Jamie frowned. “You did what? Did you put something out there live? And where the hell did you get photos of me? Did you add photos? Fuck, Caleb…”
Shaking his head, Caleb said, “Even I’m not low enough to post photos without asking. I just put together a basic profile with some tantalizing tidbits about you. It’s called cityfox3.
Breathing easier, Jamie said, “Well, I guess there is that. You didn’t totally violate my privacy. Why are you so determined that I need to be with a guy anyway. Do you need a double date with Donny or something?”
Caleb hauled himself out of the chair with the bottle in one hand. He stepped over to Jamie and asked, “Finished with that?”
Jamie handed over the bottle, and Caleb continued to talk as he made his way to the kitchen. He said, “I just think you should stop being so gloomy. For the last month or so, it’s like those eyes keep sinking deeper into your head. I’ll be talking to a skull one of these days.” Caleb pulled open the fridge and asked, “Do you want another?”
“No, I’m fine. I really don’t think I’m that gloomy, but I am a little pissed from time to time about how that asshole Sutter treats Hailey at work. Have you ever seen that? I’m serious. It’s borderline harassment lawsuit shit.”
“But she’s not even directly in your unit,” said Caleb as he pulled one beer for himself from the fridge and flipped open the top. He carried it with him back to the living room slowly sipping at it.
“Still, shit, Caleb, it’s wrong. I don’t have to be in her unit. She’s smart, and she’s actually a nice person. She reminds me a little of my sister Christy. Assholes prey too easily on women like Hailey.”
Caleb nodded, and his expression changed to a more serious tone. He said, “Yeah, I can see how that might get you down. Are you going to do anything about it?”
Jamie said, “I went to lunch with Hailey a couple of days before our trip to Belgium. We’ve been friends since she gave me that last boost over the wall in that damn obstacle course thing at the company retreat. So I check in with her, and we have lunch maybe once a month. Lunch was all light and fluffy until suddenly she unloaded about all the shit at work for her.”
“Damn, that sounds rough,” said Caleb.
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, and I agreed to just sort of show up on her floor and pretended like I had to talk to one of her co-workers. I saw some of his shit in action. He didn’t actually grab her, but the comments turned my stomach.”
Caleb rubbed the stubble on his chin and closed his eyes for a moment thinking about a response. Then he said, “This might be exactly why you need to find a guy, Jamie. He can take your mind off the work stress, and, if he’s a good one, he can listen to the work crap and nod with a sympathetic smile, too.”
“That’s what Donny does?”
“I didn’t say Donny is necessarily a good one.” Caleb paused and then grinned as he said, “Except in bed.”
* * *
As much as he hated to ever say that Caleb was right about much of anything, Jamie wondered if he was right about looking for that special guy. It frustrated him that Caleb jumped ahead and created a profile. It felt like something very private, but if there was no photo attached, he guessed that the profile could just be anyone so no privacy lines had been breached.
It was 10:00 p.m. already, and Jamie was exhausted even though it was a Friday night, but he was too curious about what Caleb included in the profile to just go to bed. Instead, he sat at his desktop computer and fired up his browser to log into Men2Date. He looked at the profile and password that Caleb scrawled on the back of an old restaurant receipt.
Reading cityfox3 again, Jamie grinned. That wasn’t such a bad profile name. Then he looked at the listing itself. He reached up and clutched at his chest as he read. Jamie’s buddy Caleb made him look like a genuinely good guy. The profile mentioned a solid job, said that he was a guy to depend on, and the words were subtle about his looks. Then it said that cityfox3 had the, “Open heart of a small-town boy.” For a moment, Jamie’s stomach clenched. It didn’t take much to make him miss some aspects of Catlett’s Cove, but he couldn’t imagine ever going back.
Jamie noticed a message flashing at the top of the screen that said, “Profiles with photos get ten times as many responses.” He shrugged as he looked at it and decided it wouldn’t hurt to upload a photo. Jamie was told by many people that his appearance was one of his greatest assets. He pulled a profile photo out of his Facebook account and attached it to cityfox3.
