Page 56 of Friends Don't Kiss

Kiara/Colton

Kiara

“Eeep!He’son.”

A collective gasp emanates from my group of friends. Chloe and Grace are sitting on the vanity, while Willow leans over my phone, crowding me.

“He’s like… surreal gorgeous,” Willow points out.

I look at the dreamy yet rugged face with soulful eyes. If I had to describe everyone’s fantasy man, this would be it. Although to be honest, Colton’s features superimpose in my mind’s eye when the wordsfantasy boyfriendform in my brain. “Yeah, that’s kinda sketchy,” I answer Willow.

“What? He’s perfect!” Willow gasps, like she has a vested interest in this guy.

“Getting cold feet?” Grace asks.

“More like, lukewarm,” I answer.

“Why?” Chloe asks.

“He’s just… too perfect.”

“It’s only a picture,” Chloe says. “He probably chose a good one. Let’s hope he did.”

“Heissurreally gorgeous,” Grace admits. “Let me text Ethan to run a reverse search on him.” She points her phone at mine and snaps a photo of the guy’s profile pic. “You can never be too careful.”

Colton

Noah places his hand on my wrist. “Before you type anything stupid, let’s do a little research on how to approach this. Have any of you losers ever been on a dating app?”

“Sort of,” I admit while my friends shake their heads. Then Justin adds, “Only for hookups.” At the looks we throw him, he adds, “What? I never led them on. Can’t help you with building a connection on an app, though.”

“The girls are onto something,” Ethan mumbles. “Dude, where’d you get that picture?”

Noah interrupts him. “Alright, here we go,” he says, reading from his phone. “First, compliment her profile, but nothing relating to her physical aspect.”

“What does her profile say?” Justin asks.

I didn’t even look. But I do now. “Says she’s looking for a casual but fun connection.”

“That’s not her profile,” Noah says. “What does she like to do? Says here the next thing to do is ask her questions about herself.”

“That’s pretty basic,” Justin mumbles. “People don’t know that?”

“We know what she likes to do,” Chris jokes. “Boss people around, give nicknames, invent ways to put maple syrup in everything she makes.”

Trying to focus, I look at Kiara’s profile again. I’ve memorized it. For the life of me, I still don’t understand why she wrote,When life hands you lemonade, question the lemons.

Does she think she’s going to attract guys with that? I’m not complaining, just—

“That’s hilarious,” Chris says, now looking at her profile over my shoulder. “She’s a real funny girl.”

“What’s yours say?” Noah asks.

I huff. “I don’t remember,” I mumble.

“Come on, dude. Just click back to your profile.”

I do, and show him the screen, the words grating so bad I don’t want to read them out loud.

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