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Bellamy Blake is a librarian. And with that great power comes great responsibility.
Mostly, it means he’s bitten his tongue so many times he’s not even fazed when he tastes blood, because of people who are reading shitty things he wouldn’t recommend in a hundred years.
But it’s what he does, and he lives for those who are actually interested when they lean on his desk and ask for recommendations. That sort of people make him forget all about assholes like the blonde who drops by his desk one day, looking to check out Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Palahniuk’s Fight Club.
As far as literature choices go, this one isn’t the worst but Bellamy can’t help but to feel wary of the stranger who’s currently toying with her phone. He doesn’t trust people who read patriarchal shit like Fight Club in their free time so he focuses on her other book.
“Shakespeare, huh?” he asks, swiping the books over the scanner.
The girl looks up from her phone and wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Shakespeare is dumb. This,” she points at Fight Club, “is what I’m reading for fun.”
Bellamy’s stomach plunges and despite the fact that he can keep quiet in the face of immense stupidity ten out of eleven times, this one is the eleventh and he can’t help himself.
“Are you seriously saying Shakespeare is dumb and you’re reading Fight Club for fun?”
Now he’s got her full attention, her blue eyes glaring at him in a way that makes him seriously question whether glaring daggers is a metaphor or a thing that actually happens, and when she speaks, it’s with a low and threatening voice that sends shivers down his spine.
“You got a problem with that?”
Bellamy squares his shoulders, returning the glare. “Actually, I do. Fight Club is the worst piece of trash I’ve ever read. It’s not a book, it’s a word-vomit about a bunch of white guys whose daddies didn’t love them and now they’re self-pitying themselves being nostalgic for patriarchal power.”
“That’s not what I heard,” the blonde counters, her phone completely forgotten as her hands curl into fists on her sides. She’s actually pretty frightening, Bellamy will give her that. But definitely not the sort of person who’d read Fight Club. “I heard it’s a metaphor for liberating ourselves from the chains of capitalism.”
“You probably need a hearing aid, then.”
The girl slams her fist on his desk, seething with rage. “What is your problem?”
“My problem is that whoever recommended that,” Bellamy narrows his eyes at the book, “to you is an asshole you shouldn’t trust.”
“My boyfriend recommended that.”
Okay, so he’s just insulted this girl’s boyfriend. God, if he gets fired, he’s going to slap himself for being so stupid because there is no way she’s not going to file a complaint now.
Or kick his ass.
Probably the latter, she seems like the type.
“There’s a reason why the first rule of the fight club is that you don’t talk about the fight club, Princess. It’s because it’s such a shitty book.”
Thankfully, Miller chooses to make an appearance just then and he puts an arm on Bellamy’s shoulder, looking between him and the furious blonde who’s gone so red she just might explode.
“Is there a problem here?” he asks, tightening the grip he’s got on Bellamy’s shoulder when he tries to speak up.
The blonde just glares at him for a second or two and then gets her books, shoves them into her bag and scoffs.
“Book snob.”
“Fight Club-lover,” he shoots back, fuming until she stomps out of the library, slamming the doors behind her so hard everyone flinches.
Miller’s looking decidedly unamused when Bellamy turns to him.
“What?”
“Do you like this job, Blake?”
“Sure.”
It’s not bad as far as jobs go. He mostly handles references, the main desk occasionally, and he’s got enough time to study when no one needs his help. Being a history major is hard. It’s a little easier when he gets to spend his time at work being surrounded by books.
“Then don’t get fired.”
*
Bellamy doesn’t see the Fight Club girl for a couple of weeks. He mostly works afternoons and there’s a good chance that her and his classes don’t overlap, but he’s hoping to see her real soon because their meeting can go two ways.
First – if she actually liked Fight Club, he can absolutely ruin her.
Second – if she didn’t like it, he gets the chance to say “I told you so” which is something he’s never likely to pass up on.
“Don’t you think you’re enjoying it too much?” Miller asks him one day when Bellamy’s gone on another rant. He’s not sure why he can’t get that one girl out of his head but it might have something to do with the fact that she had a ‘Smash the patriarchy’ badge stuck to her bag and didn’t look like the type of idiot to believe that Fight Club is good literature.
Plus, he’s come up with some really good comebacks to whatever she might say, and it’d be a real shame if he were to miss that.
But Miller doesn’t know that so Bellamy just shrugs, sticking his nose in The Iliad again. “Nope.”
