Page 25 of Single Player

“What brings you in on a weekend?” Elliot stepped into the lab, and darn it, this was not going to be a short visit, was it?

“I didn’t finish this yesterday and wanted to get it done.” Silas held up the part he was assembling. He forced himself to reciprocate the question. “What about you?”

“I left my iPad here yesterday by accident.” Elliot held up the tablet. His expression turned to concern. “You know, the building access logs show that you’ve been working here every weekend.”

Silas thought back, then nodded. “That seems right. Is that a problem? I’m on salary, so it’s not like I’m asking for overtime.”

“It’s not a problem, per se, except that I’m worried about you burning out.” Elliot took a seat on the stool next to Silas. “You work long enough hours during the week as it is.”

Silas took a breath to calm himself, surprised by the anger Elliot’s words evoked. He wasn’t usually quick to anger. Annoyance, yes, mild irritation, but not outright anger. “I’m fine,” he said, knowing he sounded terse and not really caring at the moment. “Are you forbidding me from coming in?”

Elliot sighed heavily. “It’s not about forbidding you, Silas. It’s about your usefulness to the company. We don’t want you working yourself to death, especially someone with such a promising future here.”

Those were the kinds of things people said to new employees who didn’t understand their limits, and it grated on Silas to hear Elliot treating him like an intern. “I said I’m fine,” he practically shouted at Elliot. “Are we finished here?”

Elliot visibly recoiled, momentarily speechless. Silas regretted his outburst immediately, knowing it was unprofessional. “I’m sorry, Elliot,” he said quickly. He didn’t want to admit any weakness, especially to someone who was presuming weakness, but he probably should confess what was going on with him. “I shouldn’t have said that. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and I’m not feeling as on point as usual. That was unprofessional of me.”

Elliot nodded slowly, his look of concern not fading. “You should go home, Silas. This will all still be here on Monday, you know.”

Silas looked down at his workstation. He felt another wave of anger, which took him by surprise. Maybe that was a sign that he should in fact get away from this. Appeasing Elliot would also probably keep him from filing a report of concern about Silas’s behavior. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll head out in an hour.” When Elliot didn’t look appeased, he added, “I promise.”

Elliot nodded. “All right. Get some rest.” He left Silas in peace.

Silas spent the next hour too incensed over his and Elliot’s encounter to really get anything of use done, which just frustrated him even further. The whole drive home, Silas was unreasonably angry, to a degree that surprised him. He understood annoyance, but the anger felt new and uncomfortable. This wasn’t the kind of person he normally was. He wasn’t a guy who got really upset about anything, except maybe when there were engineering problems that seemed to defy logic, but he seldom got mad at people and never at his superiors. He understood his role in the chain and didn’t mind it. He had a large degree of creative autonomy in his work, so this felt like the first infringement upon that autonomy, and it chafed. Not to mention that now he had nothing at all to do for the rest of the weekend. He couldn’t very well head back into the office tomorrow knowing Elliot was keeping tabs on his comings and goings.

His mind went automatically to Matthew, who was probably already playing some ridiculous computer game at home on the couch in his underwear, an image that made Silas smile and relaxed some of the tension from his body. But no, he’d just seen Matthew earlier today and shouldn’t rush things.

He wasn’t even sure he wanted company. There was something appealing about a quiet evening at home with a good book and solitude. Almost as though the universe was listening to his thoughts, he heard his phone buzz with a text message. It was probably Dee, since no one else texted him. When he pulled into the driveway of his house, he checked Dee’s message. Dinner? she asked.

Silas considered. On one hand, he could always order something here and have a quiet evening at home. On the other hand, he hadn’t seen Dee in a couple of weeks, really since her birthday party and the night he’d met Matthew, and he did enjoy her company. Plus, if he neglected her for too long, she had a tendency to show up at his house and demand to know that he wasn’t dead. He always gave her a hard time about intruding on his personal life, but it wasn’t like he really minded, not deep down. With no family, sometimes it felt nice knowing someone cared about him.

Sure. He sent the reply and pocketed the phone while he waited for more information. She’d texted him a few times throughout the past couple weeks, so he had a sense of the fact that she was doing fine, but none of the details. After this many years, Dee knew he hated talking on the phone, even to people he liked, so she just texted and only short updates. Since she hadn’t texted very much, he had a sense that she had something new happening in her life, and was genuinely interested in hearing more about it. Plus, she might make him feel better about work.

Silas walked in, set his bag down on the sofa, and paced the house like he did every time he got home and felt restless. It didn’t take Dee long to write back with the time she was picking him up (twenty minutes) and where she wanted to take him (“this new Mexican restaurant I discovered”). While he waited to get picked up, he sat down on the couch and listened to the silence. Normally, he liked it. He’d never enjoyed having background noise at home, unlike some people who preferred to keep the television on or music playing. Dee had been like that, and during the brief stint when they’d lived together, he’d almost gone mad with the never-ending noise. But now, with the stillness the only noise except the central air customary to any house in Florida, he felt something else seep into the gap where the noise usually was.

He felt lonely.

What the heck? He couldn’t be lonely. The sensation must be something else. He examined it more closely, studying the way his stomach felt, the hollowed-out sensation inside his core, and no, this was loneliness. How strange. He was a solitary creature by nature, preferring the solitude of the lab, and he wasn’t the type of guy to get lonely. Honestly, he missed hanging out with Matthew, and that surprised and even disturbed him a little. He seldom sought out someone’s company, and the fact that he wished Matthew were here right now meant something had shifted inside him. He wasn’t sure he liked it. To get away from the silence of the house, he went outside to wait for Dee on the front step in the late-afternoon heat.

Dee looked over at him in surprise when he got into the car. “Look at you, all ready to go.” She raised her eyebrows. “I’m honestly surprised you answered my text. I thought you were probably at work. And now you’re ready for me outside? Usually I have to let myself in and pry you away from the computer.”

“I should never have given you that key,” Silas said without malice.

“I told you, it’s important that someone else has a key.” She started to back out of the driveway. “What if you lock yourself out?”

“I would never lock myself out.” He rolled his eyes.

“Okay, then. What if you have a heart attack and keel over in the middle of the floor from working too hard? Someone has to find your body before the feral cats get here.” She shifted into drive and headed for the highway.

Silas scoffed. “There are no feral cats around here.” Then he thought about Matthew finding Zuul in the parking lot. “Well, not many.” Would cats really eat him? It was an unpleasant thought.

“Fine, then who will let you out of your self-bondage predicament when it all goes wrong?” She gave him a knowing glance.

“I don’t do self-bondage. Watch the road, please.” Silas felt embarrassed, even though he really didn’t do self-bondage, because of the way Dee addressed his sex life. Normally those comments just breezed right past him, but now that he actually had a sex life—sort of—he felt more sensitive to them.

“I’m just teasing you, Silas. You remember teasing, right? It’s when two people make humorous comments that poke fun at each other’s foibles?” She smiled, her expression probably intended to reassure him.

“I understand teasing.” First Matthew, now Dee. Was everyone going to accuse him of being a dull human being? He didn’t usually mind when Dee did it, but he felt extra sensitive after Matthew’s comments. “What have you been up to lately? I haven’t heard from you a lot.”