Frog and Quinn: Chapter Five (Patreon)

 “As they should,” Frog notes about the imminent PDA between our client and her boyfriend. “And do not—do not cockblock them.”

I’m considering it. “I need to get to the kitchen door. They’re in my path.”

“Just wait. Let Donnelly rock her world for a hot minute, for the sake of our client’s epic sex life.”

A grimace slowly forms over my face. Did not realize when I signed up for the job that I was helping Luna Hale get laid with an assist from Frog. I pinch the bridge of my nose that I’ve broken more than once. Then I poke my head out behind the Christmas tree and see Luna balancing a spoon on her nose. Donnelly is doing the same while she’s on his lap, and they’re grinning at each other.

I lift the mic to my lips. “Might be a false alarm. Graças a Deus.” Thank God.

“Noooo,” Frog complains. “We need to help this along. Put on a slow jam.”

“I’m not putting on a make-out song for our client,” I growl under my breath.

“It’s our duty.”

I shake my head hard, unsure if I’m irritated or if I’m hoping this never ends. I feel my smile when I lick my lips. She’s torturing the fuck out of me. It’s an abrupt, sudden thought. I try to throttle it away with another head-shake. Then I risk another glance at our twenty-one-year-old client.

Spoons are gone. Lips are clearly locked. His tongue is in her mouth.

“Shit,” I curse over comms as his hand goes underneath the back of her black baggy AC/DC shirt.

Frog gasps. “Are they kissing? With tongue?”

“What do you think?” I’m back behind the Christmas tree, not wanting to be a voyeur to an intimate moment. When, in actuality, being a voyeur is basically half of this job description. Watch. Observe. Be a stone statue with no reaction.

That last part has always been hard for me. Especially when people dogpile on these families.  

Frog is back in my ear. “Probability of tongue is high, I’d guess. I honestly can’t remember the last time they weren’t masterfully French kissing.”

What she thinks is masterful, I think is a lot. I’m far from being against PDA. In fact, I crave physical affection in a relationship. I’d be upset if I couldn’t wrap my arm around a girlfriend and kiss her while we wait in line getting coffee.

But this—straddling someone in a booth and sucking their soul out of their body with devouring kisses—is on another level. And they would one-hundred percent still do this if the entire breakfast joint were packed.

In my silence, Frog says, “But I’m a little undecided if it’s turned into a full-fledged makeout sesh. Yay or nay?”  

I take the smallest peek. “Yay.” When she doesn’t respond right away, I add, “You’re smiling, aren’t you?”

“You aren’t?”

Now I am. It softens at the thought. “Probably not as much as you.” I rest the back of my head against the wall.

It’s known that Donnelly and Luna are a good thing. They’re about the best thing that came out of the shithole that was November.

I glance to my right again, and I catch a glimpse of Luna’s features between the plasticky limbs of the fir tree. Her light brown hair is knotted in two space buns. Glitter sparkles her cheeks as if she’s part of a kindergarten art project. The media has called her weird all her life, but she doesn’t give a shit.

That same I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks attitude is shared by her boyfriend. Paul Donnelly. Colorful tattoos crawl up his arm, and a paperclip is threaded through the cartilage of his ear. His plain white tee is ripped in four different places. Blue eyes and tousled chestnut hair don’t do much to beat the bad boy first impression.

Pretty positive my dad would have a stroke on sight if Joana brought someone like him home.

Seeing Donnelly and Luna, I always think it’d be stranger if they never ended up together. They really were a testament to the belief that out of darkness comes light. Because what they endured…I don’t think anyone should have to go through that, ever.

“Any updates?” Frog asks. “Groping?”

I groan over the line. “Come see for yourself. Let’s swap.”

“I could but I’d rather you recount it in grave detail.”

I click my mic. “You love to torment me.”

“Only you would find true love as torment.”

“It’s not the love part I’m worried about,” I whisper.

