WHO:Blossom & Tyler WHEN: Recently WHERE: UCI Library WHAT: A literal run in looking for books. RATING/WARNINGS: Nada STATUS: Complete
It was common knowledge that Blossom was a bookworm. Even studying was still enjoyable to her if she was soaking up books. She was still taking too many classes, but she refused to drop another one, her studies weren’t suffering yet and she wasn’t to the point of breaking.
She could do this!
As a result, she spent a large portion of time in the library, to the point where people working there knew exactly who she was. Right then it was half study and half fun that she was looking for, since she was taking a small class in women’s studies, it made sense for her to read some of the material that the studies in class had written.
Probably why she was wandering around with arms full of books. She’d really need to get a table somewhere soon to rest them all.
Tyler tended to spend more time in the gym than he did the library, but he was still a student, taking a full load of classes. There was a minimum grade to maintain now that he was on the football team, but he also had a father who didn’t accept less than the best, and so Tyler always maintained a solid GPA.
He only had a couple of books tucked under an arm, but he was texting a friend, turning down an invitation for drinks, when he rounded the corner of an aisle and crashed into a girl who was carrying way too many books.
“Gah!” She didn’t mean to make a noise, but suddenly she went from walking to toppling and one book smacked her face, two others toppling from her grip and her knee buckling a little. Blossom had little option but to let herself trip into a crouch, bumping her knee on the carpet in a bid to save the other three books from scattering and maybe getting damaged. “Oh, sorry, sorry.” She wasn’t sure who she was whispering the apologies to, since she was the one that got walked into.
Her book on Women’s Suffrage was stabbing her in the chest as she just gave up and dropped the other books, rubbing her chest and reaching to grab her Wuthering Heights hardback -why did they always need to be hardback? “I didn’t see you.” Mostly because of the wall of books.
Tyler immediately dove to catch a couple of the books, but he was only able to grab one of them as it fell, and that only barely because he still had his phone in his hand. He pocketed the phone, and then bent down to try to help collect the books. “My bad,” Tyler said, offering her a smile. “I should have been looking where I was going. Are you okay?”
Pushing the mane of red out of her face, Blossom just managed a somewhat terse smile, “I’m fine.” Her knees hurt and there was a red mark on her clavicle, that would take a while to fade, “Did any of them bend?” Naturally Blossom was more worried about the books being hurt. “Nothing ripped?” The ones that she could see weren’t damaged at all.
Tyler was slightly taken aback by her questions. Those wouldn’t have been the first words out of his mouth if someone crashed into him, and he honestly couldn’t think if he had any friends who would be so concerned. “No, I think they’re okay,” he said, glancing at the books he’d been gathering. “But, you know, I’m pretty sure that library books are pretty used to being torn and bent.”
Sure, later she might worry about her knees bruising, but those would go away. But Blossom was very careful with her reading material, and she hated when books just got tossed around. There already weren’t a lot in production, the advance to eBooks meant that publishers weren’t ‘wasting the paper’ for hard copies -good for the trees, bad for book collectors. “Oh, I know, some people just don’t take care of things, but I really don’t think it’s a good excuse to damage things that don’t technically belong to me.”
Tyler gathered up the last of the books on the ground and then stood up, offering a hand to the girl to help her to his feet. She was actually kind of cute, now that he got a good look at her. “Well, at least someone’s looking out for them,” he said, smiling. “I’m Tyler, by the way. Did you want some help carrying these?”
Taking the help, because she was grateful enough that she wasn’t hit by an asshole who just went off and left her, Blossom just took a breath and had a small smile on her face, righting herself so that it didn’t look like she’d just been in a tornado. “I’m Blossom, thanks.” And sure, he bumped her but they were both distracted. “That’d be really sweet, I’m just looking for a table to settle and sort through them.” Points to the guy for being nice.
“Your name’s almost as pretty as you.” It was shameless flirting, Tyler knew, but he wasn’t about to pass up the chance to do it. “I can help you find one.” He started walking toward some of the tables, and took a look at a couple of the books he was carrying for Blossom. “Women’s studies?” Tyler asked, taking a look at a couple of the titles as he started to work toward some of the tables. He’d taken a women’s studies class in his first year at Duke, though it had been mostly a failed attempt to try to pick up girls.
Blossom almost blushed as dark as her hair, giving a smile at the compliment -which she would take, thank you very much. “Yeah, I’m making up my credits.” Although Blossom really didn’t struggle to do that, she’d been told twice that she was taking too many classes, but she hadn’t yet hit the wall where she couldn’t focus any more. “I like it, it’s very engaging.” Since there was a lot of challenging views and ideas. “It’s mostly an excuse for me to read Bronte and Austen and pretend it’s for class.” She laughed at herself a little, shrugging as she hugged her share of the books and looked around for somewhere to settle herself, grateful for the help. “What um, what’re you taking?”
Tyler had read some Bronte, but it really had been for class. While he hadn’t hated the books, they certainly weren’t the kind of books that he’d read in his free time. “I’m going for a kinesiology degree,” Tyler said. Finding an empty table, he headed over to it and gently placed Blossom’s books on the table, making sure to put his own books aside.
Adding her own to the table, Blossom frowned a little, “That’s um… that’s… Is that human movement? Kinesiology?” It was something to do with kinetics, wasn’t it? That was… energy potential, but she was pretty sure it was in the human department. “I’m sure that’s a very engaging class.” Aiming for degrees usually meant people were committed, and not still ‘finding their major’, like some of her classmates. “Are you enjoying it?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “Stuff like training and physiology. I’ve actually got a paper on Sports Psychology I’m supposed to be working on.” He held one of the sports psychology books he’d grabbed from the shelves before he’d run into Blossom. Blossom’s question gave him pause. “It’s okay,” he said after a moment. “Sometimes you learn some really useful stuff, other times not so much.”
Blossom was a sponge when it came to education, she loved learning and reading, but she definitely understood when parts of a course were just not engaging or frustratingly difficult. “We need to take the good with the bad, right?” Because sometimes learning was a chore, but it paid off in the end. “I’m so sorry for keeping you from getting your paper started, but thanks for helping. That was very kind of you.” Cute boy knocks you over and then helps out, Blossom would take it over cute boy knocking you over and then just stepping over you.
Tyler chuckled a little “Oh, nothing to be sorry about,” Tyler said. “Honestly, I’d rather be talking with you than working on the paper,” he said, looking at her as though she were the only other person in the library. “Table’s big enough for two,” he said, gesturing at the table. “Mind if we share?”
And she probably wasn’t going to be doing a terrible a lot of her reading right now, “I don’t mind at all.” She’d really rather have some company, since it was quiet enough in the corner, there was plenty of room and if Tyler didn’t mind not starting on his work, well Blossom could always make headways at home after dinner anyway. “There’s plenty room.”
“Great.” Tyler set his materials up on the table, though he wasn't planning on doing much work so long as there was a good-looking girl at the table who was willing to keep talking to him. He had a feeling that the only note he'd be taking for the next little while would be his phone number.