The Kiss That Launched 1,000 Gifs (2 page)

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. Heaven help him, but Grace Vasquez was taken 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 that 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.

Ash’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought we took those pictures as a joke.”

Emily blushed slightly. “We did. But since we had them on hand, we decided to mock some up and test them, and… well, they tested really well.”

Next to him, Grace sighed. “I thought we might take the radical approach of becoming the one venue that doesn’t peddle pictures of Ashton shirtless.”

“Shirtless?” Ash laughed. “I don’t know what you ladies are talking about, but I don’t display shirtless pictures of myself and I definitely don’t upload them to the internet. You all know I’m not into social media.”

“But your fans are,” Jan said.

“And they definitely upload pictures,” Emily added.

Why was everyone smiling? Even Frank. “But where would they get shirtless pictures of me?”

“At your pool parties,” Emily said.

“Boat parties,” Jan added.

“Let’s not forget volleyball,” Grace said, sounding resigned. “Seriously, Ashton, you must see all the people taking pictures there.”

“Sure,” he replied. “But I don’t post them.”

Grace wagged her head in pity. “So clueless.”

Jan looked more concerned than amused. “Almost criminally so.” She leaned forward, studying him. “Ashton, you realize that no one needs your consent to post and tag you in a photo online, right? They can even create an account that’s all about you and post to fans on your behalf.”

“And they do,” Emily said with a bit of a smile. “There are literally thousands of pictures of you shirtless online, with new pictures added after each week’s volleyball practice.”

Ash wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or flattered. “Wait, you can just do that? Listeners can do that? Just log onto Facebook and see pictures of me in my swimming trunks.”

“You should see the Tumblr feeds,” Grace muttered.

“Tumblr?” he echoed. He literally did not know what that was.

Emily’s face flushed slightly before she cleared her throat. “I know you make a point to avoid social media, Ashton, but social media has a life of its own… kind of like nature. Just because most of us don’t go out into the woods like you do, doesn’t mean nothing happens out in the wild while we’re ignoring it. Social media is like that, in its own way. Something is always happening. And yes, it is good to assume that 100% of the pictures people take of you will make their way to social media—especially since you are a TV personality.”

Ash felt himself pale. All the pictures anyone had ever taken of him might be online? That didn’t sound good. At all.

Frank leaned forward. “Ashton, I know that Grace offered to handle your social media accounts for the show, and she’s done an amazing job of it, but it might be time for you to log in on a platform or two and start connecting. You are literally the only news team member who is not active on social media, and that will hurt you in the long run.”

Ash fought back a groan. “I just don’t want to be one of those people who walks around this world with my face trained on a screen.”

Grace sent him a look. As in,
a
look that let him knew she hadn’t missed the barb. He gazed back, standing his ground. Sure, maybe he wasn’t on Twitter, but at least he wasn’t a workaholic who couldn’t relax for two seconds.

Jan cleared her throat. “Well, to Grace’s credit, she runs all of the accounts for the show and has amassed more followers on each account than the station has in general, so she’s pulling her weight in all of this.”

Ash got the distinct sense that there was a silent accusation in there somewhere that he was not pulling his weight.

Jan got everyone refocused by pressing the next key and bringing up an mockup of Ash posing wearing jeans and a tool belt with the same text off to the side:
Sexy or Sexist? You decide, weekdays at 2:00 p.m
.

“There are already hundreds of Ashton playing beach volleyball with his shirt off,” Jane said. “So it’s not like we’re giving our audience anything they haven’t seen before. We’d just be doing it in higher-res.” She looked at Ash. “That is, as long as you’re comfortable with it.”

“You can’t be serious,” Grace moaned, apparently offended by the image.

Ash smiled. “Well, I was going to say no, but you know what I always say: anything that bothers Grace is worth doubling down on. So if this tested well, maybe we should give it a go.”

“Ay,
Díos mio
,”
Grace muttered under her breath, but Ash was pretty sure he was the only one who heard her.

Jan nodded, advancing to the next slide. It showed an image of Grace in a blue sundress and wearing tartan boxing gloves. The text next to her read,
Delivering knockouts weekdays at 2:00.

“Our research shows that women really identify with how strong you are in all of the conversations,” Jan explained to Grace. “You don’t back down. You push the dialog to the next round, which is how we came up with this imagery.”

Grace studied the image, clearly critical of what she saw, then shrugged. “Well, I’m willing to bet on it if you are.”

Ash blinked in surprise. If he had pitched that idea there was absolutely no way Grace would have rolled with it. None. Yet here they were with Ash nodding his head for a bunch of shirtless shots and Grace approving mockups of her looking like a celebutante boxer.

The day was certainly taking a turn for the weird.

“We’re looking to lease twelve billboards in high-traffic areas,” Jan said. “And we’d like to put a different image on each one. Six of Grace, and six of Ashton.”

“Sounds equitable,” Ash said with a grin. “Next thing you know we’ll be splitting chores here at work.”

Grace’s lips pursed. “I should be so lucky.”