[QCrit] FRIENDLY MATCH - queer contemporary romance (88k, First Attempt)

Every lurker's dream is when the time to post comes. I'm equally excited and terrified!

I know this runs a bit long, but I've come to a point where I've revised so much I can't tell what's essential to keep or easy to cut anymore. Anyway, here we go! Appreciate any and all feedback :)

Dear [NAME],

[Personalization] FRIENDLY MATCH is a dual-POV queer contemporary romance in which a chronically awkward tech genius enlists his lifelong best friend to test a rival dating app during a last-minute trip to Brazil. It's Elena Armas' The American Roommate Experiment meets Helen Hoang's The Kiss Quotient, in the summery, yearning vein of Carley Fortune. A standalone with potential of an interconnected series, complete at 88,000 words, FRIENDLY MATCH will be loved by fans of The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun, and It Had To Be Him by Adib Khorran.

Numbers don’t lie: America's best dating app is untouchable, and Nick Morgan, certified nerd and full-time overthinker, is the brain behind it. (Sort of. He's the guy who exterminates glitches and bugs.) When a new competitor threatens the app’s #1 spot, Nick gets a shot at stepping out from the backstage to join the cool team building the next matchmaking model.

Nick's qualifications to optimize romance are almost impeccable: Computer genius? Yes. Dating experience? Nonexistent. To fill the skin-in-the-game gap and land the promotion, he decides to complete the competitor's real-life prompts and date challenges with his best friend and roommate (and actual dating expert) Renan Moraes. The probability of them falling in love after nineteen years is 0.01%.

Renan is a serial-hugger soccer coach. Leaving Brazil was a goal worth scoring, but loving both places also means neither will ever feel entirely like home. So when a drunk birthday wish has him dragging Nick to spend the holidays with his boisterous family, he gets a glimpse of what having the best of both worlds looks like. He doesn’t hesitate to participate in yet another of Nick’s quirky work schemes: the outdoor fake dates are the perfect opportunity to make his workaholic friend slow down and fall a little in love with Brazil. (Just Brazil. Obviously.)

Through bright beach days, loud and sticky nights, a sunscreen-scented Christmas, and New Year's fireworks over the ocean, the temptation to strip boundaries and swim trunks sweeps like a rip current. Nick, who’s long accepted he's wired wrong for relationships, wonders if the rival app is just that good at manufacturing chemistry or if the sparks were there all along. Renan, however, doesn't have the same issue—he's always known exactly how he feels. And the rip current wins.

Caught between Nick's once-in-a-career opportunity and Ren's brimming dream of making a home where he's truly happy, they must decide if their long-overdue love story is endgame, or if the trip was just a delicious final chapter of a childhood friendship they're meant to outgrow.

I'm a Brazilian immigrant living in [redacted for reddit] with my grumpy-and-sunshine dog duo. When I’m not daydreaming about slow burns, I’m slowly burning sourdough bread, book-binding my favorite fanfiction works, or yelling at the TV when my soccer team is playing.

And the first 300 words:

PROLOGUE (RENAN)

Green. The first word I learned in English.

It’s all I see, staring at the ocean. Shades of teal shimmer with the sun, but fade to a foamy aquamarine closer to the shore, where waves crash.

They don’t care so much about futebol there, I tell the water that swells by my ankles. Football is a completely different thing. What do the American boys even do in the afternoon after school?

The swash pulls back in a lengthy complaint, leaving me with my warped reflection on the shaken sand.

Then I talk about the exciting things. Yellow school buses and peanut butter and snow. The tide rises lazily this time, licking at my toes before retreating.

I think of the American boys again. I wonder if we’ll bond over other sports or do homework together. Maybe one of them will look like Milo from Atlantis.

I glance around, hoping no one is close enough to read my mind or see the heat blooming on my face. The breeze ruffles my hair and whistles in my ear.

I’ll miss talking to you, I don’t say out loud. It’s not a goodbye.

Still, something tight stays lodged in my chest, a wanting I can’t name just yet.

So I close my eyes, breathe in the salty mist, and wish for something simple.

One friend. Just one. That’s enough for me.

Mother calls from the dunes. Mom stands next to her, repeating my name in a watery voice.

My eyes are watery too, and the tears taste like seawater. I chuckle. It’s like the ocean and I are made of the same thing.

I’m taking with me the grains of sand that cling to the fine hairs that started growing on my shins. The golden on my skin will fade, but the infinite brightness of this water will remain seared into the back of my mind.

I look back one last time.

My beautiful ocean that isn’t blue.

Green.

Some rambling: yes, a dreaded prologue. I've seen these being added when the core and vibes of the story take place in a completely different location in some similar romances. The prologue is just that, by the way, 300 words total, then the first chapter starts at a nightclub in NYC during winter. Is the word PROLOGUE a death sentence on its own, or am I overthinking this?

Again, appreciate anyone who has read this far!