Page 152 of Men in Shorts

Seriously? Had this group evenmetpeople of the twenty-first century?

Robert switched off his phone with a sigh. Based on these questions, nearly everyone he knew was a workaholic.

Not Liam, though. For him, work was a means to an end. He was good at his job—the customers at Hannigan’s loved him, and he rarely got rattled when the pub was crammed out during a Celtic match—but he never worked a minute longer than necessary, though he desperately needed the money. As for Liam’s potential career as a massage therapist, Robert often wondered which of them was more excited about the idea: Liam or himself.

For Robert, as an entrepreneur, work was life. Hewashis work. If he couldn’t make the Glasgow Effect app a success and he had to take a job with some random company, he’d…well, he probably wouldn’t be bringing his laptop to bed. But he also wouldn’t be happy.

It mattered that his work served a higher purpose. Being devoted to it couldn’t be a bad thing, right?

Still, he could do better, he admitted as he returned his phone to the bedside table, then nestled against his softly snoring boyfriend. Work could so easily take over his life, crowding out his two great loves: Liam and football. They would slip from his grasp unnoticed, and before he knew it, they’d be gone.

Chapter2

Robert came homeWednesday evening to find his flatmate, Ben, in the kitchen cooking.

“Are you making enough for two?” he called out as he took off his coat and hung it on the peg in the foyer. His stomach was already grumbling at the pungent aroma of…he wasn’t sure what, but he knew it would be delicious.

“I always make enough for a small circus troupe.” Ben raised his voice over the sizzle of onions in the frying pan. “I thought this was one of Liam’s nights off.”

“Usually.” Robert hurried to the kitchen table to set down his computer bag. “This week he’s swapped shifts—which is great, as he’ll be off Friday.”

“Any special plans?”

“It’s the night before a match, so whatever we do, it’ll be low impact.” As Robert slid onto the chair, he opened the computer bag and withdrew his laptop.

“Och, I know how that is,” Ben said. “Evan’s a fiend about Friday-night rest. I’ll be glad when the season’s over.”

“Mm.” Robert brought up his email, eager to review the latest analytics for the test version of his Glasgow Effect game. The message had popped up on his phone as he’d left the university, where he’d been meeting with the project’s researchers.

“And yes, I know the season’s not over until May,” Ben said.

Robert clicked on the spreadsheet attachment, bouncing his heel against the wooden floor with excitement. The last report had been stellar—the game was mostly bug-free, and the playtesters seemed to be enjoying the crap out of it.

The report’s top sheet showed the performance metrics. All had remained healthy: The app rarely crashed or made its users wait more than half a second for a response.

Robert gave himself a mental high-five before switching to the sheet containing engagement metrics. These crucial stats would tell him how often users came back toGlasgow Effect, as well as how long they stayed in it—basically, whether people liked it or not.

The numbers there were…

“Oh God.” He swallowed hard, his mouth gone dry. “Fucking hell.”

“Robert, what’s wrong?” Ben left the pan and came over. “Has someone died?”

Just my dreams.Robert checked the units, hoping everything was off by a factor of ten. But no, what he saw was heart-stompingly correct.

“It’s my game.” He slumped back in the chair. “It’s rubbish.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Ben patted his shoulder, then returned to the hob. “Would it help to talk about it? Mind, I’m fluent in Javascript and Python.”

“It’s not a programming problem.” Robert scrolled down the spreadsheet and took in the catastrophic details, the worst of which had been highlighted in red. “Engagement has fucking plummeted in the last week. I don’t get it. Everyone loved it at first, but now almost all of them have stopped playing.”

“That’s troubling.” Ben shifted the pan on the burner with a metallic rasp. “Why have they stopped?”

Robert switched to another tab labeledUser Comments. The entries made his stomach roll over.

Was great, but now feels like work

kinda depressing

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