Jamie decided that it was enough fiddling around with the dating rat race for the night. He could wait until morning to check for any responses.
After shutting down the computer, Jamie did his usual circuit around the apartment to make sure everything was picked up and put back where it belonged. His mother’s words, “It stays neat and tidy if you put everything back where you got it,” echoed in his head. Christy always said he was ridiculously meticulous about how he kept his place, but Jamie liked clean and tidy. It relaxed him.
Jamie stared out his living room window and saw the lights of the city below. His building wasn’t the most expensive in the city, but it was a desirable location. He turned to the coffee table and re-arranged the collection of five magazines. He moved the interior design title to the top of the stack. Jamie liked having reading material available for any visitors, and he liked odd numbers in displays.
Confident that everything was in its proper place, Jamie retreated to the bedroom. It was his haven away from anything else disruptive in the world. When he moved in, Jamie repainted the bedroom walls to a soothing pale blue-gray, and he let a white noise machine run at a low level day and night to shut out the sounds of the rest of the world. He slowly stripped out of his clothes and neatly folded the shirt and jeans over the back of a chair while depositing underwear and socks in the hamper in the closet. Less than five minutes after his head hit the pillow, Jamie was asleep.
* * *
Saturdays were made for sleeping in. Jamie woke up the first time at 7:00 a.m., glanced at his phone on the nightstand, and promptly rolled over to go back to sleep. At 8:30, he climbed out of bed, visited the bathroom, stared bleary-eyed at himself in the mirror, and then headed back to bed. Finally, about 9:30, he hauled himself out of bed to face the day.
While taking his first sip of coffee for the morning, Jamie suddenly remembered the Men2Date site and the fact that he added a photo of himself the night before. Clad only in a pair of boxers, Jamie made his way to the desktop computer with a full mug of black coffee in his hand.
Cursing himself that he was so eager to see if anyone noticed, he pulled up the site. With a sigh, Jamie paged through the three profiles who “liked” him only to see that they were far off the mark. One lived halfway across the country, and another had just turned 19.
Jamie leaned back in his desk chair and took two more sips of the coffee. He decided that he could put some effort into being a little bit more proactive. Leaning forward over the computer keyboard once again, he looked for profiles within a one hundred mile radius. The site helpfully organized the results by community. Jamie blinked twice when he saw Catlett’s Cove, his hometown, pop up.
The profile title read smalltownappguy, and he was cute. No, in fact, he was adorable. He wore big-framed black glasses, coal black hair swept up off his forehead, and he had a killer smile. Jamie had a natural weakness for the geeky look, and smalltownappguy matched the script perfectly.
Jamie read the profile, and it was peppered with self-deprecating humor backed by what sounded like a warm and fuzzy core. After scrolling back and forth between the photo and the profile text at least five times, Jamie took a deep breath and decided to type a reply.
He said out loud to himself, “I have no clue what to write.”
In the end, the message simply said:
I like your profile. Drop me a line if you would like to get to know each other better.
After hitting the “submit” button, Jamie leaned back in his chair and to
ok a deep breath. He then sipped at his coffee and stared at the screen. Obviously he needed to figure out something else to do to avoid staring at the screen for hours waiting for a response.
4
Aaron
Aaron left Christy’s apartment with a smile on his face. She encouraged him to stay for lunch, but he knew that she didn’t have much room in her budget to feed anyone else other than Sylvia. After reading five books to Sylvia, Aaron stood and said, “I’ll take a rain check on lunch. Unfortunately, I’ve got some work to do that won’t wait.”
Christy asked, “What work are you doing on a Saturday morning?”
He smiled and said, “It’s that new app that I’m working on. It’s really coming along, too, Christy. I know there is a lot of competition, but this is going to be perfect. If the right people see it, then it’s really going to take off.”
