experience snow until I was fourteen so any amount of snow is a lot to me.”
“Hmm…” She pursed her lips and tapped her pink-polished fingernails against the glass of my window. “It does look like it’s coming down a lot faster than it was earlier. Maybe I should check the road conditions real quick. I still suck at driving in the snow.”
She patted her butt with her hands, then the front where her pockets would be if she were wearing jeans instead of a dress. Then, seeming to realize she didn’t have pockets on her, she held her hand out and said, “Can I borrow your phone? I must have left mine in my car.”
“Sure.” I walked back to where I’d left mine on the end of my kitchen counter, and after unlocking it, I gave it to her. As she opened the Internet browser to check the roads, I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall beside her. “I always forget that I actually have more experience driving in the snow than you.”
“Yeah.” She glanced up at me as she typed something into my phone. “Alabama may not be a tropical island like Kauai, but I never saw more of an inch of snow until I moved here.” She tapped on the screen a few times, and after scanning through whatever it said, she frowned. “There have been accidents all over.” She bit her lip as if considering whether she dared risk the drive home or not. “Would you mind if I just stayed in your guest room tonight?”
“Um, sure. You might as well be the first person to stay in the room you decorated, right?” I said, trying to sound unaffected by the possibility of her staying over, sleeping just one room away from me after I’d basically drooled over her in that dress all night.
“It does only seem right.” She handed my phone back to me, and when my fingers accidentally grazed against hers, the skin on my fingertips burned.
I shoved my phone into my back pocket, trying not to let that brief reaction make me hyperaware of her. I’d been doing so well at hiding my feelings for her lately, I couldn’t have any signs slip through right now.
Not when she was going to be here all night.
She looked down at her dress. “Do you happen to have something I could change into? Maybe an old T-shirt? It doesn’t need to be anything fancy.”
“Umm…” I tried to form a coherent response, but my thoughts scrambled as an image of Arianna wearing one of my T-shirts flashed into my mind.
It just might be an even sexier look than her in that dress.
A slow smirk spread across her lips, and her eyes lit up like she knew exactly what I was thinking about. “Cat got your tongue?”
So much for not making my attraction for her obvious.
I blinked to get my mind back in the present and finally said, “We’re best friends, but yeah, I’m still a guy.”
“Should I be worried?” She raised an eyebrow, teasing me. “Because I can call an Uber, if I need to.”
And I don’t know what it was, because I never vocalized my attraction to her aside from a friendly compliment here and there, but I found myself saying, “If I’ve managed not to forget we’re just friends in the past two hours while you’ve been wearing that dress, your honor should be safe for the rest of the night.”
It was finally her turn to blush—her cheeks turning a lovely shade of crimson that made her somehow even more beautiful.
I groaned internally.
Why did I have to be in the friend zone with her?
Why couldn’t I have met her before she met Chad, so I could have a chance? Because if I didn’t have to worry about possibly losing her friendship, I would totally kiss her right now.
Well, if I was the kind of guy who kissed girls who just broke up with their boyfriends, I would. I’d pull her in my arms, run my fingers through her silky hair, trace my fingers along the soft skin of her neck and shoulders, and kiss her soft, tempting lips.
But even if I was the kind of guy who went after girls on the rebound and tried to win her over two days after their breakup, Arianna would never go for it.
Even if she felt the thousands of fireworks I anticipated from a kiss between her and me, she’d be upset at me for crossing that