A Lie I Can Live With

The sixth profile caught his eye. What a handsome man, and what a smile! That picture must be a photo manipulation, and a good one. He'd love to know what program had been used, because nobody really looked like that in real life, did they? Otis snorted. Probably a model's picture yanked off the Internet. He knew from personal experience that site members did that.

"Garret, gay male, twenty-eight, professional, independent, and looking for a 'geeky bear of my very own,'" Otis read aloud. The profile went on to say that "Garret" also had a thing for guys with old-fashioned names and believed computer nerds were hot. This had to be a joke, right? Had Barry made up this profile to give false hope? Otis discounted that theory immediately. From what he'd seen so far, Barry was on the up and up.

He clicked on Garret's "Hobbies" folder. "Loves Buffaloes football," he read aloud. I wonder if he feels as bummed out as I do right now. He kept reading, "Enjoys fishing, long walks, and working out." Otis looked down at his belly, mood dropping. "There's something we don't have in common."

When he reached the "Interests" folder, his spirits lifted, seeing that Garret loved international cuisine. "I could hook you up with some authentic Italian food," he told the smiling image onscreen.

"I suck at cooking," Garret's About me, blurb stated.

"Got ya covered," Otis remarked.

He stared at the profile again, purposefully diverting his eyes from the picture. In terms of their common interests, they were a match made in cyber-heaven. Too bad the guy was an Adonis and Otis was Shamu.

What would Garret think if Otis were to contact him? Would he even bother to read the profile and see their similarities before clicking "not interested?" For a moment Otis contemplated resurrecting Vincent. "Don't you dare!" his conscience shouted, sounding amazingly like Barry. With a here goes nothing attitude, Otis clicked the button that sent Garret a simple message: "Hey there!"