“Come on, Blake. You just asked me if I’ve seen her.”
“Did you?”
Miller grins victoriously and Bellamy realizes that he’s been had.
“I might have. What are you gonna give me if I tell you?”
“You opportunist piece of shit,” Bellamy accuses, but without real heat. “Alright, beer’s on me.”
“Nope. This is too good for that.”
“I’ll cover your shift whenever you want me to.”
Miller makes a show of considering it and finally nods. “That’ll do. She’s here in the morning, usually between ten and noon.” Then, with a punch to Bellamy’s shoulder, he adds, “Don’t be an asshole. She’s nice.”
The grin that tugs on Bellamy’s mouth nearly splits his face. “What are you talking about? I’m a sunshine.”
The Fight Club girl is there in the morning, that’s for sure. Bellamy is just talking to one of his favorite people, Miller’s boyfriend Monty, when she walks in. Her hair’s in a messy bun on top of her head, she’s wearing a sweatshirt three sizes too big and the dark circles under her eyes look like they’re going to swallow the world whole.
Bellamy nearly gives up on teasing her, especially when she widens her eyes in horror, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
Monty seems to notice where Bellamy is looking and he just chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s the girl?”
“That’s the girl,” Bellamy confirms, watching her battle her inner fight-or-flight instinct. Finally, it looks like she’s made her decision and she squares her shoulders, all but marching towards his desk.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then. Her name is Clarke, by the way, and she’s a really nice person who doesn’t deserve your shit.”
That sort of reaction surprises him coming from Monty so Bellamy just nods, stunned, watching the other boy send a sympathetic look in Clarke’s direction and leave.
He doesn’t have the time to consider his strategy before the girl – Clarke – is at his desk and she slams two books on it, eyes narrowed as if she’s daring him to comment on anything from her appearance to her choice in books.
“I’m returning these,” she announces, nodding towards the books. Bellamy casts a glance at them; Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad and the last book in The Hunger Games series. Kind of a far cry from Palahniuk and Shakespeare.
Her jaw is raised petulantly when he looks up again, words dying in his throat. “No comments today? I’m disappointed.”
“Those are good books.”
“Yeah, because I read good books,” she shoots back, rolling her eyes into infinity. And then – “You were right, by the way.”
“Right about what?”
She’s basically giving him the perfect chance to say ‘I told you so’ but he really doesn’t want to. It looks like she’s decided to take the high road and is pretty proud of herself. Bellamy is proud of her, too. A little jealous, because he’d never be able to admit that someone else was right.
Also, she looks like she’s having a shit day, and he might be an asshole, but he’s got a line he doesn’t cross.
“Fight Club is the worst piece of patriarchal shit I’ve ever read.”
“Uh- good?”
“And Fincher was right, too. I wouldn’t let my daughter date a guy who likes Fight Club, either.”
Bellamy knows what she’s referencing; the director really did say that, but he’s still confused that she knows all of those things.
And he’s also confused because he’s pretty sure she said her boyfriend recommended the book to her.
“Are you okay?” he finally asks, dropping the whole wanting to mock her for her choice in books shtick because she sounds bitter, looks like she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks and no, she’s probably not okay.
She shoots him a glare. “Like you care. Just say ‘I told you so’ and let’s get it over with.”
“I’m not – okay, I wanted to do that. I actually switched shifts with Miller so I could do that but-“ but it’d be like kicking a puppy, now, “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
“What’s up, Prince Charming? Didn’t recognize you there,” she replies dryly, snatching her library card out of his hand and stomping away into the maze of bookshelves without an explanation.
Jesus Christ, Bellamy’s been working there ever since he started college but he’s never met anyone like her.
Mentally cursing himself for being an asshole in the first place, he gets his coat, asks Maya (who’s manning the front desk now) to cover him for a couple of minutes, and drags his ass to the first coffee shop, ordering a latte for himself and a hot chocolate for Clarke.
An apology is in order which is why he finds himself wandering around the library in search of her. When he finally finds her, it’s in the furthest section from the main desk, sitting alone at a table and looking like she’s going to set everything on fire.
Bellamy clears his throat and she startles, looking up so fast he’s actually worried she’s going to break her neck, and that’s when he notices that she’s been crying. It actually breaks his heart. Sure, she read Fight Club for fun, but she’s still human, isn’t she?
“What do you want?”
