King of the Friend Zone (Power of the Matchmaker)

by Pratt, Sheralyn

Check them out and read them in any order you like. They’re all standalone novels.

  If you haven’t read The Kiss that Launched 1,000 GIFs yet, featuring Grace and Ash from this novel, then keep turning the pages to get a sneak peek of that romcom.

  More books by me:

  The Kiss that Launched 1,000 GIFs (Now available)

  Pimpernel (Now Available)

  Walk of Infamy (Coming Soon!)

  More books in the Power of the Matchmaker series:

  Power of the Matchmaker novella

  Broken Things to Mend

  Not Always Happenstance

  If We Were a Movie

  Love is Come

  Four Chambers

  O'er the River Liffey

  Chasing Fireflies

  Between Heaven and Earth

  King of the Friend Zone

  To Move the World

  How I Met Your Brother

  The Reformer

  Sneak Peek

  The Kiss that Launched 1,000 GIFs

  Ashton leaned back in his chair as if he’d been shot. “Seriously?” he groaned. “Only a woman would say that.”

  Four studio microphones surrounded the recording table, with Grace and Ashton set up on two microphones that put them face-to-face. The webcam broadcasting their radio show live was perpendicularly positioned between them and angled ever-so-slightly in Ashton’s direction. Grace had long accepted that anyone watching Battle of the Sexes live was likely female and ogling her eye-candy cohost, Ashton Miller. If the man didn’t look like a dark-haired doppelganger of the late Paul Walker, Grace was certain the show wouldn’t get half the calls it got. People didn’t really line up to listen to a Latina rant about women’s issues.

  Ashton’s jock factor was a necessary evil. Grace tried to remember that every time his casual arrogance rubbed her wrong. It was men like Ashton who showcased how sensible her stances were. In a way, his misogyny was a gift.

  She leaned into her mic and tried not to laugh at Ashton’s current stance. “You think that only a woman would say that relationships should be equal?” she scoffed. “That only women would think that splitting responsibilities down the center in this day and age is a good idea? I think plenty of men would vote for equal division of labor and finances in a relationship.”

  Those baby blue eyes focused on her playfully. “Well, those men can surrender their Man Card the next time they order a razzleberry smoothie then, because men like that aren’t looking for a woman. They’re looking for a roommate.”

  Grace let out a melodramatic sigh that hinted to their radio audience of the expression on her face. “Gosh, Ashton, just when I thought you had peaked when it came to how many people you could offend in a single breath.”

  Ashton looked far from concerned. “Who am I offending? I dare one man out there to call us right now and declare that he wants to trade off making dinner and mopping floors with the woman he loves. Or for a guy to call in and say that he wants all bills to be cut down the middle and split equally between male and female bank accounts.” He held up a finger. “One guy. Any guy. Call now and explain yourself. The lines are open.”

  Grace laughed and shared a look with Frank, their producer, on the other side of the sound booth glass to let him know that she wanted that call the second it came in.

  “Seriously?” she said. “You don’t think any men would vote to trade off paying for dates?”

  “Maybe at first,” he said with one of the careless shrugs he used whenever he made a power move. Grace braced herself. “When he’s testing the waters a guy might be up for that. But that’s not something a man wants if he’s in love with the woman. If I’m in love with a woman, I’m going to send her every signal possible that she doesn’t need anyone else in her life to take care of her. I’ve got her covered. I’ve got us both covered. Period. I don’t need her money. I need her.”

  Grace swore she could hear members of their radio audience swoon. Ashton was definitely going to get some female calls having his back on that stance. Grace had to change her approach to keep the conversation on her side.

  “And you think that men are universally united behind you when it comes to the division of household needs, like preparing dinner?”

  “I would say that 99 out of 100 men would definitely side with me,” Ashton said, leaning back in his chair as if he’d just resolved the matter.

  Hardly.

