Page 23 of Friend Zone to End Zone

My grandma Kekoa had taught me all about different seasonings and what they could do to a recipe when we lived with her in Hawaii. And since I’d realized that kind of thing didn’t come naturally to Arianna, I just did the recipe tweaking behind her back.

“I’m sorry if you feel betrayed,” I said. “I never wanted you to feel like that. I just—I know how much you love to cook and share it with your friends and family, so I didn’t want to ruin the joy for you.” I took a deep breath, hoping she could see it hadn’t been malicious at all. “And I don’t know how long it’s been since Chad has tasted your cooking, but it really has gotten better this past year.”

“I did start using a timer instead of guessing when things are done,” she allowed. “And yes, I started using measuring spoons instead of eyeballing things.”

“See,” I said, feeling slightly less bad for helping behind her back. “Cooking is an art. It just takes some of us a little longer to get better at it than others.”

I grabbed my water from the coffee table and drained half the glass while Arianna seemed to process everything I’d said.

“So let me get this straight,” Arianna said in a much more subdued tone. “While Chad tasted my cooking a handful of times and refused to give me another chance after a few bad recipes, you spent the last three years enduring some pretty bland, mushy stuff just so you could make me happy?”

“Yeah…”

“Well…” she said. “While I can’t say I agree with your methods one hundred percent, I guess I have to admit that you’re kind of the best friend a girl could have for putting up with everything.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” I said.

I mean, it had given me lots of quality time alone with her since Chad made himself scarce anytime she mentioned a new recipe.

But she didn’t need to know about all that.

“So I guess that since you were watching our video, it probably means you heard Chad talk about why he’d said ‘I love you’ so soon.”

“I did.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see it. “I’m guessing he’d never told you his side of the story before?”

“That would be correct,” she said, sounding deflated.

And now was the time where I needed to decide if I was going to be the type of guy who lifted her up when she was down, or the type who pounced on the opportunity to smear Chad’s name through the mud.

It was a hard decision because I really,reallyhated the guy.

But I hated the thought of making her feel miserable even more.

So I said, “He was probably just making light of everything tonight because he thought it would be funny for your viewers. I’m sure he meant it when he said it. He probably just said it so fast because you’re so easy to fall in love with.”

I’d certainly fallen hard the first time we’d met. And if I’d known that she and Chad were going to end up dating for so freaking long, I would have tried a lot harder in the beginning to steal her from him. Steal her before she’d gotten in so deep that she only had eyes for him.

I’d just been so sure a smart, confident girl like her would see through Chad’s façade a lot sooner.

Sadly, I had been wrong and hadn’t known just how determined Arianna was to make their relationship work.

“I appreciate you never saying anything bad about Chad to me,” Arianna said after a quiet moment. “You’ve always been so good about that even though I know you two don’t get along.”

“He’s important to you,” was all I could say.

“Yeah,” she said. “But I don’t know…”

She sighed, and my heart blipped in my chest at the possibilities behind that sigh.

Was she finally seeing through him?

Had she finally had enough of his little jabs?

I waited for her to continue, my pulse pounding in my temples.

When she didn’t say anything more, I asked, “What don’t you know?”

She paused for a moment longer, and then said, “I guess I’m wondering if I just wasted the last three years of my life on a guy who actually wasn’tthe one.”

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