Page 4 of Playing For Keeps

His hazel eyes were narrowed, lips pulled down in displeasure. What might they look like when they’re soft and smiling? He was good looking, in a regular sort of way. Neatly trimmed hair and beard, clothing still surprisingly unwrinkled despite a whole workday. Something in her belly seemed to wake up, curling in recognition of the attraction sweeping through her. His frown cut deep lines between those dark brows, and the second he opened his mouth and that velvety voice grumbled at her, he ruined the whole thing.

Friday mornings always dragged. A cup of coffee cooled on his desk, too many tabs to count on his computer screen, and Sebastian’s boss was heading over. There was no way this could be good. He’d barely scraped by this week, so he highly doubted Andrew was coming over to give him kudos. He plastered a smile onto his face and swiveled around to face the music.

“Government needs us to stay late, Clark. We need to make sure they re-up the contract next year, and we’re gearing up for the new presentation.” Sebastian’s favorite phrase. The constant, looming doom of his job security being threatened, despite all the overtime he’d already put in, nullified and forgotten as soon as another big project came in. This was what you wanted. This is what you moved here for.

Which was how he found himself staring at dual screens all day, blinking away the dryness, and praying he could keep the momentum going into the evening. His swivel chair bit into his thighs, the back unyielding. Gray carpet seemed to blend into the walls, a dull and blank space to encourage focus.

It was a necessary evil. It was a stepping stone. It was the way things worked. Sebastian repeated the words until they became somewhat of a mantra. On days where he’d worked over the forty hours his contract stipulated—something that happened more often than not—it meant he could ignore the niggling voice at the back of his mind saying it was wrong.

Some days it was hard to pinpoint whether the voice was burn-out, or just the broken record of his parents replaying over and over telling him life was for living not working. Or the spite that drove him here not being enough to keep him grinding. Dream jobs were an oxymoron because nobody dreamed of working. Childhood conditioning like that was what he’d done his best to buck. They didn’t get it, and probably never would. Instead, he focused on a different voice.

“If you work these extra hours, it will look really good. You know we’re trying to land another project, and if you prove yourself with retention, that pitch could be yours.” The words from his current superior echoed in his mind, the placation insincere, but he indulged it anyway, choosing to believe what Andrew said was true… that his hard work was noticed, and it would make a difference to his future, even when most days, he felt like a faceless name in a database.

So, he sucked it up. He pushed aside the fatigue that seemed to cling to him with a relentless grip. Even when he’d worked a full day and then some, he found himself on his bed staring up at the ceiling, eyes adjusting to the early hours of the evening, debating whether he should slink into his home office and get a head start on the next day.

He probably would have, if it’d done any good. Instead, he focused on his breathing, trying to slow it down in order to calm his racing heart, waiting for the coffee from a few hours prior to leave his system. It made him jittery and barely did anything for his tiredness at this point, but he’d gotten used to the bitter heat of it, the cups a way to measure time passing by.

One cup in the morning to get started. One around lunch while Sebastian worked some food into his body and caught up on personal emails. Another a little before five, if he was staying at the office. Or closer to six if he took work home with him—that was his favorite one. It was a break from the monotony, a chance to breathe and feel the city's energy outside an office's walls.

It didn’t hurt that the coffee shop he frequented, the one between work and home, had fantastic food offerings. He found himself asking to work from home instead of staying at the office more often so he could swing by there for dinner instead of the same-old delivery options near their building, or worse still, the paltry choices of the vending machine on his office floor.

But it would all be worth it. The late nights, the lack of sleep, the acrid stress burning in his chest and rising up his esophagus—because in a few weeks, that promotion would be his. He would go from software developer to project manager, then program manager, and eventually a directorial role. Hopefully within government so his retirement would be set. And Ashley could fucking choke on it. After what happened in Ohio, he’d mapped out all of his career. This was where he had to grind, put in the work to ensure his future, and make sure nothing got in his way again.

So what if it meant he didn’t have as much time for himself, or the inane dance that was dating in the city? He’d never gone to a Smithsonian Museum, or walked the Mall, or saw a show at the Kennedy Center… none of that touristy shit that people came to the city for, it didn’t matter. Those things could wait.

So what if he didn’t make it over to visit his parents in Ohio because he worked weekends and couldn’t justify the hours of driving? Or are you just avoiding home in general? The thought pissed him off. It had been months. He should be over it. He would be over it once he’d reached his goal.

