brooks & hale ✔️

brooks

sooo i don't know if this is an english thing or not, but as a side note in case you don't know:
prinks stands for pre-drinks, this weird thing people do where they meet up before the main event to have drinks, only to then go out for the evening to have even more drinks! this is usually a thing to do before prom but hey prinks can apply to anything :) feel free to ask if this doesn't make sense aha i suck at explaining stuff 

thanks for reading & hope you enjoy!

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seven ;
b r o o k s

BROOKS WAS TRYING VERY hard to listen to Calla, to be the best friend he should be, but it suddenly became increasingly more difficult when Hale appeared at the end of the hallway. What was wrong with him? Hale talked to him a couple of times, flashed him that heart-stopping smile like it was nothing, and now he had taken permanent residence among Brooks' thoughts. Like a brain-eating parasite. A really hot and funny brain-eating parasite.

Get your head out of the gutter, he advised himself, knowing full well it was advice he would never take.

"Brooks?" Calla's brown eyes were earnest and expectant. "What do you think I should do?"

Great, now he was a terrible friend. "Sorry, I zoned out for a moment," he said apologetically, dragging his gaze away from Hale. He hadn't even noticed him, or if he had, he hadn't glanced this way even once. "You were saying?"

"Hale," she sighed, and he froze. "We talked at Will's party, sure, but not since then and that was last week. And people are saying he pulled someone else. Should I try and talk to him or just leave it?"

Brooks breathed a small sigh of relief. She wasn't on to him, she had no idea he was basically betraying her with his thoughts about her crush. "I honestly don't know, Cal," he admitted. "You're asking the wrong person. I have zero experience when it comes to love, remember?"

"You have Bellamy," Calla pointed out.

Brooks winced. "Please don't remind me."

He had been studiously avoiding Bellamy as much as humanly possible for the past week, and so far, his plan had been successful. She was always surrounded by a flock of girls and he was always notified of her presence a minute before she arrived by the distinct cloud of perfume that preceded her everywhere. It was easy enough to hide his face in a book, or slink around a corner, whenever he spotted her.

"I'm just worried Hale might forget about me if I don't make a move soon," Calla continued, toying with a spiral curl near her face. "He always has so many girls after him, and Cassidy told me he's never actually been in a relationship before, just small flings. What if he just isn't the boyfriend type? I might be wasting my time, but I also don't want to..."

Calla's voice faded away as his attention strayed back to the person he was supposed to be ignoring, and ironically the subject of Calla's fangirling. Hale had his locker propped open and was leaning against the wall, talking to Will and a girl in Brooks' English class, Elsie Bishop. Brooks thought it was both impossible and enviable that he managed to make their bland school uniform look good.

The plain black trousers and white shirt, paired with a navy jumper, was a boring ensemble on anyone else. It certainly was on Brooks. Maybe it was that Hale had ditched the school tie in favour of an unbuttoned collar. More likely, he was just attractive and could make any article of clothing look impressive.

Hale's dark eyes met his gaze across the corridor and his mouth quirked up in a crooked smile that made Brooks' heart race. Holy shit, it should have been illegal for someone to smile like that. It was pointless to pretend it didn't affect him, because he could feel that his face was getting warm and his heart rate picking up. This was just when Hale looked at him. What would happen if they ever talked again?