I gain another glimpse as Donnelly kisses Luna down to the bench of the booth. Now he’s on top of her. Scraping a hand through my hair, I consider telling Frog, but I tense more knowing I should already be posted near the kitchen and I’m not there.

Would Farrow be there?

Would my brother?

Would Akara?

All I know is if some rando enters Good Syrup through the fire exit, then he’ll bum-rush Luna and freak her out and that’s on me.

I also hate the thought of being a killjoy. I’ve never been an overbearing, strict bodyguard, especially not towards Luna. She’s my longest assignment to date. I’d been with her almost three years at the start of my career prior to being shifted back to her detail after the incident. I feel overprotective of her in ways that I only reserve for Joana.

It reminds me that the thought of walking in on either of them having sex is more nauseating than the smell in here.

“What are you worried about?” Frog asks.

I lift my mic to my mouth. “Not everyone wants to watch them have sex.”

“They aren’t going to have sex in a restaurant,” Frog says like I’ve boarded a spaceship to one of Luna’s sci-fi planets in the stories she writes.  

Donnelly is the type of person who’d fuck in public. I’ve known him since I was a teenager, well before security, and whatever neuron in your brain makes you feel shame—he’s missing it.

I’ve always loved that about him.

I doubt Farrow and Donnelly know it, but I looked up to them when they were just my brother’s best friends. I thought they were cool as shit with how they walked around like nothing in life could hurt them—like they could exist so freely inside their skin and no one could imprison them for a second. They were unbound from life’s cruelties and seemed to exist for life’s greatest pleasures.

They both joined private security after my brother, and Oscar likes to think I followed him here. The truth is, if I followed anyone it would’ve been the two people I wished I could be more like.

Now, I’m just happy they’re in my life and that they see me as more than “Oscar’s little brother”—though, at times, I know I am still largely that to Farrow.

Donnelly is different.

“You can come out, Quinnie!” Donnelly calls to me.

Shit. “Gotta go,” I whisper to Frog. I change radio frequencies, and when I step around the tree, my gut drops. Luna is…not here.

“She went to the bathroom,” Donnelly says quickly, maybe seeing the alarm narrow my eyes and my head whip around.

About fifteen feet away, a handwritten sign is taped to an old wooden door. It says please don’t do coke in the bathroom. I honestly can’t tell if that’s a joke or not.

“Come take a seat.” Donnelly pats the bench booth beside him. He has the best vantage of the bathroom, and I can’t sit with my back to it. Seeing as how Donnelly is in security (he protects Luna’s eighteen-year-old brother), he knows this.

I sink down at his left, about to air my grievances because fuck, I should’ve just appeared instead of hid out of sight. I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off Luna.

I open my mouth. Right as a pigtailed server appears. “You want anything to eat?” She looks baked. Her eyes are red, and she’s mid-giggle. No wonder I’ve barely seen any staff. They’re probably smoking a joint in the kitchen and laughing over burnt bacon.

“I’m good, thanks,” I say.

She snorts and giggles as she leaves.

Donnelly grins, slipping a pen behind his ear. “New York is no Philly, but I can’t knock the food. You want some of mine?” He’s pushing his plate of banana-topped pancakes with whipped cream and granola to me.

I shake my head, staring at the bathroom and feeling him assess me.    

“You sure? You seem kind of…” He gestures to my body like I’m too tense and acting strange.

I don’t want him to feel like I’m hiding something. Because…I was. With my ex. And I think, out of everyone, Donnelly might’ve been the first to recognize it. And I lashed out at him. Iced him out. Pushed him away.

It hurts even thinking back to that time with Nessa.

I don’t want to return to it.

Right now, I have too much on my mind. Frog. The dating app. It bubbles to the surface every so often, and that tenses the fuck out of me.

But like a reflex, I blame it on the job. “I’m pretty sure that my appetite left me when you were dry-humping my client.”