  “Even if they’re in a relationship where both the man and the woman work full time?” she challenged. “Even then, you think cooking duties should land on the woman?”

  “I do,” he said unapologetically. “It’s part of being excited to see her at the end of the day.”

  “You don’t think a woman would feel the same about knowing her man was cooking for her at the end of the day? That she wouldn’t get excited, too?”

  “Maybe for a while,” Ashton said. “But that would wane over time. Eventually, she’d get critical or tired of the fact that he makes the same things over and over.”

  “He could try new things.”

  Ashton shook his head. “He won’t want to. The average man has no desire to try new time-consuming recipes with even the slightest possibility of failure. No man wants to screw up in front of his woman. We like things we can’t screw up—like grilling meat—straightforward stuff where no one can kick you in the nuts by mentioning how the seasoning could be adjusted next time. You want more pepper on your meat? Here’s the shaker. You want more barbecue sauce? Here’s a bottle. That’s how men like to do things.”

  “That’s how you like to do things,” Grace countered.

  “Me and most men,” he said, lounging with his hands behind his head. The move put Ashton’s finely sculpted arms on display for the webcam—yet another tactic he used to get female listeners on his side when Grace was winning a debate. The guy was willing to win at any cost.

  “Oddly enough, that is not my experience,” Grace mused.

  “That’s because your boyfriend is a professionally trained chef.”

  “And how does that change anything?”

  “Because cooking is what Phillip’s good at,” Ashton said with a smile that let Grace know she’d just walked into a trap. “One might argue that cooking is what Phillip is best at, so cooking means putting his best foot forward. He’d like that, as would the minority of men who consider cooking among their best skills.”

  Grace bit her lip at Ashton’s bait that cooking was what Phillip was best at. It was a jab below the belt, but calling it out would only make her look like the immature one. Grace sent him a glare and let it slide. The grin that curved Ashton’s lips let her know he considered her lack of follow up a win.

  “Asking Phillip to cook would be like asking me to play volleyball,” Ashton said, picking up the stress toy he always had on hand and giving it a solid squeeze. “It’s asking him to show off. No man’s going to take a pass on an opportunity to do that. But cooking new recipes week after week is not an opportunity for most men to show off. It’s an opportunity for us to fail, and we men don’t like those opportunities so much. Because I can promise you that if I go out on a limb and make something like rice pilaf and you don’t immediately jump my bones, I will never want to make rice pilaf again. It will be filed together with shag carpet and dryer lint as something I never want to see again.”

  “Or,” Grace countered. “You could figure out what you want to do differently the next time and try again.”

  “No,” he said, wagging his head emphatically. “I don’t think you comprehend how much I do not want to do that. At all. And I don’t want to sit across the table from my woman and have her coach me on how to do better next time, either. That’s a total woman thing. Men don’t want nuanced feedback. They want to be awesome. And I’m telling you right now that setting a man up to fail right before bedtime is not good for any romantic relationship.”

  Dangit. She couldn’t let Ashton have a final word like that before segueing to the callers,
yet all the lines were blinking red. She and Ashton had done their jobs; people were calling in. But Frank hadn’t given the signal that a man had called in to back her up, and based on the notes building up in the call log queue on the screen, Grace wasn’t currently winning the debate.

  Women were calling in saying that they liked cooking for their men. One caller’s note went so far as to say, Jenn thinks men should cook as often as women should pick up the bill—rarely.

  Great. Just great.

  Ashton put his arms behind his head, pretending to lean back in his chair as he not-so-subtly flexed for the webcam. “Looks like we have a couple dozen callers who want to weigh in on the matter,” he said with a lazy smile. “How about we hear what they have to say?”

  Apparently they had reached the portion of Grace’s day where she would be forced to listen to woman after woman declare her desire to cook for the man she loved and/or Ashton. Her only hope to win any of them over to her side was to bring up dishes. Surely no sane woman would declare that she should both cook and do the dishes.

  Right?