“What does it do again?” asked Christy.
Aaron said, “It’s a photo thing. It knows where you are, and when you are close to something where people have taken a lot of photos of whatever it is or a lot of selfies, it lets you know. Then it works seamlessly with your camera.”
“That sounds fun,” said Christy.
Sylvia tugged on the leg of his jeans. “Will you take my picture, Mr. Austin?”
Aaron smile and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He said, “Let’s see your best smile, Sylvia.”
She grinned from ear to ear, and Aaron snapped a photo. Christy said, “You’d better send me that when you get home.”
Aaron said, “Of course I will. Now I gotta run.” He gave Christy a quick hug, and then he lifted Sylvia off the floor and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you both soon.” He turned his gaze directly to Sylvia and said, “And you have fun sitting on that new couch, but no jumping, okay?”
Sylvia sighed and held her hands behind her back. “Okay, Mr. Austin.”
As he exited through the front door, Aaron was all smiles. In the relatively short time he lived with them in the same apartment building, Christy and Sylvia had become like family. Aaron loved their company, and he wanted to protect them from anyone or anything that might cause them harm.
Upon re-entering his own apartment, the only thing Aaron could think of was Christy’s brother Jamie and the dating site. He wanted to see the handsome face again, and he knew that he needed to decide sooner or later whether to leave a message.
Sitting at his desk, Aaron was surprised to see Men2Date telling him that he had a response. He was even more surprised when he saw that it was a message from Jamie. Aaron felt goosebumps rise on his forearms as he stared at the photo. The message was simple and to the point about getting to know each other better.
Obviously, Jamie saw something that he liked. Aaron smiled and read the profile over for the tenth time. The only thing he didn’t like was the talk of a stressful job, but he thought that could be negotiated. After all, Thomas, one of his best friends, was a veterinarian, and he was finding plenty of time for his relationship with Hadley.
Aaron rubbed his hands on his jeans. He thought that Jamie must be a reasonably nice guy. He was Christy’s brother, and she was great. He was Sylvia’s uncle, and she was a sweetheart.
Feeling like he was diving off a cliff in Acapulco with confidence that the water was below to catch his fall, Aaron decided to send a message back. He couldn’t think of anything eloquent to say, so he decided to keep everything simple. Aaron typed back:
I like yours too. I’m Aaron, and of course I’d like to get to know you better. You’re not that far away, and I love to visit the city.
After he sent the message, Aaron wondered whether he should reveal his connection to Christy in the interest of openness. When he thought through all of the possibilities, he decided that keeping it quiet for now was a reasonable strategy. He decided if they hit it off, the information would be shared soon enough. If they didn’t like each other, then they just might avoid the awkwardness that would come from both having an ongoing connection with Christy and Sylvia.
Aaron checked his e-mail. He had a message from his friend Derek asking if he wanted to join Derek and Yale for dinner out and a movie. Derek, Yale, and Thomas were all part of a group of friends from high school. All of the friends were gay or lesbian and adopted the name Purple Pack to express pride and defend each other from bullying through strength in numbers. Derek and Yale were best friends for years and only recently decided to date. Aaron hoped that someday he would find someone who was as good of a match as Derek and Yale seemed to be for each other.
Aaron rarely turned down invitations from his friends. He was the reliable one, and he was the one that was almost always in a good mood and ready with words of advice if they were wanted. Now he was starting to worry just a little bit about being a third wheel to all of his friends.
Emma and Jane, the female contingent of the Purple Pack, claimed that they fell in love in kindergarten and never looked back. Thomas recently returned to Catlett’s Cove to take over a veterinarian practice, and he found a boyfriend, Hadley, within weeks. Now Derek and Yale finally sorted things out, and that just left Aaron. He peeked one more time at the photo of Jamie and crossed his fingers.
