Page 2 of Friend Zone to End Zone

I had expected her to laugh, or at least smile since we’d been joking around all night, but when her expression turned serious instead, I realized I’d hit a nerve.

She folded the teal paper napkin in front of her on the table and said, “Well, if Chad hadn’tforgottenabout my brother’s wedding and agreed to go to Tallahassee for work instead of being my plus-one, I wouldn’t need you to entertain me.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Bad reasoning on my part.”

“It’s okay.” She set her elbows on the table and rested her delicate chin in her hands, the position and the way her silver bridesmaid dress fell over her slender shoulders making her look even more petite than usual. “Obviously, I’m still a bit mad at Chad for not being here.”

She and Chad had been dating for three years, and while I really wanted to point out that even after all this time, Chad still only thought about Chad, I didn’t. Me pointing out the many flaws I saw in the guy always put Arianna on the defensive, and I really didn’t feel like letting her boyfriend ruin what had so far been a pretty fun night.

“Anyway,” she said, sitting up taller. “We were talking about your love-life problems and not mine. Let me look at this app of yours and see if I can help you out.”

And since I just wanted to make Arianna happy and keep her mind off Chad, I unlocked my phone, opened it up to the dating app I’d only signed up for because of her, and handed it to her.

She looked at the screen for a minute, tapping it a few times. Then with her dark eyebrows knitted together, she turned to me and said, “You’ve been matching with tons of women but not messaging them. Why?”

“What?” I asked. “I’m supposed to actually message the girls?”

“Duh.” She sighed and shoved my arm. “How can you of all people be doing this wrong? I know you got like a 3.8 GPA in college and you haven’t had a single concussion since then.”

“Well,” I said, taking my phone back from her and slipping it into the pocket of my suit coat. “If someone would take time out of her busy schedule to be my dating coach like she promised, maybe I’d be doing better at this.”

“You don’t need me to help you get a girl,” she said. “I mean, if you simply uploaded a photo that actually showed your face instead of your back, or not hide your face behind a huge fish, you’d have every single woman from Denver to Vail swiping right.”

“Are you saying you think I’m hot?” I raised an eyebrow and shot her a flirtatious look.

She shoved my arm again. “Maybe if you would let me cut your hair, I’d say that.”

“Ouch.” I pretended to be hurt.

But in reality, I knew she only said that because she was a beautician and had been begging me to let her cut my long, curly black hair ever since we became friends three years ago.

It was just something, like my lack of having a love life, that I had claimed not to have time for.

I mean, once you started cutting it short you had to maintain it, and who had time to get haircuts once a month when you were busy playing football?

Okay, so maybe I was just a little lazy…

“You don’t even know what I look like with short hair,” I said. “What if I actually look worse?”

“Impossible,” she said. Then she held up a finger to quiet me, as if she knew I was totally about to twist her words into making it seem like she’d just said it was impossible for me to look worse than I already did. “With your bone structure, big brown eyes, and jawline, showing more of your face would not be a bad thing. In fact, I think you just keep the hair to spite me.“

“Not to spite you exactly…” I said.

She sighed.

“How about this,” I said. “You agree to give me those special dating lessons like you promised and I will let you cut my hair.”

“Really?” Her deep brown eyes lit up.

And even though I was probably going to regret letting her do it, I nodded. “I’m sure it will take a lot of work to turn me into Prince Charming, so I guess allowing you to cut my hair is probably a fair payment for your professional services.”

“Oh, you’re going to pay me for the haircut, too.”

I laughed. “Okay, fine.”

She took a sip of her champagne then scooted her chair away from the table. “And since I’m going to be the best dating coach you’ve ever seen, we’re going to start with dancing lessons right now.”

I groaned. Because even though I didn’t really suck at dating—I simply sucked attryingto date for reasons I couldn’t tell her—I really did need a lot of help on the dance floor.

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