“Your appetite abandoned you just like that?” Donnelly has a cool, casual tone. “That sucks, man. My appetite and I are like this.” He crosses his fingers together.

I almost smile. Donnelly makes life lighter. Easier. I can see why Oscar stayed in touch with him after college. I turn a little toward him. “What’s the chances you’d have sex in public?”

“Zero.” He says it nonchalantly and without hesitation.

My brows knit together. “With Luna?”

“Nah, I thought you were talking about me and the pancakes.” He grabs his tablet, in the middle of drawing a comic book panel. I see swirls of purple and a gorgeous alien girl that I know represents his girlfriend. “With Luna, chances are still zero.”

Doubt cinches my face. “Really?”

“Really, really.” His jaw just barely tics, then his throat bobs. “If you haven’t heard, I’m dating a celebrity, and I’m a lot territorial of her after what happened.” He glances over at me with a rising smile. “Don’t worry, you won’t see us fucking. Your loss, though, ‘cause a star shoots across the sky every time we do.”

Yeah, I wish I loved someone that much to where I could describe our sex as a comet-making experience.

I want to tell him about Frog.

It’s not like it’s a secret.

I’m sure she’ll tell Luna about her foray into online dating.

Hell, Frog might even tell him at some point. They’re friends too.

I watch him pull the pen out from behind his ear. My eyes graze the Human Him, Cosmic Her comic book manuscript near Luna’s half-eaten colorful cereal-topped pancakes. Donnelly illustrated the sci-fi comic; Luna wrote it. Despite all the alien imagery, the actual story is based on their lives, and it could catapult their fame again if people realize it’s about them.

But it won’t be published until next year. They’re working on minor edits from the publisher Halway Comics. The CEO happens to be her dad. The Loren Hale.

“Can I talk to you about something?” I ask Donnelly. “Don’t tell Oscar.”

He nods. “This about Froggy?”

I’m thrown aback. “She already told you?”

“Nah, you’ve just got that look.”

I don’t even ask what that means. “She wants me to help her lose her virginity.”

His brows spring and grin spreads. “Quinnie and Froggy sitting in a tree. F-U-C-K-I-N—”

“Not with me.”

His grin slowly fades. “Huh…?”

Did I think Donnelly would be an advocate of breaking security rules and making my work relationship with Frog ten-times more complicated by sleeping with her? Yeah, I did. Because it’s not like he cares about red tape. He’s with Luna Hale.

“She’s on a dating app.” I explain the whole thing in less than thirty seconds, then glance at the bathroom door again. Still no movement.

Donnelly looks baffled. “She’s gonna go out of her way to lose her virginity ‘cause she cares what Epsilon has to say about her?”

When he puts it like that, my muscles flame. “You are Epsilon,” I remind him. He got transferred some months back, but he’ll always be Omega too. He has the tattoo to prove it. Shit, he was the one who inked all of us. He used to be a tattoo artist before joining private security.  

“Yeah, and I know Epsilon will still have something to say about her whether she’s a virgin or not.”

“I think she knows that. It’s a mental, confidence thing.”

Donnelly leans back in the booth, flipping his pen between his fingers. He’s giving me a strange look.  

“What?”

“You’re not an option for her?”

“No.”

“You scared to deflower a girl or what?”

I blink hard. Maybe I should’ve asked Oscar’s opinion first. My brother would be against me hooking up with Frog and mixing business with pleasure. Is that why I went to Donnelly? Because I knew he’d be all for it?

I grimace at myself and rub my face a couple times. So very confused.

“You want pointers?” Donnelly asks like I’m young and naïve about sex.

“No, I’m good.” I feel like I need to dunk my head in a bucket of ice after this conversation.

He’s staring at the bathroom all of a sudden. “Hey, can you get up?”

He sounds calm, but I’m not fast enough for him. He literally stands and jumps over me, landing on the ground and striding toward the bathroom. Luna has been in there for at least eight minutes. I’m hot on his heels with a lot more blistering heat.

