brooks & hale ✔️

brooks

twenty eight ;
b r o o k s

BROOKS HATED BEING ILL, but the worst part of it was the entire week of school he missed. More specifically, the unbelievable load of work he had to catch up on.

He was back in school on Monday, more or less good as new, and he was drowned in all the content he had to copy up by first period. Thankfully, he had a free, so he had a fighting chance of getting some of it done before he got too swamped. Even better, he shared this free with Calla and Hassan, so there was someone else here to entertain Calla's relentless chatter so Brooks wouldn't get distracted.

Well, that was the plan, anyway. All thoughts of no distractions flew out of the window when Hale walked into the library. Brooks instinctively glanced up when the door opened and couldn't have looked away even if he wanted to. Hale was laughing at whatever Will was telling him, but as if sensing Brooks' gaze, he glanced in his direction and caught his eye. His face lit up and the grin he sent Brooks sent his pulse into overdrive.

"Hello, Brooks?" Calla waved her hand so close to his face Brooks flinched back in surprise. "Are you sure you should be in school? You totally zoned out again."

"I feel fine," Brooks assured her.

In fact, he felt a million times better than fine. He'd even go as far as to say he felt great, even though he was at school. He hadn't seen Hale since he'd come round to his house last week, and although he'd had his phone returned to him at the weekend, he was still grounded. The texts and late night phone calls with Hale were enough to keep him going, but it wasn't the same as actually seeing him in real life.

As long as Brooks was grounded, the only place he could see Hale was school. He wanted to go over to him now, but he was surrounded by his friends and that was something he'd rather avoid.

"Did Hale get the work to you, Brooks?" Hassan asked, shaking him from his reverie.

Brooks snapped his head towards him. "The work?"

"The idiot grilled me for at least ten minutes to find out where you live," Hassan said, tapping his pen against the table in an offbeat rhythm. His tone was bored, as usual, but there was something scrutinising in his gaze that made Brooks nervous. "Just to give you some chemistry notes. Tell me he actually delivered in the end."

"Oh. Yeah," Brooks said hastily. "Yeah, he got them to me."

"Good to know. Are you still tutoring him in chemistry?"

"I think so," Brooks replied, glancing at Hale. He was staring in their direction, not even trying to be subtle about it, and Brooks wanted to yell at him to stop being so obvious. "Uh, why do you ask?"

Hassan shrugged. "Simple curiosity."

That was a definite warning sign, because Hassan would never ask anything out of sheer curiosity, certainly not something as seemingly unimportant as who Brooks was tutoring. Hassan raised an eyebrow at his questioning stare, a silent invitation to ask what was bothering him. Brooks would have done just that if Calla hadn't chosen that moment to push aside her French essay, and join in the conversation.

"So, Brooks," she said, leaning forward with a conspiratorial smile that immediately made him wary. He knew that smile all too well; whatever was about to come out of his mouth was most likely going to be embarrassing or outrageous in a scandalous way. "Now that you're out and proud - "