Page 8 of Single Player

Matthew should absolutely not be thinking of all the things he’d like to do with that tongue, its sliver of pink a reminder of their time together last night. He took a moment to remember what they were just saying. “Oh. Yeah. I usually go to the Brass Buckle. It’s right around the corner from where I work, and I tend to stop by there when I need to get some coding done after hours and I don’t want to work at home.”

“I’ve never been there before.” Silas took another sip. “Do they sell beans?”

“Yeah. They don’t roast ’em themselves, but I like ’em.” Matthew looked down at his own mostly finished coffee, then back up at Silas. Silas had an intense stare that he found disconcerting, with eyes that didn’t seem to be able to decide whether they were brown, green, or gray. Hazel, he supposed the name was, but right now, they were studying him with a laser focus that made him feel prickly all over.

“That’s good to know. Maybe I’ll stop by there sometime.” Silas ran the thumb of his free hand along the edge of the saucer.

“I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t sure you were the type of guy who drank coffee. Herbal tea, maybe. I could see you as one of those guys who juices and doesn’t take in any toxins.” Matthew waved his hand to try to encompass Silas’s image. The other man’s lips turned up in an amused smile.

“I’m not an ascetic. I think last night proved that.” As soon as he said it, Silas’s face colored red, and he averted his eyes and began to talk faster, his words almost tripping over each other as they exited his mouth. “I mean, I drink coffee. A lot of coffee. And alcohol sometimes, as you saw. And I don’t eat very well at all. I keep strange hours at my job, so I’m often picking up food wherever I am. I don’t have much time to cook.” He took another glug of coffee. “I’m actually on my way to my office now. Going to try and get a few hours in today.”

“They make you work every weekend?” Matthew couldn’t imagine having a schedule that forced him to come in on the weekends or work late at night. He loved the work he did at PI Games, but his off time was precious to him. He picked up shifts at Gigi’s, sure, but those were at his discretion, and Gigi’s was fun enough to hardly feel like work. He was the type of person who needed a work-life balance, believing it was the key to feeling happy and healthy in all respects. If that led to what Isabel might call underachieving, well, at least he wasn’t a workaholic.

Silas shook his head. “They don’t make me work. I like going in. I hate feeling like I’m getting behind on a project, especially this one. No one is working on it at all during the weekend, and every day that it sits is another day before it’ll be ready.” He looked earnestly at Matthew, then turned away and shook his head, his earnestness fading. “Never mind. I don’t think someone like you could understand.”

Matthew felt himself bristle. “What do you mean, ‘someone like me’?”

Silas shrugged and took another sip of coffee. “Well, you’re a game designer.” He paused as if that was enough information to answer the question. When Matthew raised an eyebrow, he went on. “You work on projects where it doesn’t really matter when they’re complete.”

“I’m sorry?” Matthew raised both eyebrows now, his hackles definitely up.

“No, no.” Silas waved his free hand. “I’m sure you have deadlines and all that. Business expectations. But your overall work, it’s not going to really change someone’s life. This project that we’re working on is a next step in affordable neural interface prosthetics that will allow people to control their artificial limbs with their minds, just by thinking about it. That’s life altering. I want it done as soon as I can so I can change these people’s lives. No one’s sitting at home unable to function because Mario hasn’t found the princess in the castle, or whatever.” He sipped his coffee again.

Matthew forced himself to remain silent, because the first words out of his mouth were going to be inappropriate for their public setting. He seldom got angry like this. How dare this total stranger come along and insult his job like it didn’t matter at all? Like he didn’t matter at all? Sure, it wasn’t neural interface prosthetics, or whatever, but it wasn’t like everyone had to be a fucking biomedical engineer. He counted to ten, then said evenly, “I suppose you aren’t much of a gamer.”

Silas laughed. “No, I’m not. You assumed right. It seems fun and all. Lots of my coworkers play games. I just can’t justify wasting all that time when I could be doing something meaningful.”

Matthew pressed his teeth together so hard that he could feel his jaw start to throb. He wanted to punch the guy. On some level, he realized that was an overreaction, especially since from his body language, Silas clearly had no idea he was being offensive. He’d met guys who disparaged his profession, but seldom with this kind of casual attitude. “You know,” he said after a minute, “I like what I do.”

Silas nodded. “I’ll bet you do. It’s probably a lot of fun.”

“It’s a lot of work, that’s what it is.” Matthew could hear the anger in his voice and tried to tone it down. “I may work on games, but I’m not just sitting there playing them all the time. Games matter to people. They matter to me.” Despite his attempt to remain calm, his volume had ratcheted up during that last line.

Silas’s smile faded after a moment. “You’re upset.” He flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t mean to say your job wasn’t a real job or anything. Of course it’s a real job. I’m sure you’re very successful. I just . . . oh, darn it.” He looked off to the side.

Darn it? Really? The guy didn’t even swear? Matthew could not believe the person sitting in front of him was the same guy whom he’d pressed against the wall of the coatroom last night. The hickeys on his neck seemed completely incongruous with everything else about who he was.

Silas tried again. “I didn’t mean to be dismissive. I sometimes . . . I’m not always good at reading social cues. It’s an . . . issue of mine.” Matthew nodded, feeling his anger abate slightly. The guy had some kind of social foot-in-mouth disorder; he could understand that. Silas continued talking, looking eager to explain. “I just can’t bear to stop working at my job because I feel like the time I take off is time someone else doesn’t have. If I were to do nothing for a weekend, then the project is going to get finished two days later than if I worked through that weekend. And that means that someone who is depending on my work to walk again, or have a working cornea or maybe even a heart valve, has to wait. Does that make sense?”

It did make sense, actually. From that perspective, Silas wasn’t being as much of an ass as Matthew had thought. “I get it. But you have to rest sometime.”

Silas gave a small cough of laughter. “You’d think so. I don’t sleep very well. That’s part of why I drink so much coffee.” He lifted the cup an inch for emphasis. “I’m a bit of an insomniac. I can’t seem to get my mind to shut off at night.”

“That must be awful. Sleep is one of my favorite things.” Matthew couldn’t stay mad. The guy clearly had some kind of problem with social interactions, was obsessed with his job, and didn’t sleep much. No wonder he was a bit of an asshole. “Maybe you should give up the coffee.”

Silas pulled the cup in closer to his chest. “You’re kidding, right? I would be unable to function.”

“How much coffee do you drink?”

Silas looked up and to the side, lips moving as he counted silently. “Six or seven cups. I don’t know. It depends on the day.”

“Dude. You have to ease up on that.” Matthew shook his head. “No wonder you can’t sleep. That’s almost a full pot of coffee. Your blood is probably straight caffeine.”

“I know, I know. I’ve tried.” Silas sighed. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. But if I give up coffee, there’s going to be an adjustment period of a couple of weeks as I wean myself off the caffeine, and that doesn’t work for my schedule.” He held up a hand as Matthew went to speak again. “I know, you’re only trying to help, but this works for me.”

Matthew shrugged. He didn’t even know why he was so invested anyway. He barely knew the guy. “Okay, fair enough. So after this, what? You’re going to go work for a few hours, and then do the same thing tomorrow?”

Silas pursed his lips in thought. “Maybe. I try not to work every Sunday. It’s a good day to catch up on the latest academic journals and my podcasts, and sometimes I do some reading.”