The Kiss That Launched 1,000 Gifs

by Sheralyn Pratt

  “Exactly,” Ash stalled, still looking for an angle to argue. Maybe if he kept Grace talking she would gift wrap the problem for him.

  Grace shook her head. “It’s a small, self-contained portion of baked goodness with frosting. How is that not perfection?”

  Ah, there it was! He’d missed an angle they could argue about the first time she mentioned it, but heard it loud and clear on the second pitch. “You’re asking me how a dainty portion of cake—smaller than my fist—covered in cutesy frosting isn’t what a man wants for dessert?”

  “But they’re the perfect size!” she argued.

  “For a child,” Ash retorted, feeling good about his stance. “Or someone who’s watching their calorie intake. Not a grown man.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, you have to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all,” Ash said. “Plus, there’s this unspoken pressure in the room to have only one cupcake. You start taking multiples and people look at you funny. I mean, if a man could walk up and grab four cupcakes at a time and not get any dirty looks for it, then maybe cupcakes would be more interesting… if you took all the flowers and sprinkles off and made them three-times as big.”

  “Well, then it’s just a small cake,” Grace argued.

  “Exactly. If you’re going to make cupcakes, why not just make a cake and let everyone get the piece size they want?”

  Grace stared at him and blinked twice. “Holy cow. This is actually a thing, isn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t need to be,” Ash said. “If you know your man doesn’t like cupcakes, then don’t make him cupcakes. If you feel inclined to bake for him, make him a cake or something else he likes. Cupcakes don’t have to be ‘a thing’ unless you force the issue.”

  Grace leaned back in her chair, visibly settling into the debate. “But what if I see great cupcakes on Pinterest and I want to make them.”

  “Then make them,” Ash said with a shrug. “Just don’t expect the man in your life to get excited about them. He’s not going to appreciate them. At best he’s going to digest them. So get your high fives on a crafty job well done somewhere else—like from other women.”

  Her eyebrows drew together in disapproval as her lips pursed adorably. “That’s kind of heartless—I mean, considering how much effort went into the finished product.”

  “Maybe. But it’s a two-way street. I may put hours into perfecting my fade-away shot, but it’s not like you’re going to praise me when I pull it off perfectly.”

  “Wait. What’s a fade away shot?”

  Ash let out a long-suffering sigh for the audience. “It’s the male equivalent to a woman’s perfectly executed cupcake. A good fade-away shot is probably about as interesting to a woman as decorative squirts of frosting on four ounces of baked batter is to a man.”

  Grace actually smiled, but quashed it back pretty quickly. “Those ‘decorative squirts’ take effort, practice, and skill.”

  “So does passing a level on a video game, but I don’t see women lining up to congratulate their men about that.”

  Grace leaned back in her chair. “Ugh. Video games. Don’t even get me started on those.”

  “Ugh. Frosting art,” he mimicked. “Don’t even get me started.”

  She studied him for a beat, lips pursed out thoughtfully. She was a breath away from laughing even as she pretended to be annoyed. “Do we need to cut to commercial already? Cool down a bit?”

  “I dunno,” Ash said, smiling. “We could always talk about thermostats again. That’s always fun.”

  “Seventy-two,” she said without blinking.

  Ash grinned. “Sixty-four.”

  Grace shook her head emphatically. “No way. I won’t believe yours is really set at sixty-four until I go to your house and see it firsthand. No one keeps the thermostat that low.”

  “I’ve invited you over on many occasions,” he said. “It’s not like I’m hiding my thermostat from you. Frank can bear witness to its setting, as can Emily or any number of our coworkers. It stays at sixty-four.”

  Ash glanced at Frank, who gave a nod of agreement from the other side of the glass. The audience with webcams saw it, but Grace ignored it.

  “Whatever,” Grace said, shutting the conversation down abruptly. “We’ve talked that topic to death before, so let’s take a look at the number two question today: Why aren’t more men on Instagram?”

