The Kiss That Launched 1,000 Gifs

by Sheralyn Pratt

  Esme arched a brow. “What about your plans?”

  “Canceled them.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them.”

  Esme grinned from ear to ear. “Phillip would so not approve of that. Good for you! Take some you time.”

  Grace took another bite. “I didn’t cancel them to spite him. I just feel… off my game.”

  “Well, if that means taking a day or two off, then you deserve it!” Esme said. “Even if those days are Saturday and Sunday—the days the rest of humanity takes off anyway. It’s still progress. We should go dancing.”

  “I have no plans that include walking out my front door this weekend, but thanks for the thought.”

  “Baby steps,” Esme said, dipping into the port flavor. “And Netflix. The therapy of champions.”

  “Seriously,” Grace said. “Although you’re going to have to pick the movie. Nothing sounds good to me.”

  “Take a few more bites of ice cream and something might.”

  That actually got a chuckle out of Grace. “Esme?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you,” Grace said, looking her friend in the eye. “I know you had plans for the night.”

  “Nothing that couldn’t be moved,” Esme said. “Besides, how many breakups have you seen me through since we’ve known each other?”

  “Seven… I think.”

  Her friend laughed. “Sounds right. Although I must say that you’re taking all this way better than I’ve taken my breakups. I ramble and rant and cry. All in all, you’re very… mellow.”

  Mellow, or confused? Grace wasn’t sure which applied to her more. She and Phillip had just broken up, and Grace had spent the past few hours wondering if that meant Traci would break off her date with Ashton tomorrow night. Traci liked Phillip. Grace had no question about that, but would the woman jump the moment Phillip became available? Or would she see things through with Ashton?

  Grace had played a million conversations in her head that ended every which way before realizing that her reactions were backwards. When she imagined Traci breaking things off with Ashton to be with Phillip, all she could think was, Good! She and Phillip deserve each other. But when Grace imagined Traci biding her time and giving Ashton a shot first, she felt positively ill.

  That was definitely backwards.

  Two giant flirts like Ashton and Traci deserved each other. Phillip was nothing like them. Furthermore, the thought of Phillip moving on so quickly was the idea that should have Grace feeling sick and throwing a fit. She felt oddly calm about it, though… almost relieved. She and Phillip had basically been platonic for the past several months. In that way, they had broken up a while ago. Grace had little doubt Phillip would pounce on a rebound relationship very quickly. He was efficient like that.

  And Grace was 100% okay with it.

  She totally shouldn’t be.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Esme said, watching her closely.

  Grace blinked back to reality. “Uh, how long was I checked out?”

  “About ten seconds. Where did you go?”

  Grace sighed and took another bite. “Just trying to wrap my head around everything.”

  “Yeah,” Esme said, reaching for the next carton. “That might take longer than ten seconds.”

  “And more ice cream,” Grace said, setting the port-flavored pint down. “Pass that spice one over here. I haven’t tried that one yet.”

  Esme tossed the pint her way. “You’ll like it. See how much of it you can down while I try to find a movie where the hero doesn’t get the girl.”

  Grace grinned as she peeled back the lid. “Sounds like a winner.” She stabbed a spoon into the untouched ice cream and pulled out her phone. Framing up all the flavors into one shot, she took a picture and decided it was good enough.

  Esme let out a little laugh. “Are you going to post that and pretend we’re having fun tonight?”

  “Yep. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Uncle Ash?”

  Ash glanced back at his niece, who was only a few steps behind him on the trail up the mountain. “Yeah?”

  “Did you know that right now exactly none of my other friends’ uncles are forcing them to hike up mountains with tents on their backs?”

  He kept moving up the trail. “Oh? How sad for them.”

  “Not the adjective I was thinking of,” Megan said. “But yeah… they’re all at a party tonight.”

  “So you mentioned earlier,” Ash said, playing dumb. He listened as she let out an annoyed sigh and smiled to himself. Teenagers were such a joy.

  “What I’m saying,” she continued, “is that if we head back now, I can still make it to the party and you won’t have to worry about hanging out with me tonight. You could hang out with a female your own age—not related—and I could do the same.”

  “Or we could go camping and let the world survive without us for a night.”

  Another longsuffering teenage sigh played out behind him. “C’mon. I downloaded that app you want me to have. You can track me and everything.”

  Ash didn’t answer her for a moment, weighing his words carefully while continuing up the mountain. He wasn’t Megan’s father. Ash knew that. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a right to worry. His sister, Fawn, was unworried enough for the both of them, which meant many of the awkward conversations fell into his lap. When it came to Megan, Ash was the rule maker and his sister was the enforcer. They made a horrible team, but that didn’t mean he could stop trying.

  “You think there’s going to be alcohol at the party tonight, don’t you?” Megan asked, her words more of a statement than a question.

  That brought Ash to a stop, and he turned to face his niece. “Isn’t there?”