He raises the cardboard cup with hot chocolate and mutters sheepishly, “I wanted to apologize.”
“What’s that?”
“Hot chocolate. I didn’t know what coffee you liked, so.”
She considers it for a moment and then nods, wiping away the tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. There’s a bunch of art history books in front of her, and they’re colonizing the table along with her laptop and a half-eaten croissant.
“Hot chocolate will do.”
Bellamy carefully takes a seat next to her, studying her books as she sips on the hot chocolate. It must be up to her standards because she hums contentedly and turns to him.
“What’s your name?”
“Bellamy. Bellamy Blake.”
“Well, Bellamy Blake, apology accepted. I’m Clarke Griffin.” The tiniest of smiles crosses her mouth and Bellamy tries to ignore the fluttering feeling he gets, proud of himself that he’s made her smile. “Besides, you were right. I hated Fight Club.”
“Seriously?” He pretends to be surprised. “I was just about to recommend you read Kerouac next.”
“Ah, yes, please. Give me all the white male soul-searching you can get.”
Both of them laugh and after that, it seems like the tension between them has dissipated. Clarke moves her books and her laptop aside, opened on a PowerPoint presentation about Van Gogh, and she leans her cheek on her open palm, studying him.
“So, Bellamy, what do you do when you’re not insulting people based on their book choices?”
“I’m a history major.”
Clarke scoffs, but it’s almost good-naturedly. “Art history, here.”
It’s easy to get to talking with her after that, ranting about feminism and colonialism and literature and culture – everything that’s the main focus of their studies, really. Bellamy is barely aware of the time when Maya politely clears her throat and says that his shift is over.
That prompts Clarke to check her watch, too, and swear under her breath. “Shit, I have class in ten minutes.”
Bellamy promises Maya he’ll make it up to her but she just has this oddly unnerving knowing look on her face he doesn’t have the time to question because Clarke is leaving and he barely manages to catch up with her on the stairs leading from the library.
She’s got the same worn-leather messenger bag slung over her shoulder, straining under the weight of everything she’s shoved in there, and he nearly laughs when she swears again, tugging it like an impatient dog owner.
“You need company?” he asks, regretting it when she startles. The sun is barely illuminating her face, the winter approaching and turning days shorter and colder, but she nods, shifting her weight as he makes his way down.
He still doesn’t know why she’s been crying but sometimes, and Bellamy knows that well from first-hand experience, it’s kinder to pretend like you didn’t notice someone was crying. She’ll tell him if she wants to.
They walk in silence for a while, Bellamy’s hands shoved into his jeans’ pockets and trying to come up with something to say, but Clarke beats him to it.
“I was avoiding you.” He waits for a while, nearly smiling at the way she pointedly looks everywhere but him. “The thing is, you were right. My boyfriend is an asshole. Well,” she scrunches up her nose, “he’s not my boyfriend anymore. He made me the other woman.”
Bellamy can’t help the sheer shock that’s written all over his face and Clarke smiles ruefully.
“Yeah. Apparently, his girlfriend is on a study abroad year and he forgot to tell her that he’s not interested in a long-distance relationship. She came back to visit last week and – well, you can imagine.”
“Shit.”
Clarke nods. “So, you know, I can’t help feeling like I should’ve notice something was off. Not just because of Fight Club, like – in general. I’m not even angry at him, I’m angry at myself for being an idiot.”
“Listen, Clarke, I don’t know you, but you sure as hell don’t seem like an idiot to me,” he says, lowering his voice to a whisper when a group of raucous freshmen pass them by. She’s looking up at him, worrying her lower lip, and he tentatively places a hand on her forearm. “You couldn’t have known. Assholes are good at keeping secrets.”
She looks like she’s on the verge of tears again and Bellamy can’t stop himself from offering, “You wanna key his car? Slash his tires? You gotta slash only three, so his insurance doesn’t cover it.”
Her laugh is a bright thing, corners of her eyes crinkling, and she smiles at him – a little tired, a little broken, but really the most wholesome person he’s met in a long time. It should probably worry Bellamy that he likes her this much, even after that rocky start, but when she rises onto her toes and presses a chaste peck to his cheek, the butterflies go wild.
“Thank you, Bellamy.”
He can’t do anything right for the rest of the day.
