The Kiss That Launched 1,000 Gifs

by Sheralyn Pratt

  Megan’s mouth fell open in dismay. “Are you kidding me? No way!”

  “Yes way,” Ash said, taking a bite and nearly moaning when the piece of meat all but melted on his tongue. It was a perfect bite that nearly derailed him from finishing his thought, but the competitive look in his niece’s eyes inspired him to stay on task. “Guys your age need to know that they have eyes on them, or they might just get stupid. They need to know you have backup. You need to know you have backup. There’s an app for it. I just saw it the other day. You just hit a button if you’re in an uncomfortable situation you want to get out of and it will ping me. I’ll know exactly where you are and that you want out. I can call, act like a jerk who is forcing your hand, then come pick you up. You save face in front of your friends while also getting out of a bad situation. It’s a win-win.”

  “It’s overprotective,” she countered.

  “It’s non-negotiable,” Ash repeated with finality. “In the world we live in and with a mom as liberal as yours, you need one adult that will still treat you like the growing teen you are. That’s me. And if you don’t like it?” Ash shrugged. “Sucks to be you.”

  For a moment, Megan looked like she was going to object. Then she let out a light laugh, her face blushing slightly. “No. It doesn’t suck to be me, Uncle Ash… Thanks. That would actually be a really good app for some situations.”

  “Like I said.” Ash took another bite. “Non-negotiable.”

  As usual, the evening’s wine tasting with Phillip was more business than pleasure. Luckily Grace’s upbringing had taught her to master the look of polite interest she used as she stood at Phillip’s side. The padded inserts in her four-inch heels had long since ceased to serve their purpose, and two hours ago she’d started shifting her weight around to try to avoid the pain. An hour ago she’d given up and just accepted that beauty was pain. Currently, Grace was numb from the knees down.

  “I really do think the ’12 would be the perfect ingredient for your Boeuf Bourguignon,” Ryan was saying to Phillip. He was a sales rep at the vineyard who clearly had an eye on Phillip’s business.

  “It’s a strong candidate,” Phillip agreed, which was his way of saying Not going to happen.

  So why were they still there talking to the man?

  Grace glanced at the clock on the wall, watching it creep closer to 11:00 p.m. She was down to six hours of sleep. She took a slow breath and tried to keep her anxiousness from showing on her face.

  “What do you think, Grace?” Ryan asked.

  I think it’s 11:00, and I thought we’d be gone two hours ago. “The ’12 has a very full, mellow flavor to it,” she said with a smile. “I enjoyed it.”

  Pleasant without implying commitment, that’s how Phillip liked her to respond at events like this. Once upon a time, Grace had fun finding ways to do just that, but when she’d realized no one was really listening she’d stopped putting effort into her responses.

  Grace was arm candy. She knew it, and despite her personal politics, she was okay with it. Her mom was both beautiful and smart, and Grace spent her entire life watching her mom use both beauty and brains to get the results she wanted. It was a compelling combination that Grace had put into action more than once herself.

  But not this night, and not with this crowd. There wasn’t a single man in the room who cared if Grace had a brain. She was present to send the visual message that Phillip had high expectations both of himself and those he had relationships with—business and personal. Yet between the wine, the time, and an ever-expanding numb zone stemming from her shoes, Grace’s role in that messaging was fading fast.

  “I agree,” Phillip said, swirling the liquid in his glass. “The ’12 is excellent, but I had been hoping that your ’07 Charbono would be making an appearance tonight.”

  Ryan smiled knowingly. “You know we have an exclusive contract with that line. Every bottle was purchased the year they were bottled.”

  “I understand,” Phillip replied. “But we both know that everything is always for sale.”

  Really? This was Phillip’s angle for dragging her here, and he was just getting to it?

  “I need to sit down for a moment,” she said with an abruptness that earned her a surprised look from Phillip.

  “Of course,” Ryan said, moving to a nearby table and pulling out a seat. “You’ve been standing for hours in those heels.”

  Yes. She had. Longer than Ryan knew, but she said nothing as she moved to the offered seat and lowered herself into it. Heaven above, she might never stand again.

  Phillip glanced her way as Ryan returned to their discussion and Grace tapped on her wrist to indicate the time. Phillip blinked his acknowledgment then focused his attention back on Ryan.

  Grace rolled her neck, a sigh of relief leaving her before she could stop it. A yawn followed, paired with the deep desire to toe out of her shoes. She couldn’t go that far though. Once those bad boys came off, nothing would be going back onto her feet until morning. They had to stay on until she and Phillip reached the car.

  To distract both her mind and her hands, Grace pulled out her cell phone and checked on her accounts. Everything was quiet except Instagram. 217 notifications since her last check in. That much activity this late at night? Grace was almost afraid to look.

  She pulled up Ashton’s account to see what brush fire he had started this time. When the picture of a plate full of food with every ingredient separated out into their own little containers. She recognized the plate and the dish as the grilled mahi mahi at Phillip’s. Below it was a caption.

  I came to Phillip’s and asked for the Grace Vasquez Special. This is what I got. Bon appétit?