  She studied him for a moment, clearly weighing her answer. “Yeah.”

  “So enlighten me as to why I would allow you—a fifteen-year-old—to go to a party with alcohol while you’re under my watch?”

  Megan shrugged. “Mom would let me go.”

  Yes. She would. A fact that irked Ash to his core.

  “She trusts me,” Megan added, throwing in some doe eyes just to mess with him.

  “I trust you, too,” he replied. “But I’m guessing there will be about a hundred teenagers at this party that I don’t trust at all. So as long as I’m watching over you while your mom is out of town, be prepared to be marched into a remote part of the mountains any time a kegger pops up on your underage social calendar.”

  “Hmmph,” she mumbled, earning a smile from Ash before he turned and started up the mountain again. Megan’s steps stayed right behind him. She’d always been a strong hiker, even if she liked to pretend she wasn’t into it anymore. Ash knew she liked it deep down under those frown lines of hers.

  They hiked on for several minutes in silence.

  “Why wasn’t Grace on the show today?” Megan asked out of nowhere.

  Ash’s foot snagged on a rock before he caught himself. “I… uh, she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “It looked like she was mad at you on the webcam.”

  Ash didn’t mean to stop, but her words caught him off guard. He spun around to face her again. “The webcam? It was on?”

  Megan nodded. “It usually turns on five or ten minutes before you two go on the air. Usually all you see is Grace getting everything ready and you walking in at the last second, but today was… interesting. But there wasn’t any audio, so we were all left wondering what was actually happening.”

  “We?” Ash asked, feeling his heartbeat in his throat. “Who is we?”

  “Just a bunch of us on Twitter,” she said with a little shrug. “We made screen caps with captions. It was fun.”

  Ash’s mind rewound time, instinctively zooming in on the moment in the sound booth when he was quite certain Grace was thinking about kissing him. Honestly, that was the only moment he remembered from the afternoon with clarity. The rest was a blur.

  “Well?” Megan
pressed.

  Ash blinked, not sure what she was asking. “Well, what?”

  “What happened?” she asked, her eyes narrowing in on him in a way that let him know she was analyzing his every move.

  Ash cleared his throat. “She… um.” Again, his mind focused in on the look in Grace’s eye when she’d looked up at him and leaned in. His palms suddenly felt sweaty and he wiped them on his jeans. “She just said she wasn’t up to it today and asked if Frank could find a fill in.”

  “And before that?” Megan pressed, the look in her eye more than a little mischievous. “There was, like, a good minute of action before then.”

  “I honestly don’t remember. Something about how inappropriate it is to flirt in the workplace.”

  Megan arched a brow. “The two of you?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Me and Emily. She thought I wasn’t being very professional when Emily was telling me about Instagram.”

  “I see,” Megan said with a Cheshire grin. Ash immediately backpedaled.

  “It’s not like that, Miss Teenage Brain,” he said. “I think women are hitting on Phillip at work, and it’s just eating at Grace.”

  “That’s one theory,” Megan teased.

  “The most likely theory,” he countered. “I know it may not seem like it when we’re on the air, Megan, but Grace and I really don’t talk to each other outside of that booth. I honestly don’t think she likes me. Today was just… weird.”

  “We should head back to town, pop some popcorn, and watch the clip on a loop to jog your memory,” she teased. “It’s up on YouTube.”

  Who in the world would take the time to do that? “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Megan shook her head, looking quite pleased with herself.

  “How did you find it?” he asked, and grew nervous when he saw Megan’s teenage brain start turning.

  “There’s a hashtag for all the fun moments between you and Grace… and for some made-up moments between you and Grace.”

  Ash felt both embarrassed and intrigued at the same time. “A hashtag? I heard there wasn’t one—that our names don’t work together.”

  “Oh, there is,” Megan teased. “And following it is a fun hobby. My favorites are the Bad Pickup Lines people make using screen shots and sound edits from your show. They’re hilarious.”

  Ash folded his arms across his chest and tried for a stern look. “And you never told me about this because?”

  “Because it was more fun not to,” Megan said. “Plus, there are only a few hundred of us who are into watching you two dance around each other. Most of them are moms in their thirties, so I’m the odd one out. But it’s still fun. We post most of our stuff on Twitter, Tumblr, or a Google Hangout we’re all members of. If we went home right now, I could show it to you.”

  Ash studied his niece, blinking several times. “You really don’t want to go camping tonight, do you?”

  “Finally, you believe me!”

  Yes. Yes, he did.

  “Although, come to think of it, I can’t really show you any of this,” Megan added. “It’s the first rule of our little club: it’s for fans only. Introducing any insiders to it might throw things off and corrupt the bets we all have placed.”

  “Bets?”

  Megan nodded. “You have to place a bet to become an official member. It’s required.”

  Ash shook his head, not sure he was comprehending half of what she said, even though it was all English. “Social media really freaks me out, you know that?”

  “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.