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The Great Jello Debate, part 1

"Do you think a children's book has ever been the cause of a divorce before?" Becky leaned back and glanced over at Bayley, who was doing her best not to laugh. "Ah, so that's your angle. I get it now. Drive a wedge between me and Seth and then you'll swoop in, right?"

Shaking her head, Bayley took a long sip of coffee. "I swear, I just thought the book was cute and that Roux might want something different on the bus. I didn't mean to cause a fight over Jello."

"It's not Jello." Across the aisle, Seth's gaze was unwavering as he held up the book, pointing to the picture of a toddler holding a spoon; the red liquid in the child's bowl was the subject of the ongoing debate. Seth insisted that it had to be soup, but Becky and Bayley were adamant that it was Jello.

Roux, on the other hand, just wanted to keep reading. "Dada!" Since he was holding the book out of her reach, she tugged on Seth's sleeve. "My book."

Bayley grinned. "Yeah, Dada. I got that for Roux. If you like it that much, you can ask for one for your birthday, you know."

Seth lowered the book to his lap and pointed to the picture in question. "That is soup," he told his daughter. "Soup. We love Mama and Auntie Bayley very much, but they're also very wrong."

Standing up, Becky reached over, grabbed the book, and snapped a quick picture of the contested page before handing the book back to her husband. "Let's go to the internet and see what they think." Her thumbs zipped across her phone screen as she prepared the post. "Maybe it'll be this week's Is the dress blue and black or white and gold? debate"

"Oh, great. The internet. Because that's worked out so well for us so far." Seth rolled his eyes and opened the book to a less contentious page, on which a child was eating what was indisputably an apple. "They'll have us divorced before the bus even leaves the state."

"You're just saying that so you won't have to think of an anniversary present." Becky hit the post button with a flourish and grinned. "Come on, Team Jello. Don't let me down!"

"It... it...." Huffing in frustration, Seth flipped back to the debated photo and jabbed at it emphatically. "It can't be Jello. Cannot. Jello doesn't do that," he insisted, pointing to residue along the bowl's rim. "And this is liquid. Jello jiggles."

Becky smiled as Seth became more and more animated. Having to deal with Logan Paul for the obligatory celebrity match at WrestleMania had made him a bit downcast as of late, and it was nice to see the spark back in his eyes. "Jello's a liquid when you first make it, isn't it?" she pointed out, turning to Bayley.

Bayley put up her hands in surrender. "Yes, but—"

"Exactly! But!" Seth almost started to flail, but remembered Roux was sitting beside him just in time. "But you put Jello in the fridge to set. Who would mix Jello and then give their kid a spoon to eat it like that before it was set? No one!"

"Well, who would eat soup that watery?" Becky countered, glancing down at her phone. "Tomato soup should be thicker than that—"

"It's the lighting!" Seth covered his face with a hand, dragging his fingers down slowly as he fought to stay calm. "It's making it look thinner than it is. That's all! It's soup! Just... no, wait. I'll prove it. Just watch." He kissed the top of his daughter's head and handed her the book. "Roux, sweetheart, Auntie Bayley's going to read with you for a bit, okay?"

"Okay, Dada." Roux kissed his cheek before scrambling over to Bayley and crawling up on her lap. "Let's go!"

While her daughter and Bayley resumed reading the book about different foods and how to eat them, Becky sidled over to Seth as he reached for his phone. "Whatcha doing?" she asked sweetly.

"Proving a point," Seth replied tersely, muscles taut as Becky settled in beside him and hugged his arm. "Look: stock photos, child eating soup, child drinking soup...." Out of hundreds of images, Seth had managed to find ones with the same child and the same bowl of red liquid. "It's the lighting and because the bowl isn't uniformly round, so—"

"It's Jello. Who would let a kid that young eat soup like that? And if the soup is hot?" Becky countered. "Disaster waiting to happen. Because you know the kid is going to get the soup everywhere."

Seth shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "It's soup, I swear to god. Why is this even up for debate? I don't understand." After a moment he sighed and kissed her. "What does your poll say?"

Becky had left her phone over by Bayley, but she didn't reach for it right away. "Let's give the people time to voice their opinions," she replied airily. "I'll check when Auntie Bayley and Roux are done reading. But maybe we should make a little wager...."

"A wager? Based on an Instagram poll?" Seth's eyebrows spiked up. "I'm not leaving my fate in the hands of people who have more numbers in their usernames than they do vowels."

"Nothing serious. Like... if Team Jello wins," Becky began, running her nails in circles around his kneecap, "then this Monday on RAW, you wear the lace-up pants I like."

It was a testament to King Troi's vivid and varied fashion offerings that Seth had to take a moment to recall the pants in question. "Lace-up pants?" he echoed. "With the thighs? You mean the ones from the Applebee's shoot?"

"Apple pants!" Roux crowed, startling them both. She was taking more of an interest in their outlandish ring attire as of late, which could make the fittings run longer but no one seemed to mind.

Seth shrugged lightly. "As wagers go, that's pretty mild, I guess. Fine. And when Team Soup wins," he added, "because there's no way there's more Jello weirdos out there, I—" He glanced at Roux and stopped himself quickly. "I will use my win to invoke future considerations."

Becky coughed to cover up her laugh before she kissed him. "Future considerations, huh?"

"I'll think of something." Seth kept glancing over at Bayley and Roux. "The book isn't that long," he muttered. "Bayley's stalling."

Resting her head against his arm, Becky laughed as she ran a finger over his wedding ring. "What's wrong? Worried you're going to lose?"

Seth shook his head. "No. There's no possible way there's more people out there who think that's Jello. Maybe that's what your... weird Irish Jello looks like," he conceded, "but what's in that picture is not Jello. It's not."

"Hm. We'll see what the people say." Becky had no clue how people would vote, but watching Seth have a small-scale meltdown over a debate was rather amusing. "Auntie Bayley, do you think it's time to check the poll?"

"I think so." Bayley finished the page she was reading and handed the book back to Roux. "Why don't you go sit by Dada?" Leaning close to her niece, she mock whispered, "He's about to lose, so he's going to be cranky He'll need a hug."

Roux giggled and ran back over to her father, eagerly handing him the book. Whenever she got a new book, she could be fascinated with it for weeks, much to her parents' dismay. "Read more, Dada?"

Seth shot Bayley a look before he opened the book once more. "Maybe Auntie Bayley will get you a toy next time," he said, pointedly skipping over the offending page. Roux hadn't seen the book often enough yet to have the pictures memorized, but he knew it was bound to happen.

"Ah, results time." Becky scooted closer to Bayley. "Oh, look at that: Jello won." Knowing Seth wouldn't believe her, she turned the phone so he could read the results for himself. "Good thing you kept those pants on the bus."

"Apple pants, apple pants...." Roux sang merrily as she flipped a page when Seth was taking too long.

Becky simply grinned at her husband as she shut down the poll. "My thoughts exactly."