Nothing to see here! Jana Kramer recently had fans convinced that former One Tree Hill costar Austin Nichols was more than just a friend — but they shouldn’t get their hopes up.
The 37-year-old actress reunited with Nichols, 41, earlier this month, along with fellow OTH alums Stephen Colletti, Shantel VanSanten and Kate Voegele. The walk down memory lane was “so fun,” Kramer told Us Weekly exclusively on Monday, November 8.
“I had not seen Austin in, like, almost 11 years. … We sat down after my show and we drank and we laughed,” the “Whine Down” podcast host said while promoting her upcoming Lifetime film, The Holiday Fix Up. “Shantel’s, you know, one of my closest friends from the show and [it was] so great to see her. … It was so fun to reconnect with them because, you know, we spent some years together and it was really, really cool.”
Kramer shared a handful of photos from the night out with her former costars, playfully updating her followers on where she thought the group’s characters would be now.
“Plot twist. ‘Brooke got the boy….Alex got the man’ Julian and Alex are now together years later 
,” she captioned a carousel of cozy snaps with Nichols on Sunday, November 7, holding hands with the Day After Tomorrow actor. “What do the cool kids say? Do y’all ship this? @austinnichols.”
Fans couldn’t help but chime in with their thoughts, as one Instagram user joked, “This is messing with my mind! 
.” Another commented, “Alex + Julian NO! You + Austin YES!”
In the CW series, Kramer’s character, Alex Dupre, had a huge crush on Nichols’ Julian Baker. Unfortunately, he chose Sophia Bush‘s Brooke Davis in the end.
The strong response to the social media upload came as a surprise to Kramer, who told Us the hug they shared was totally innocent. “It was funny to see the fans, like, freak out,” she said on Monday. “They’re all like, ‘Are you going to Austin dating?’ I’m like, ‘No, we just have not seen each other in 11 years.’ … I was talking about the characters. I wasn’t talking about Jana and Austin.”
The country singer added, “Just because I go out with someone does not mean that, you know, I’m dating the person.”
Kramer filed for divorce from Mike Caussin in April after nearly six years of marriage. The pair briefly separated in 2016 as Us broke the news that the former football player, 34, cheated on the Friday Night Lights alum. After he sought treatment for sex addiction, Caussin and Kramer renewed their vows.
The exes — who share daughter Jolie, 5, and son Jace, 2 — finalized their divorce in July. In the wake of her split, Kramer was briefly linked to Bachelor Nation’s Graham Bunn and to Jay Cutler, who she was spotted with in Nashville in September. However, a source exclusively told Us the following month that things quickly fizzled out after “a few dates.”
Now, the “Voices” singer is preparing to give her kids a magical holiday season — and teaming up with Ryan McPartlin and Maria Menounos on The Holiday Fix Up was the perfect way to get into the spirit.
“My divorce was finalized one of the days that I was filming … [and] it was the best thing for me because I was surrounded by people that cared,” Kramer told Us. “This movie is all about second chances. And so I think I was able to kind of relate that back to my life [and] to go, ‘I’m not done.’ … I still got another chance.”
The Holiday Fix Up premieres on Lifetime Saturday, December 11 at 8 p.m. ET and will be available on demand and on MyLifetime.com starting the next day.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi