Page 115 of Tempting Me

“Not exactly. Shay is the only Parker who still doesn't despise me.”

“Is this the moment we all get to find out why?” Milessays, stepping out from the sliding door with Quinn’s hand in his.

“Don’t jinx it,” Hudson scolds him.

“My family accused Luca of stealing money from The Marina, and when he denied it, they accused him of lying too.”

“Luca would never steal from The Marina,” my dad says quickly.

“I know.” Shay says, looking embarrassed. “I should have known that back then.”

“So it was all a miscommunication. We could have fixed that.”

Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed.

“Well …”

“Did you do it?” Hudson asks, completely shocked.

“No, but I did sort of sleep with Leo’s girlfriend at the time and made things worse.”

“Who?” Hudson, Miles, and Shay all ask eagerly at the same time.

My dad adds a quiet “Good heavens.”

Declan chuckles. “This is an exciting breakfast.”

I shake my head.

“Her name was Indy.”

The moment her name is off my lips, Shay breaks out into laughter.

“Leo broke up with Indy before someone stole the money, so I don’t think he’d have been upset about that.”

“What?”

I turn my focus to Shay. Her brother outright told me that because I slept with her, any chance we had of fixing things was gone. If he wasn’t even dating her, why would he havebeen so dead set on us not being friends anymore? Outside of the money going missing, that is.

“Yeah, she was bad news. He made a lot of bad choices while he was dating her, and my parents saidno more.”

Shay picks a cut up strawberry and pops it into her mouth.

I’m so lost. So what else happened that summer?

I don’t think I’m going to get any answers today. This is a lot to pack in. I spent the last decade and more thinking my choice was what sealed all this, but there had to be something else. What could it have been?

“So what do your parents think of the two of you together,” my dad asks, “if they think my son is a thief.”

Shay cringes. “They don’t know about us … yet.”

The fact that she added on theyetis the only reason I'm not spiraling out over why we are still a secret to most of the town.

She plans to tell them the truth.

That moment is going to be one of the best of my life, I can feel it.

“So if you didn’t steal the money, who did?” Quinn asks.

---