Page 26 of Friend Zone to End Zone

I swallowed, uncomfortable about being put on the spot. “I don’t know.”

I knew most of the women sitting in the living room, since I’d been to parties with them in the past, but there were a couple of unfamiliar faces.

A woman in a sparkly blue dress caught my eye, and when she noticed me looking in her direction, she sent me a tentative smile.

“She’s pretty,” Arianna said in a low voice beside my ear. “Maybe you should practice your flirting skills on her.”

“That’s Mallory, the girl I was telling you about earlier,” Hannah said to Arianna, her voice oozing with enthusiasm.

“The model?” Arianna asked.

Hannah nodded. “Yeah, she’s like the sweetest thing, though. Gorgeous, but so down to earth.”

I watched Mallory—she was speaking to her friend, glancing over in my direction every so often like they were talking about me.

That was one of the things I didn’t enjoy about meeting new people since becoming one of the starting players for the Dragons. Everyone always seemed to be whispering about me when I walked into a room.

But Mallorywaspretty. Her hair was almost as dark as mine, slightly wavy, and from the color of her skin and shape of her eyes, she could have some Polynesian blood in her like I do.

Grandma Kekoa would probably tell me to talk to her, since she was always telling me to marry a girl from Hawaii so I could move back home and settle down there after I retired from the NFL.

Grandma, of course, didn’t seem to understand that I hoped to have a really long career. And with her already being in her seventies, if she wanted to get to know any great-grand babies I might provide for her, she would have to be the one to move closer.

Though, of course, that meant I’d need to settle down with a woman first to even have said grand babies.

“Do you want me to introduce you?” Hannah asked, breaking me from my train of thought.

“Um,” I said, contemplating whether I was really ready for Arianna to watch me make my first attempt at our plan.

“Come on.” Arianna tugged on my arm. “Let’s do this thing.”

And before I could think up a reason to put it off until later, I was being pulled closer to the corner where the women were chatting.

11

Arianna

“How isit possible for a guy who looks like that, and does what he does on the football field, to need a dating coach in order to get a girlfriend?” Hannah asked as we watched Cole introduce himself to her friend Mallory.

“I have no idea,” I said after taking a bite of my chocolate-dipped strawberry. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for years. But aside from him claiming to be too busy to date, I kind of think he just hasn’t ever really cared about it.”

“He does like women though, right?” Hannah arched a blonde eyebrow. “Because I maybe not be as close to the NFL players as you are, but I’ve seen enough of them at the clubs to know that they can make time for dating if they want.”

“You think he’s gay?” My jaw dropped. “No way.”

Hannah pursed her lips. “Either that, or he just doesn’t try to date because he likes someone who’s already spoken for.”

“Well, he’s not gay,” I said. “Believe me, I would know.”

At least, I was pretty sure I would know something like that about my best friend.

“I don’t know…” Hannah seemed to study Cole for a moment, as if a person’s sexuality was something you could just see. “He does have amazing fashion sense.”

“Thanks to me.” I sipped on my wine. “You should have seen what he used to wear before I convinced him to let me be his personal stylist.”

“Okaaay.” Hannah drew out the word like she still wasn’t convinced. “But then there’s his amazing house. No heterosexual guy would know how to decorate a house like that on his own.”

“You know that’s just a stereotype, right?” I said. “Just because a guy has a nicely decorated home doesn’t mean he’s gay.”

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