Single Player by Elia Winters

was gentle. “That must have been difficult.”
    â€œYes, well, you get over it.” He shrugged, giving the pat response he’d learned to give when people found out. He wasn’t sure how accurate it was. Did you ever really get over something like that? After months of being fine, he’d smell a similar perfume to his mother’s and be right back with her again, for better or worse, with all the tumultuous emotions that accompanied such a memory. He knew how to deflect the conversation. “What about you?”
    â€œYup, Tampa born and raised.” Matthew leaned back, draping one arm along the back of the booth. “I’m an only child, too. Did you always know you wanted to be a biomedical engineer?”
    Silas remembered his affection for literature, his occasional immersion into books when the rest of the world seemed overwhelming. “I thought about going into English, but engineering seemed much more practical.” He thought about his parents’ stern rebukes against the humanities, a reminder that science was practical and serious work, the work someone with his gifts ought to be doing. “My parents felt very strongly about it.”
    Matthew nodded. “That’s a lot to live up to.”
    â€œI guess so.” Silas didn’t need to share the overwhelming guilt he felt whenever he slacked off, the unshakable feeling that he was disappointing their memory.
    Matthew tipped his head to the side, surveying Silas thoughtfully. “You know, I’m starting to think there’s a lot more to you than you let on. You just keep it under wraps. I’ll bet when you unwind, there’s much more to you than just being uptight.”
    Silas looked back down at the table, feeling an urge to curl his shoulders in. This type of direct confrontation was not in his comfort zone. “I don’t think of myself as uptight. I’m focused.”
    â€œYeah, I’ve seen you focused.” Matthew put his chin on his hand again. “I think I like you better unfocused. In fact, I think I’d like to unfocus you. Tonight. Right now, actually, if you’re up for it.”
    Oh. That was certainly direct. When Silas picked up his coffee cup again, his hand had a slight tremble to it, so the liquid sloshed. He forced himself to steady it as he sipped, an act that took all his concentration. When he put the cup back down, he ran his tongue over his lips to draw in the last drops of coffee. Matthew was watching him with darkened eyes, and Silas thought he could fall into those eyes and not come out of them again. He knew he was prone to staring sometimes, but Matthew met his stare head-on.
    Without consciously deciding, he found himself nodding. “All right.”
    Matthew gave Silas a half smirk again. “I’m parked outside. Follow me back to my place.”
    ---
    God, what was he doing? His heart raced for the entire drive, despite deep-breathing exercises. He stayed focused on Matthew’s Honda in front of him, driving with extreme caution and trying to keep his mind on the road instead of on the very handsome, very talented man in the car in front of him. They ended up at a block of new high-rise apartments in downtown Tampa, in the quarter of the city mostly populated by up-and-coming young people and growing businesses. Silas had watched these apartment buildings going up over the last few years and wondered who was moving into them. They parked in the underground garage, and Silas got out of his car in a daze.
    Matthew was waiting by his car when Silas walked over. The stale concrete-scented air of the parking garage was all around them, pressing close, making Silas feel a little claustrophobic. Maybe that was just his nervousness. When he neared Matthew, the other man took him by the hip and pressed him back against the concrete pillar next to his car, casually crowding into his space with a few steps forward.
    â€œYou been thinking