  It looked delicious and, based on the comments, listeners agreed. If Ashton had been going for a diss, he’d missed.

  But that was beside the point. The point was that Ashton was successfully engaging their listeners. They loved him. If only they had urged him onto social media sooner maybe their show wouldn’t be on the chopping block. The man was funny… although that picture of her junk drawer had nearly put her over the edge. Grace kept her world OCD clean. She allowed herself only one spot—one drawer—for all the chaos, and Ashton had posted it for all the world to see. The only thing that had talked her off the ledge of giving him a piece of her mind was the fact that 90% of all the comments had been in support of having a junk drawer.

  Grace wasn’t the only one with a designated space for chaos in her life, just like most of the current commenters thought her custom order at Phillip’s looked delicious.

  Take that, Ashton.

  Every time he posted, Grace got more followers. She was currently only 327 followers away from cracking the elusive 10K follower mark. She’d have to go out for a celebratory dinner when that happened and tease Ashton that he was still sitting at 4K. Sucker.

  As Grace debated on how to respond to Ashton’s post, she happened to glance up at Phillip and smiled at the picture he made. Grace wasn’t the only one in their relationship who made good arm candy. Phillip looked like a model in the Joseph Abboud charcoal and black slim-fit suit he was wearing. The overhead lighting was hitting him just right, highlighting his bone structure even as his five o’clock shadow added just a hint of the rough and rustic look. Between his ice blue eyes, dark hair, and the way he held his wine glass in the suit, he looked like a model shooting an ad campaign for the wine.

  Unable to let the moment pass, Grace opened the camera on her phone and started snapping shots.

  There were many things to love about Phillip. He was driven and never made a promise he couldn’t keep, for starters. He was also one of those rare people who remembered everyone’s name and could always find a topic of shared interest to talk about. He was both professional and personal… and on top of all that, the man made one mighty fine picture.

  She flipped through the photos, examining all the details until she found the one with the best shadows and angles. Then she popped it into the photo editor, prettied it
up even more and posted it to Instagram with the caption My man knows how to rock a suit.

  A glance at the time showed that it was 11:12 p.m. She wasn’t going to get to bed before midnight, which meant tomorrow was going to be a long day. A more immediate problem, however, was that her feet were beginning to feel again. And feeling was a nice way of saying sharp, debilitating pain. At this point Grace wasn’t sure she could stand up.

  She had just decided to rest her eyelids when she heard Phillip step up next to her. He pressed his lips into the top of her head to get her attention. “I’m so sorry, hon. I really wanted to talk him out of a few cases of those Charbonos.”

  Grace opened her eyes and looked up at him. “And did you?”

  He smiled. “Of course I did.”

  “Nice. Want to celebrate by carrying me to the car?”

  He glanced at her shoes. “Did your feet give up the ghost for the night?”

  Grace nodded. “It was a mistake to sit down.”

  “I could have told you that,” he said, stooping down and moving her arm to drape around his neck before cradling her in his arms and picking her up.

  “My hero,” Grace said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I could fall asleep like this.”

  “That can be arranged,” he chuckled, heading for the exit.

  She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Babe, if that was on your bucket list for the night, we should have left at least two hours ago.”

  Phillip said nothing, and while Grace wanted to pretend that the silence was companionable, she knew better. Phillip was annoyed, but if he wasn’t going to say anything, she wasn’t going to say anything. They’d been doing that dance a lot lately.

  “We’re here,” Phillip said when they reached his car. “Prepare your feet for impact.”

  He set her down lightly before opening the door for her to slide into the seat. Her feet didn’t even touch the floor mat before her shoes came off and Grace gave a sigh of relief.

  “Ay, mis piecitos,” she muttered under her breath as she leaned against the headrest. If the awkward silence between her and Phillip continued there was every possibility she would doze off on the way home.

  Phillip said nothing as he started the car, then stayed silent for several minutes as they made the journey. Grace rested until they were nearly to her place.

  “So, I don’t see you again until next Tuesday?” he asked, pulling onto her street.

  Grace opened her eyes and nodded. “That’s the next time our schedules line up, yes.”

  “Yeah… that seems to be happening less and less often these past couple of months, hasn’t it?”

  It was a question that wasn’t a question. It was a reference to the elephant in the room, and the very problem Esme had been harping on the night before.

  Grace felt herself tense and she turned to look at him. “Are you saying that’s on me?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s on both of us. I’m busy. You’re busy. We’re both busy. I’m not playing a blame game here. I’m just saying it would be less of an issue if I wasn’t taking you to your own place tonight. It would be easier if, at the end of the day, you and I came home to the same place.”

  She looked back at the road. “You know how I feel about that.”

  “I know, I know. We’ve had the conversation a thousand times. You don’t believe in living together before marriage, and I don’t feel comfortable proposing until I know we can live together.”

  Grace laid her hand over his and gave it a light, playful squeeze. “As long as we have separate bathrooms, everything should be fine, papi.”

  He shook his head. “There’s more to living together than separate bathrooms, Grace.”

  “But that’s near the top of the list,” she said playfully. He didn’t bite.