*
After that, they become friends. It’s surprisingly easy to become friendly with Clarke Griffin, it turns out. She’s a human mess, constantly forgetting to eat, falling asleep in the library and snoring loudly when she’s particularly tired, but the pinnacle of everything, really, is when she looks him in the eye, dead serious, and says,
“Did you know that turtles can breathe through their ass if they’re not able to breathe through their nose?”
Bellamy is trying to tackle one problem at a time, think globally, act locally-type of stuff. Whenever she’s in the library during his shift, he’ll eat his lunch at her table and it’s not before long that he starts packing two sandwiches instead of just one, grinning when she rolls her eyes.
“You don’t have to feed me.”
“Someone’s gotta, if you’re not going to do it yourself,” he replies simply, nodding towards the sandwich and smiling smugly when she unwraps the cellophane and bites into it. “Good, right?”
“I fucking hate you.”
But she doesn’t, not really. The things Clarke Griffin hates are these: dog-eared books, dark humor, her socks getting wet from rain and she really, really has a ridiculous amount of hate for pickles. It’s kind of funny, the way she wrinkles her nose in distaste every time he makes himself a pickle sandwich (for her it’s ham and mayonnaise) and Bellamy likes that a lot.
She also seems very competent, keeps her head calm in a crisis like the one that happened when a freshman just passed out in front of him. Bellamy was all nerves but Clarke just approached her, rolled her to the side and checked her pulse, pronouncing,
“The finals take another victim.”
The girl was fine, Bellamy was not exactly, and Clarke teased him about it for the rest of the week.
Since he’s friends with Miller who dates Monty who is friends with Clarke, their social circles start overlapping and it isn’t before long that they’re getting drunk together and pairing up to kick everyone else’s ass in any sort of game the gang gets to playing.
It’s all good until the comment cards happen.
The first time anyone notices them, it’s early December, Miller is beanie-less and he rifles through the suggestions box like he’s going to war.
“Where’s the beanie?” Bellamy teases.
Miller shoots him a glare. “Monty. Didn’t want him getting cold.”
Now, Miller may seem heartless and stoic ninety percent of the time, but he’s got a soft spot for his boyfriend. Which explains why his bald head is exposed to the freezing temperatures.
“Cute, Miller.”
“Fuck – “ Miller stops, frowning at a comment card and muttering something to himself. “Blake, come check this out.”
Since it’s not very Miller-like to stop in the middle of what could have been a very satisfactory battle of insults, Bellamy nearly falls off his chair in a scramble to get to the comment card.
At first, there’s nothing weird about it. They had some that were written in what strangely looked like blood and a lot of insulting ones, but this one was filled with black ink and the only surprising thing about it was the content.
“The reference librarian is super cute. What?” Bellamy asks, incredulous. There are exactly two reference librarians. Him and Miller. Both have been called cute. “You sure this isn’t Monty?”
“Nope,” Miller shakes his head. “This isn’t his handwriting. He’s got a chicken scrawl. Besides, he’d just tell me I’m cute.”
“Maybe they meant me?”
A mischievous glimmer appears in Miller’s eye and that sort of shit scares Bellamy to death. “Who would call you cute?”
“There are people!” Bellamy defends, crossing his arms at his chest. People have called him cute. And hot. “Okay, so not cute that much, but. I’ve been told I’m hot.”
“You are hot,” Miller grants. “But you’re not cute.”
“Yeah, Miller, and you’re as cute as a fucking grinning shark, shut the fuck up. We’re both hot. But who’d call us cute?”
“Have you done any cutesy shit lately?”
Bellamy thinks about it and shakes his head. He really hasn’t, not to anyone who’s been in library. He did write off a late return fee for a guy but he didn’t strike him as the type to write that sort of comment.
“Have you?”
Miller shakes his head, too, staring at the controversial comment card. The thing is, both of them are competitive. And both of them are curious as fuck.
“We need to come up with a plan,” Bellamy finally declares, dead set on finding out who that is and possibly saying thank you.
“Well, this shit is right up your lane,” Miller tells him, taking off his coat now that he’s finally warmed up. “A mysterious admirer, loving you from afar. Jane Austen type of stuff.”
Bellamy punches him in the shoulder but blushes anyways. He does like that, yes, no matter how unlikely that seems. It’s just that – he’s a romantic, alright? Love should be about more than Tinder and one night stands.
Not that he doesn’t like those. But they always seem like a placeholder for something better, something bigger.
