Page 70 of Friend Zone to End Zone

And that was when I vaguely remembered him carrying me in here.

How bad had it been?

Had I completely humiliated myself in front of Incognito? Because while I could barely remember talking to him face to masked face, I had no recollection of anything I might have said.

Was it too much to hope that Cole had been the one to carry the conversation? He wouldn’t have let me embarrass myself, would he?

I couldn’t even remember having that much wine at dinner. Sure I’d drained my glass quickly while telling Cole about Harper, but I’d only had one or two glasses after that.

Maybe the imported wines really were stronger than the stuff I got at the grocery store.

Needing to go pee, I climbed out of the bed and padded across the carpeted floor to the bathroom connected to my room. I only had a slight headache, so that was a good sign at least.

After going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth with the toothbrush Cole must have left for me, I went back into the bedroom and found a glass of water on the nightstand. I drained that quickly.

Since I was wide awake after the first night of solid sleep I’d had in a while, I slipped on the gym shorts he’d left for me and headed toward the sunroom where Cole had a wall of windows with a beautiful view of the mountains.

I never made time to watch the sunrise, but after last night, it seemed like the perfect place to contemplate my life and where I wanted it to go. Because something had changed for me last night and I couldn’t deny the way I felt about my best friend any longer.

I’d been trying to ignore the whispers of what had been brimming just beneath the surface for years. Trying to be realistic because of the different paths I’d seen our futures going and the impossibility of wanting to be with someone who wanted kids when I didn’t think I could give them to him.

But maybe I’d been running from the wrong thing.

Maybe, just maybe, we could figure out a way to make something work.

Because I had never had a more magical night in my whole life and I would have to be the stupidest person in the world not to try to snatch Cole Kekoa up before he really put himself out on the market.

And I couldn’t’ be sure, since he’d never spoken about it, but the way he’d looked at me at the boutique and the way he’d held me as we danced had to mean something, right?

He wouldn’t have acted the same with another random date he’d met on that dating app he was on, would he?

The way he’d just listened to me and hadn’t seemed to judge me for the mistakes of my past was something I had never expected. He hadn’t seemed to think I was a horrible person. He hadn’t seemed to think any differently of me at all. Which was more than I could have ever dreamed of after the way Chad had reacted when I’d first told him about my past and how I’d lost Harper.

While Cole had hugged me and comforted me as I’d cried, Chad had basically shrugged my feelings off and said that it was probably for the best that my baby had died since being a teen mom and having a baby tying me down would have been really inconvenient. Plus, he probably never would have been into me if I’d had a kid.

And he’d apparently found my whole story so inconsequential since when he talked about my dreams about Harper on the live Q&A, he hadn’t even realized it was my daughter I’d been dreaming about.

I shook my head as I thought about the contrast between the two men who had been center stage in my life the past three years. How had I even thought for a second that I could be happy settling for someone like Chad and only ever being best friends with Cole?

My fears of Cole having the same reaction as Chad had really made me act like an idiot.

“You’re up already?” A deep voice startled me when I walked into the sunroom. And when I looked to where the sound had come from in the dark room, I found Cole’s silhouette seated in the corner of the white couch he had in front of the windows.

I put a hand to my chest where my heart was beating fast from the surprise. “You haven’t been up all night, have you?”

He shook his head. “I woke up about an hour ago and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I decided I might as well come out here to journal and read.” He patted the spot next to him. “Come and sit.”

I sat on the cushion beside him, and when he held his arm open for me to come closer, I curled up next to him.

With my head against his shoulder, I gazed out the huge windows. The curtains were drawn open to reveal a view of the quiet, early morning, with just a faint glow of sunlight peeking over the horizon through the trees in his backyard.

“This is such a beautiful view,” I said. “Do you watch the sun rise every morning in here?”

If I had a view like this to wake up to every day, I’d be a whole lot more likely to become a morning person.

“Not every morning,” he said. “But I do try to come out here early a few times a week.”

He put the journal and pen that had been on his lap onto the end table beside him and then lifted up the flannel quilt over his knees to drape over my legs as well.

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