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I knew exactly what she thought we’d been doing in here together. And I didn’t help the situation when all I did was grin at her.

“Hey, come on in,” I greeted with a wave as I snagged a handful of paper towels to dry my fingers. “We were just finishing up.”

“Oh my God,” Waverly moaned in mortification, burying her face in both hands.

Instead of entering, the other girl backed away and took off, letting the door swing shut in her wake.

Chuckling, I tossed my used paper towels in the trash and sent Frankie a wink.

“And that,” I announced, “is how you get the fuckboy reputation.”

She rolled her eyes and shot back dryly, “Right. All of those rumors about you are just false, huh?”

I shrugged. “Most of them.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured with lifted eyebrows, clearly not buying it. “So you didn’t have sex with Marcy Bryce in the high school janitor’s closet when you were in the eleventh grade?”

My eyes widened as we started toward the bathroom exit.

“You heard that rumor? Holy shit.” Opening the door for her to go first, I followed her into the hall, only to send a greeting head bob to some guy who paused to ogle us leaving the ladies’ room together.

I squinted over at Frankie in confusion.

“Wait. Did we go to Northside together?”

Shit, how could I have missed her through four years of high school?

She shook her head. “No. I attended South Central.”

“Oh.” I thought through that before shaking my head. “Wow. I had no idea my reputation had reached over there.”

When I held my newly washed hand toward her, she blinked at it as if I were offering her a poisonous snake. But a second later, she hesitantly took my palm.

Pleased, I breathed out a sound of relief and interlaced my fingers with hers as we approached the exit of the building.

“Stella Spurlock bragged about you a lot,” she added when I held the next door open for her here as well to step outside in front of me.

“Stella Spurlock,” I repeated the name, nodding with the memory as I followed her out. Pointing once we were down the steps and on the sidewalk, I said, “Now her I did sleep with.” Squinting, I tipped my head. “Did she go to South Central?”

Waverly nodded. “Her locker was below mine. And she liked to block my way while she gossiped with her friends.”

“Huh,” I murmured thoughtfully, brushing my shoulder against hers as we made our way back toward the library. “I don’t know how much she actually had to say about me. I think we only hooked up two or three times before she moved on to one of my bull-riding buddies.”

Waverly glanced at me curiously and even opened her mouth as if she wanted to ask me something. But the moment I lifted my eyebrows, curious to hear what she wanted to know, she closed her mouth and turned forward again.

“She was a massive buckle bunny,” I went on when she refrained from saying anything.

“And she was more interested in quantity over quality, if I remember correctly. But Marcy… Now Marcy Bryce…” I shook my finger at Waverly.

“ That was more fiction than fact. All we did was make out a little. And after we got caught in the closet, she never talked to me again.” With a low whistle, I shook my head.

“But as much heat as I got for that one, I kind of thought I should’ve at least gotten to go all the way with her, you know.

Fucking school counselor gave me three days of out-of-school suspension, and Marcy ghosted me as if I never existed. ”

Waverly glanced at me and then away quickly, looking vaguely sick and apologetic.

I jostled her hand that I was still holding to get her attention, wondering what that was about. But when she looked back, the expression was gone.

I lifted my eyebrows anyway. “I’m beginning to see why you think I’m so promiscuous.”

With a furrow of her brow, she said, “Aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “Well, yeah. But I’m also careful.

I at least like to know who my partner is.

I have this mental checklist in my head, and I have to observe certain things first before deeming someone safe.

There are lots of diseases out there. So do you see why I was initially upset about what you did? ”

She nodded miserably. “I—” But the words clogged in her throat. “Yes. I’m sorry,” she managed to rasp, lowering her face with shame.

“Oh, it’s okay now,” I answered, swinging our connected hands jovially.

“Learning it was you was actually a relief on that front. It just took me a minute to get some of the anger out of my system, you know. And I wasn’t so much mad at you as I was mad at myself for not realizing I was with the wrong person.

It’s always been very important to me to participate in safe sex.

And I—I dropped the ball there. Completely. ”

“But we didn’t do anything that needed protection,” Waverly said slowly, squinting in confusion.

I glanced at her with lifted eyebrows. “Condoms only protect so much. I went down on you, and you went down on me. We could’ve infected each other’s throats. That’s why I like to know who I’m with. Keeping the reproductive system healthy is important shit.”

She nodded, looking guilty again before glancing up and quietly asking, “Because of what happened with your mom?”

I pulled my face back, shocked. “What do you know about my mom?”

Waverly shrugged. “Nothing really. Just that she died when you were nine from cervical cancer. Which makes me think that’s why you’re a nursing major in the hopes of becoming a gynecologist someday.

To help women, where your mother didn’t get the help she needed.

And that’s why you’re so knowledgeable about women’s health. ”

Well, fuck. She knew a hell of a lot more than anyone else did. Only my core group knew this much. Other people usually just assumed I was a creepy sleazebag who wanted to get off by looking at women’s vaginas all day.

“That’s right,” I said slowly, tipping my head curiously in wonder over who Waverly Frank really was. “But how the fuck did you know that?”

She merely gave another one-shouldered shrug. “People talk. I listen.”

“Huh.” As we neared the library, I watched her shudder out a fearful breath.

I tightened my grip supportively around her hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about anything in this building. I promise.”

She glanced at me uneasily, but at least she let me lead her back inside.

“Did you know my mom was a librarian here when she was alive?” I asked as I held the front door open for her.

Glancing at me in surprise as she stepped inside, she said, “In this library?”

I nodded. “Yep. This very library.”

“No. I—” Shaking her head, she blinked, completely dumbfounded by the news. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah.” I smiled softly and led her to the right, looking around as we went until we made it to the door in the back corner that took us down the secret stairwell to the basement stacks.

Once we were alone there, I paused to face her.

“She died at the hospital,” I explained. “From her cancer. But when she was alive, this was her favorite place on the planet.”

Waverly’s lips parted as things became clearer to her, like my reason for always visiting and irritating the hell out of her with my presence.

“About a year ago,” I went on, looking around and waiting for my mom to join us. “I learned that she might’ve died , but she never actually left. She’s just been hanging out here—in this building—all these years.”

“Wait.” Waverly shook her head, frowning at me. “ What ?”

I blew out a cheek full of air and grabbed her other hand, squeezing them both as I faced her head-on.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Frankie?”