“A plan,” he reminds Miller before he’s had the chance to tease Bellamy about blushing. “We monitor the suggestions box.”
“Alright. It’s a deal.”
It feels just a little creepy, to spy on every person who approaches the suggestions box, but Bellamy’s got an excuse. He wants to beat Miller. Just for the fun of it.
On the first day, he finds himself making a mental check-list of everyone who approaches it. The first one is a freshman who’s got a boyfriend’s hand around her waist and Bellamy decides she’s probably not the one. The other is an intimidating-looking pre-med major, Lexa, who Bellamy knows is a lesbian so she’s out. Those that come next are a couple of jocks (he recognizes their comment cards by their tragically bad spelling later), Sterling, who Bellamy is pretty sure is afraid of him, and other people he has to write off because they just don’t seem like the type.
Clarke rolls her eyes when he complains about it on the lunch break, biting into his sandwich absolutely crestfallen.
“It’s just a comment card.”
“It’s not just a comment card, Clarke,” he snaps. “It’s a war to be won!”
“I’m pretty sure all that history is getting to your head.” Then she excuses herself to the bathroom and leaves Bellamy wondering if maybe Sterling’s got a crush on him.
All in all, by the time he meets Miller at the end of his shift, he’s pretty sure he’s losing it. They’ve agreed to empty out the suggestions box at the end of their shifts and go through the cards together.
“Why did we even expect that to be a two-time thing?” Miller asks, exasperated, when his pile comes up with nothing.
“Because a murderer always returns to the crime scene.”
“This is not a murder.”
Bellamy waves his hand vaguely, smiling when he sees someone thanking him for his recommendations. “It’s all the same.” Then he finds the card and lets out a victorious “Aha!”
Miller squints over Bellamy’s shoulder as he reads, “The reference librarian is still super cute.”
“So it’s definitely about me! Take that, Miller!”
“Fuck you, Blake,” the other boy shoots back, pulling his beanie down to the tips of his ears. “I’ve got a boyfriend and a life.”
“Well, I’ve got a secret admirer!”
Miller looks severely unimpressed and Bellamy realizes that he’s really not winning this one.
“You just proved my point.”
*
It’s a week before the holidays when Clarke shoves a flyer under his nose. She’s been slowly getting better these last few months, laughing more, mentioning Finn less. Bellamy gets ridiculously happy whenever she gets the idea to go out somewhere, and when he squints to read what’s written on it, he asks incredulously,
“You want to go on a slam poetry performance?”
“Sure,” she grins. “Wanna come with?”
The girl performing it isn’t bad. Most of her motifs are feminism, being angry and, for some reason, red lipstick as war paint. Bellamy has definitely heard and read better poetry but she’s good and Clarke seems pretty content, so there’s that.
They also get ridiculously drunk because what’s the point of going on a poetry performance if you’re not going to drink a lot of wine and succumb to ennui?
Or they’re just really, really drunk, Clarke’s glass dangling from her fingertips precariously as she tries to explain the meaning of Goethe’s Weltschmerz to Bellamy.
“It’s just like – you know – the world is in pain,” there she clutches her chest dramatically, nearly ripping off a button from her shirt, “and you feel it.”
“Okay, but Werther was a little bitch and you know it.”
“Sure, sure, but there’s something cool about the whole period. Like, drinking wine from skulls and writing love letters and – “
“Killing yourself?” Bellamy teases, remembering exactly how the ninety percent of protagonists of romanticist novels ended up.
Clarke rolls her eyes. “Love letters, Bellamy. They’re awesome. Come on, you love that shit, you’re a librarian. You probably fawn over Mary Shelley.”
“You can’t tell me she’s not awesome,” he defends, eyeing her glass and hoping it doesn’t fall down and break. “An eighteen year-old girl who wasn’t accepted into writer’s club because she’s a woman, and who just said – fuck it, I’m gonna turn this literature shit upside down.”
“Fuck Percy.”
“Fuck Percy.”
Clarke leans towards him conspiratorially, beckoning him closer. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Sure.”
She looks torn for a moment or two and then she bursts into giggles, just really ridiculous and drunk and Bellamy might not be any more sober, but he’s pretty sure that her hair looks like liquid gold and that the sound of her laughter is better than anything he’s ever heard.
“I love your freckles. Like,” she waves her hand, worrying her lower lip as she tries to come up with words, “they look like constellations. And there are so many of them. And you have dimples, too.”
