Early in the afternoon on Saturday, I and a few other volunteers were busy with our chores at the animal shelter and boarding house. I was in the middle of cleaning out some of the cages when Sheldon Svenson—who ran the place—came over to stand near where I worked.
“Hey, Barry. How’s it going today?”
Sheldon was my height, with a wider build—tall and brawny. He was quite good-looking and confident—the polar opposite of me. If I were in the market for a guy to date, Sheldon, with his white-blond hair and pale blue eyes, would have been at the top of the list. But I knew better than to indulge in wishful thinking. I was sure he had his choice of partners, especially since I’d heard through the grapevine that he’d broken up with his longtime boyfriend, Taye. Most of the male volunteers want
