An Acute Cantarella of Romeo and Cinderella

Quinn

Quinn woke up underneath a table in a black, three tiered ball gown. The table had a large table cloth that covered the space between the table and the floor, essentially hiding Quinn. She sat up and her curly hair, which when she stands reaches almost to her thighs, was beautifully by her sides. The soft pink ombre on the middle of her brown hair almost blended into her dress like threads. She pulled out her phone from her bag. 

Quinn woke up because Zander had texted her. 

Zander: Are you here? I just got here. 

Quinn: Yeah. Got here about an hour ago. Everyone here is so lame. 

Z: Where are you?

Q: Where I usually hide when the party gets boring.

Z: Which table?

Q: The one with the deserts obviously :D

Z: There's like five of them. 

Q: LOL. The one's with the apple pies and super tiny strawberry cheese cakes

Z: Can't find it. Gtg. Meet up later? Turning off my phone in a bit

Q: Yeah. Might be with Cindy... Or maybe you'll be.

Zander didn't respond after several minutes. 

She put her phone back in her bag and peeked out from the table cloth. A lot of people were standing away where the cheese and wines were. She could hear the constant clattering and chattering of the party goers. Quinn silently slid from underneath the table to a standing posture. She sighed a sigh of relief, took a cheese cake plate from the table, and walked away. 

"Excuse me," A gentle voice called. 

Quinn glared at the man who grabbed her arm, and she pulled away. "Excuse me. What do you think you're doing?" 

The man had short white hair with a deep violet ombre at the tips of his hair. His gentle yellow eyes locked with Quinn's eyes. His black gloved hand moved his hair away from his eye so it rested on his cheek. The gold embroidery on his black business jacket beautifully matched his eyes. 

Quinn paused. "Nero, I..." 

Nero smiled. "It's okay. I just wanted to talk to you." 

"About what?" Quinn looked away. 

"Look," Nero laughed as he gestured at them both. "We're matching, and we're not even dating anymore." 

"I guess..." 

"What's wrong," Nero asked. "Feeling bad for not texting me in a while?" 

"Yeah," Quinn hesitated to speak. 

Nero sighed. "I got over it after a while. I just thought we could be friends." 

"I just didn't want to hurt your feelings," Quinn quietly said. "I'm in love with my friend so... I thought it would be unfair to you." 

"Your friend Zander, right?" 

"What?!" Quinn's brows furrowed. "No. His name is Ry-- Never mind. There's no way you could know him." 

Nero frowned. "Is it Koren as I always suspected?" 

Quinn turned away. "I've already told you about Koren! How many times do I have to tell you that he and I don't feel that way about each other!" 

Nero sighed. "It's just the way he constantly looked at you and called you 'Queeny.' He'd always drop everything and be there for you when you and I had problems." 

"And you don't think Zander and Ryan weren't there either?"

"Koren was there like ninety-five percent of the time. The other five percent was work." Nero rolled his eyes. "Look, I wanted to talk to you to see if we could be friends and keep our parents' companies close for the better future. For both of us." 

"So... you--

"Just want to be friends," Nero intervened. 

Quinn paused. "Genuinely?" 

Nero smiled and kissed her hand. "Let's talk, Quinn." 

--I'm in love with my friend so...