January

Gabriel Cooper-Anderson stared across the table at his adversary, his game face firmly in place. His adversary stared deep into his eyes, unruffled.

“You’re saying there is no one in the greater Baltimore area who would rock your world. Not one person I could find to fix you up with?” Gabriel demanded.

“More or less. Many have tried, many have failed," responded his stubborn opponent.

“Will, look at you. How hard can it be? Your face is like a young, pretty-boy Rob Lowe got knocked up by a smoldering Henry Cavill, but you have even fancier eyes and edgier eyebrows. Do criminals not just turn themselves in to you voluntarily?”

Will Adams, detective in the Baltimore Special Victims Unit, shrugged. “Only very rarely, and the criminals who do generally aren’t my type. Thanks for the edgy eyebrow compliment, though. I now plan to go home and stare at them in a lighted mirror for the rest of the evening.”

Gabriel snorted. “I would too, if they were my eyebrows. That’s okay. I have some very sexy eyebrows at home that I can go stare at. So, Will, just in case I want to try to succeed where you have failed, what is your type?”

An amused gleam in his eye, Will countered, "my type is people who don’t tell me about their plans to go home and stare at their husband’s eyebrows because then I have to picture that and I just don’t want to.”

“Well, if that’s the only criterion, then there should be no shortage of candidates. Most people don’t share my fetish for my husband’s eyebrows.”

Now Will snorted. “If only it were that easy. My dating pool is basically a puddle. I don’t date Alphas, I’m not attracted to females, I have dated male Omegas, but mainly I’m only interested in other male Betas, and of those, only the ones who are into guys. So, we’re talking ten percent of twenty-five percent of the population, and that’s if you’re considering all ages, makes, and models. If there’s a hot, gay, male Beta who is also a decent person, is reasonably intelligent, has a good sense of humor, has no horrific political opinions, and who is fairly close to my age that you've been keeping on ice somewhere, then sure. Fix me up with him. Chances are good, however, that we have already met and made up our minds about each other. This isn’t a very big city. Chances are even better that even if we've never met, he doesn’t date other Betas.”

Gabriel gave him a playful scowl and snapped his fingers in Will's general direction a couple of times. “Tsst. Ix-nay on the dark predictions! Have a little faith, I'm not going to bring you some guy who doesn't date Betas! Yeesh, grumpy. Ok. Will doesn’t date Alphas–I get that. I know that song by heart. It’s gotta be hot, nice, smart, funny, gay male Betas for Will. Consider that gauntlet picked up. I like a discerning customer.”

“I'm sorry for being grumpy. It's been a long week and my shitty love life is a sore subject. I honestly don’t know why you’re taking such an interest in this.”

“I’m quirky that way,” replied Gabriel with a sphynx-like smile and the elevation of what Will thought of as an eyebrow that did not deserve to be so easily dismissed.