You Can't Choose (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Nineteen

"You took me to the bookstore," Cole said, leaning against his car door to peer out of his window up at the brick building that was just down the street from his own place of employment. "You work here".

"Yep," Henry said, unbuckling his seatbelt and pulling his keys out of the ignition.

"Why?" It was strange place for them to go, and since Collier had kept quiet until they had arrived, he figured since they were actually there now he could begin to ask questions again.

"Do you not like it here?" Henry asked, opening his car door and climbing out.

"Well I-" Henry shut the driver's side door, cutting of Cole's answer. "Asshole," the golden boy grumbled, pushing open his own door and scrambling out in a fashion that could no way be described as graceful.

"You what?" Henry asked, now standing on the sidewalk next to him with his head tilted down so their eyes could meet evenly.

"I don't dislike it here, I'm just wondering why we're here now," Cole asked and Henry nodded as if this was fair.

"One name".

"Huh?"

"Carter Vanroy". As he did every time he heard the name, Cole thought of that night at Sarah's house when Carter and Caroline had caught him stealing marshmallows in the living room.

"What about him?" Cole asked, but Henry, as he seemed to do a lot, ignored him. "Is this place even open?"

Without responding, Henry walked up to the large oak door of the building and let his hand fall onto the knob. Looking over his shoulder a Collier, he pushed the door open. "You could've just said yes," was Collier's response to this and Henry just rolled his eyes at him. "What does us coming here have to do with Carter Vanroy?"

After his last couple of questions being avoided, Collier wasn't really expecting an answer, which is why he was so surprised when he received one.

"I promised Carter that next time I saw him I'd give him the discounted textbook he payed me for at the end of the summer," Henry explained and Cole furrowed his eyebrows as he stepped into the store after Henry and quietly closed the door.

"We're going to be seeing Carter?"

The Book Stop was the only place in town where one could buy reading materials, so Collier had been there quite a few times, though all of those times had been earlier in the day when the sun was high in the sky. He had never realized how much of the lighting in the store was natural. While there were large lights hanging from the brick ceiling, the room still appeared to be dimly lit without the sun's light coming in through the many windows.

It was cozy though. There were different antique lamps around various reading stations which had couches or chairs. The shelves were all old stained wood and held thousands and thousands of titles, some Cole recognized and some he didn't.

He sighed in content at the smell of new books and freshly printed ink before turning his attention back to Henry, who had begun walking down a long aisle. Collier followed.

"Why do you need to get the book now? Are we going to see Carter?" He asked again and Henry just tilted his head back to look up at the sign on the top of the book shelf, revealing they were in the teen fiction section.

"I haven't worked here since the last week of summer," Henry said as if this answered his question, though all it did was distract Collier from what he really wanted to know.

"Why haven't you worked since summer?" Henry continued down the aisle, walking until he had the chance to turn, and then looking both ways.

"Um..." Henry trained off and hummed before turning right. "We're typically only busy in the summer, so over the school year they only need one person working at a time. Remy and I decided we'd split everything up within three weeks. He works three weeks, I work three weeks".