Some of his colleagues dicked around, peeking out from the sides of their cubicles to make conversation, eager for the week to end, but there were a few like him, working toward the goal of a promotion.

Keith: UMD grad, a year older and far more outgoing. Everyone knew his name, if not necessarily the quality of his work.

Rachel: two years younger, but she’d been working at the company since interning during her time at Georgetown. She’d built a rapport, fingers on the pulse of everything going on, ambitious and not willing to step aside without a fight.

Sebastian felt like nothing but a loser from out of state with no friends, or family, or connections in the area. Thirty-one approached with rapid speed. Ohio left his work reputation less-than-stellar, and he was still clawing his way out of student debt. He’d worked for everything he had with barely any support. Ashley pretended, quite prettily, but it was a lie. His parents watched him with the same question on both of their faces when they bothered to look up from their little corner of the world: Why?

Why bother? Why, when so much else mattered more? The earth was being pillaged. Poverty held countless generations in its unrelenting grip. What was the point of lofty career goals when you might be dead tomorrow? What’s the point of missing out on your whole life for the sake of a job title?

Sometimes he had no answer for them. Sometimes when the insomnia caused dry-eye and his anxiety ramped up to a level that left him doing crunches and pushups in the middle of the night on the floor of his bedroom just to stop the itch under his skin—he couldn’t really say shit. Because although he held onto the assurance that one day, it would be worth it, one day, he’d have achieved everything he set out to do and his success would speak for itself, he couldn’t argue with the fact that today wasn’t that day.

Today, he lived in a one-bed apartment part of a duplex with a lovely view of a parking lot, three metro stops and a couple blocks of walking away from his office. His car sat unused most of the time, and it would no doubt be covered in leaves within the next few weeks before it rested beneath a light blanket of snow at the end of the year.

He’d driven it to D.C. from Ohio, and left it parked since. It waited there unless there was an extenuating circumstance or the once-a-week trip around the block to keep the battery from atrophying. Sebastian should’ve sold it and let go of the past. Right now, it served as a reminder of the world he’d tried so hard to step out of and stolen moments in the back seat. It was a mid-size sedan, an unappealing beige that seemed prevalent in the early 2000s, with over a hundred and fifty thousand miles on the odometer.

In a way, Sebastian supposed there was a direct link between him and the used car he’d chosen back then, leaving for college—it was serviceable, plain, and it got the job done. There was a decent amount of wear on it, but he tried his best to take care of it despite an unforgiving environment. Not much had changed at all.

Sebastian worked until almost all the other screens in the room blinked dark, well after their government liaisons left for the day to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

It wasn’t until Andrew told him to get out of there for the night that he finally shut down the monitor, packing up his work laptop and the cooler he used for his lunch. He tucked a thermos under his arm and slung the laptop bag over his shoulder.

Andrew was friendly, or at least he tried to be. He had a tendency to over-exaggerate the severity of what the government side of their division said in his meetings with them. He was also the one that tended to dangle those threats and promises under their noses as incentive. But on nights like this one, he relented, telling Sebastian to call it for the rest of the weekend. The work he’d done that day would have to be checked against the parameters in place which could only happen on Monday.

So, he found himself in his apartment a little over forty minutes later, unsure what to do with himself. Shoes shucked at the door, thermos and lunch bag washed, everything still tidy from when he’d stress-cleaned it two days ago… Sebastian was stuck with that funny feeling that came with not knowing how to exist outside of work.

In the few months he’d been in D.C., he’d yet to make friends. He didn’t have the time or energy for it, but it was something that would have come in handy right then.

He sank down into his sofa, stretching onto the cushions to try and relieve the ache that built up in his neck and back from bending over a keyboard all day. Sebastian scrolled through his phone, the bright glow on his face and the sun’s slow descent toward the horizon the only lights in the place. It created a subtle haze and dulled the edges of how empty the room was, even with him in it.

Facebook (which he kept only for his parents’ benefit) and Instagram were full of his peers and their milestones, acquaintances he’d met in high school, college, and further on—a collection of names that at one point floated around his periphery. He had a few of his colleagues on there now, but only because they’d requested, so he’d accepted. Endless engagement rings, promotions, silly prattle about media being consumed en masse. Scroll, scroll, scroll.

---