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Nom couldn’t believe Katie was actually making him do this. No, he totally could, it was just like Katie to try and make him embarrass himself in public. When he first lost this stupid bet to Katie and she had just asked him to rent out a specific book from the library for her, he had been relieved. That was before Katie revealed that she didn’t know the name of the book and just wrote him a description to go off of. So in other words she just wanted him to make a fool out of himself in front of whichever librarian he would have to ask for help, which was great. Just great.
Well, the only way to get through this was to get it over with. So Nom decided to stop by the library on his way back home after patrol. Even if it had been a rough shift, any shift he had to work with Owain was, the guy seriously lacks a sense of humour and keeps berating him for not being a “better officer”. At least once he gets the book for Katie he can go home.
After entering the library Nom doesn't even try to find the book himself, instead, he immediately heads to the Service Desk where a copper-haired woman was sitting. She was wearing an elegant white dress with feathers stitched onto it and was currently talking to someone on what looked to be her phone.
“Give me just a second someone’s coming over” she gently said into the phone once she noticed Nom approaching, before gently if still clearly annoyed asking, “What can I help you with?”
“Finding a book hopefully.” Nom shrugged, at his words, the woman seemed to look him over for a moment before a mischievous smile formed on her face.
“So you see that bookshelf over there, my colleague is currently sorting books there and he's going to help you, just walk on over and I’ll buzz him so he knows” the lady said as she pointed at a specific row between two shelves. She clearly just wanted to get rid of him, whatever, hopefully her colleagues were more helpful.
As Nom rounded the corner to be between the two shelving units, he saw exactly one person standing there. It was a blond guy about his age, who had a walkie-talkie in his hand and was standing next to a cart full of books that needed to be shelved away. So that must be the woman’s colleague, and he was pretty. He had spun around to face Nom as he walked over, his hair was perfectly framing his face making his mesmerising emerald eyes catch one's attention quicker. He was wearing a light blue cardigan over a white shirt, along with that he was sporting light brown trousers with white lilies stitched along the cuffs. Other than that he was a few centimetres shorter than Nom.
All that to say that he looked absolutely gorgeous and after Nom's head had enough time to work through that fact, he finally spoke up, “Hey, are you the colleague who can help me find a book?”
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Scott had just been busy putting back the books that were recently returned while humming a tune as he did so, when the walkie-talkie in his pocket came to life and El's voice rang through it saying, “I got a hot guy here who’s totally your type looking for a book, I'm sending him your way. You're welcome, over.”
Scott didn’t even have the time to process what El had just said before a guy with brown hair and glasses walked into the aisle he was in. And who was Scott kidding El was completely right this guy was totally his type. He had glasses, brown eyes that perfectly matched his hair, he was kinda muscular and had an incredibly charming smile. Who wouldn’t find him attractive?
“Hey, are you the colleague who can help me find a book?” The guy gently asked as his smile brightened. Focus Scott, you got this just do your job.
“Yup that's me,” Scott quickly responded with a polite smile of his own. “What book are you looking for?”
“Okay so you see the thing is I don’t know,” the guy started explaining, “you see I'm here to check out a book for my sister, but she didn’t give me a title just a description from memory of what a friend told her, and I totally understand if you don’t want to help me because of-“
“I'd love to help, honestly it almost sounds like a fun game,” Scott interrupted the guy as it seemed he was just rambling at that point, “So what's that description?”
The guy's face seemed to light up even more at Scott’s words (was this guy actively trying to give him a heart attack!?) before he pulled out a piece of notepaper from his pocket and seemingly started reading, “Okay, then. This is a book about a princess and her knight. It’s romance. The princess has a sun theme and the knight has a moon one. Oh, and apparently there is a big like fantasy castle on the cover.”
Scott thought for a second before he said while starting to walk to a completely other shelf, “That sounds like the tale of Soluna, it just came out a month or so ago i know there should be a copy of it somewhere over here…found it!” Scott announced as he spotted the book on the upper part of the shelf that was just out of reach from him and pointed to it.
The guy who had followed him over got up on the tip of his toes and easily got the book off the shelf, “Wow, thank you so much, I don’t think I would have ever found this without you.”
“No worries, a friend of mine rambled to me about it after she read it, it’s apparently really good,” Scott said with a nod. What now?
“How stupid of me I completely forgot to introduce myself, my name's Nom,” the guy, Nom, told the blonde.
“I'm Scott, it’s lovely to meet you, Nom,” Scott said, surprising even himself with how casual he managed to sound.
They both stayed like that in almost awkward silence for a long moment before Nom mumbled, “I should probably go now, I still have to make dinner when I get home.”
“I can check you out, if you want.” Scott helpfully offered.
“That would be awesome,” Nom smiled, simply being happy he could stick around Scott for just a moment longer.
Before they walked over to the till where they had a casual bit of conversation while Scott typed something into the computer, before writing something on a piece of paper and handing Nom the book back. With that, the brunette left the library with Scott not being able to stop himself from looking after him.
“So I was right then, he was your type,” El's voice suddenly came up from behind him.
“El!” Scott shrieked in surprise.
“Please tell me you at least did something about it,” El asked with a tone indicating that she was ready for disappointment.
“I did,” Scott said with no elaboration as he walked back to where he had been putting away books, before Nom arrived.
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Nom was currently scrolling through his phone on the sofa as he had just finished washing the dishes after dinner and he wanted to relax for a bit. Katie had gone to her room to start reading the book she had him pick up.
“Hey, Nom” Katie said as she walked back into the living room with a smug smile on her face.
“Yeah, Katie?” Nom asked for an elaboration of what got her smiling like that.
“You want to tell me about something that happened at the library today?” Katie innocently questioned as her smirk grew wider.
“No?” Nom answered in clear confusion.
“Okay, let’s try it this way, dose the name Scott ring any bells?” Katie asked.
“What? How? Okay, so the guy who worked there and helped me find the book was called Scott.” Nom sputtered, feeling almost embarrassed. What did Katie know?!
“Is he cute? Do you like him?” Katie asked, though it could just be teasing.
“Yes. How do you even know about him?” Nom questioned as he was beyond flustered and embarrassed now.
“Because I think you should text him then,” Katie said as she passed Nom a piece of paper before heading back to her room giggling and saying something about having to tell 4c and Mae about this.
As Nom looked down at the piece of paper he almost felt shocked, there was a phone number on it along with the sentence: ‘Give this to your brother and tell him to text Scott ;)’. Scott must have put the note in the book while checking it out for Nom and knew that Katie would be the one finding it. This was the best day of his life. Nom wasted no time at all texting the cute guy from the library. From now on, every book that Katie wanted, Nom would voluntarily pick it up for her.