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“Rae, I texted Jameson. Everything is going flawlessly. Us being twenty minutes late is nothing. You have hours until the first guest arrives.”
“I know, but this is my baby. We sold out. I have literally eight hundred people showing up here today. Eight hundred. Can you believe it?” When I’d set the ticket cap, it had been a private challenge to shoot for the stars, and we did it. Maybe next year, we’d aim even higher—maybe a thousand.
“Yes, I can.” He smiled and turned onto the ranch road, heading for the dancehall.
“New rule, no smiling like that at me today. It’s too distracting.”
He laughed. Smiling and laughing or grouchy and grumbly, Atley would always be a delicious distraction.
“Alright. All business. Got it.”
I put my hand on his leg and squeezed. “In case I forget with everything going on today. I want to thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“Everything you do today to help my dream take off.”
“It’s kind of my job. And I love seeing you succeed.”
We parked in the employee area behind the dancehall. I all but leaped from the truck as it came to a stop, a checklist of a million items running through my head. It would be a hellishly long day.
Atley jogged ahead to open the door to the dancehall’s still incomplete kitchen. We’d set up the room as a staging area filled with all the goodies that would make our stomp unforgettable and extra profitable. Blue Star hats, The Stomp coolers anddrink cozies. And best of all, the white tee shirts that saidOfficial Blue Star Winemakerthat participants would step on with their grape juice-soaked feet after stomping to make a one-of-a-kind take-home memory.
“You two could have stayed in bed. We got this.” Jameson wagged his eyebrows at Atley and me.
“He’s not lying. Things are going great. The soft open has us well prepared,” Gabe said as he sliced open a box of commemorative wine glasses etched with The Stomp’s logo.
“If you don’t need us…” Atley draped an arm over my shoulder and turned me back toward the exit.
“No, we need you,” Leroy interrupted. “That TV lady Kate and her camera crew are here. She scares me.”
“I’m on it.” I ducked out from under Atley’s arm after giving him a quick peck on the cheek.
Kate and her crew were in the center of the empty dance floor. She issued orders like a drill sergeant to the eclectic mix of people holding cameras and sound equipment.
“Leroy said you needed me?”
Kate turned and gave me a quick nod. “We brought a Vacation Dream Homes step and repeat backdrop to do interviews in front of. Where can we set it up?”
And so, my morning that had started with a toe-curling orgasm dissolved into a barrage of quick-fired questions and minor problems that needed to be handled on the fly. From where to put Kate’s backdrop to the food truck that arrived with no ice. No problem was too big or too small. I handled them all with the help of Gabe, Atley, and Jameson. Thankfully, none were a potential crisis like the port-a-potty nightmare of the soft open.
At noon, when the first busload of wine tourists from Austin arrived to stomp grapes, I was already exhausted.
Managing an event on this scale was like running a day-long marathon. And I had hours and hours to go. I chugged a water, ate a power bar, and got back in the fray, heading outside to see how things were going in the tent.
“Rae, this is incredible.” Wilson wrapped me in a sweaty and slightly sticky hug. From the bits of pulpy purple that flecked his shirt and shorts, he’d obviously already taken a turn in the nearby grape vats.
I paused and took in the scene. It was incredible.
There were people everywhere, laughing and having fun. There had to be almost three hundred people inside the events tent at the moment rocking out to a kick-ass local country band and either stomping grapes, dancing, or waiting for their turn to get ankle-deep in the vats arranged around the tent. On the other side of the tent, three clotheslines were rapidly filling up with footprintedOfficial Blue Star Winemakershirts.
“Thanks, Wilson. I didn’t do it alone.”
“But without you, it would never have happened. You envisioned this event and pulled it off. I’m seriously impressed by my big sister right now. You should bask in the glory of my approval.” He waved his hand in a get-on-with-it gesture.
I punched him in the arm, hard. Hey, once an older sister, always an older sister.
“I assume he said something to deserve that?” Cameron asked as she kissed Wilson’s cheek, then mine.
