Page 78 of Friend Zone to End Zone

It was a photo Arianna had posted of the two of us from last night. The one she’d asked our waiter to take of us before we started dancing. She’d blurred my face so no one would know I was the guy she was with, but we had the same suit and dress on that we’d worn to dinner. The smile she had on her face in the photo was even bigger than I’d remembered.

The caption she’d written was:I’m so excited about this recent development.

And then, below the caption, she had typed in: #mybestfriendishotterthanyourbestfriend.

My chest warmed.

I clicked on the comments to see what her fans were saying.

@kellystenfield:Who is he? Why have we never seen this best friend before?

@rizzofranklin8090:What happened to Chad?

@charlieandmadisonforever:If I had a best friend with a body that looked that good in a suit I’d be all over him.

@romanticallyhopeless17:I hope this means Chad is gone. You look so happy in this photo.

And on and on.

She’d only posted the photo an hour ago but there were already thousands of comments from her fans, wondering who I was and what this meant for her and Chad.

And because I couldn’t help myself, I switched over to my @ariannasbiggestfan account and typed:I bet you had to blur his face because he’s so ridiculously good looking that revealing his true identity would break the internet.

Then chuckling to myself because I thought I was hilarious, I switched over to my messaging app and texted Arianna.

Me:What time do you get home from work? I have something to give you before the party.

She must have been in-between clients because her message came through a few seconds later.I’ll be home by five-thirty. So, barely enough time to change and get ready for tonight.

Me:Perfect. I’ll meet you at your place then.

I went back to Instagram to look at the photo she’d posted one more time. She did look happier than usual in it, didn’t she?

I knew there was a chance that she’d only posted it for Chad to see in order to get a jumpstart on her plan for revenge tonight, but I hoped there was more to what she’d typed than just that.

Hopefully, she was ready for things to develop even further between us.

34

Arianna

“What are you smiling about?”Hannah asked when she walked into the breakroom at the salon. I’d just finished cutting a set of three-year-old twins’ hair and was taking a moment to see my followers’ reaction to my post this morning.

I’d known that it would cause a stir, since I hadn’t announced my breakup with Chad yet and had never mentioned the fact that I had a super-hot guy best friend before. But I had not expected to have comments reaching the five-thousand mark.

“Apparently, my followers think Cole would make a good replacement for Chad.” I showed my screen to Hannah.

She took it from me and her mouth dropped open when she saw the photo of us from last night.

“What is this?” She looked up with her eyes super wide. “Isthiswhat you and Cole did for your practice date?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at the photo again. “That dress is amazing. Was that the one that you had sent to you?”

“No, that was actually part of the date.”

When she just stared at me blankly like she didn’t understand, I told her all about the night I’d had with Cole.

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