Being crushed by a crush #help

Elysian
Hi guys, I'm new to this app so this is a first for me and I just wanted to ask for help. . . Btw thank you in advance for reading this!!! I have two God sisters but they're both off doing their own thing and there's not really anyone I can get advice from on this so I'm trusting you guys! There's this guy that I really, really like, (Let's call him S) however he has a bit of a reputation of being a player, and almost all of my friends hate him because of something that happened between him and one of them ( we'll call her A) . . . They (S and A) had been friends and she kept hinting for him to ask her to homecoming and him being not stupid got the message and asked her as friends. . . She said yes obvi and everything was fine for a while until he confessed to her that he really liked this other girl and wanted to ask her out but that he's still be willing to keep to his word and go with her. Her being the drama queen that she is freaked out on him and somehow blew everything out of proportion and created a BIG mess of things. At the time I was mad too because she hadn't told us all the details so I naturally assumed that he was an ass but I didn't find out the truth until he actually told me the whole truth a while later. . . Anyways turns out she and a few others were just pretending to be my friends and were actually going to *accidentally* spill Coke on my expensive homecoming dress at dinner before we could even take pictures and thus leave me unable to attend homecoming and paying for absolutely everything from the limo to the restaurant to the photos I wouldn't be in (what a bitch). Fast forward to present day I've started really liking this guy and honestly I never get that player vibe from him, he seems really sweet to me and he low-key flirts with me quite a bit and be matches me really well on almost every level but I don't know what I should do. . . On the one hand most of my friends don't like him because they don't know the truth, and on the other hand I don't know if hes really a player and maybe I just look for the good in people too much. . . Anyways that's my story thanks so much for reading all of this, please tell me what you think or advice on what to do- anything is appreciated- Thanks!!
Xx
Rose