Zero-Sum Game

Author's note: Enemies-to-lovers is one of my favourite romance tropes, although it's a bit of a trick to pull it off in a short story since it requires more of a slow burn than I have space for. This is why I'd like to state that this is a *story*--it's supposed to be fun and not necessarily realistic, although this one is based on true events. Also, bonus points if you can guess the song playing in the car.

It was 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, and Jace Marçeau's eyes darted toward the office clock every few seconds like he was expecting it to sprout legs and run. Surely it would suck to have to stay late just before the weekend to finish coding the programme he was working on, but it would suck worse to have to take it home.

"Will you stop wasting your time and help me?" Jace glared at his partner's computer adjacent to his, narrowing his walnut eyes at the card game his friend was playing. He put a hand to his curly, black hair, resisting the urge to pull out a clump in frustration. "Really, Bryce? You're fucking around with solitaire of all things at a time like this?"

"Calm down," Bryce replied, pushing his glasses back up on his nose as he looked up from his notepad. "I'm just working some stuff out on paper first. I stopped trying for the prepaid cards an hour ago." He minimised the window and the screen flipped back to one identical to Jace's.

"Prepaid cards?" Jace asked absentmindedly while his fingers raced to keep up with his brain.

"Yeah, that wasn't solitaire."

"Don't tell me you're still doing those ridiculous contests," Jace rolled his eyes, his agitation simmering somewhat now that he knew his colleague wasn't leaving him out to dry. He was sure half the office had already left. It was, after all, summer in Québec, and Montrealers in particular made it a priority to remain social.

"Hey man, knock it if you want, but I already won a $5 gift card for Donut World last month," Bryce gave him a sideways grin, his own fingers picking up speed as he glanced back and forth between his screen and his notebook. "Arcot is running a promotion to get more eyeballs on their website." ­­Jace snorted.

"Arcot... the same Arcot Incorporated whose shitty service left everyone from Montreal to Hull in an Internet blackout last month? Aren't they satisfied they've already got their telecom monopoly in Canada? They keep eating up smaller providers every year."

"I am uninterested in the inner workings of the mega-corp that's offering free shit for playing a card game," Bryce muttered, squinting at his screen and deleting the last couple of lines he'd written. "I am very interested in the free shit."

Between the two of them, they managed to finish the bare bones of what their manager required Monday morning, and Jace finally cracked a smile when he fell back in his chair at 3:52 p.m.

"Okay, I'm curious," Jace turned to Bryce. "And I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. I just wanted to go home without work weighing on my mind. What's the game about?" His partner smiled and maximised the other window.

"It's just blackjack, based on nothing but dumb luck," Bryce explained. "You start by choosing the category of prizes you're going after, and it inserts you into a game. If you go after the little prizes like coffee shop gift cards, it's easier to win. But if you go after the big ones, you have to win, like, 15 games in a row, and the odds of them letting you do that are slim to none."

"Meanwhile, Arcot's wireless and cable ads are running on the side," ­­­­Jace noted. "They're probably getting back business where they're losing gift cards. Especially with weirdos like you who are on here all the time."

"I'm on the computer all day anyway," Bryce shrugged, while grabbing his lunch bag and satchel. "And it's mentally impossible to code for eight hours daily without dancing naked in the pond at Parc Lafontaine afterward.

"Speaking of which," he continued, "I'm on my way to a house party in a few hours. Wanna come with? I don't know anyone and I'd rather not stand by the snack table again."

"How'd you get invited?"

"The super at my building. The party's at his sister's building. He's nice but way too popular. Can't hang around him."

"I'll think about it," Jace said, the ghost of an idea forming in his head. "Text me the address." Bidding Bryce goodbye, ­he turned toward his computer and simply stared at it.

It's no different than a slot machine, he thought about Arcot's blackjack game. He logged on to the site and perused the prize page. They give enough people the tiny prizes to keep them coming back, he thought, and eventually, they'll think they can go after the $1000 gift cards and kitchen appliances.

He leaned back as far as he could without making his rolling chair tip over, then went to Arcot's Rules and Regulations page for the game and took several screenshots.

Then, inspired, Jace started fooling around with the outline of a program. Over the course of two hours, he kept adding layers to it until it had gotten away from him and he barely noticed the glow of the sun setting outside the screen door of his ground floor office.

Holy shit, that thing wrote itself, he mused, finally tearing his eyes off the screen when he was ready to run a test. Setting it in motion, he grinned to himself. He'd made it so the cards were playing by themselves as long as he was logged in. Then he sat back down and made a modification.

No sense in wasting precious time on a bad game, his eyes narrowed as he indicated to the program that it was to quit if it was on the brink of losing, then automatically try again. As an afterthought, he also logged onto Bryce's computer, copied his program onto it, and set it to automatically run as well.

