All Chapters of FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING : Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

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.

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

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

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

I didn’t actually plan to sleep with Dalton so soon. Then again, as I raised my bleary head from the soft pillow on his bed and turned to find him sound asleep at my side, I didn’t regret it. Dalton made my heart happy. Waking up next to him—even when we hadn’t really done anything, made me smile. Also, I was fully clothed and as I sat up to stretch, realized I must have completely passed out while he gave me another of his killer scalp massages and played with my hair.Dalton’s room was neat and tidy, and his bed was basically a cloud that he’d somehow wrangled through the door and tied down in here. Fluffy white duvet, soft pillows that were just the right amount of firm, and a thread count that had to be in the gazillions based on the buttery feel of these sheets. The combo of bed plus Dalton was way better than any sleeping pill; no wonder I zonked.A little grumble came from beside me and I turned to look at Dalton’s handsome face. Asleep, he looked much younger than the man I kn