  Ash was momentarily distracted by Grace’s brief flash of temper before following her awkward transition.

  “Are there fewer men?” he mused. “Or do more men just lurk and more women post?”

  Grace grew still for a beat. “Well, that’s a troubling thought.”

  “C’mon. You seriously never thought of that?”

  “Oh, I’ve thought of it,” Grace said. “I’ve just never had a man confirm it. Somehow it makes the possibility more real.”

  “Well, you should be safe,” Ash said with a shrug, earning him a laser-sharp look. “Most villains don’t want to see shots of shoes and dresses. You probably have nothing to fear from any man who might be stalking your Instagram feed, Grace. He’s probably just shopping.”

  Direct hit. Grace’s glare told him as much. He decided to frustrate her even more by giving the conversation a turn before she could respond.

  “But I haven’t even had the app for twenty-four hours,” he said with a smile. “So I’m no expert, right?”

  “I dunno,” Grace said, sounding sincere. “You’ve got your first pic up, and you’re about to add that glorious shot of your hiking shoes. It sounds like you have Instagram nailed down to me.”

  “Thanks, Grace,” he said with equal seriousness. “That means a lot from a guru like you.”

  Oh, the things Grace wanted to say. Ash could see all of them in her eyes, even if she currently had the self control to keep them swallowed back.

  “So let’s recap,” he said before the pause became too long. “On Instagram, I should post and not lurk; the correct setting for a thermostat is sixty-four—”

  “Seventy-two,” Grace countered.

  “So we’ll say sixty-eight degrees for the thermostat, then. And if a woman wants to bake and her man isn’t into cupcakes, she should make something else and not take it personally.”

  “And what if a man wants to bake for his woman?” Grace countered.

  Ash shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we should call Phillip and have him answer that one. He’s the chef. What does he bake for you?”

  A sensual smile curved her lips. “Phillip makes a divine apple crisp. I can literally eat my way into a new dress size.”

  “Hard to screw apple crisp up.”

  “And his Napoleons are to die for,” she added, her voice half moan. “Seriously, he has to hide the pan, because I will down it. But I can promise you that if I asked him for a cute little cupcake, Phillip wouldn’t balk.”

  Ash rolled his eyes. “Of course not, because that’s what you want. But that’s not what today’s question was asking. You asked me for a reason why men don’t want cupcakes, and I gave you one. Plus, I gave you a simple solution: if your man doesn’t like cupcakes, just give him a man-sized cake. There’s nothing inherently sexist about that. It’s just a preference thing. My advice is to find out what your lover wants, and give them that, not something else.”

  “Wow, Ashton.” Grace pressed her hand to her heart. “It’s rare when sense comes out of your mouth, but I think stars just aligned.”

  “Thanks, Grace,” he said with a grin. “The stars must really be aligned then, because it’s a rare day when you have something nice to say, and yet here we are. I’m making sense; you’re being nice… is this the first step to becoming boring cohosts who agree on everything?”

  She shook her head. “Not by a long shot, buddy. I may be able to acknowledge a moment of clarity on your part, but that doesn’t mean I lose all memory of the insane things that come out of your mouth day-in and day-out.”

  “Things like what?” Ash pr
ompted, quickly filtering through his vault of one-liners that set Grace off like a firework. “Like how I think men and women’s sports should remain segregated?”

  A light sparked in Grace’s eyes as she leaned forward. The way gravity was working on her neckline told Ash to look down, but the intensity in Grace’s eyes told him to keep his eye on the ball.

  “If a woman can keep up with men, she should be able to play on a men’s team,” Grace argued.

  “Nope,” Ash said, shaking his head.

  “What about American Ninja Warrior?” she said, her chin coming up. “They have one course and anyone is allowed to challenge it. And from what I can tell the world hasn’t exploded yet.”

  “That’s different than football and other team sports,” Ash argued.

