“Oh.” Katherine lifted her cup to her lips.
Laverne leaned on her shoulder. “I’m gonna go umm… somewhere else,” she whispered loudly before stumbling away.
“Are you friends with Nate, or are you a party crasher?” Joseph asked.
“Been friends since the 5th grade. How about you?”
“We met when we were 17.”
Katherine frowned. “High school?”
She didn’t remember him from their school. Joseph had a face you didn’t forget. There was no way he’d walked through the halls of Lake Forest Academy without her noticing him.
Joseph chuckled. “No. We didn’t go to high school together. We met when he stole my girlfriend.”
Unfortunately, she’d been mid-sip when he revealed how he and Nate met because she found herself spitting beer. She quickly covered her mouth and grabbed a napkin from the table.
“You okay?” Joseph asked.
Katherine nodded frantically and wiped her mouth, completely embarrassed. “Sorry,” she whispered, wiping beer from his shirt.
Joseph caught her hand and smiled. “It’s okay.”
The feel of his hand on hers gave her goosebumps.
Katherine looked up at him through narrowed eyes. “How could Nate steal a girl from you?” she asked suspiciously.
Nate wasn’t a bad looking guy, but Joseph was a god. He couldn’t have looked that much different in high school.
Joseph shrugged. “He’s rich, and I’m not.”
She chuckled. “Well, there you have it,” she joked, but she couldn’t begin to understand a girl that would dump a guy as gorgeous as Joseph because he wasn’t wealthy. He was in law school, at the top of his class, and had a bright future in front of him.
* * *
Fifteen minutes and two beers later, Katherine was still in the kitchen talking to Joseph Storm. Maybe it was the beer, but she found him very easy to talk to. She learned that he had a twin brother at Harvard Business School, and she admired how he smiled when he spoke of his mother.
“Why law school?” he asked.
Katherine sighed. “To be honest, it started as a rebellion against my parents.”
Joseph squinted as if he didn’t understand. “Law schoolwas your rebellion? What kind of rebellion is law school?”
She laughed uncomfortably. “My parents would much rather have me uneducated and married to a rich asshole.” After a shrug, she added, “Like my mom.”
Joseph opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind and pressed his lips together in a frown.
Katherine was starting to feel like she’d said too much. She was talking about rich people's problems to a man who had to work a full-time job while going to law school. He must’ve thought she was an over-privileged brat, and maybe she was.
She cleared her throat and placed her cup on the table. “I need to find the ladies’ room. Excuse me.”
She hurried out of the kitchen and turned down a hall, remembering that the bathroom was on the right. Luckily, someone came out as soon as she walked up. She slipped inside and turned to close the door, but she was met with resistance. On the other side of the door was Larry, wearing an angry scowl. He pushed her back and slammed the door closed before she could exit.
“Larry, what the hell are you doing?”
He moved close enough for her to smell the alcohol on his breath. “So, you’re slutting around with the help.”
Katherine rolled her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘the help’? Joseph goes to the same law school that we go to.”
