Chad reached for his beer and Josh took over telling the story. “Some of the cheerleaders went along and dared the guys to take a dip in the ocean. Brody accepted the challenge.”
“But as he dove in,” Josh jumped in, “a wave rose up and ripped his shorts off him.”
Kat turned to him. “You went swimming in the Pacific without a wetsuit in, what, September?”
“November,” Chad corrected. “And he was in his boxers.”
Kat raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word about the hotel pool.
“The wave ripped them right off and took them out to sea,” Josh added. “Brody had to walk out in front of everyone without a stitch on him. And the way I heard the tale, the cold didn’t exactly do him any favors.”
“Hey,” Brody protested.
“You might want to keep him out of cold water,” Chad added.
Kat laughed. “I’m not worried.”
“What about you, Doc?” Josh asked. “What is your most embarrassing story from growing up?”
Brody froze, the lukewarm slice in front of his lips. His brothers could joke about his high school mishaps all they wanted, but Kat didn’t need to relive the worst moments of growing up here. And he could only imagine her long list of uncomfortable stories. He’d witnessed the old hurts coming back to haunt her, and he freaking hated that look in her eyes.
But her face lit up as she lowered her beer. “Oh I have a good one. And it involves your brother.”
Chad raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t realize you knew each other back then.”
Brody’s brow furrowed. As far as he knew, their one and only interaction had occurred in the art room. But there was nothing embarrassing about fixing a pair of shoes out of sheer necessity. “Kat—”
“Everyone knew Brody Summers,” she said, taking another sip of beer and ignoring the note of warning in his voice. “And I was one of the many girls at Independence High who had a crush on your brother,” she added.
“What?” Brody lowered the pizza.
“A crush?” Chad flashed a charming smile as he rubbed his hands together. “This should be a good one.”
“Kat, how many beers have you had?” Brody demanded, scanning the empty beer bottles on the table.
“She’s on her second, bro. We didn’t get her drunk,” Chad said. “Calm down and let her tell the story.”
“My sophomore year, some of the guys from Brody’s class threw a party in the woods,” Kat said, accepting his brother’s invitation. “They got their hands on a keg, built a bonfire and invited half the school. After my first beer, I decided it would be a great idea to declare my undying love for your brother.”
Brody choked on his pizza and coughed. “What?”
Her undying love? He searched his memory trying to determine if the party he didn’t remember—because hell, they’d taken a keg into the woods more than once—was before or after he glued her sneakers together.
“But I never got the chance.” Kat pointed her beer at him before turning her attention to her audience. “I spotted him in the woods, removed from the party, and thought here is my shot.”
“Don’t tell me you caught him with his pants down,” Chad said.
“No, I didn’t.” Kat shook her head. “Though I’m sure the girl with him would have preferred that. Instead your big brother was telling her—and I can’t remember her name, even though I was insanely jealous of her at the time—”
“Lisa,” Chad supplied. “Brody dated her for a while in high school junior year. Nice girl. With nice—”
“Chad,” he snapped before his brother could comment on Lisa’s breasts. Yeah, he remembered the girl and why he’d asked her out in the first place.
“Your brother was telling Lisa,” Kat continued, “that he respected he
r too much to kiss her when she’d been drinking.”
“Now how is that embarrassing for you, Doc?” Josh said.