I Still Do by Christie Ridgway

of the clothes closest to her face, but she hadn’t ever been mistaken for a barfly type in her life. “No, I—” She broke off to press her lips together, hoping to rub some of the brightness away. “Um…”
    Patrick was looking at her expectantly. “Um?”
    â€œWell, you see, we met a long time ago…”
    The man laughed. “I get it. I’ve had one of those looong nights myself. You were pub-hopping and can’t quite recall where you first said ‘how do you do’ to our man Will?”
    â€œNo!” Not that there was anything wrong with pub-hopping or bars or anything like that, not really. But Emily lived a much quieter life, if you didn’t count those few crazy days in Las Vegas. “I’m a librarian. ”
    â€œOh.” Patrick stilled, then scooted down the bench to put another inch between their limbs.
    If she’d said “serial murderer” she didn’t think he could look more surprised—or was it alarmed? Emily sighed. A reference to books tended to work on some people that way.
    The man gave her an awkward half smile. “It’s just that I didn’t think Will was in a place where he was interested in women, who, uh, read.”
    Emily ignored the little flame of annoyance sparking somewhere beneath her red coat. “What ‘place’ is that, exactly, that Will’s in? And what are the occupations of his usual type of female companion?”
    â€œNot going there,” Patrick said, lifting his hands in surrender. “So not going there. It’s just that we used to call him ‘Wild Will’ in the old days, and he’s been making noises about reclaiming the title now that Betsy’s—”
    â€œGraduated and out of the house,” she finished for him. “I know about that.” But what she didn’t know was this nickname he used to have. The Will of her past had been summer-tan, summer-strong, the best swimmer, the fastest with a canoe, the guy who could actually use a compass. He’d evicted eight-legged creatures from the girls’ cabins without one teasing guffaw and she was certain he’d never participated in a single, stupid panty raid.
    So…Wild Will?
    Glancing to her other side, she saw that the man in question was deep in a conversation with someone sitting on the bleacher behind him. “When exactly was he called that?” she asked the red-haired man beside her. “‘Wild Will’, I mean.” And why?
    â€œHigh school,” Patrick answered, a nostalgic smile overtaking his face. “Want to play a practical joke on a friend? Will was the go-to guy. Looking for a class prank? He had dozens of schemes to make the administration nuts. One year we kidnapped the graduation caps and gowns and held them for the ransom of a longer lunch period. His idea.”
    â€œOh. Well.” That sounded harmless enough and very much like the clever Will she knew from summer camp. He’d been the one who came up with the best comic lines for the end-of-season skits.
    â€œOf course, then there was his success with the ladies,” Patrick went on, followed by a sentimental sigh. “The stuff of legends.”
    â€œâ€˜Stuff of legends’?” Over her shoulder, she cast another swift glance at Will, but he had turned away from her to grab a box of goodies being passed down the row. “I didn’t realize.”
    â€œOh, yeah. The head cheerleader—a senior—before he could drive. Next year, it was the hot yearbook editor-in-chief. Then there were the twins he took to junior prom. I heard he kept the codes to a dozen girls’ home alarm systems in a little black book.”
    â€œCodes?” A dozen girls?
    â€œYou know. He wheedled out of them—not that they put up any fight, mind you—those codes so he could sneak into their bedrooms at night.”
    A dozen girls?
    â€œI had no idea,”