Single Player (7 page)

Matthew had been working
hard enough this week that he didn't even mind the cavelike darkness of the programming room. He was coding PI Games's newest endeavor, an expansion pack to the space exploration game
Orion
. They hadn't even released
Orion
yet, but Will wanted to have this expansion pack ready to go early, since
Orion
's preorders had already broken most of their internal records and he wanted to capitalize on that success. He had the programming team creating additional levels and characters for the expansion packs, which would give the game more customizable characters. Isabel's design team had already finished the expansion overview, and Caleb's art team was hard at work on design, so Matthew was responsible for overseeing the nitty-gritty programming. In addition to
Orion,
though, Matthew was on the team for
Endgame,
a psychological game that had been one of Will's pet projects. While it seemed like a cool project, it was also going to be a ton of work, so he was procrastinating. They were hoping to preview the game at DiceCon at the end of the month, but he still had some time. Even without
Endgame,
he'd been fairly busy all week, and he couldn't be happier.

It was a good job. More than a good job, honestly. He loved what he did. Something about taking an idea and making it real, coding levels and turning plans into fun, satisfied him on a deep level. He had been feeling pretty low on Sunday night after going through those trophies at his parents' house, but a week of fooling around with
Orion
had alleviated some of that negativity. At least, he'd been busy enough to keep his mind off it. Now it was Friday, with a relaxing weekend stretching out in front of him, and he couldn't help but be in a good mood. Plus, he did lunch out with coworkers every Friday, and that was bound to be fun.

In fact, he was ready for food now, and it was just about lunchtime, so he went to find Isabel.

As usual, she was staring at her screen with a frown on her face. This seemed to be her default Friday position. He leaned on the wall of her cubicle and waited for her to notice him.

Eventually she looked up, pushing her glasses into her hair. “What's up? It can't be lunchtime already.” She checked the clock. “Shit, wow. Time flies when you're test-playing levels.”

“Yup. Ticktock. Time to eat.” He tapped his wrist where a watch would be if anyone actually wore watches anymore.

“Give me just another few minutes to finish this level. I'm almost done.” She tugged the glasses down into place and turned back to her screen. “Go find Phil and Caleb. They both said they wanted to come.” Phil, one of the animators working on Caleb's art team, was always up for Friday lunches. He was more reliable than Isabel in that regard.

“What about Iris? She going to make it?” The HR manager, Iris, had become part of their circle a few months ago. Matthew always enjoyed her conversation and her dry sense of humor that fit right in with the rest of them.

Isabel shook her head, already back to clicking through the level, eyes locked on the screen. “No, she said she's got a project due for art class on Monday and she's using all her free time to get it done.”

Matthew watched Isabel speed through the game, checking the various encounters with a look of complete immersion on her face. He knew that look, and knew she was going to be difficult to pry away.

“Five minutes, Isabel, and no more. I'll carry you away if I have to. You missed last week, and you're not missing this week, too.”

Isabel nodded distractedly, but Matthew wasn't sure she was actually listening to him. He went to round up Caleb and Phil from the art department.

The group did eventually pry Isabel away from her work and go out for lunch. At Phil's suggestion, they ended up at a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall a couple of miles away, which Caleb was quick to question. “I don't generally eat out in strip malls. Are we going to get salmonella?” He made a face as Isabel pulled him out of the backseat and into the parking lot.

“You're fine,” she reassured him. “I've eaten here before.”

“I'm offended, Caleb.” Phil held a hand over his heart. “Do you really think I'd take you somewhere to poison you? I'd just poison you at work instead.”

Caleb laughed. “Yeah, I wouldn't put it past you.”

“If you would stop making me redo my sketches, you wouldn't have to worry about getting poisoned.” Phil gave Caleb a pointed look.

“Okay, you guys, come on.” Isabel wrapped her arm around Caleb's and tugged him away. “You remember the rules. No work talk at Friday lunches.”

“She's right.” Matthew held open the door for them. “We all agreed.”

A short, perky waitress seated them at a booth with a glass-topped table and paper red-and-white placemats with the Chinese zodiac signs on them. Perfect. Matthew had a soft spot for this kind of inauthentic, indulgent Chinese food.

Next to Matthew, Phil rubbed his hands together. “What about DiceCon? We can talk about DiceCon, right? Will just asked me yesterday if I wanted to go, and I want the scoop.” His eagerness made Matthew smile.

“I think DiceCon is exempt from the ‘no talking about work' rule,” Matthew said. “Anything out of state doesn't count.”

The waitress brought them all water, tea and cups, and four oversized menus. “You're going to have a great time, Phil.” Isabel poured them each tea from the metal teapot and opened her menu to browse. It was hard to believe that nearly a year had passed since the last DiceCon, which had been Isabel's first.

“So who all is going?” Phil asked. “Matthew, you're going, right?”

“Sure am. I always go. Will says I'm a ‘good face for the company.' ” Matthew sipped the tea, which was so hot he burned his tongue. He knew “a good face for the company” meant “smart, well-spoken, and also ethnically diverse,” and he was happy for the free trip to Boston every year. He knew Will was fishing for him to take on more responsibility at the company, but he'd dodged that so far.

“No other programmers?” Phil sipped his tea as well. “Damn, that's hot. I burned my tongue.”

“No, it's just me.” Matthew took his next sip more cautiously, slurping a little. “None of the rest of them seem to think that Boston in March is as good as sunny Florida.”

“And you're both going?” Phil looked across the table at Isabel and Caleb.

“Yeah, but Caleb's taking personal time to go. I'll be the only one of us actually working.” Isabel gestured to her boyfriend. “We thought it would be a fun anniversary for us.”

