Page 8 of Friend Zone to End Zone

Which made me wonder what kind of girl Cole would choose.

In all the time we’d been friends, he never had a serious girlfriend. And when he did go out, it was with women of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Which I thought was pretty strange for a guy.

At least, most guys I knew had a certain type of woman they went after.

Chad certainly was particular about how I looked. He was so particular that he even cared how I did my hair when we went out—which was down and curled. No high ponytails for him even though it was one of my favorite looks.

But when I’d scrolled through Cole’s phone tonight, the women he’d matched with were all so different from each other—almost like he didn’t really have a type but was just swiping randomly to make it look like he was trying.

Cole:Hopefully the future “Mrs. Kekoa” will finally be ready for all my amazingness then.

Me:I’m sure she will be once you get that haircut. Which means you’ll be at my house tomorrow afternoon for your hair surgery, right?

Might as well get that taken care of before he came up with an excuse to back out.

I mean, he was still super cute with his shoulder-length hair. But as someone who always went for the clean-cut look—yes, I had a type, too—I’d been dying to see what Cole would look like with short hair.

Cole:If that’s what you think it will take to make this work, then I guess I’ll be there around three.

Me:Good. See you then.

And then, just because I wanted to tease him a little more, I sent him a gif of a woman with a crazed look in her eyes giving a haircut to an unsuspecting guy using hedge shears.

I might as well have as much fun with this as I could.

4

Cole

“What, no chainsaw or tree trimmers?”I asked Arianna when she led me into her back patio on Sunday afternoon where she had a completely normal-looking pair of hair clippers and shears sitting on a table.

“I figured that since it was your first real haircut in five years, I’d go easy on you.” She patted the back of the fold-up metal chair next to her, indicating that I should sit down. So I took my seat, the metal of the chair warm against my back from sitting in the sun.

The weather in Denver was perfect today—partly cloudy and seventy-two degrees.

“Do you have a particular hairstyle in mind?” She draped a black cape over my shoulders, the scent of her delicious perfume wafting to my nose with the movement.

And just because I wanted to keep up my wholeI can’t believe you’re making me cut my glorious hairact, I said, “I was thinking it was looking pretty darn near perfect as I got lost in my reflection this morning, so maybe just a centimeter or two off the bottom will do?”

“You think you’re so hilarious.” She shook her head as she moved to stand in front of me, trying to look aggravated. But the hint of a smile playing at her lips told me she thought I was funny.

So I shrugged and said, “I’m just practicing my humor for my future girlfriend.”

I’d like to say I was practicing my humoronmy future girlfriend, but I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself. These things took time, and I still had a lot of obstacles to maneuver before I could make a play at finally getting out of the friend zone where Arianna was concerned.

The fact that she had only ever seen me as her best bud being one of the obstacles.

Her relationship with Chad being another.

Hopefully, me looking more her type, with a brand new haircut, would help with both of those obstacles.

“So do you need a moment to look up a hairstyle, or does your lack of preparation actually mean you were planning to let me work my magic my own way?”

I shrugged. “Since you’ve been waiting three years for this magnificent moment to happen, I figured I’d let you surprise me.”

Because if I ever wanted her to see me as potential-boyfriend material for herself, step one was letting her create the exact look that she’d find to be the most attractive on me.

---