  “I just feel like the longer we’re together, the farther we drift apart and that’s backwards of how things should be.” He glanced away from the road to meet her eyes for a moment. “I want to be with you, babe. Every night.”

  Grace let go of his hand. “So I should just move in and be the woman that’s handy?”

  He let out a frustrated sigh. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what are you saying? I’m listening.”

  Phillip put both hands on the steering wheel and out of her reach. “I’m saying meet me half way here, Grace. Move in with me. Let us be together at the end of the day.”

  She folded her arms. “And how is that ‘meeting you half way’?”

  “Because you’ve never lived with a boyfriend before, and I think you’ll like it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Grace drawled. “But you’ve lived with women before.”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “And how many times have you been married?”

  Phillip shook his head. “That’s not the point.”

  “Isn’t it?” she shot back. “You’ve lived with three women, Phil, and married exactly none of them. How does that not prove my point that living with you brings us no closer to marriage? All it does is make me more sexually available to you.”

  He laughed out loud at that. “Well, it’s not like you could be less available. We haven’t had sex in three weeks.”

  “Again, not entirely my fault,” she pointed out. “You’re the one scheduling our nights so that business always comes first. That’s not on me.”

  “The fact that we’re not living together is.”

  Grace felt her blood start to heat with temper. “Do you hear yourself right now? It’s my fault that I’m not just lying in your bed waiting to be woken up when you get done at the restaurant? I have work, too, you know. You get home between 12:00 and 1:00 a.m., and I get up at 5:00. I think it’s completely reasonable that we sleep in separate beds.”

  “We used to make it work,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, but there are only so many weeks a person can go before four hours of sleep a night takes its toll. I was drinking so much coffee that I started getting an ulcer.”

  “We needed to dial it back,” he agreed. “But we’ve dialed too far back. I need to see you more than once or twice a week, Grace. I want to see you at least twice that often, and I want you to stay over every time. I want you to tell me that you don’t want me to take you to your place right now—that you want to come home with me.”

  Grace held back a sigh. “I have to be up in five hours, Phil.”

  “And I want to be more important to you than one night of sleep,” he pressed. “Drink a little extra coffee tomorrow and be with me tonight.”

  Grace bit down on her lip to stop herself from saying what she wanted to say. It wasn’t nice, and she wouldn’t be able to take it back. Phillip was frustrated, and with good cause. They had been drifting apart for some time now. Grace just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  They drove in silence until Phillip pulled into her driveway. He didn’t speak again until he turned off the engine.

  “Grace?”

  She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. “Yes?”

  “Invite me inside.”

  It wasn’t a totally unreasonable request. It had been three weeks and it was only one night. She could smooth everything over by inviting him in now and doubling down on coffee tomorrow, but the fact was she didn’t want to. She wanted him to go.

  It was decision time.

  “I’m not going to lie, Grace,” he said, turning to her. “I don’t hire ugly waitresses. They’re young, they’re hot, and they like me. It’s a temptation.”

  Wait. Did he think telling her this was helping his case?

  “I need to feel close to you to remember why they’re not worth it.”

  Was he kidding? Phillip was the one who went into work every day to manage the managers. If he was spending time with hot, young servers, it was because he was exactly where he wanted to be. Throwing his own decisions in her face like this had her blood boiling dangerously below the surface.

  “And are we wor
th it?” she asked. “You and me, with our mismatched schedules and my insistence on not living together? Let’s be honest as long as we’re talking about this. Is this what you really want?”

  He looked straight ahead, mouth frowning, and didn’t answer for several beats. “We both know the answer to that.”

  Grace let his words settle in, knowing they were heavier than she wanted to acknowledge this late at night.

  At last, Phillip took a deep breath. “If you’re not going to invite me in, we might as well do this now.”

  That caught her attention. “Do what now?”

  For the first time that night, Phillip turned and looked at her—really looked at her. “This isn’t working anymore, Grace,” he said in a tone that told her he’d practiced the words. Maybe he’d been alone, or maybe he’d done a dry run on someone else, but the speech he was about to lay down was not impromptu. “It hasn’t been working for months now. The only reason we’ve stayed together was because staying together is easier than breaking up.”

  Grace chose her next words carefully. “And to be clear, when you said ‘we might as well do this now,’ you were referencing the fact that you were planning on giving me this same speech either tonight or tomorrow morning?”

  He sent her a flirty smile that usually got her heart to skip a beat. “I would have to be insane not to try for one last night.”

  Her heart did not skip a beat. It raged.

  Grace gripped on to the door handle—half to open the door and half to stop herself from lunging across the car and doing who knew what to the man she’d given the last three years of her life to.

  Grace pushed the door open. “You need to leave. Immediately.”

  “Gra—”

  She held up her hand. “Don’t speak. Don’t touch me. Don’t do anything but drive away as fast as you can before I do something we’ll both regret.”

  Phillip let out a frustrated sigh. “Grace, this is clearly coming out all wrong. I don’t want us to end on a note like this.”

  She got out of the car, so angry that she didn’t even feel her aching feet. “And yet, it is what it is.” She bent over and looked at him. “Have fun with your cute, little waitresses, Phil.”