John meets Bobby purely by coincidence. They encounter each other on a wendigo hunt, and Bobby rips John a new one for hunting alone.
"You've got kids back in some crappy motel? The hell're ya doin' huntin', then!?" This is what John later quotes from Bobby when he is telling her about the hunt.
Bobby invites them to his house to, in his words, "Give those kids someplace safe ta stay, an' teach ya somethin' useful 'bout huntin', since yer runnin' around like a headless chicken tryin' ta kill anythin' with anythin'."
Bobby's house is even cooler in real life. Liz was not a fangirl, in any sense of the word, but she had always found Bobby a cool character. He had always been there for the boys—her boys, now—and she trusted him to be a good influence.
All the information he had laying around was just icing on the cake.
Bobby looks at her oddly when she stands on her tiptoes and grabs the largest tome she can—which just happens to be on demons. She winces internally, and turns to look at Bobby.
He's staring at her. She meets his eyes squarely, because she knows when she's beat. She wasn't planning on hiding her intelligence from him—she would rather not have him think she's not human.
"You sure you can read somethin' like that, kid?" He raises an eyebrow at her.
Dean, who sitting on a springy sofa with Sammy in his arms, looks up. He frowns.
"Of course she can, she's Lizzy—I mean Liz." Now she does wince. She's has tried her best to protect Dean, but she really isn't sure where the unwavering faith he has in her came from. She knows that the fallout when he realizes she isn't infallible will be huge.
"Hm," Bobby says, the eyebrow still raised. "And why's that, Dean?" He's not using kid, anymore—first name is a definitely a sign of him actually being serious rather than just humoring Dean.
"Liz's always right. She's smarter than Dad," Dean boasts, and in his arms, Sammy seems to have gained interest in the conversation, as he's eagerly nodding along.
"Lith thmart!" He says loudly.
"'Liz is smart,'" she corrects him near instantly, then flushes. "Sorry, force of habit," she says as apology for interrupting Bobby. Bobby doesn't seem upset, really—he seems more amused than anything, and a bit contemplative.
Sammy takes her correction to heart, and immediately begins to fix his pronunciation, Dean snickering until she scolds him, after which he tries to help Sammy out instead. Bobby watches the whole thing with an amused air about him.
Liz takes the large book and settles into a large chair, opening the book and spreading it out in her lap. Bobby gives her a cursory glance before ignoring her altogether. Bullet dodged, she thinks.
The book is more than just informative. Sometime during her reading, Bobby has left—something to do with a hunt and John, and Dean and Sammy have fallen asleep. She closes the book, tugging the book's ribbon as a bookmark, and climbs out of the chair.
She grabs a raggedy old blanket and covers them with it, then resumes her reading. She doesn't know when she falls asleep, but when she wakes the next morning, there's a blanket over her and the book is on the table, still open to the last page she was reading.