She should have stuck with her childhood friend. This guy is an awful romantic partner.
Honestly I felt bad for childhood friend because she was being so obnoxiously ambiguous with him?
It's like... Some actual people and fictional characters would say things like, "I want to be independent," and, "let's travel the world together," and actually mean them. Aria is not those people. She's saying those things because they aren't real options to her, they're just a way of avoiding thinking about the stuff she might actually do in the future. Rather than her actually wanting to be with her friend it feels like she doesn't see him that way at all.
Also is it just me or did childhood friend start out NOT interested in MC? Like in an earlier chapter he was gushing over Evangeline and seriously helping her look for potential fiances and trying to be inconspicuous when ML was around. Him being so into her now is kinda sad, like the author started out letting him have his own deal and then was like, "nah, let's make his purpose suffering."