Donnelly raps a fist to the wood. “Space babe?”

Silence.

Adrenaline pumps my pulse into overdrive. “Luna!” I call out.

Nothing.

Donnelly turns the knob. It’s locked with a loose chain, so the door cracks, and we peer inside just enough to see Luna on her knees. She’s vomiting in the toilet. Instantly, Donnelly jams his shoulder into the wood and breaks the flimsy lock.

“Get her a water?” he asks me, then bends behind her and slides a hand against her back. Her hair, twisted in buns, is already out of her face.

Quickly, I slip back to the booth and find Luna’s glass of water on the table. I alert Frog through comms. “Luna is sick.” I hear the tension in my voice. “We’ll head out soon.”

“Sick how?” Her breath catches in concern. “Like food poisoning?”

“Maybe. She’s throwing up.”

“I’m coming in—ugh, fuck.”

“What?”

Silence on her end.

It eats worse at me.

“Frog?”

Nothing.

“Kannika.” We’re a team. Me. Her. I don’t like imagining her needing backup, but I’m fast. I sprint to Luna, my muscles shrieking at me like I’m going the wrong fucking way. The intense pull to be beside Frog isn’t new. I’ve been tethered to this girl for too long, and it’s not a chain around us. More like an elastic rope that grows taut when we’re farther and farther apart.

One that aches to snap back.

I feel that ache wrenching inside of me. Especially as her silence mounts.

“Paparazzi,” she finally responds, and I expel a single breath. “I’m dealing with it. Help Luna.”

Knowing Frog is likely being swarmed by assholes with cameras isn’t bringing comfort, but if she needed an assist asap, she’d tell me. So I don’t reroute to her. I push into the bathroom and place the water beside Donnelly.  

Luna is dry heaving, and he’s still rubbing her back, squatting behind her.

“Something she ate?” I ask.

“Nah.” I see the look in his eyes that it’s something deeper, rawer. “She’s remembering more of what she forgot.”

The incident. Luna Hale was kidnapped and assaulted. She lost three years of time. Amnesia. Her memories have been slowly returning since February. It’s not the first time I’ve seen the influx of them make her nauseous.

It’s great that she’s remembering the past since she forgot so much, but I hate seeing any girl get sick to the point of puking. It knots my stomach.

“How you doing, alien queen?” Donnelly asks her.

She hoists a thumbs up.

“I’ll be back, Luna,” I tell her, knowing Donnelly won’t let anyone hurt her. Then to him, I say, “I’m securing the entrance with Frog.”

He has a slight teasing grin. “Go get her, Quinnie.”

I need a time machine. Because I have major regrets.

 An hour later with paparazzi corralled and our client safely in her car, we’re back on the road and heading home. Home. I share a home with Frog, and that should be weirder than permanently residing in New York. But it’s not. The weirdest thing is being in this city and dealing permanently with the god-awful traffic.

I come to an abrupt stop behind Luna’s Volvo. I’m driving an expensive Range Rover that SFO dubbed “the Stallion” when our boss added it to the fleet of security vehicles. I’m almost positive Oscar is going to try to steal this newer car and give me the run-down Black Widow.

Frog is swiping glittery pink gloss over her lips, but ever since we left Good Syrup and got on the road, tension has snaked through her whole body. She sits stiffly and forward, her ass almost on the edge of the seat.

“Don’t let that Ford cut you off,” she says, her voice on the precipice of panic.

“I see him.”

She barely eases.

I do know this scenario—us following Luna’s car—mirrors the night of the incident. Frog had been tailing Luna in a separate vehicle, and she got separated from her. Then Luna ended up boxed in, trapped, by her assailants with no security present.

No one blames any of the bodyguards for the failures of that night. It was riddled with bad luck.

Maybe things would have been different for Luna if Frog had been there. Maybe she wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Maybe she wouldn’t have had a traumatic brain injury from being pushed down on concrete. Maybe she wouldn’t have lost her memories.