  Then again, women carrying on a conversation with Ashton could not be declared sane by default. The man did have his mojo, and it was not to be underestimated.

  “Sure,” she said through gritted teeth. “Let’s see what our listeners have to say.”

  Chapter 2

  “Great show, you two,” Frank said into their headsets when the broadcast light turned off. “Remember, I need to see you both in my office right now for about fifteen minutes. It’s strategy time.”

  A fifteen-minute meeting with Grace involved? Ash would believe that when he saw it. But at least there wouldn’t be a table for Grace to lean over in Frank’s office. Heaven help him, but Ash could have sworn Grace wore tailored dresses just to throw him off his game. If Ash’s neck wasn’t tense from dealing with all the curve balls Grace threw his way, it was tense from keeping his chin and eyes up.

  Because, man, the woman knew how to fill out a dress.

  Grace stood from the table before he did, eyes on her cell phone. The woman was addicted to social media. Her eyes stayed locked on the screen, fingers typing as she turned away from him and headed for the door.

  For the first time in two hours, Ash allowed himself to take in the view she offered.

  She’s taken, he reminded himself. Grace Vasquez was off the market and had been since the day he’d first met her. There was no ring on the relationship yet, but Grace and Phillip had been going strong for nearly three years.

  Looking was useless and hope was futile. Experience and two years of unreciprocated flirting had taught Ash that.

  Ash moved at a slow saunter, trailing Grace to Frank’s office without passing her. He’d just dealt with the fury of her tongue for two hours straight. An intermission of watching the gentle sway of her hips as she treated the hallway like a runway was a welcome reprieve.

  As always, she navigated with her third eye while her two physical eyes stayed glued on the sterile, virtual world Ash avoided as ardently as Grace avoided the dirt of the real world. He was the guy who ditched his old-school flip phone the second he was off the clock while Grace was the woman who had a slight panic attack if her phone was more than an arm’s distance away.

  They couldn’t be more different. Ash knew that, and yet she drew him in. Her smile. Her humor. Her attitude. The diabolical glint she got in her eye when he pushed her buttons just right. And Grace’s body—yes, definitely that. He could approve of her curves in all caps and still not be emphatic enough.

  She was perfect, which was probably why she was dating Phillip, a.k.a. Mr. Perfect. Phillip was a successful restaurateur with the same sleek, Latin looks and high-end wardrobe as Grace. They were quite the power couple, with Grace being on both TV and radio while Phillip was on the who’s who list in business and foodie circles.

  They photographed well. Ash had to give them that. But in his imagination, he liked to pretend they had the chemistry of siblings.

  Ahead of him, Grace turned the corner into Frank’s office, giving Ash a few seconds to get his head back in the game. Their radio show, Battle of the Sexes, was on the bubble. They all knew that. The odds of being renewed were against them. They all knew that as well. So whatever they were about to talk about was a Hail Mary. If they were going to go down, what kinds of swings did they want to throw before the curtain dropped?

  That’s what this meeting was about.

  Ash entered Frank’s office a few seconds after Grace, surprised when he saw three members of the marketing team there, including Emily. Cute, peppy Emily with bright blue eyes, blonde hair, and a ready smile. She was sitting between her boss, Jan, and one of the marketing interns from the university. They were all lined up on the right side of the room with a projector pointing at the opposite wall.

  “Go ahead and shut the door,” Frank said to him. “We’re all here.”

  “I can see that,” Ash said, smiling at Emily before taking the last available seat next to Grace.

  “I’m sure you both remember your photo shoots from a few weeks back,” Frank said, gesturing to Emily’s side of the room. “Jan, Emily, and Mark are here to show us the mockups of your new billboards before we give final approval and discuss other steps to help us have the best shot at a renewal.”

  “I don’t understand why we’re the ones on the block here,” Grace said. “We’re the top-rated local talk show in any afternoon time slot. They should be picking another show to replace.”

