“Oh, my God, I’ve missed the sound of your laugh, Katie,” he says on a heavy sigh.
I’m still laughing so hard I can barely catch my breath. “You went ass-over-elbows into the lake.”
He nods, staring down at the pale white sand. Is he embarrassed? “And I took you with me.” He kicks at a stone with the tip of his shoe, a grin tugging at his lips. “It wasn’t my most shining moment.”
“It sobered you up pretty quick,” I remind him.
He shakes his head. “No, that was my dad staring down at us. That’s a boner killer if there ever was one.”
I drop my voice down so that it’ll sound like that of a man, imitating his father. “‘What the fuck are you doing in the lake, numbnuts?’” The giggles overtake me again. I wipe my eyes. “You called back, ‘I was trying to get in her pants.’”
Jake finally grins too. “And he yelled back, ‘Well, tossing her in the lake isn’t gonna make her want to spread her legs for you, son.’”
“‘That’s okay,’ you hollered back. ‘At least she knows I’m interested!’”
“‘She knows you’re a fucking idiot,’ he muttered and then he went to get the lifeguard hook so he could fish us out.”
I wipe my fingers beneath my eyes. “I had never heard so many f-bombs at one time. I was appalled.”
Jake looks into my eyes. “Then you climbed out behind me and I realized I could see through your shirt.”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. “And I wasn’t wearing a bra.”
“You didn’t need one,” he says. His eyes fall down to my boobs. “You didn’t have those back then.”
“I know, right?” I reply. “I got pregnant for the first time and suddenly there they were.” I shrug my shoulders.
“I liked them just fine back then, too,” he says. Then he grins at me.
“Oh, I remember how much you liked them.” My voice gets gruff and this is suddenly awkward.
“That was a good summer, Katie,” he says softly.
I smile at him. “Yeah, it was.”
“Where did you go after that?”
“I enlisted after I graduated.”
“In the military?”
“The Army. Yes.”
“Then you got married and started popping out kids.” He points to the three that are still working on his dog.
“Well, they didn’t just pop out. There was a considerable amount of pushing, if I remember correctly.”
“After three, I’d think they’d just walk out.”
“That would be nice, actually, compared to the real thing.”
He turns to face me. “Let’s talk about your vagina, shall we?”
I laugh again. “Why not? We already talked about my boobs.”
“Well, if I had a rack like that and nobody talked about them, I’d be sad. Just trying to keep up the morale here, Katie. Doing my job as a citizen of this great country.”
“If you start singing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at my boobs, I’ll deck you.”