Page 42 of Code Violation

“Banned from the library,” Nero repeated.

“I might have been a little wild.”

“Just a little wild?” Nero teased.

Forrest shrugged. “Just a tad. Xav Stone was banned too.”

“What the hell did you two do?”

“We were fourteen,” Forrest started, taking the last easy curve before town, “and?—”

Nero interrupted him. “As far as I know, just being fourteen isn’t a reason to permanently forbid a person from entering a public building. Are you telling me you haven’t been to the library in thirty years?”

He sounded outraged and Forrest couldn’t help but laugh.

“Thirty years sounds about right. Remember, Xavier and me, we were acting out, and being a teenager in the small town of Cooper Springs meant the two of us got creative. Very creative.”

“Keep talking.”

“We snuck in one night and exchanged all the magazine innards with a bunch of skin mags we’d found at Xav’s house. They’d probably been his dad’s. There’s no way Wanda—Xav’s mom—knew they existed because she would’ve burned them.”

“I’ll bet you guys thought that was the funniest thing in the world.”

“Oh yeah, we laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe. Hilarious to imagine Old Steel Face—the librarian at the time was Agatha Steel—going through them and seeing what we thought were more bare naked men than she’d seen in her life.”

“Fourteen-year-olds have limited imaginations.”

“Especially when it came out after she passed that Agatha Steel wrote seriously steamy romance. Under a different name, of course.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

“And?”

“We got caught, naturally. Wanda grounded Xavier for the rest of the summer. I spent the next few months cleaning up after my grandfather’s horses. I do not like horses.”

“Why do I have the feeling punishment didn’t stop either of you?”

Forrest felt the smile crease his cheeks and waggled his eyebrows; it felt good talking about his past with Nero. “It’s like you know me already.”

“Come inside with me,” Nero said, “and break the library spell.”

“No.”

“What if they have something important to say? You might want to hear it in person.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“We’ll be fast. Like tearing-off-a-Band-Aid fast. In and out.”

“In and out is not what I think of when it’s time to take off a bandage.”

Nero was silent, but Forrest spotted a twitch to the corner of the lips. Forrest’s cheeks warmed, along with other parts of his body. He shifted in his seat. Dammit, he’d suspected he was in trouble and now it was confirmed. He just wished he knew exactly how deep the trouble was.

“The librarian, Fernsby, said he’d be here until five. And maybe he’s nicer than Old Steel Face.”

“Don’t tell him her nickname.”

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