  “Emphasis on local,” Frank said with a nod. “But when you count syndicated talk shows, you two come in at number four, behind Rush Limbaugh.”

  Grace shook her head. “You have no idea how much those words hurt me.”

  Frank cracked a smile. “And while there is no arguing that you two pull in way more listeners than any other local talk show in the afternoon, we all know how management looks at things. You and Love 411 pull the same audience, and that audience listens during the day. Moving either of you to a night slot would slaughter your numbers.” Frank leaned forward, giving Grace a soulful look. “Trust me, Grace. No one is displeased with what you and Ashton are accomplishing. If the show gets canceled, it won’t be because the board thinks you under-delivered. You know how they work. They’re just doing the math on what they can sell advertising time for with each show. This is a decision of dollars and cents, not quality.”

  “And speaking of dollars and cents,” Jan said, jumping in. “We still have marketing budget to spend, and we’ve decided that we really like the billboard approach for bumping up your numbers.”

  She flipped on the projector and an image of two kittens with their tongues poking out displayed on the opposite wall.

  “That should do it,” Ash said with a nod. “Billboards like that will bring women in droves.”

  Jan laughed self-consciously. “Sorry. That’s my laptop’s wallpaper.”

  Ash shrugged. “Still a win in my book.”

  Emily laughed while Grace sent him a disapproving glance. He wasn’t taking all of this seriously enough for Grace’s liking. That meant he was doing something right.

  Jan cleared her throat, pulling everyone’s attention back to her. “We think it’s time to capitalize on the fact that neither of you have faces for radio,” she began. “I know we’ve always avoided going overtly in that direction because you both have TV careers where you need to be taken seriously, but I think we can play around with your sex appeal just a bit without hurting your news journalist brands.” She turned to Grace. “We’ll be most cautious with you, and maybe take a few more liberties with Ashton, since he’s an outdoor and environmental reporter. People are used to seeing him through a more informal lens.”

  Grace arched a brow. “A billboard campaign selling sex appeal? That’s our Hail Mary?”

  Frank gave a helpless shrug. “Works for Hollywood.”

  Grace pressed her full lips together like she always did when she disagreed with something tha
t had just been said. She didn’t like it, but she also refrained from saying anything as Jan hit a key on her laptop to make a PowerPoint page appear on the opposite wall, entitled Renewal Strategy.

  “The fact of the matter is that most of your listeners have been listening to you two banter for nearly two years,” Jan said. “Yes, they all know that Grace has been dating Phillip for three years and that Ashton hasn’t maintained a relationship longer than six months, but our market research still shows that you have some shippers out there.”

  Ash’s brow furrowed. “Shippers? Am I supposed to understand that?”

  “It’s a term for a celebrity or fictional coupling,” Emily said. “Like Brangelina or Kimye.”

  Ash blinked twice, his mind bringing up a blank. “Brangelina?”

  To his left, Grace let out a sigh of frustration. “They’re saying that listeners like to imagine that we’re hooking up behind the scenes—that we’re in a relation-ship.” Grace glanced back at Jan, a smile curling the corner of her mouth. “Although they’re having trouble with coming up with a ship name. Our names don’t really go together.”

  All the women were smiling now.

  “Grash,” Emily said, then started laughing.

  “Graton,” Grace added, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “I think that one is a little on the nose.”

  “Yeah,” Jan agreed. “There aren’t really any hashtags working for you, but the ship is still there. You two bring the heat more often than not on your shows, and a lot of your listeners wonder where all that heat goes after the microphones turn off.”

  “To our other jobs?” Ash said.

  “That’s the reality,” Jan said. “But if we want to bring in numbers that will get you two in for another year, I think playing into the topic that comes up in over 30% of the comments on your site is our best play.” She punched a key on her laptop, advancing her screen to the next slide where Ash was surprised to see a shirtless picture of himself next to the words, Sexy or sexist? You decide, weekdays at 2:00.