“So who's the fourth team member this time?” Phil asked.

“I think Dan's going to go again.” Matthew had overheard him talking about it. “Isabel, did he say anything to you?” Dan was on Isabel's team, so she was the most likely to know.

Isabel nodded. “Yeah, he said he'd like to go. It's up to Will at this point, though. Phil, how's the crab Rangoon here? Is it mostly crab, or mostly Rangoon?”

“It's mostly Rangoon. I like 'em like that.” Phil scanned the menu. “I'm going with a lunch combo. Those are always good.”

After the waitress took their orders, Isabel folded her hands and gave Matthew a mischievous look. “So, is the DiceCon scavenger hunt back in play this year?”

Matthew laughed, a little uncomfortable. He had been thinking on and off about this bit of debauchery, where the PI Games attendees competed against each other in a scavenger hunt filled with some pretty dirty, scandalous challenges, but strangely enough, all his thoughts had ended up back with Silas and how much more fun debauchery would be with his latest one-night stand. “I don't know. We'll see.” At Phil's questioning look, he waved a hand dismissively. “We can talk about it at DiceCon. Don't worry about it.”

“Hey, Phil, whatever happened with your date last weekend?” Caleb turned his attention across the table. “I totally forgot to ask you.”

“Ooh, you had a date?” Isabel perked up. “Yes, tell us everything.”

“Oh man.” Phil ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “She was so hot. You have no idea. And a total freak. We had a great time, she stayed over, it was un-fucking-believable.”

Matthew shifted to see Phil better. “You gonna see her again?”

“Yeah, I asked her out for tomorrow night, and she said yes. We're going to do minigolf or something. I don't even care, man, as long as it ends up where it did last time.” He shook his head.

“Got any pictures?” Caleb raised his eyebrows.

“Nah, but I'll see if I can take some tomorrow.”

“Clothes on, please.” Isabel held up a hand. “We don't need
all
the details.”

“Clothing optional. Your pick.” Caleb grinned, and Isabel shoved him playfully.

“What about you, Matthew?” Isabel asked. “You seeing anyone?”

The short answer, of course, was no, but he was disappointed to say so. He hadn't heard anything from Silas since putting his number in the guy's phone almost a week ago. That was a clear indicator that no matter how hot the sex had been, they weren't about to start dating.

“Not really.” Matthew refilled his tea, the steam curling in the air above the teacup.

Isabel and Caleb exchanged a look. “That's not a no.” Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Matthew. Out with it.”

Matthew scratched his jaw. “There was this guy last weekend. Things got a little intense at the club, we had a pretty good time.” Understatement of the week. They'd had an
amazing
time. “But I gave him my number and he hasn't called, so . . .” He shrugged. “Guess that's it.”

“Sorry, man.” Caleb gave him a sympathetic smile. “Can't win 'em all, right?”

“Guess not. It's okay, though. He was so uptight.” Matthew grinned at the memory of making Silas come. Silas might have been uptight, but that made it even more fun to watch him fall apart. “The guy's a total workaholic. Needs to loosen up.”

“I'll bet you helped with that, yeah?” Isabel waggled her eyebrows at him.

“Oh my god, don't ever do that again.” Matthew shook his head. “No. Just no.”

Isabel laughed. “Come on, lighten up. DiceCon's in a couple of weeks. You can—how did you put it last year?—score all the Beantown gays? Something like that.”

“Yeah, we'll see.” Matthew looked for a way to change the subject. “Anyway, who has plans for the weekend?”

Matthew half listened as his friends shared their upcoming social calendars, but his mind was on Silas. Honestly, he didn't actually find the idea of a Boston fling nearly as appealing as he would have a few weeks ago. Despite Silas's neuroses, Matthew had been thinking about him a lot all week, including when he'd jerked off over the past few days. It wasn't even necessarily Silas as much as the contradiction he represented. On one hand, he was irritating, reminding Matthew of his own inadequacies and fears of failure. On the other hand, he was intriguing, a decadent temptation that Matthew could lead into sin and depravity. Those kiss-swollen lips, those moans, that carnal response to Matthew's roughness—these were not memories that faded away easily. He hoped time would put enough distance between Matthew and that night, and he could move on.

---

By quitting time that
day, Matthew hadn't completed enough of his work to avoid taking it home over the weekend, damn it, so he packed up his laptop and went right to the Brass Buckle for a coffee and a quiet workspace. If he had to take work out of the office with him, he preferred that it wasn't done at home. The white noise of a coffee shop, the steady flow of food and drink that he didn't have to prepare, all were beneficial to a working environment. He took the booth under the front windows, which he preferred for the natural light still spilling in, and set up with a cup of tea and a large chocolate chip cookie.

The prickle down his spine was the only indicator that something was amiss, but it was enough for him to stop work and look up. Silas was standing just inside the doorway, motionless as if frozen there, staring at him.

The odds of this happening were so bizarre that at first Matthew couldn't even react. Silas looked like he'd just come from work, wearing a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, the nerdy intellectual who was only missing the horn-rims to complete the image. Too bad the image worked so well on him. It had only been a week, but he'd forgotten that Silas was pretty damn hot.

Silas seemed just as stunned as Matthew, but he recovered first, walking over with the expression of a person who just wanted to get something over with. “I'm out of coffee,” he said, as if that would explain everything.

After a moment, Matthew put the pieces together. “I recommended the coffee beans here. That's why you came.” It wasn't some weird sixth sense that had brought them together after all. It was beans. The thought made Matthew smile.