Frog and Quinn: Chapter Two (Patreon)

What the hell did I agree to? It’s still not setting in after our pizza arrives and we’re cramped together on this stiff couch that numbs my ass. Expensive doesn’t mean better, and if we had funds to replace the pre-furnished apartment, maybe we would. Or maybe we’d argue about it.

Frog loves the finer, designer things.

But priorities. That’s not even on my list.

The Phillies game might as well be background noise on the TV. I’m more tuned into the girl beside me. Frog scrolls through her phone, trying to pick out photos for her new dating profile.

A dating profile.

Frog and dating have been two factors I haven’t wanted to think about together. I’d practically popped champagne bottles when she dumped Scooter, the thirty-four-year-old tattooist.

Yeah, thirty-fucking-four.

Not having to hear his ridiculous name or see him cling to Frog like a barnacle on the side of the Queen Mary—that was a bright spot in my life. I broke up with my girlfriend the same time that Frog broke things off with him. Frog and I agreed to cast out our bad relationships together.

So I figured we’d be doing the single thing together. Well, that lasted three weeks. Three peaceful weeks of being single, and now Frog is ready to jump ship.

Online fucking dating.

I almost smear a hand down my face. But it’s clamped over my mouth. I stare at her phone like it’s a threat to our client—when this has absolutely nothing to do with Luna Hale.

I’ve been on Tinder. I’ve made a profile. I’ve swiped right and had one-night stands from Tinder. I have the experience to guide Frog, sure. And I’m a guy. I’m fully qualified to pick out the users and losers in the bunch. There will not be a Scooter 2.0—over my cold, dead body. 

Our shoulders are side-by-side as I watch the hundreds of bathing suit pics zoom by. I lean forward and grab a slice of pizza from the box. I don’t love pizza. It messes with my macros, but it’s difficult not to order it when I’m with Frog. She’s the only one I’ve found that likes the same toppings as me. Extra cheese, jalapeños, mushrooms, and the secret ingredient—sun dried tomatoes.

A chunk of pizza goes down thick in my throat while I watch her scroll. “Why are you wearing a swimsuit in all of these pics?”

“Because I filtered them that way. I’m trying to find the best one.”

My face scrunches, and I give her a sharp side-eye.  

“What? I look hot.”

Yeah, that’s the problem.

“No,” I say with a hard headshake. “No.”

“I do look hot,” she protests. “Open your eyes.”

“They are wide fucking open right now,” I say into a swig from a Nalgene water bottle. “And I meant no, as in no swimsuit pictures on your profile. That’ll just attract the wrong kinds of guys.”

She’s confused. “I’m looking for someone who’s DTF.”

“No one says DTF anymore.”

“Uh, yeah they do, and I’m on social media about ten thousand times more than you, so you’re not the go-to on what phrases are out of fashion.” She’s by far the most argumentative girl I’ve ever been around, and that says something when my little sister takes no shit from anyone.

Frog is brazen. Loud. Abrasive. Not all men can handle the inferno that is Kannika Kitsuwon. And if there’s anything I’ve known the past year is that I’ll murder anyone who smothers her fire.

Scooter got close.

That scared the shit out of me.

“Okay.” I throw the half-eaten pizza slice back in the box. “You might want someone who’s down to fuck, but you’ll want someone who’d treat you as more than a meaningless fuck. It’s your first time—you don’t need to be…”

“Need to be what?” She stares straight into me, challenging me to say it even though she has no clue what I’m going to say. I keep so much in my head with so many people, even with my family, and yet with her—it ejects like a missile.

“Taken advantage of, for one.”

“For another?”

“Raped.”

Her mouth flies open. “You went from zero to one-hundred.”

“These are strangers on the internet, Frog, and we’re security. Half of what I do is think about worst-case scenarios.”

“Fair and same…” She reevaluates a swimsuit pic from a hotel in Los Angeles. She’s posed on the edge of the pool, her legs outstretched and head tilted back while her straight hair flows behind her. She has on a white string bikini. It had half the pool staring. I know because I was there. It was last summer, almost a year ago.

And that leisure time at the pool was a two-hour break off-duty. One we don’t often get.  

“That’s an old pic,” I tell her.

“I look basically the same.”

She does. Next to me on the couch, she’s wearing sweats and a tank top. Her waistband is rolled, and I swear she has on a Gucci thong. 

She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, then swipes away from the pool photo. I careen back into the couch in relief, but the rigid cushion isn’t comforting me.

“What about this one?” She flashes a mirror selfie. Off my silence, she says, “It’s my best waist-up pic thanks to my miracle push-up bra. If you haven’t noticed, I’m lacking in the tits department.”

