The Kiss That Launched 1,000 Gifs (12 page)

“You’d rather be fishing,” Megan teased. “I know. But there’s no fighting it, uncle. It’s a thing. You’re a thing. And you and Grace are definitely a thing, even if you’re the last ones to clue into it.”

Ash opened his mouth to respond and found he didn’t have anything to say. Instead, he shut his mouth again and looked away.

“Wait,” Megan said, stepping forward. “Are you finally willing to admit you like Grace?”

“Please,” he scoffed. “She’s basically engaged, Megan. We’ve got to respect that.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Megan countered. “Do. You. Like. Her?”

“I think I’d rather talk about the perils of underage drinking and why you should never, ever do it.”

Megan let out a sigh of resignation only a teenager could pull off, and when he heard her stop, Ash turned to look at her again.

“We could talk about that,” she said. “And if we did, I would tell you that when I’m at parties I do hold a can so people will leave me alone, and I never drink from a cup because they’re too easy to dose.” Megan’s eyes were serious and her expression stern as her jaw raised resolutely. “Uncle Ash, if you think for one second that I want to follow in my mother’s footsteps by becoming pregnant before I get out of high school, I assure you that is not the case. I love my mom and all, but if there’s one thing she’s taught me, it’s that there’s an order to things.” Megan’s arms folded across her chest and Ash could have sworn she blinked some tears back. “Single parenting sucks for everyone, and so does losing your chance to be a kid because you had a kid way too soon.”

“Megan,” Ash said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “You ha—”

“My mom does her best,” she said over him, clearly not wanting to hear any excuses on her mom’s behalf. Not tonight. “And I love her. I know she loves me, too, but I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to try every drug and sleep around so much that I don’t remember everyone who should be called when I need a paternity test. So when I tell you that I have every intention of graduating high school a virgin, and that I only hold beers at parties so people won’t hound me about drinking, I need to know that you trust and believe in me. And I need you to know that if I ever find myself in a position where I think I might be headed into bad territory, I will absolutely use the app on my phone to get you to bail me out, because you are the one adult in my life who I know will drop anything and everything to come get me without asking questions first.”

Her words hit him like an uppercut laced in love—the impact was hard, but sweet. “I’m glad you know that,” he said over the lump in his throat. “Because it’s true. I’m here for you anytime. Anywhere.”

Megan looked into his eyes and nodded. “I know. And you have no idea how much that means to me, Uncle Ash.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he reached out and pulled Megan into a side hug that she returned before looking up at him.

“Now, with all that said and out of the way,” she said, a grin slipping back onto her face. “I think it’s past time you got on the ball when it comes to having your own kids to force into camping trips on any given weekend.”

He gave Megan one quick squeeze and let go. “What if I like the kid I’ve got?”

“Well, then, you have a problem on your hands,” she said, filling her voice with more than a little teenage attitude. “I’ll be graduating before you know it and heading off to college, which means you’ll have an empty nest. I mean, my mom will kind of notice that I’m gone, but you’ll be a basket case.”

“You think so?” he teased, his heart skipping a beat as he realized how right she was. Ash didn’t like to acknowledge the fact that Megan was getting older, but she was. She’d basically been born an adult, but now she was catching up in chronological age. And when it came time for college, Megan would push to go somewhere far away, and Fawn would let her. Fawn would be proud of Megan’s sense of adventure, and see her independence as a sign of successful parenting, not a sign that Megan had always felt like she was on her own and was finally seeking out a geographic location that matched how she felt on the inside. It had been a gap Ash had always tried to fill, but there was only so much he’d been able to do.

“Oh, I know you’ll miss me,” Megan said, pulling him out of a melancholy spot in his head. “Which brings us back to you and how you’re going to get your own kid. And I have to say that Grace—”

Ash threw his head back and laughed. “Wait, Grace? You have Grace on the slate for delivering my babies?” He laughed again, pretending he’d never imagined the same thing himself. “Wow, that Google Hangout of yours must have a very active imagination if it’s set your brain down that path.”

“I’m just saying that I think you’d be happy with her,” Megan replied. “I mean, I’ve kind of known you my entire life, and I’ve met every woman you’ve ever been serious with. I know what you like, and I know what keeps your attention. And the simple fact is that you haven’t been serious with anyone for the past two years. As your niece, I have to ask myself why that is.”

Ash shook his head. “Well, if you landed on Grace, I’m going to have to correct you on that one. I promise you that what you see is literally what you get when it comes to me and Grace. Everything that happens between us is caught on that webcam.”

Megan nodded wisely. “Maybe so, but my question for you is: have you ever watched to see what everyone else sees on that webcam?”

“You know I don’t,” Ash said, rolling his eyes. “Recording those episodes is stressful enough the first time around. No need to relive them.”

Megan smirked. “Even if it meant catching Grace undressing you with her eyes or staring at your lips when you speak?”

Ash grew very still. His precocious niece had his full attention. “Say what?”

She played innocent. “Oh, so you’d be interested in that?”

He could literally feel his heart beating in his temples as a shiver pushed through his body and didn’t really leave. It just settled in, filling his body with a pleasant, yet impatient, hum.

Was he interested?

Yes. Please. Now. Immediately.

“Maybe next Friday,” Megan decided, moving past him on the trail and continuing up. “You know, since tonight we’re camping and all.”

It was decision time. His crafty niece had just expertly crafted a hook to get what she wanted. The question was, would Ash be a good fish and chomp down? Would he take the bait and give her the win?

