“That’s why you were kind of distant at the beginning of school. I knew something was off, but I chalked it up to college starting.” Joey remembered sitting in those giant lecture halls, her stomach in knots at his sudden lag in communication. Pieces were slotting into place, and her disbelief was giving way to rage. All of Joey’s pain, all those years of sadness—her mother was responsible for it.

The word mother caused an association. Father. Joey let out a strangled sound that was for her father. Her sweet, trusting, endearingly nerdy father who’d been back in Florida making money so Bea could play artist in Corfu and sleep with his friend behind his back.

“That’s why. I’m so sorry, Jonesey.”

“Yeah. You said that.”

Joey pictured Rand now, not a strand of his dark coif out of place. She pictured him clapping her father’s shoulder as they drank margaritas. My friend!

She pictured him kissing her mother.

She remembered them all out on the terrace, eating and laughing. It still didn’t make sense. There were too many holes. “How did you even find out?”

“I saw them, Jonesey, the summer before our last. They were out on my dad’s sailboat. I followed them to this place they’d rented on the other side of town.”

“What? Where?”

“South. Closer to the airport.”

Joey digested it. They’d rented a place, and their affair had lasted two summers at least. “When did the affair start?”

Leo drew an audible breath. Joey found herself holding hers. “Since the beginning. It’s why they orchestrated both our families to vacation on Corfu. They deliberately got neighboring apartments.”

“No.” Joey gasped. That couldn’t be true. She sifted through her memories. “You’re saying when we met in the stairwell—”

“It was intentional. This was how they could arrange to be together. Get us all to Corfu. Then the two of them would sneak off.”

“Oh God. I don’t…” She was going to be sick. “How do you know all this? Did you confront Rand?”

Leo nodded, his eyes tilted vacantly toward the sun. “It felt so isolating, being the only one to know. Wondering what I was supposed to do with the information.” His voice cracked. “I confronted my dad after I found out. Told him that I wouldn’t spill the secrets, but that he and Bea had to be done. No more contact. No more affair.” Leo paused. “Maybe I should never have gone back to Corfu the next summer. But I came back, hoping I could put it behind me. Hoping they could do the right thing. I came back to see you, Jonesey. I tried to block the affair out of my mind. But they wouldn’t let it go. Seeing them at Taverna Salto proved that. I was so shocked that they’d gone back on their promise.”