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54-Dalton
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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
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 57- Raeanne
I agreed to go out on a date with Dalton. And like everything else in my life, I began overanalyzing the decision the second the words were out.Did I really need to be distracting myself with this… whatever this was, when my business and my life in general were teeter-tottering on the edge of a cliff like that balloon house in Up?The high from the kiss lasted a while. Like a few days, actually. But lingering behind the tense and giddy infatuation I felt was worry. My time with Dalton at the studio had come so immediately after the devastating conversation with my father, and in some weird way they were mixing together in my head, in my heart.For so long I’d thought my daddy supported me totally. Hadn’t he been at every single performance I’d ever done? Hadn’t he been the father with the biggest bouquet and the matching smile? When had things changed? He had not been pleased when I’d gone to the local community college for my associate’s so I could keep the studio running while I st
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 57.1
Dalton’s words hung around us for a bit, his usually entertaining persona replaced by something darker for a few minutes. And then he grinned at me. “Where are my manners?” he asked. “I haven’t given you the tour!”I laughed. I could see the whole car from where I sat, though the front was quite a distance away.“Maybe we should record it?” he asked.“TikTok first date?” I asked.“Well, we did that, but the fans clearly want more.”The video we’d posted of our dancing date had gone insane. The studio phone had been ringing nonstop and I had actually added a class and was beginning to consider hiring someone to run the competition team I needed to build.“They do,” I agreed, getting more comfortable with being on camera this way.Dalton set up his phone in the corner of the car, and then we toured the back of the limo, scooting around on our knees and trying out all the seats. Dalton showed me all the buttons, let me play with the radio, offered me water in a fancy crystal glass, and f
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 58- Dalton
A loud whooping sound greeted us as I opened the door of the Cunning Ham winery. A chill went up my spine and I almost hauled Rae over my shoulder and sprinted back to the limo. The wild animal call could only mean one thing: Robin was here.I loved my soon-to-be-sister-in-law El to the point of agreeing to give a best man’s speech at their upcoming wedding to bring some levity to the inevitable cryfest, but her mother? That woman was on another level of crazy that made me want to tuck tail and hide. As it was, her voice stopped me in my tracks for a moment.“What is it?” Rae muttered out the side of her mouth as I put my hand on her back and stiffened my spine.“Good question. I sometimes wonder if she’s an it more than a who, myself,” I muttered back.“Huh?” Rae scrunched up her elegant nose and before I could explain the nuances of Robin’s crazy, Mom saw us.“Dalton!” she cried, hustling around the bar to come over. “It’s so nice to see you unexpectedly.” She ran straight into my c
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 59- Raeanne
The next week was a whirlwind. My head was a mess, but not a bad mess. Kind of a cozy little mess, like the kind you make on your couch over a rainy weekend when you just snuggle in with pillows and blankets and decide not to worry about the cracker crumbs or books strewn everywhere for a couple days.And my mess? It had Dalton Cunningham smack in the center of it. Well, him and also about thirty-five new students. I’d never gained thirty new students over the course of two weeks before, and I was willing to bet that even the illustrious Ned Eclair hadn’t seen numbers like that.It was kind of a miracle. A TikTok miracle. I lay in bed late at night and scrolled through our videos. Part of it was because I couldn’t quite believe these silly dancing videos had actually resulted in tangible business, but I could admit that a bigger part of it was to see Dalton, to watch him when he couldn’t see me watching him. To get the chance to really admire him. He was handsome in a ridiculously app
FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING 60- Dalton
“Everybody has to eat, especially overworked dance instructors.” I held up the brown paper-wrapped sandwich from the place in Solano Creek us boys frequented at least twice a week. They stacked homemade bread with so many layers of sandwich goodness, your mouth would water just thinking about the combination possibilities.Rae and I had been sneaking in moments here and there all week whenever she was free, which wasn’t often. I hadn’t considered the reality of growing her business when we started the TikToks together. I’d been so focused on winning my bet, I hadn't realized how overworked she might become when her business took off.She bit her lip and swiped at a lock of hair that had fallen out of her bun to get stuck in her eyelashes. “You’re lucky you brought pastrami. I’d do illegal things for pastrami.”I grinned. “My pride would be smarting over you not taking a break just for your boyfriend, but I’m too intrigued by the illegal things. Can you be more specific?”Rae held her
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