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51 - Raeanne
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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
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 53- Raeanne
I wiped angrily at the tears smeared across my cheeks as I stared at my phone. I’d had two students in my beginning ballet class this morning, and three no-shows. Ned Eclair and his dang charisma had undoubtedly stolen more of my students. Even the three-year olds wanted to compete.I sighed and stared at the video that CunningHam had posted that morning. On one side was my adagio set to Moonlight Sonata, a series of combinations I’d been doing for years—one of my favorite pieces. And on the other side was this guy, with his goofy grin and a glass of wine that dribbled over the side of the glass as he swayed. And then at the end, he put the glass down and spun some gorgeous blond girl into his arms. Who was she? Was that his girlfriend? His wife?I squinted at the phone, hating myself a little bit as I watched the video again. Nope. No ring.A frustrated sigh escaped my lips as I put the phone down. What was I going to do? I was already going to be pulling from savings to pay the over
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 53.1
CunningHam: No painting. Just a glass of wine and a conversation. Maybe a dance if it goes well.I thought about that, and did my best to smush down the strange little glow of excitement that lit inside me when I thought about sitting with this stranger and having a glass of wine. I hadn’t been on a date in… well, a long time. Here and there, but I hadn’t given guys much thought since my college boyfriend Mason dumped me for choosing dance over him. Like there was a choice, really.OnYourToes: Okay. I’m free tonight.CunningHam: Perfect! Six?OnYourToes: Fine. But I’m bringing pepper spray.CunningHam: I don’t know what pairs with that, but we’ll figure it out. See you then.That night I showered, put my hair up, and pulled on a pair of black leggings and a flowy tunic that I thought was flattering. After swiping on a bit of blush and mascara, I headed for the door, hoping I wasn’t making a huge mistake.I really did keep pepper spray in my purse. You just never knew.Merlot Madness w
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 54-Dalton
“We’re straight up gold together, Rae. Gold, I tell ya.”I paced across my apartment, nearly levitating right out of my shoes. I just got home from West Wines, parked myself on the couch, and opened up the app to see how people were responding to our new video. The number of followers and comments made me jump to my feet. It was happening. I could feel the momentum every marketer yearns for when they start putting content out. Sometimes all you got was crickets. Other times, you struck gold.“Yeah?” Rae responded, sounding less excited than I would expect.Quickly swiping over to her account, I saw all her numbers inflated too. Why wasn’t she more happy about this obvious success?“Have you gotten any new customers?”“You mean students?” came her dry response.Dang, this girl was a stickler and even though I thought she was due to loosen up a bit, I had to admire her tenacity at putting me in my place.“Right, students. Any new ones?”She paused and I panicked. Maybe this wasn’t worki
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 54.1
I used the hour that Rae was teaching her class to come up with an idea for our next video. Scrolling through the hundreds of comments on the one from this morning, everyone loved our interaction. Comments like “so cute together!” or “omg, I ship them” or “is it just me or would these two make the cutest couple?” were surprisingly invasive, yet positive. As a marketer, I wanted to give the crowd more of what they wanted.What was that line in marketing? Sex sells? We weren’t going to give them that—though if it came down to it, let it be known I wasn’t firmly opposed to that idea—but we could give them romance. Dancing and wine were easy to tie together. In fact, I thought our next few videos could be like an evolution of two people meeting and dating. The one this morning was like us meeting online. This next one at the winery could be our first date. Maybe tomorrow we could go to her studio and show us taking dancing lessons together. We’d wine and dance our audience into loving us.
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 55- Raeanne
I had a full schedule the day after our latest TikTok went live, and through my back to back classes, I forced myself to ignore my phone.Although that was actually impossible.I used it to play music for class, and every time I stepped over to the podium to stop a song or pull up the next, I saw the notifications on my screen. By the time my last class of the day was over, I’d missed six calls and TikTok had sent me more notifications than I would have thought was even possible.I also had a text from Dalton.Goofy Wine Guy: VIRAL, BABY!He’d sent the message an hour earlier, while I’d been deep in the turmoil that was adult ballet—a complicated class because the students came from a wide range of backgrounds and ability levels, and also brought a wide range of ego through the door in a way the younger students never did. Tonight there’d been two new women and my first-ever male adult student trying out the class, and I’d felt a ton of pressure to offer just the right mix of challeng
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 56- Dalton
I could think of fifty things I wanted to do now and not one of them was something I could say out loud. What I’d just witnessed had completely turned things on their head. Of course, I’d known Rae was beautiful, but now that I’d seen her dance—really dance, I was mesmerized. Maybe even a little intimidated. What a jerk I was for thinking I could swing in here with my amateur moves and share the screen with her in a meaningful way.My shirt collar felt too tight to take a decent breath. “I thought we could do another video, here at your studio, but maybe I should just record you dancing to that last song.”I may have imagined it, but her cheeks were a little redder than the exertion called for. “No way! We’re in this together, buddy.”My left eyelid twitched. Buddy. Everything in me rebelled at her tossing that word at me. It hit me like the beat dropping in that shuffle dance tutorial that had been viral for so long it was no longer a trend but a mainstay of TikTok...I liked this gir
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FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 65- Raeanne
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 64 - Dalton
