Matching Green Oceans
M/M lifelong friends-to-lovers romcom set in the Brazilian summer.
- dual POV
- standalone
- demi MC
- Latino MC
- idiots to lovers
- found family
- yearning
ENDGAME.EXE
MATCHING GREEN OCEANS v1.0
© CAROLINA ALENCAR
> loading sunscreen.sys ......... OK
> mounting /brazil/paraíso ...... OK
> syncing 19 years of pining ... OK
> scanning for feelings ....... 0.01% found
> READY▊
❋ new player nearby ❋
swipe or choose
To reverse-engineer the dating app threatening his career, a demisexual overthinker must play through its five curated dates with his lifelong best friend…only to discover the one bug they can’t fix is nineteen years of buried feelings.
shelf_buddies :: online (6)
- The Charm OffensiveAlison Cochrun
- Winging It With YouChip Pons
- It Had to Be HimAdib Khorram
- The BroposalSonora Reyes
- Red, White & Royal BlueCasey McQuiston
- Heated RivalryRachel Reid
Nicholas Morgan · 30 · New York, NY
class: bug exterminator @ America’s #1 dating app (sort of)
type: demisexual — a working hypothesis he’s never had the chance to test
- Hurricane Naming System — catalogs Ren’s flings alphabetically. For science.
- Note Dump — voice-memos his feelings. Never presses play.
- Held item — a Pikachu keychain from his 13th birthday. It never leaves his bag.
overthinking
sunscreen discipline
dancing (public)
dancing (folding laundry)
Renan Moraes · 30 · New York → Paraíso, BR
class: soccer coach (it’s futebol, thank you)
type: serial hugger · life of every party · raised between two countries
- Caipirinha Craft — Nicky’s comes with two extra spoons of sugar and half the alcohol.
- Golden Retriever Energy — will drag you outside. You will thank him.
- Two Worlds — two moms, two languages, one home he stopped being able to name.
charm
hugging range
fear of turning 30
odds of catching feelings (self-reported)0.01%
Full-time overthinker Nick Morgan is the brain behind America’s best dating app. (Sort of. He’s just the guy who exterminates bugs and glitches.) When a new competitor threatens their top spot by promising love beyond the algorithm with curated dates, predefined prompts, and steamy challenges, Nick is considered for a promotion to build something better…
except he has no romantic experience to draw ideas from.
Enter lifelong best friend and roommate (and actual seasoned dater) Renan Moraes. A serial-hugger and soccer coach raised between two countries, he’s long forgotten what home feels like — until Nick joins his boisterous Brazilian family for the holidays, his two worlds colliding for the first time. He doesn’t hesitate when Nick asks him to do the date trials of the competitor’s app. After all, it’s Renan’s best shot at getting his workaholic platonic husband to slow down, go outside, and fall a little in love with Brazil.
(Just Brazil, obviously. The probability of their platonic marriage of sorts becoming something more after nineteen years is 0.01%.)
With five dates spanning languid beach days and sticky nights between Christmas and New Year’s, Nick is (almost) sure the temptation to strip away both boundaries and swim trunks is an illusion manufactured by the app. Renan, however, has always known exactly how he feels.
The souvenir they bring home is an unlabeled new relationship — and caught between Nick’s once-in-a-career opportunity and Ren’s reawakened dream of moving back to Brazil, they must confront whether the trip was the final chapter of a friendship meant to be outgrown, or if their long-overdue endgame is worth playing for.
- childhood friends → roommates → whatever the f*ck this is
- fake-dating for “research”
- idiots in love (19 years & counting)
- demi/ace protagonist
- it’s December but it’s summer
- it’s futebol, not soccer (a love letter to Brazil)
- Pokémon cards as a love language
- found family
- NYE fireworks over the ocean
- in his head they’re already married
- “You’re enough, Nicky”
- “I’m sure of you, Ren”
- dating apps suck
- ✈People We Meet on Vacation, but make it gay and Latinxmembers: 2
- ⌂“will you come to the cottage” — and it’s only the beginning of the bookmembers: everyone who knows
- ☼Love, Rosie minus the angst · Our Perfect Storm believersmembers: 2,847
- ♥everyone knows they’re dating except for themmembers: the whole town
sunny + mr.midnight — chat.log
sunny: It says, Casual Date. So I’m taking you on a date. Outside, that is.
mr.midnight: Ren, we don’t have time for that!
sunny: Stop whining.
mr.midnight: “I’m not whining!” he whines.
sunny: One hour. Don’t be late to our first date.
nick_internal_monologue.txt
Ren’s flings should have a naming system. Like hurricanes. If last week was Kevin and before that was Jordan, this guy’s name should start with an L. But I’m not enough of a risk-taker to just guess.
★ ★ ★ PLAYER STATS ★ ★ ★
- title
- MATCHING GREEN OCEANS
- genre
- adult contemporary romance
- pov
- dual · first person
- map
- New York City → Paraíso, Brazil
- season
- Christmas → New Year’s
- word count
- 86,000 words
- mode
- standalone
- ending
- HEA — guaranteed ♥
GAME OVER?
the real story starts offline.
MATCHING GREEN OCEANS
thank you for playing ♥