The Frog Prince Read Online Free PDF

going from bad to worse . I've met guys like this before, guys who always got jilted at the dances in middle and high school, and spend the rest of their lives trying to boost their self-esteem by dragging blue-haired old ladies around the dance floor in the foxtrot. Somehow though, I can't imagine Roman as the jilted high school dance partner. Also, the people in the restaurant don't really seem the foxtrot type. In fact, I am willing to bet that there would be open hostility towards anyone who started any foxtrotting funny business here. The place is just too hip.
    “Dancing is such great exercise,” I say vaguely, not because I'm not interested in his hobby, but because it's too soon in our potential relationship to find out that he is some sort of waltzing aficionado. It doesn't take much to kill interest in the early stages. I take a few deep breaths while I pretend to peruse the menu, and try to shift the conversation to a different topic. “Kat told me that you went to law school at DU, but that you’re not an attorney. What do you do?”
    I know before he answers that he isn't going to say “Crown Prince of Austria,” a winning hand I would throw down every day and twice on Sundays.
    “I build tree houses,” says Roman.
    I find that I have no response to this response. What can you say about a person who spends four years on a degree at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, only to toss it in a drawer somewhere so they can go out and slap together swing sets? I think I'm supposed to be intrigued by his answer, but I actually feel sort of embarrassed for him.
    “Christine says you’re some kind of researcher?" he says, casually tossing the laminated menu to the edge of the table, “As in human research? Animal research?”
    Uh-oh. Now I have to be careful. “Actually, I'm a PRA—a professional research assistant,” I say. “I work for a company that does human biological and psychological research.”
    “Like finding out if people prefer Coke over Pepsi?”
    I smile. “No, that’s marketing research.”
    “Any new, exciting discoveries made of late?” he says.
    Luckily our server appears, so I am spared from telling him that the research we do is all related to human sexuality, and that our latest study found that women with clitorises an inch or more away from their vaginal openings did not desire or enjoy sex like their close-proximity peers. The findings had every female employee squatting on their bathroom floor with a Stanley tape measure in one hand and a compact mirror in the other. It turns out that collecting this type of biometric data on yourself is surprisingly difficult.
    According to what I’ve been told.
    “Hey, Roman,” says the tattooed and pierced server before us. A port wine stain birthmark covers a portion of her right cheek, but she has cleverly deflected attention from it by loading up the rest of her face–eyebrows, lips, nose, chin–with silver, gold, and diamond piercings. Also, there are O-shaped earrings in her earlobes that have stretched out a hole large enough for a circus lion to jump through. I resist the urge to reach out and poke my finger through one of the holes. “Shea wants you,” she says.
    Roman groans. “I'm having lunch! Tell her I’m on a date.”
    “Doug didn’t show up,” she says. “She's got about twenty-five couples up there and says she's going to be forced to do the ‘dancing with myself’ routine again if you don’t help. She says there’s two hundred dollars in it for you... one hour of your time, and she’ll let you personally castrate Doug yourself.”
    Roman sighs and looks across the table at me. “Leigh, do you mind if we eat upstairs? I’ll help Shea really quick and then we can eat our food at the bar up there and pick up where we left off.”
    Since I am bewildered about who Shea is, why she needs help, or how Roman intends to provide this help, I say, “Sure, no problem.”
    “Great!” He turns to