  “I’ll grant you that football might be the most extreme example,” Grace said. “But baseball? Basketball? Soccer? How in the world would it kill the sport to allow women in if they outperform men and earn their spot?”

  “You’re only saying that because you grew up doing ballroom,” Ash argued. “You’ve never played a team sport, so you don’t understand the hornet’s nest you’re poking at when you talk about throwing men and women together.”

  “Clearly I don’t,” Grace snapped. “Since I grew up doing a sport where men and women coexisted just fine in the same arena.”

  “Team sports are different.”

  “Not really.”

  “Yes,” Ash said, looking into her eyes and smiling. “Really.”

  She blinked and leaned away, clearly confused by the move even though it didn’t keep her from pulling her microphone front and center. “Forget cupcakes. I want to talk about this today. I want to talk about sports—co-ed sports—and whether they should follow the lead of competitions like American Ninja Warrior and focus on merits instead of sex.”

  “Hmmm,” Ash said into his mic. “A debate about sports between a woman who has never played a team sport in her life and a man who grew up playing every sport. I wonder who will win?”

  Heaven help him, but Grace looked stunning when she was furious. If they hadn’t been on live radio, Ash would have tuned out her words and just imagined kissing his little wildcat while she raged, but this wasn’t a date. It was work. He had to listen.

  There was a quick moment of mental gymnastics reflected in Grace’s eyes as she buckled down the rant Ash knew she wanted to unleash and stuck with saying, “You might want to back off the jabs here, Ashton. This is a topic that really gets me fired up.”

  Ashton nodded solemnly. “I can tell. You could bake a man-sized cake with the heat that is coming off you right now.”

  Her mouth fell open before she physically bit down on her bottom lip and gripped the table.

  “And with that we’re going to commercial,” Grace said. “Please enjoy these messages from our sponsors while I figure out a way to respond to that without absolutely going off the rails.”

  On the other side of the glass, Frank was quick on the uptake, punching in the commercials at the same moment Grace pushed her mic away from her face and turning to the computer in front of her.

  “I’m going to create a poll,” she said without looking at him.

  Translation: Don’t talk to me—don’t even breathe in my general direction until business duties require it.

  Ash hid a smile and glanced at the phone lines. Each line blinked red. The next two hours should be fun. The room was definitely going to get warm, but it was his own fault.

  Speaking of warm… it gave Ash an idea.

  Picking up his phone, he accessed the Dropbox folder Emily had set up for him that morning to connect all the photos he had stored on his home computer to his phone. It took him a minute, but he finally found the pictures from his last birthday with Fawn and Megan. He popped the picture into Instagram and zoomed in to show only cake then added a caption.

  Look what Grace made me during the show today. #Multitasking #Superwoman

  He was really starting to like this whole social media thing.

  “So my boyfriend and I need you to settle a debate for us,” a caller said over the speaker.

  “We’ll do our best,” Grace said, watching Ashton throw his stress ball back and forth between his hands.

  Sending Grace a competitive smile, he leaned forward and said, “Lay it on us, Beth.”

  “So this guy and I have been going out for about a month,” Beth said. “But we’ve never really talked about being exclusive.”

  “Okay,” Grace said, to encourage the woman to keep talking.

  “Well, one of us went out on a date with someone else and doesn’t really think it’s that big of a deal.”

  Ashton stopped throwing his ball and leaned forward. “Wait. I need a little more information here. How many dates were there in this month the two of you have been together? Are we talking once a week, or multiple dates a week?”

  “Um, maybe three dates a week?” the woman said, not sounding totally sure.

  “And how physical was the relationship.”

  Beth let out a nervous laugh. “Pretty physical, I guess.”

  He nodded his head. “Okay, proceed.”

  “I, um, I guess that’s really it,” Beth said. “My question for you two is whether or not there comes a point where relationships are exclusive by default, or if they’re only exclusive if you both sit down and agree that you’re exclusive.”

  Grace signaled that she had a response and Ash gave her the nod to take the lead. By the look on his face she could tell this was a topic he thought they’d agree on. Wouldn’t that be a miracle?

