Paid to Rest: My Lazy Life System

"Gordon, stop it. Someone's going to see us."

Evan knew that voice, and the giggle that followed it, before he was fully awake. He lifted his head off the keyboard, and a sticky note peeled away from his cheek. Morning light was coming through the windows of Pratt Logistics, and the first few people were drifting in with their coffee cups.

The blinds on Gordon Pratt's glass office were only half closed. Through the gaps, Evan could see a woman sitting on the edge of Gordon's desk in a red dress. Gordon stood between her knees with one hand sliding up her thigh, and she was laughing against his neck.

It was the red dress Evan had bought her for her birthday. He had paid for it over three months.

Evan stood up so fast his chair rolled back and hit the filing cabinet behind him. He crossed the floor in six long strides and pushed the office door open.

"Chloe?" The name came out of him in a croak.

She jerked away from Gordon and pulled her dress back down over her knees. For one second her face went pale, and then she lifted her chin. "Evan. What are you doing here?"

"I work here." His voice came out hoarse. "I've been here all night finishing his report. You told me you were staying at your sister's."

Behind him, chairs creaked as people turned to look. Somebody's phone stopped mid-ring.

Gordon straightened his tie without any hurry. He glanced at Evan, then down at his watch.

"Let's not make a scene, Hale," Gordon drawled.

"You're sleeping with my girlfriend in your office, and you're telling me not to make a scene?" Evan's voice rose until it cracked.

Chloe slid off the desk and smoothed her dress. Her eyes were dry when she looked at him, and the corners of her mouth turned down as if she were talking to a child.

"You're sweet, Evan," she sighed. "You really are. But you're going nowhere. You've been a junior analyst for six years. Gordon has a house with a pool, and he takes me places." She shrugged one bare shoulder. "I want a real life."

Evan's throat closed up. Three years with her flashed through his head in pieces, from the birthday dinners he had worked double shifts to pay for to the ring he had been saving for in the drawer under his socks.

His hands were shaking, so he shoved them into his pockets.

Gordon picked up a stack of printed pages from his desk and rolled them into a tube. "Since you're here, we might as well get this done now." He raised his voice so it carried across the whole floor. "Hartwell called at nine. They're gone. Our biggest account walked out the door because of the numbers in your report."

"My report?" Evan grabbed the pages and flipped through them. The freight totals were off by almost two hundred thousand dollars, and the projections had been rounded to the nearest thousand. He always used exact figures. "These aren't my numbers. I sent you the file at four-twelve. Someone changed it after that."

"Are you calling me a liar in front of my staff?" Gordon's voice climbed until the people by the printers turned around.

"Pull up the edit history," Evan shot back, jabbing a finger at the pages. "Pull it up right now, in front of everyone."

For half a second, Gordon's eyes darted toward his computer. Then they snapped back to Evan.

"You're fired, Hale." Gordon snatched the pages out of Evan's hands. "Clear out your things."

Out on the floor, keyboards stopped clicking. Derek from accounts stared at his monitor and didn't scroll. The intern by the window lowered her eyes to her shoes.

A chair scraped near the front. Tessa Moore stood up from the assistant's desk with her planner pressed flat against her chest, her ears turning red.

"Mr. Pratt, the edit log will show exactly who opened that file last," she said, keeping her voice level. "It takes thirty seconds to check."

Gordon turned his head toward her very slowly. "Sit down, Tessa, unless you'd like a box too."

Tessa held his stare for a long moment before she sat. Her knuckles had gone white around the spine of her planner. She looked at Evan, and her lips pressed together in a silent apology.

Chloe slipped her hand into the crook of Gordon's arm. She didn't look at Evan again.

Two security guards were already crossing the floor with a flattened cardboard box. Evan packed a stapler he had bought himself, a phone charger, and a plant that had died in March. Every head stayed down as he passed. He held his face completely still until the elevator doors closed, and then he pressed his forehead against the cold metal wall and breathed through his teeth.

Marcus was mid-stream when Evan pushed open their apartment door, shouting at a screen full of exploding zombies with his giant headphones on.

"Chat, hold on, my roommate just walked in." Marcus caught sight of the box and slapped the mute button. "Bro, what happened?"

"Chloe's with Gordon." Evan set the box on the counter, and the dead plant tipped over. "I caught them in his office this morning. Then he fired me for numbers he changed himself."

Marcus yanked his headphones off, his mouth hanging open. "Your boss? The guy with the ugly ties?"

"That's the one," Evan muttered, rubbing his eyes.

Marcus cracked his knuckles. "Say the word, and I'll tell my three hundred and forty viewers to make that man trend by dinner."

Evan almost laughed. It came out as a short, cracked breath through his nose, and his eyes stung. He turned away before Marcus could see.

Chloe's things were everywhere. Her pink Boss Babe mug sat on the drying rack, and her hair ties were scattered across the coffee table. Her vanilla body spray still hung in the air of the bedroom. Evan pulled a garbage bag from under the sink and filled it without stopping, his jaw clenched so hard it ached. He tied the bag shut and dropped it by the front door.

Then he lay down on his bed in his work clothes. He was still lying there when the streetlights came on outside. His thumb set the alarm for six out of habit.

He was staring at the stain on the ceiling when his cracked phone buzzed against his chest.

An app was installing itself. The icon was a tiny striped hammock swaying between two palm trees. He hadn't downloaded anything, and when he pressed and held the icon to delete it, the little x never appeared.

A gray chat window slid open on its own.

[Ugh, finally. Host located. Do you know how hard it is to find someone this tired?]

[Rest & Reward System activated. I'm Hammock, and I pay you to rest. Stress costs you, and relaxing makes you money.]

[First Mission: Sleep eight hours with no alarm. Reward: $100,000.]

Evan snorted, and his thumbs moved across the cracked glass.

Sure. And a Nigerian prince needs my bank details.

[Rude. Scams want something from you and unfortunately you have none. I just want you to lie down.]

Why me?

[Because you haven't slept eight hours since 2019, and your girlfriend just left you for a man with a pool. You need this more than anyone in the city.]

Evan's thumb went still over the screen. He read the line twice, and his chest went tight.

He looked at the 6 a.m. alarm. He thought about the red dress, Gordon's hand on her thigh, and Tessa's white knuckles around her planner. His jaw set, and he deleted the alarm with one hard jab of his thumb.

[Good. Goodnight.]

He rolled over and pulled the blanket up, certain he would be awake for hours.

Sunlight was hitting his face when he opened his eyes. His neck didn’t ache, his eyes didn’t sting, and the clock on his phone said 10:47 a.m. A banner from his bank sat at the top of the screen.

$100,000.00 — Incoming Transfer.

He read it three times. He counted the zeros out loud, and his voice cracked on the last one.

“Morning, Host. Told you I wasn’t a scam.”

Evan jolted so hard the phone flew out of his hand and landed face-up on the blanket. The voice hadn’t come from the phone. It was slow and lazy, like someone talking through a yawn, and it was coming from inside his own head.

“Get out of my head,” Evan hissed, scrambling back until his spine hit the headboard. He snatched the lamp off the nightstand and raised it over his shoulder with both hands.

“Oh, please. That lamp has done nothing to you.” The voice sounded bored. “And if you smash the phone, Host, I can’t pay you.”

The cord swung against his wrist and the lamp stayed in the air.