, who passed up the table and chairs in favor of flopping on the ground with a fair amount of drama.
Brennan went to the box labeled in Cole’s scratchy all-caps EMERGENCY COMFORT STASH .
The Cute Library Blanket Guy origin story.
Within five minutes, Cole was wrapped up in his favorite blanket—the fleece one with a scattered pattern of dogs with speech bubbles that said “fuck off”—and holding a steaming mug of cocoa.
The mug, a gift from Tony, said SEXY LIbrARIAN in gaudy lettering.
Brennan made the cocoa with water instead of milk, because Cole was a weirdo who preferred shitty watery packet hot chocolate to anything of real substance.
By the time Brennan was sitting on the floor across from him, legs crossed and hands in his lap, Cole had stopped crying.
“It’s just, obviously midterms is a stressful time for everyone, but the library is like…
Everyone is stressed, all the time, and everyone needs my help, and I’m trying to—to be the library blanket guy, right?
With the smiles and the hot cocoa and all.
” Everything came tumbling out of Cole in a rush.
“But it’s so exhausting when I’m trying to take care of everyone else.
And, really, I don’t mind, but it piles up. ”
While Cole was busy taking care of everybody, was there anyone taking care of Cole?
God, was that what Brennan had been doing, too? Accepting all of Cole’s kindness and not offering much in return? He’d come here today, as all days, for selfish reasons—just wanting to see a friend. But maybe Cole needed a friend in all his shit, too.
“What do you need? Advice, or sympathy, or…?”
Cole sniffled up at Brennan, dangerously close to crying again.