Page 38 of Single Player

“Thank you.” Silas sounded relieved. “I’m proud of me, too. She seemed to know what she was talking about. She listened to what I had to say, and while I have some things to work on, she seems to think I have a good prognosis. I feel better already having gone.”

“That’s really good, Silas. I think this is a positive step forward for you.” Matthew wasn’t sure he’d have been as willing to go as Silas was, which was ridiculous, but he had a hard time fighting the stigma of mental illness. At least Silas was getting the help he needed. “How often does she have you coming in?”

“We’re going to start with every week for now, at least until my leave of absence from work is over, and then probably go to every other week. She’s given me some cognitive behavioral strategies for dealing with my anxiety.” There was a pause where Matthew could almost hear Silas deciding whether or not to share something else. “I, uh, told her about you.”

Matthew smiled into the phone, even though he couldn’t be sure it was good. In fact, Silas might have told his therapist that he’d gotten into this relationship that he had no interest in continuing, and asked for feedback on breaking things off. His smile slipped a little. “Oh yeah? What about?”

“She’d just finished talking to me about finding strategies to inject some more pleasure and enjoyment into my life, and I mentioned that you’d been saying the same thing. She said you sounded like a very smart gentleman.” Silas was smiling as he said the last few words; Matthew could hear it in his voice.

“I am indeed a very smart gentleman.” Matthew preened. “So you’re going to take my advice then, and cultivate a loafing practice?”

He heard a stricken sigh on the other end of the phone. “I just don’t think this loafing thing is for me. I actually tried one of your company’s games on Tuesday, and it was the most frustrating thing I’ve ever played.”

Matthew thought he couldn’t be surprised by Silas more than once in a conversation, but he was wrong. “Yeah? Which game?”

“Bump. I couldn’t get past the snake.”

Matthew hadn’t played Bump since he was helping to program the sequel over a year ago, and he tried to remember where the snake came into play. Which boss monster was a snake? As he scanned back through his memory, no snake came to mind, except for one. “Do you mean the snake in level one?”

“Yes, the snake in level one.” Silas sounded irritated. “Are there more?”

“No, that’s the only snake. But you aren’t supposed to fight him.” Matthew wanted to laugh, since Silas seemed so peeved about something silly, but he didn’t think Silas would appreciate being laughed at. “Did you do the tutorial?”

A long pause. “I thought the tutorial looked stupid.”

This time, Matthew did laugh. “You are a piece of work, you know that? Tell you what.” He was hatching a plan in the spaces between sentences. “Tomorrow after work, we’re going to hit up Caleb’s workshop and build some things for Zuul. Then you’re coming back to my place and I’m going to take you through some classic games. Just enough to keep you well stocked for the next couple weeks.”

He heard a pause as Silas considered, but the pause was brief. “That sounds fine. I think I would like that.”

“Good. Come by about five thirty?”

“All right. I’ll see you then.”

---

After Silas arrived on Friday night, Matthew drove them to the address Caleb had given him. Sure enough, it was a storage facility, rows upon rows of cement buildings with garage-style doors in front. He followed the signs until he came to unit 354, which was noticeable, because unlike the rest of the storage units, this one had an open front door. Caleb was sitting in the middle, surrounded by an odd assortment of metal piping and machine parts that Matthew was not technically savvy enough to recognize, since none of them seemed to have come from computers. He pulled into the parking lot next to Caleb’s Subaru with its new-looking Florida plates, shielding his eyes from the hot late-afternoon sun. Caleb pushed his welding mask up when he saw them and smiled in greeting. “Hey, come on in.” He was wearing heavy gloves that he took off to shake Silas’s hand. “Hi,” he greeted Silas. “I’m Caleb. I work with Matthew.”

“Silas.” Silas shook Caleb’s hand, pausing as he clearly thought of how to introduce himself. Matthew went to help him, but Silas said, “I’m helping Matthew with the project. I’m a biomedical engineer. I’m . . .” He paused, looking at Matthew for confirmation.

Matthew hadn’t defined with Silas what they were to each other, but in the moment like this, it seemed like he had to. He tried out the label he’d been considering, the one he wasn’t sure fit yet, but the one to which he kept returning. “He’s . . . my boyfriend?”

Silas’s eyes widened.

Matthew shrugged. “I . . . guess?”

Silas shrugged as well, obviously taken aback. “Yes, I suppose I’m his . . . boyfriend.”

Caleb grinned at them. “Well, nice to meet you, Silas. Can’t help but notice you’ve got a weird old biblical name like me, so I think we’ll get along fine.”

Silas smiled. “Yes, when I met Matthew, he said my name sounded like an Amish farmer.”

Caleb laughed openly at that.

Matthew grinned affectionately at Silas. His boyfriend. Maybe he could get used to that. “Well, turns out I was wrong. There’s nothing Amish at all about Silas.”

While Silas blushed red, and Caleb laughed harder, Matthew looked around the storage-locker-turned-workshop. Now that they had stepped inside, Matthew could feel the central air cooling the space. “So this is your workshop? Don’t they get mad that you’re wasting all the air-conditioning?”

Caleb shook his head. “Nah, as long as I keep my bill paid each month, they don’t really care what I do with the space.” Caleb pulled his mask all the way off and set it down on the stool where he’d been previously welding some kind of sculpture. Matthew couldn’t tell yet what it was going to be.