It’s a shit ton of maybes, and I’m not in Frog’s head—but the way she eyes the Volvo’s bumper like losing it from sight is life-or-death—makes me think she’s been replaying those maybes all day.

Anxiety is not a quality I would’ve ever attributed to Kannika. She’s relentlessly confident and assured, but her posture alone is making me worried. Tailing a client’s vehicle isn’t a random act we do occasionally. This happens all the time. It’s not something she can avoid.

She’s still not settled. “Are you going to the party tonight?” she asks, maybe trying to take her mind off the traffic.

“I’ll probably make an appearance.” Eliot Cobalt’s birthday party is uncharacteristically low-key. Luna said that Eliot is hoping Xander Hale, her introverted brother, will come if they don’t go out. He wants to include Xander since he’s new to New York, too, and moved into the apartment next to Luna’s.

Eliot also invited all the bodyguards living in the apartment complex. It’s not that unusual to get off-duty invites if we have good relationships with the clients, but I’ve never been a “buddy-guard” and formed close friendships with them.

I figure I’ll pop in, say happy birthday, then dip out.

“What about you?” I ask her.

“Yeah, I’m going,” Frog says certainly, capping her lip gloss. “But just because Luna will be there. I want to tell her about the online dating thing, but I haven’t exactly had the time yet. So tonight feels right. I sense it—Quinn.” Her voice spikes.

I’m on the Volvo’s ass as the Ford tries to slip into my lane.

I don’t let him, easily, and the only one triggering my pulse is the girl beside me. “Lean back,” I tell Frog.

She doesn’t. “You should get closer to Luna when you turn right—don’t look at me. Look at the road.”

She’s not hostile like I wish she’d be. Her anxiety has taken front seat.

I have one hand on the wheel. Calm because this—the traffic—is aggravating but it’s not dangerous to me.

To drown her worries, I tell her, “I’ve never wrecked. I taught myself to drive stick when I was fifteen. I’ve taken a defensive driving course because Sônia, my mom, wouldn’t give me keys to her Nissan unless I passed with a perfect score. I drove my sister everywhere before she got her license.” I eye Frog in the next beat. She doesn’t tell me to watch the road this time. “Trust me. I’m not going to lose Luna.”

Slowly, she slides back against the seat and exhales a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Quinn.” Her voice is tiny, like words are trying to crawl back in her body. “It’s other people on the road. I don’t trust them.”

I wish I could go back to that night. I wish I could’ve been in the car with Frog. I’m not arrogant enough to think I could have changed the outcome, but maybe I could be better at sharing her pain.

“Just trust that I’m not going to let them get in our way, okay?” I hold her gaze as long as I can before I train my attention on the road.

I hear her intake a sharper breath, and then I catch her nod. When I glance at her again, she’s squinting at a thought. “Wait, didn’t you fail the test to drive the tour bus?”

“What?”

“The tour bus. Wayyyy back when I wasn’t on security—there was a FanCon tour and a bus, and you were one of the bodyguards who didn’t drive.”

I give her a scrunched look before eyeing the bumper of the Volvo. “How do you know that?”

“My cousin, I think.” Frog seems unsure. “I was also following the FanCon tour on social media at the time, but I can’t remember if you were mentioned.”

We share a brief, hot glance, and my fingers tighten on the wheel. My ex was a “fan” of mine before we started dating, and I’m not sure how I feel about Frog potentially fitting into that category, so I’m not about to dig deeper.

“I failed the test on purpose,” I tell her. “I didn’t want to drive.”

“Why?”

“I thought it’d make me miss out on things with the guys, and I was new to security. I didn’t want to chauffer everyone around.”

Frog thinks about this. I’d say she’s unusually quiet, but she’s also more relaxed as I keep up with the Volvo all the way back to our apartment. Her joints seem to loosen as soon as we enter the deck. Once I park, I tell her, “If you need a day off for therapy, I can cover you.”

