Page 25 of Shameless

“Yeah, but it was one of his chastisements that made me change my life around.”

The tour continued, and we followed the pack.

“Why’s that?”

“He fired me. I needed to shape up, or I wasn’t going to live out my dream.”

“What did you do to get fired?”

He looked up at the sky. “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

“Are you avoiding the question?” I pressed.

“What? Me?” He grinned.

“So, I’m guessing you did something terrible?”

“Not terrible.”

“But bad enough to get you fired.”

“Yeah.” He blew out a breath.

“Just tell me. It’s not like you did something illegal and went to jail, right?”

“No.” He grunted a laugh and rode closer to me. “I fucked a member on my brother’s desk.”

Tilting my head back, I roared with laughter. “Of course you did.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I can just picture it, is all.”

“And why’s that?”

“I don’t know.” I lifted a shoulder. “You just have this swagger about you.”

“Swagger?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you haven’t met someone here in Mexico you wanted to hook up with.”

“Who says I haven’t?” he challenged.

“Have you?” Blake had been spending all of his time with me or me and my friends. Was he going to the bar after leaving us and taking chicks back to his room?

“There’s someone I’ve had my eye on.”

“Señores y señoritas, we’re going down to the water now. Feel free to stop and take pictures and then catch up to us. We’ll go slow,” the tour guide said.

I glanced over at Blake and he winked.

Wait. Did he mean me?

10

Blake

When I’d bookedthe private beach excursion, I had expected to be alone with Stacey on the shore while the tour guide stayed on the boat. Of course, there was no Stacey, but Sarah did join me. That wasn’t the only thing I didn’t account for. The so-called private beach wasn’t exclusive. It was isolated in the sense that the tour company had a deal with a hotel and we could spend our time at their beach, which was secluded, but certainly notprivate. It wasn’t a busy beach, but appeared to be a sequestered stretch of shoreline for the exclusive use of the hotel we’d pulled up to.