Not a chance. His pride demanded that he not be outsmarted by a girl half his age.

“Sounds good to me,” he said, starting in behind her, even as he checked his phone for a 4G signal. Could he get YouTube up here? “Next Friday sounds like it will be an interesting night indeed.”

Megan sent him a look over her shoulder that had him thinking he’d bitten down on the wrong hook.

“Wait, you
wanted
me to wait a week?”

Megan shrugged. “That’s when you find out if the show’s renewed, right? And if you’re not renewed, there’s no reason not to show you everything. No one in the group can blame me for letting the cat out of the bag then, so it’ll all work out. And tonight I’ll just hang out with my uncle while I still can. There are worse ways to spend a Friday night.”

“One or two, I guess,” he agreed, giving his niece a little swat as they hit the half-way point to their campsite.

She glanced back at him. “Plus, I’m curious.”

“About what?”

A grin filled her face. “If you’ll find the hashtag before I tell you about it, now that you know it’s out there.”

The billboards had gone up over the weekend, and they were
everywhere.

Or at least the billboards of Ash were everywhere.

Jan had assured Grace that there were exactly the same amount of each billboard, but if so, that meant all of the billboards with a shirtless Ash were on Grace’s route.

Lucky her.

Sexy or Sexist?

You decide.

Weekdays at 2:00 p.m.

A different shot of Ash—shirtless, always shirtless—stood next to the words on each of the billboards. One such billboard was right behind the red light that had Grace stopped. Ash was fly fishing, his body impossibly defined. Yes, she knew Ash was fit, but Photoshop
had
to be involved in the making of that six pack. There was simply no way she sat across a desk from abs that beautiful every day.

Then there were Grace’s billboards, which she hated even more than Ash’s.

Ash’s billboards objectified him, but Grace’s were just… blah. Her in a lace peplum dress while wearing boxing gloves? She wouldn’t be surprised if Women’s Studies classes would be using the ad as an object lesson of ways modern women continued to perpetuate antiquated stereotypes.

From top to bottom, Grace hated the campaign, but that didn’t really matter. What mattered was connection and engagement, and the numbers would tell the story on all that soon enough.

A quick honk from behind Grace drew her attention to the fact that she was staring at Ash’s arms, and not her stop light—which was clearly green.

“Can’t be the first,” she muttered, stepping on the gas.

Two minutes later Grace was parked in front of Phillip’s restaurant.

It had been five days since their breakup, not that Grace was counting. Okay, she had totally been counting. And while she still considered it too soon to see Phillip again, he had asked her to stop by—begged, really. He seemed to think that she was a whole lot more upset than she was.

Weirdly enough, Grace felt guilty about the breakup, although she wasn’t quite sure why. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Not really. She and Phillip just weren’t a fit anymore. It was as simple as that. And the fact that her heart wasn’t bleeding out at the loss told her that she’d known that fact for some time.

Somewhere along the way, she and Phillip had fallen out of love and just kept on going through the motions.

Well, the time for going through the motions was at an end, but that didn’t mean she wanted to leave things bad with him. The two of them had way too much history. If there was a way to smooth things over between them, it was worth an hour of her time. And she’d much prefer to hash through it at his workplace, not hers.

Grace walked through the restaurant doors she’d helped picked out and stepped into the greeting area. Servers rolling silverware glanced her way before giving each other knowing looks. They knew what was up and were steering clear. Smart.

Phillip must have been watching for her, because he immediately stepped out of the kitchen and walked toward her.

“Hey, there,” he said, motioning her toward a booth. “You look great.”

“Thanks.” Grace stepped away, not returning the compliment. Phillip looked good too, but she didn’t want to send mixed signals. She sat in the booth, waiting for Phillip to sit across from her.

“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice too sensitive. She knew all of his tones of voice. He used this one when he was pandering. It irked.

“Okay. Honestly. No need to pull out the velvet gloves on me.”

He looked her in the eye for a moment, then nodded. “You had me worried when you weren’t on the show on Friday. And then yesterday…”

“What about yesterday?” she asked, a little annoyed. Was he critiquing her performance on Monday’s show in the wake of their breakup? Seriously?

“Well, you were there, but your spirit wasn’t,” he said. “You barely put up a fight.”

He totally was. Phillip was critiquing her. He was looking her right in the eye five days after breaking up with her and chastising her for her decline in job performance.

Grace started laughing.

“Did I say something funny?” Phillip asked.

She shook her head, letting it go. “No. I would just like to thank you for your continued listenership. Our show can use all the ratings it can get.”

Phillip nodded, not smiling as his eyes looked over her again. “I know our breakup is still fresh, but I wanted to ask how you’re feeling about everything… about our split.”

She kept it simple. Men liked simple. “I feel good about it.”

He looked a little surprised to hear those words, but he nodded. “Good.” He looked at his hands. “I keep remembering that we had a date scheduled for tonight, then realizing that now we don’t. I’m going to go out tonight, and you won’t be with me.”

Was he pretending to have breakup remorse? If so, Grace had no interest in playing along. “I assume you found a replacement, though.”

Phillip hesitated, then gave a quick nod. “It’s weird, but yes. I have a date.”

Part of Grace felt ill, another part felt relieved. Yet another part of her felt guilty that she felt relieved. Then there was the sliver in her that itched to ask him if his date was with Traci, but she swallowed the question back.