Eddie has never been bad at flirting per say. He’s got this magnetic charm that just comes from being a good person, comfortable enough in his own skin to act a little goofy but that underlying kindness has always made him attractive. He’s never had a problem getting close to people, never had a problem lowering peoples guards and making them wanna be around him if given the chance.
Until he meets you, that is.
He can’t figure it out but something about you makes him so nervous. He’s stumbling over words, literally tripping over himself, and he can’t seem to find a good time to just confess that he’d slay a hundred dragons just to get to talk to you for a little while.
So he finds ways around it. He’s noticed all the books you’ve got shoved in your bag, a new novel snug against your notebooks every few days.
He’s read a couple of them, and takes notes of which ones have the most tabs on their pages, and what genres you seem to like. It’s not hard for him to find some common ground there, and so when he overhears you complaining that you’re running out of things to read one day, he sees his chance.
Soon enough, he’s going through the worn copies of his own favorites, rereading them and writing little comments on sticky notes (he knows you hate when people write in books). It’s a bit awkward the first time he gives one to you, running into you around a corner and practically shoving the book in your hands, face red and words rushed.
You don’t realize the effect it has on him when you come bouncing up to him the next day, eyes wide and hand on his arm to rave about his notes and how good the book was.
It comes a lot easier to him from then on. Soon enough, he’s simply sliding the recommendations into your bag hanging on the chair in front of him in lecture, earning him the biggest grin when you notice a little later.
The notes become a little more personal too. He opens up more about his thoughts, admits that certain pretty words reminded him of you.
You’re a quick reader though, and he’s running out of recommendations of things he’d think you’d genuinely like. So he takes a chance one day.
Scrawls out a simple question in the back of the book, dark scrawling handwriting staring up at him against the neon green paper.
‘Would you wanna go out sometime?’
He tried for a while to come up with something clever for a while, some amusing way to ask, but scrapped them all, finally deciding on just asking straight out.
He swears he feels his heart about to leap out of his chest when he hands it off to you.
He’s disappointed, but not necessarily surprised when you return the book to him without a word a couple days later, deciding that maybe it’s for the best that you just silently rejected him.
It’s not until he’s putting the book back on his shelf that he notices a little pink sticky note poking out of the front cover.
And there, in your pretty handwriting is his answer.
‘Thought you’d never ask, Munson’
