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FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 48- Hannah
“You’re sure about this?” Lincoln asked me, a sledgehammer poised in the air over his shoulder.I sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Absolutely.”Without the wall there, the kitchen area would open up to the living room. We’d already checked, and it wasn’t a load-bearing wall. I wanted to eventually raise a family here, with little ones playing in the living room while I cooked. I could see it all play out in my head as if it was happening now. This house would take a lot of work to bring up to the present, but Lincoln and I were willing to put in the sweat equity. Besides, doing home improvements was turning out to be a fun way to get to know each other better. Nothing like drywall falling from the ceiling on our heads to bring a couple together.The first crash brought me back to the present, seeing Lincoln’s muscles flexing as he swung the hammer down over and over until only a few two- by-fours were left standing. The framed painting of two little girls on the beach hung on the
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 48.1
I got so busy organizing all the supplies on the other side of the room, I lost all track of time and never started my own craft. It wasn’t until I heard the smack of a paintbrush hitting the little tray at the bottom of the easel that I turned around.“Lincoln!” I admonished. There was paint everywhere, like the little tubes of paint had exploded somehow. He had a rainbow of colors on his shirt, in his hair, and even on the disgusting carpet we thankfully intended to replace. He looked exactly like the toddlers I’d supervised at Paint It, Pal. “What?” He lifted his hand to swipe some hair from his forehead andleft a streak of yellow behind.I came over to check out his work, thinking he was incredibly adorable all covered in paint. Glancing at his canvas, I did a double take.“Lincoln!” I said for the second time. This time because his artwork shocked me. Based on his monochromatic frog creations, I’d assumed Lincoln didn’t have much artistic ability.And I was dead wrong.The canva
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 49- Lincoln
Things were busy in the two weeks leading up to the opening of Merlot Masterpieces, but they were busy in the most satisfying way possible. Hannah and I each spent long days pursuing our passions—her building the business she’d dreamed of and me in the vineyards, consulting with Jacques and helping my mother develop the wines she’d dreamed about. The evenings were spent together, building something else entirely.“I’m nervous,” Hannah admitted to me the night before her grand opening.“What is there to be nervous about?” I asked. She had planned every detail, and the buzz around town was promising. The event had been sold out almost since she’d first announced it.“Oh, I don’t know,” Hannah said, snuggling into my chest as we sat on the couch in her cottage. “Failure?”“You won’t fail,” I assured her. “You’ve got too many people on your side to make sure you succeed.”She sighed, and I knew it wasn’t a sigh of frustration, but one of contentment instead. I’d begun to understand this w
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 49.1
“I’m very proud of you, honey,” Mom said, clearly trying to be supportive. “Oh, look how beautiful the shop looks!”We parked across the street from Merlot Masterpieces and got out of the car. The place looked incredible. Hannah had strung dangling lights in arcs beneath the striped awning out front and set up four bistro tables where people could take their projects outside on the sidewalk to work. The huge glass panes of the front were glowing with the warm light inside the shop, and from the street, the place looked inviting and beautiful.“It looks great,” Dalton said, and then rushed off to one side of the big windows and began making faces at his phone, nodding and shaking his head, and putting a finger to his mouth like he was thinking. I’d never understand Tiktok.Hannah stepped out onto the sidewalk and pushed open the door for us. “You made it!” she cried, and Mom rushed in and hugged her.“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”Hannah showed us the craft stations she’d got
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 50- Dalton
“Did I not kill it with Wine Wednesdays over the summer on IG?”Boston sucked in a lungful of air like it physically pained him to admit I did a good job promoting our upper tier wine brands at West Wines. Mom just looked confused. She didn’t bother listening to my chatter about social media after I made fun of her for calling it “The Tweeter.” Granted, I shouldn’t have laughed at her when she was making an effort to stay on top of the ever-evolving world of social media, but come on. You have to admit that was funny.“Did I not get a bazillion followers for Hannah and put Merlot Masterpieces on the map?”Boston pursed his lips so hard I thought he might have sucked on a lemon. “Yeah, I suppose you did, though I think there were other factors involved.”I shook my head slowly, barely restraining myself from rolling my eyes. What would it take for my big brother to realize I did a good job in my position as Social Media Manager for West Wines? Would he ever realize that all my antics o
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 51 - Raeanne
“Yes, Anna! You’re killing it, Beth! You guys slayed today!” It might have been a little more gusto than a four-year old’s hip hop class really called for, but my desperation was morphing me into an over-enthusiastic wild woman.“Rae?” Anna’s mom crossed the wide planked floor to approach as the four little girls spun away to head back home.“Hey!” The brightness would not leave my voice, and I might have accidentally shouted it. “Erm. Hi. Anna’s doing so well.”“She loves your class,” the woman said, looking worried about something. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I mean,” she glanced around the almost empty studio. “Will you be able to keep it going?”I pretended to have no idea what she was talking about. “What? Of course! I’d never let the girls down.”“It’s just, I know Dance, dance, dance is taking a lot of your business across town, aren’t they?”“Those hacks?” I blew out an unconcerned raspberry and waved a hand. I hated those guys at Dance, dance, dance. They were steali
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 51.1
“Numbers still dropping?” Mom asked, reading my face once Dad had left.I sighed and took a healthy sip of gin. “Ned Eclair is killing us with his focus on competition teams and cheerleading. I don’t know what to do, Mom.”It was her turn to sigh, and she rolled her pretty blue eyes. “Ned has always been larger than life. He’s a wonderful man, a fantastic dancer, and a very charismatic person... I understand why people are going over there, I guess. Dance has changed since I was young.”Mom had always held firm that dance was not a competitive sport, but in the last few decades, every other studio seemed to embrace the movement toward competition, even as our studio, On Your Toes, stood firmly in the past, refusing to take part.“Mrs. Sheffield asked me today if we were going to start a competition team,” I told her.She nodded. “Maybe it’s time, Rae.”“Maybe it’s already too late. I don’t even know if I have enough dancers to compete at this point. I need to find a way to grow the bu
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 52- Dalton
Sixty-two thousand and some odd number of views.Cunning Ham Winery gained over three thousand followers just from that one video.And she wanted me to take it down?Forget that crap. I was keeping it up. It was a free internet. Mostly. I think. You know, come to think of it, I didn’t know if Miss Priss—the name I’d given the gorgeous dancer in my head—had a legal leg to stand on with the duet I did of her video. I mean, if she didn’t want people to duet her, why didn’t she turn off the dueting ability before she posted?Being the smart marketer I was, I decided to double down on success. Stumbling out of bed, I made my way to the coffee maker and scrolled through her profile until I came to another video of hers that would be perfect for another duet. This one was slower and—holy crap, how did her leg defy gravity like that?—perfect for highlighting some of our more elegant wines due to the sultry beat of the music. I’d slam some breakfast and head over to the winery before work. The
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