To try and make the time waiting for a response go by more quickly, Aaron closed down his web browser and opened the tools for working on his app. He still had a lot of hours of coding left, but he could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Aaron authored apps in the past, but they were always collaborations, and they were small single-task features for the workplace. This was the project that he hoped would kick his solo career into high gear. If he didn’t stop himself, Aaron could quickly send his dreams off into the stratosphere imagining living in a cliffside house in a California canyon. It was not difficult to see himself as the next digital billionaire.
Five minutes later, Aaron was stuck. He stared at the screen and wracked his brain for a few moments before deciding that perhaps a nice hot shower would soothe any soreness from the couch-moving project and help his thinking about the app.
The bathroom was one of the things that Aaron didn’t particularly like about his apartment. The bathtub felt narrow, and it wasn’t long either. As a tall, thin man with the wingspan of an albatross, Aaron didn’t find it the most comfortable of showering or bathing arrangements.
Despite that fact, the water pressure was strong, and the hot water felt good pounding on his bare back and rolling down his chest. Aaron soaped up his body and shampooed his thick, black, wavy hair. Closing his eyes, he had a mental flash imagining what Jamie might look like naked in the shower. It was a pleasing thought, but Aaron knew that it was all wild speculation except for Jamie’s face. Those lips were real, and they looked ready to be kissed.
Toweling off in front of the large bathroom mirror, Aaron thought that his year-long personal project of self-affirmation yielded positive results. Along with his geeky interests, Aaron was awkward and withdrawn through most of high school and college. He had his close friends in the Purple Pack, but he found introducing himself and speaking to others a painful experience.
Two years back Emma offered him a small pile of books to be studied. At first he wondered if he should feel offended, but then she explained that Jane had some of the same issues. Jane eagerly endorsed working daily on affirmations and focusing on a positive self-concept.
Once he decided that it was worth pursuing, Aaron dove headfirst into the project. He was still not to be mistaken for an extrovert, but at least Aaron thought he could say hello to Jamie in person and not be paralyzed by fear.
Aaron picked his glasses up off the bathroom counter and then stared into the mirror. He smiled. He liked his smile. It looked warm, and he thought his eyes barely concealed a friendly sense of humor. A man like Jamie could do a lot worse than Aaron.
When he returned to the computer, Aaron found an answer from Jamie. The new message shared a few more tidbits about Jamie’s work and his life in the city. Jamie mentioned growing up in
Catlett’s Cove. He posted a view out his living room window. It was a stunning vista of the city below. Aaron’s fingers began to shake slightly, but he sent a quick message back. He asked Jamie where he lived in Catlett’s Cove.
They were three years apart in high school, and Jamie grew up on the opposite side of town. It was no longer a surprise to Aaron that they didn’t know each other.
The messages began to fly back and forth through the Men2Date site, and two hours later, Aaron’s stomach started to growl. He realized that he missed lunch, and he was needing a break from staring at the computer screen. He excused himself and drove the three quarters of a mile to the nearest fast food restaurant for a quick bite to eat.
It didn’t take long for Aaron to dive back into the conversation with Jamie. They spent three hours exchanging messages that evening, and they set up a time to connect again on Sunday afternoon. In preparation, Aaron drove around Catlett’s Cove snapping a few current photos of his favorite places. When they exchanged messages on Sunday, Jamie shared more from his neighborhood in the city.
Aaron wondered if his obsession with talking to Jamie was what it felt like falling in love. All of his previous relationships moved from one date to the next with maybe a phone call or two in between. None of those relationships lasted longer than ten weeks. Aaron felt like he knew more about Jamie already than he knew about most of the people he dated in the past after a month.
At work on Monday, when he was certain that no one was lurking around to follow the activity at his desk, Aaron pulled up Men2Date on his cell phone. He instantly received a message from Jamie. It read:
Hey, sexy. I wondered when you were going to log in.
Aaron responded:
I’m at work.
Jamie said:
I am, too, but nobody is paying attention. I’m pretty independent at work.
The Experiment Page 3