“I’m okay,” she says, fitting her earpiece back in. Her eyes sweep me, and mine sweep her, seeing her anxiety retreat now that we’re parked.

“It’s okay to not be okay,” I say, my voice as gentle as it can be.

“I know,” she nods. “But I am okay.”

I’ve been there. I don’t push. We just keep staring at one another like we’re both aware of the lie that sits between us. It’s a comfortable quiet that we share, but there is tension, a strange kind riddled with something I can’t make sense of. It tightens my muscles, labors my breath, and I slowly run my fingers through my hair, then splay my hand on her headrest.

I don’t want her to move away from me.

She’s going to shift first, I think.

I’m more surprised when she doesn’t. “But thanks,” she adds, glancing at her phone, then up at me. “And you shouldn’t be that worried. I passed my psych eval, remember?”

Yeah, everyone on the team had to take them after the incident. “Donnelly also passed, and we all know he should’ve failed.” He was the one who found Luna that night after she was kidnapped by his own cousins. If it’d fuck anyone up—it’d be him. There’s a major rumor that he might’ve lied to pass the test.

“I told the truth during the eval,” she assures me. “Did you?”

“Yeah.”

We both nod together, acknowledging we’re “fit for duty” but I don’t think this strain is all about work. I’m sitting close to her. I’m bowed towards her. Her breath sounds shallow, and heat builds in my chest. Then her phone pings, and I catch a glance at the screen.

You’re soooo popular!

She must’ve turned her notifications back on. I stiffen, especially as she makes a quick exit from the car, and I can’t say anything fast enough to stop her.

My stomach tries to rise to my throat. All the way into the lobby with Luna and Donnelly. Forget it. I’m trying. We’re seconds from heading to the elevators when Frog’s eyes go desirous like she’s window shopping on Christmas morning.

“Anyone want a Starbucks?” she asks.

“Wawa was right around the corner, Froggy,” Donnelly reminds her.

“Yes, but Starbucks is literally right here.” Frog jabs a thumb to her right. She doesn’t tell Donnelly her big, dark secret because the guy has a literal Wawa logo tattooed on him. He might self-combust if he hears she hates Wawa’s coffee.

She told me it tasted like the burnt ends of toast.

“Starbucks does have that new galaxy iced brew,” Luna says, rocking on her heels. She’s a lot less pale and clammy. “I think they make it with green coffee beans.”

Donnelly has an arm over her shoulder. “They make this drink in your honor?”

“Uh-uh. For the bean-lings. Born of the green bean.”

“Little green guys? Think I’ve seen ‘em somewhere.”

“Bean Land.”

Frog has a sentimental smile like she’s watching The Notebook. Then she slips me a know-it-all look and whispers, “That is true love, Quinn. You can suck it.”

I smile a little at her. “Suck what? You don’t have a cock, Kannika.”

She starts to flush, then shoves my arm. “I’m not telling you to suck my clit.”

I sling my head back, a groan scratching its way out of my throat. This girl. She’s going to kill me. When I look back at her, she’s spun away from me.

“One galaxy iced brew!” Frog calls out, capturing Luna and Donnelly’s attention. She jots the request on her phone, then eyes me while I bury the torment in my chest. “Quinn?”

“Nothing for me.”

“One drip coffee,” she says as she types.

“Oh, so you didn’t hear me?”

“I did, but I interpreted it,” she tells me. I roll my eyes, then feel my lips trying to rise. What the fuck is wrong with me? She spins to Donnelly. “And you?”

“I’m good,” he says.

She pockets her phone.

“So Donnelly doesn’t need an interpreter?” I ask.

“If he does, I’m not any good at it. You’d have to try Luna.”

Luna touches her fingers to her temples in deep thought. “He said, No coffee. No lies.”