MyGod. “I haven’t noticed because I haven’t been staring at your tits,” I tell her, looking her in the eyes. Being honest, I have noticed. So she’s flat-chested. Who the fuck cares? And I can’t believe we’re even going here. Talking about her boobs while the Phillies are playing the Mets. And—and this is a big and—she’s nineteen.

Nineteen.

The word teen is so firmly in my head that I want to chuck this conversation in the Hudson River. But I’m not about to shut it down—because who else would she talk to? This job we have, it rips away so much time that it cuts away any deep, personal relationships you can make outside of it.

I barely have any friends outside of the job. Just like her.

The only difference is I have a brother, a sister, parents nearby.

She doesn’t talk to her mom but once a month. She’s not close to her dad after her parents' divorce. All she has is her cousin, Akara, but he’s a new father, and that newborn baby might as well be his new 24/7 gig. I don’t want her to think she needs to run to another Scooter just to find someone that’ll listen to her. She has me.

“Baggy tee photos don’t really paint a picture of what this guy is going to see,” Frog tells me. “So when the clothes come off—”

“How do you know they’re even coming off?” I interrupt to stop the visual.

She frowns and reaches for a slice of pizza. “Wait, did you pass sex ed?”

“Did you?” I shoot back. “Pretty sure you fornicate below the waist. Your shirt can stay on.”

She groans. “I am not keeping my shirt on during sex.”

“Why not?” I ask her. “It can still be hot.”

She narrows her eyes. “Is this from experience?”

It is, but I’m not going there. “Look, it doesn’t even matter. Shirt on, shirt off. The guy shouldn’t be caring about the size of your tits. You’re letting him inside of you. That’s the single most intimate thing you could be doing. He should be groveling at your fucking feet, Frog, not taking out a measuring tape.”

Her cheeks are a shade pink. “Some guys do care.”

“Yeah, those are the red flags,” I say. “And I thought we were getting you a green one.”

She takes a bite of pizza with one hand and with the other continues scrolling with her thumb. “What if I find a swimsuit picture I really like?” she asks.

“Fine,” I compromise. “But I still don’t think it’s a good idea. It’ll be harder to weed out the assholes looking for a quick lay. Your first time should be with someone who’d take you on more than one date. Preferably, somewhere nicer than Burger Barn.”

“Hey, Burger Barn is good.”

“Burger Barn is a greasy shack on Mount Oil.”

She sends me a look. “You created a fictional mountain just to disparage a delicious place. I’m disappointed but not surprised.” She eats the crust before finishing the actual sauce part. Savage. “I did ask for your help, so I will take your advice under consideration.” She pulls up photos from last winter. She’s wearing a puffer coat and a pink beanie.

I rub at my eyes wearily. Do I even want to do this? Help Frog, my friend, create an online profile so she can get laid?

Would I do it for another guy? Sure, yeah. Of course. This is difficult in a different way because she’s…she’s Frog.

I’ve known her for a year, but we’ve spent so much time together it’s felt more like fifty. At least, sometimes it feels like we bicker like an old married couple.

Our friendship is just closer than normal friends based on our work/life environment. That’s it.

I’d take a bullet for her. She’d take one for me. It’s the circumstance of our jobs, but I honestly can’t say I’ve ever known any woman outside family who’d strangle someone to protect me.

It makes me feel things I don’t want to feel. Not with her.

And, look, I don’t need protecting. I’m a six-three, former professional boxer. I can handle my shit.

We spend the next twenty minutes picking out three serviceable photos. One with boxing gloves at Studio 9 during a training session. Shows a guy can’t walk all over her. One with her hair in a high ponytail and a tub of popcorn in her hand. Shows she likes to go out. And the final one, she’s wearing a slim velvet dress with pearl earrings. Shows she’s classy. No Burger Barn dates.

In all three, she’s stunning. And this is why I hate online dating because these photos don’t show all of who she is. They don’t show her loyalty. How she’d claw and tear and fight for the people she cares about. They don’t show her smarts. How she’s highly perceptive and can spot a threat in a crowd of fifty. They don’t show that she hates cereal but loves cereal milk—often letting her Fruity Pebbles soak in the bowl before slurping the milk and tossing the rest. They don’t show how messy she is. She never makes her bed, doesn’t do the dishes, and has an annoying habit of forgetting her toast in the toaster.

I glare at her cell.

“Who am I looking for?” Frog reads out loud. “A person who identifies as a man. Age range…nineteen to thirty-nine—”

For fuck’s sake. “No.”

“What if older guys treat me better? I don’t want to be ageist.”

