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“Hold on, guys, just a second,” Rhys told his friends before muting his microphone. He could hear his dad coming up the stairs, and it was usually best not to seem distracted when his dad entered the room. Rhys took off his headset and set it down on his desk, then swiveled around to face the door. His father entered without ceremony. Seeing that Rhys was already paying attention, he grunted darkly and leaned against the doorframe.

“I need your help moving some stuff out of the garage tomorrow,” came the demand.

The patriarch of the Moyer family had a head like a cinderblock and a face covered in graying, unkempt stubble. He could have been ruggedly handsome if it weren’t for his eyes, which were just a little too close together, making him look like a perpetually confused pig. This was almost enough to make Rhys grateful he hadn’t inherited more of his father’s looks. Instead, he had received his mother’s soft features, with the notable exception of his father’s steely gray eyes. Rhys often wondered, more than a little bitterly, why his genes couldn't have given him his dad's jawline, even if he didn’t need the whole Neanderthal package.

“I have class tomorrow,” Rhys reminded his dad, who would have known that if he had ever bothered to learn what Rhys was up to.

“Well skip it. Tomorrow’s my day off and we need to get the garage cleared out before the weekend.”

“I can’t skip it. I’m meeting with my team for our senior project. It’s important.”

It was exciting work. They were going to build a fully autonomous robot with the goal of having it navigate an obstacle course by the end of the semester. If they could pull it off Rhys would be graduating with honors. But his dad didn't care about any of that. Nor did any of Rhys’ friends, for that matter. But Rhys thought it was cool.

“I don’t care about what those other spoiled college kids are doing. Your mom and I need your help tomorrow.”

Rhys knew better than to argue. “I can help in the morning before I go, or when I get back,” he offered.

“I can’t believe I had to drive you to work today and this is how you thank me. Ungrateful brat. Fine. Do whatever you want. What do I care? It’s only your family asking for help.”

Rhys's dad slammed the door as he stormed back down the stairs. Rhys let out the breath he had been holding. It could have gone worse, he thought; all things considered, he got off pretty easy. He slipped his headset back on and unmuted his microphone.

"Alright, sorry about that. I'm back," Rhys said.

"Doesn’t matter anyway," Kyle, one of his friends, replied. "The game's pretty much over."

"Yeah, thanks a lot, Rhys," sneered Craig, another member of the group. Rhys didn't particularly like Craig, but what could you do?

"It’s not Rhys’ fault," Preston, the final member of the call, defended him. "He still has more kills than you do."

“Whatever,” Craig shot back. “It's easy to no-life this game when you don't have a girlfriend.”

“Well, at least you’ve got that going for you,” Preston conceded, ending his lukewarm defense of Rhys.

Rhys chuckled along with the others, doing his best to pretend like it wasn’t a sore spot. He knew he wasn’t the kind of guy girls liked. His mom said that one day some girl would be lucky to have him, but if that girl was out there she hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe after he graduated and got a job. Having some money couldn’t hurt, right?

The game didn’t last much longer. Rhys’ team lost, as expected. Undeterred, Kyle pressed on. “Ready up guys. Let’s go next.”

“I still have some classwork to get done tonight,” Rhys waffled.

“Oh come on,” Preston pushed. “We have a full squad.”

“Yeah, what the hell man,” Craig chimed in.

Rhys sighed. “Yeah, alright. One more.”

“There we go!” cheered Kyle. Craig just chuckled knowingly, like he’d always known Rhys was going to cave.

It wasn’t the biggest concession ever made, Rhys didn’t need a lot of convincing to play games instead of doing work, but still, he knew he could be a bit of a pushover. As the game loaded in he thought back to earlier, when his coworker Adrian had stepped in on his behalf. Craig wouldn’t have dared to say something to a guy like that. Adrian had this look about him that made people back off. Rhys wanted to be like that.

Back in the call, Kyle was giving directions that Rhys didn’t think were going to work out, but it wasn’t worth starting a fight over. Instead, Rhys muttered quietly under his breath, keeping his comments to himself. Yeah, him, like Adrian. What a joke.