  “My take?” Grace said. “If you want to be exclusive, you need to say the words out loud. You can’t just assume the person you’re dating is on the same page.”

  Across the table, Ashton’s mouth fell open. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “Shocker.” Grace laughed. “Ashton and I disagree on this.”

  Ashton leaned into the table and searched her eyes as if he thought she might be kidding. “Beth and her boyfriend have been on a minimum of twelve dates. They’ve also gotten pretty personal. At this point, you think it’s fair for one of them to date someone else without saying anything?”

  Grace shrugged, playing things extra casual since she could see this was a topic that got under his skin. Maybe it was time to watch him squirm for once. “If a man hasn’t asked me to be exclusive with him, why would I be?”

  “Even if the two of you have been ‘pretty physical?’”

  “Define ‘pretty physical,’” Grace said, mirroring his body language as she faced off against him. “It’s such an arbitrary term. Is it like an episode of The Bachelor, where one guy makes out with different girl on every date?”

  “That makes for good TV,” Ashton countered, more serious than usual. “Not good relationships.”

  Grace hid a smile, getting a kick out his intensity. “Okay, I’ll bite, Ashton. How many dates do you think you need to go on before both parties should assume the relationship is exclusive? And what’s the physical line for exclusivity? A kiss? A make out? More?”

  “You know the line when you reach it,” he said, his jaw flexing in annoyance.

  “Exactly,” Grace said, leaning back in her chair. “You know when you’ve reached the point when you’re all in. But that doesn’t mean the other person is on the same page, and you can’t just assume that they are. Unless you state that you want exclusivity, you can’t expect your date to read your mind and know how seriously you’re taking them.”

  Ashton was staring at her in honest disbelief. “So you’re telling me that you could go on date with one man you’ve been seeing regularly on a Friday, then go on a first date with another man on Saturday, kiss both of them, and feel totally good about it?”

  Okay, maybe not. But seeing Ashton frazzled was totally worth taking his verbal bait.

  “Sure,” she said, as if it was nothing. “If I don’t feel strongly enough to ask him to be exclu
sive and he hasn’t made any moves that tell me I should stop looking around, I would totally go out with someone else at the same time.”

  His mouth literally fell open and he shook his head. “Wow, Beth. I don’t know if Grace and I are going to be any help in solving your debate here.”

  “Actually, you’ve been incredibly helpful,” Beth said, sounding chipper. “Grace and I totally agree.”

  Grace had to admit she was a little surprised to hear that, but that took a back seat to the pleasure she took at seeing the stupefied expression on Ashton’s face as he said, “You do?”

  “Totally,” Beth said. “I mean, I have a great time with this guy, but he’s not sending me any signals that he’s interested in taking things to the next level.”

  “Yet you started this call by calling him your boyfriend,” Ashton pointed out.

  “It just seemed easier for the sake of this call,” Beth replied.

  “Uh-huh,” Ashton drawled, his eyes narrowing. “So you’re with this dude; you call him your boyfriend; the two of you see each other at least three times a week and you’re physical; yet you don’t think that he’s sending any signals that you’re more than a casual relationship to him? On top of all that, you need this man to psychically understand that you desire to be sat down and be specifically asked not to date any other men before he can expect not to hear tales of you kissing other men?”

  “Well, when you put it like that…” Beth laughed.

  “I’m not putting it like that,” Ashton replied, his trademark lightheartedness distinctly absent in his tone. “I’m saying it like it is.”

  “No,” Grace stepped in before Ashton could lay into Beth too hard. “You’re saying it how you see it.”

  “I guess so,” he said, gripping onto his stress ball and leaning back in his chair with a frown. “If I’ve gone on twelve dates in four weeks with a woman, and she still doesn’t see the need to mention the fact that someone else has asked her out and she wants to go, then I would seriously rethink date thirteen. I have zero interest in dating a woman who plays games like that.”