“The security team was up in arms when you were dating a thirty-four year old. They might actually call out a hit on this guy if they find out you’re dating someone a year shy of forty.”

I might call out that hit.

“Fine,” she relents easily. “Nineteen to twenty-nine.”

“How about nineteen to twenty-three?” I suggest. 

She raises her brows. “Seriously? Is this your way of telling me you’re too old for me? Because I thought we already established you’re not helping in that way.” 

“I just think guys my age might be too old for you, too.”

“See, this is the problem. You see me as someone who’s young, so you’re not the best judge on age, and it’s an even better reason to expand my dating pool." Before I can say anything, she adds, “You do know our client is dating someone eight years older than her, right?”

I roll my eyes. I’m not likely to forget that detail, but Luna is twenty-one. She’s also Luna Hale. Heiress to a fortune. She has guardrails and literal bodyguards available to protect her. Who does Frog have?

I don’t mention any of this. I just say, “Nineteen to twenty-six, then.”

“Twenty-seven,” Frog counters. "That's the eight year difference."

“Fine.” Fuck Donnelly for getting with Luna and making this a standard, but also, don't fuck Donnelly because I actually really like the guy. He's a bodyguard, too, and our old roommate. And he's one of my older brother's best friends.

Frog smiles, typing.

I scratch the back of my neck. “I feel like an asshole for having any say on this,” I admit out loud.

“You would,” she says casually. “You can be an asshole.”

“Seriously?” I raise my brows.

Her nose scrunches. “Please, I can’t be the first girl to call you one.”

“You are. Girls call me hot. Good looking. Sexy—”

She holds up a hand in front of my face to shut me up. “Okay, we can stop there.”

I laugh lightly and wash down my food with a swig of water. “I do want you to tell me if my opinion ever crosses a line.”

“It won’t,” she says. “I asked for your opinion. I want your blatant overprotective bias on this situation.”

“Good to know,” I mutter and pop a piece of sun-dried tomato in my mouth.

She types something out on her phone and her smile grows wider. “Annnd…I think I’m done.” She hands me her cell, and I read the copy under her main image.

Frog – 19

I’m biracial. Mom is white and Dad is Thai. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York but new to the city.

This quote sums me up the most: “You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." — Wayne Gretzky

Let’s grab some food or coffee.

It’s short. To the point. And she used a sports quote because we both agreed that she needs a guy’s guy who won’t be intimidated by all the men she’s around on a constant basis.

Which is a lot…of men.

“It’s good,” I say, my stomach clenching suddenly. Must be the pizza or the fact that I’m sending one of my closest friends into the world of online dating just to get laid for a shitty reason.

Yeah, could definitely be that.

I hand her back the phone and ask, “You’re sure you want to do this? You can always wait for the right one.” 

“I don’t need to wait,” she says with confidence. “When I do finally fall for ‘the right one’—” She uses finger quotes “—he’ll make it feel like my first time regardless of who I’ve slept with in the past. So yeah, I don’t need to wait.” She looks me over. “Did you?”

“At the time, I thought she was the right one.”

“Let me guess, prom date?” Frog questions.

I must seem like the stereotypical jock from high school movies. Letterman jacket wearing Prom King. Beloved by all. God, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I don’t want to get into it with Frog. I don’t want to tell her I never went to prom. I don’t need her to see me any other way than she sees me now. The Casanova of the security team. The former professional boxer. The guy who could knock out any of the red flags she brings home to our apartment.

“Something like that,” I say.

“High school sweetheart situation,” Frog guesses this time but it’s less of a question.

I just nod. It’s closer to the truth at least.

She hits two buttons, and the smile that lights up her face almost sheds some of the tension in my muscles. “And…we’re live,” she says.

Her phone immediately starts buzzing with notifications.

I don’t have to look to know…they’re all swiping right.

On this very thankful day, we are so very thankful for all of you! So we had to drop Chapter 2 today! Thank you all for being here, the support behind Frog & Quinn, and for reading Quinn's perspective ❤️ We loveeee being in his head and seeing his thoughts on Frog's adventures in online dating. There is so much more still to come, and we'll be bringing you two new chapters for December.

The December content will likely drop earlier in the month, so the wait for more shouldn't be long!

xoxo Krista & Becca

IMPORTANT: Please do not screenshot and post any part of this chapter to other sites or share with non-patrons. All of the Patreon content is exclusive to Patreon and for current patron's eyes only.  Thank you!!

RESOURCES:  Check out Frog & Quinn's Collection for more of their chapters as their story continues.

MUSIC: We listened to "This One's Gonna Cost Me" by Lainey Wilson while writing this chapter. 

 “Frog and Quinn," Copyright © 2024 by K.B. Ritchie