She drives her point home by stabbing him into the said dimples, wiggling her finger around until he puffs up his cheeks and blows a gust of air at her.
“Gross!”
People around them start shooting looks full of disapproval and he helps Clarke up from her chair, draping his arm over her shoulders as they make their way towards the exit slowly. She giggles for a while, before leaning into his side more, nearly dumping all of her weight on him.
And Bellamy doesn’t mind. Every giggle she lets out rumbles against his chest and the waiter may look at him like he’s gone out of his mind when he pays the bill, but Bellamy doesn’t care. He really, really doesn’t care.
When they go out into the piercing cold December night, Clarke squeaks and burrows her nose into the crook of his neck.
“What’s up, Clarke?” he asks teasingly, pulling her in closer.
“I’m tiny and frozen,” she whispers, her warm breath fanning against his skin and sending shivers down his spine. The nice kind. The kind that makes him remember that she’s been through a bad breakup and that it doesn’t matter how much he likes her – he’s not making a move until she’s ready.
“Seriously?”
“Mm,” she nods, pressing herself so close it’s become impossible to notice anything but the soft lines of her body, the warmth of her skin, the mirth in her voice. “You wanna know another secret?”
“I wanna know all of your secrets,” he replies, voice like gravel despite how fond he feels of her in that moment.
Clarke detaches herself from him for a second, enough to let out a hurried, “Iwrotethecards” and return her head to his chest with enough force to nearly send them flying backwards.
Bellamy manages to balance them, holding a careful arm on her back, but Clarke’s face is still buried in his scarf.
“Can you repeat that?”
Her voice is muffled by his scarf but this time he actually hears it.
“I wrote the cards.”
“What cards? Christmas cards?”
“No,” she says, petulantly. “The comment cards. About a super cute librarian. You know, you’re really cute, for a librarian.”
His heart flips in his chest, sending warmth right down to his toes and he can barely fight off a grin threatening to split his face.
“Clarke, can you look at me for a sec?”
Her cheeks brush up against his neck on her head’s way up and he notices how warm they are, how red when she finally looks at him. There’s a splotch of paint on her cheekbone he wants to run his thumb across and this time he does, reveling in the way she closes her eyes and lets out the tiniest of sighs.
“You think I’m cute?” he asks, a little incredulous at the sight of her bashful tone and the red tip of her nose and her blue eyes that remind him of sea and summer, the smell of sun lotion and then paint.
Because, she’s always covered in paint. There is paint underneath her fingernails, paint on her jeans, smudges of it on her neck. And he’s seen her trying to wash it off but it’s a battle she can’t win. The things we love, they always stick to our skin.
And Bellamy, well – Bellamy really loves Clarke.
“Yep,” she confirms, popping the p audibly, and then raises a challenging eyebrow at him. “What are you gonna do about it?”
“I have a few ideas.”
“Can’t wait to hear – “
The rest of her words die on his lips when he presses them against hers. The night is cold, the snowflakes sticking to their coats are slowly melting, but Clarke’s lips are warm. Her tongue brushes across Bellamy’s lower lip and he opens his mouth immediately, forgoing all the slow and cautious he’s been hell-bent on.
Clarke tastes like wine and he licks into her mouth desperately, unsure whether this is real and whether this is smart, but then she smiles, their teeth accidentally clacking together.
“Probably shouldn’t be kissing when we’re smiling,” she says, moving away just a bit – enough to go cross-eyed trying to look into his eyes. “I feel really, really happy right now.”
“Do you want to go out with me?” he asks before he’s had the chance to overthink things and offer that they just forget everything that’s happened, for her sake.
Clarke blinks and then – then she straight up beams at him, looking happy like a kid on Christmas morning, and nods enthusiastically.
“Absolutely. I wanna go on a date with the cute librarian.”
“Good,” he kisses the top of her head. “I wanna go on a date with the Fight Club girl.”
When she elbows him in the ribs, turning to snuggle into his side, Bellamy figures he’s deserved it.
“We’ll get you a new nickname, I promise. Something cool.”
“I’d be okay with the cute librarian’s girlfriend, you know?”
Bellamy hums agreeably, stopping to kiss her again, quick and chaste. “Yeah, I’d be more than okay with that, too.”
*
Bellamy keeps getting ‘the reference librarian is super cute’ notes for a long while after that, but at least now he knows exactly who to kiss.