Donnelly smiles wide. “Knew she spoke my language.” He leans into her for a kiss, and I look away because that’s Luna and because Kannika is already on the fucking move. She’s hightailing it into the long Starbucks line.

“Is everything okay with her?” Luna asks, and it takes me a second to realize she’s asking me.

“Yeah, why?”

“I don’t know…” She shrugs. “I just asked if there’s anything new going on in her life and if she’s dating again, but she kind of…got quiet.” Luna shakes her head and makes a cringed face. “I know it’s probably more of a me thing with the memory issue and all. But I just want to make sure everything is okay at least.”

Luna and Frog have a complicated history. Some bodyguards form real friendships being at a client’s side day-in, day-out. Luna and Frog were friends, and to neither’s fault, that friendship just disintegrated overnight when Luna lost her memories. I can’t imagine what it’d take to rebuild it. If it’s even something Frog wants, I don’t know, but Frog mentioned she planned on telling Luna about the whole losing her virginity thing at Eliot’s party. I’m not about to spoil the news.   

“As far as I know, everything is okay,” I assure.

Donnelly is great at keeping a secret; he reveals nothing on his face.

“I’ll go wait in line with Frog,” Luna tells us, then hop-skips away to be with her bodyguard.

I scope out the lobby for a quick second, making sure no one is recording us or lurking too close. For the most part, people mind their own business. Most of the tenants of this building (not all) are too rich and important to really give a shit about some famous twentysomethings.

Donnelly is focused on the revolving doors. “We’ve got company.”

I see Ian Wreath carrying a canvas tote as he approaches us. Great. The Epsilon lead. He raises a hand in greeting.

“Hey, neighbors,” Ian says, friendly enough. “I’m looking for Frog.”

“Why?” I ask with too much heat.

Ian stiffens, then casts a sharp look to Donnelly like what’s up Quinn’s ass? To be honest, I’m surprised he doesn’t come right out and say it to my face. But maybe he’s trying to calm the rough waters between Epsilon and Omega.

Donnelly just shrugs innocently at Ian.

Then Ian holds up the canvas tote to me. “Mail duty. We rotate every week, and now that you three are in New York, you’re added to the rotation. There’s about four more of these. It might take all night.”

Fantastic. Nothing better than scrubbing through nasty fan mail. Luna’s admirers can range from sweet girls who love her fanfics to creepy men who have a thing for her mom and subsequently sexualize her. There’s something unsettling about Frog having to handle some old man’s soiled underwear…even with gloves.

More than that, Ian is choosing today—the night of Eliot’s birthday party—to occupy her with grunt work so she can’t go. It’s bullshit.

“I’ll do it.” I reach for the tote.

He doesn’t give it to me. “Is your name Frog?”

I glower. “Come on. I’m volunteering.”

“Nice of you to volunteer, but she needs to put in the hours like the rest of us. She can’t keep getting training wheels and extra help for the rest of her career.”

Donnelly cuts in, “Quinnie’s just being a team player. He’d do it for any of us.”

“Exactly.”

Ian sizes me up. “Then how about mail duty for the next month?”

I keep intense eye contact. Fuck. Him. “Sure.”

He pushes the tote bag into my chest. “Thanks for being a team player, Oliveira. You’re already turning out better than your brother.”

Didn’t need that dig.

“Oliveira brothers are the best brother duo,” Donnelly says to Ian. “If you’re competing and all for that prize, just thought you should know.”

Ian seems on edge. “It’s not a competition.” It’s like he’s reminding himself.

We’re all supposed to be together. One team. One purpose.

I just can’t see how this will end in harmony.

 Thank you for reading this month's chapter from Frog & Quinn! It picks up right where chapter 4 left off. We also loved showing more glimpses of the out-of-this-world couple, Luna and Donnelly!

There's another chapter coming this month from Frog & Quinn. Thank you all for sticking around for their story while we're in between series. We're so very grateful for your patronage. 💗

xoxo Krista & Becca

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