Dating

Girl seemed interested and then said “kinda has boo thing”?

So there’s this girl that I work with that I see almost everyday. We’ve been flirting with each other, talking/texting, and have our own like things that we do to make each other laugh - and this has been going on for months. I really wanted to asked her out a few months ago but I got insanely busy and really didn’t have the time (was basically working 3 jobs and doing other activities bc I’m trying to get into a good medical school.)
At the beginning I did hint at it a bunch that I was always busy and tired. As the months went on we still talked a bunch and flirted but it did become less which is understandable. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, she over hears that I’ve finished everything I needed to do to have a great resume for medical school and that I have a bunch of free time and all of our interactions become more flirting, more laughing and smiling at each other blah blah blah. The opportunity rolls around over text and I finally just ask her out and she started beating around the bush and saying she got banned from the bar, I started laughing asking what she did and she finally just came out and said “I kinda have a boo thing that’s new…” I was completely shocked. We’ve usually talk about what we did for over the weekends and she’s never mentioned anything about dating someone. I respond with a lie and friend-zoned her saying “sorry, didn’t mean it had a date. didn’t really see you in that light, it’s more of two friends hanging out” and she kept responding to my texts when we didn’t need to continue the conversation anymore so I stopped answer and in my last text I called her “…bud”. The rest of the day at work she kinda looked upset and I didn’t wanna talk to her so I pretended I was super busy at work.
With all this context, I guess my questions our:
1) why did she not mention she had been dating someone these last few weeks?
2) Was pretending to friend-zone her the right move?
3) just some advice on the situation
Updates
1 y
Update: we are in our 20s
Girl seemed interested and then said “kinda has boo thing”?
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