All Chapters of FALLING IN LOVE WHEN YOU'RE TEXTING : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

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

“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

“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

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

“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