DO NOT TURN OFF, he scrawled on two pieces of paper to make it clear for the cleaning staff. Amazing that I'm actually gonna look forward to coming in Monday morning. He grabbed his shoulder bag and headed down Rue Saint Dominique to grab a bite at his favourite smoked meat deli, then pulled out his phone to text Bryce.

Still going to the party?

Yeah, man, I'm here and I'm already at the snack table, came Bryce's reply but seconds later.

After walking only a few more blocks, Jace arrived at a brown brick mid-rise that looked like it was built in the 1950s. The bass beat from inside pounded harder after he took the industrial-style lift up to the 14^th floor and approached the slightly ajar door. Letting himself in, he soon spotted Bryce.

"Yeah, I can see why you'd feel out of place here," Jace shouted against his friend's ear. "Too many pretty women."

"Leave me and my Cheetos alone," Bryce replied. The music was a little too techno for Jace's liking and he found himself needing to hear himself think after only 10 minutes. He motioned to Bryce that he was going up to the roof.

Fifteen floors is just about perfect, he thought upon taking in the spectacular view of half the city, including Mount Royal in the distance. He wandered among the potted plants that lined the rooftop garden on his way to the building's edge, initially believing he was alone. But someone had beaten him there.

All he could make out was a curvy silhouette leaning on the rooftop's edge with one hand and taking slow drags from her cigarette with the other hand. Her hair was pulling into a chic chignon at the nape of her neck, and her massive hoop earrings rivaled the size of her face.

When Jace moved closer to get a look at that face, the young lady's cherry-red lipstick jumped out at him first, followed by her golden-brown skin. She instinctively took a step back when she spotted him.

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you," Jace assured her, backing off and giving her some room. "You seem to be doing a good enough job of that, yourself."

"Puh-lease," she rolled her eyes. "I get enough lecturing about my 'filthy habit' from my dad; I don't need it from some rando lurking in the shadows on my roof."

"Daddy issues, huh?" Jace couldn't help himself. She, however, wasn't amused.

"Yeah, it's absolutely hilarious how grown-ass men can drop the ball raising their kids but somehow it gets turned into a punchline against their daughters. A real knee-slapper." She put her red-stained cigarette to her lips again and puffed, holding Jace's gaze like it was a dare.

"I'm only doing this because the rum shots I tried earlier didn't quite do the trick," she said more tersely than she'd intended.

"All I'm saying is you look like you're a little younger than me," he told her after a minute. "I'm 31, by the way. I'm just mystified by how we grew up with the same information, yet you're intent on committing suicide in the slowest way possible."

"Look, 31, could you get off my back already?" she finally exhaled. For the briefest of moments, Jace's brain was infiltrated by the very literal image of him on this pretty woman's back. Or rather, up against it while they were both nude and squirming in his bed. He tightened his jaw and shook his head, alarmed at where that idea came from.

"I just started my first real adult job two months ago, then my mentor-slash-manager left for a better job, and her case load landed in my lap. They're not hiring her replacement because why do that when they could get me to work two jobs for as long as possible? I'm underpaid and in over my head so yes, I'm going to fucking smoke."

"I'm sorry," Jace immediately felt terrible that haranguing this woman had been his first instinct. "I just..." He couldn't think of a suave way to end that sentence so he blurted out the unfiltered version. "I just want you to live a long life, I guess."

She stared at him--probably suspiciously, he surmised--for a couple of minutes in silence while he turned back to the view of downtown Montréal.

"What's your name, 31?" she finally asked. He glanced back at her, surprised she continued this godforsaken chat when she didn't have to.

"Jace," he said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. "Jace Marçeau."

"Esmé," she replied, lightly grasping his fingers before he stepped back again. "Esmeralda. And since you told me your age, I'm 27. I take it Jace is short for Jason?"

"Nah, it's short for Jacinda." He only realised he had to explain further when Esmé cocked a perfectly smooth eyebrow at him. "My mother. She died giving birth to me. So my dad named me what he always called her."

"I'm sorry," Esmé said softly.

"Thanks, but you don't have to be. He married my stepmom a few years later, and I can't imagine having a better person raise me than her. I lucked out." Esmé smiled at him, then stubbed out her cigarette on the concrete.

"This is the quintessential millennial meet-and-greet, isn't it?" she observed. "It's been five minutes and so far we've talked about addiction, daddy issues, shitty jobs, and death. In that order."

"Tell me about the most fun food you ever ate," Jace caught her by surprise. "Don't think about it. Blurt out the first thing that comes to mind."

"Uhhhh, the funnel cake at Canada's Wonderland," Esmé answered. Seeing Jace's smile, she got the pattern. "My turn? Most unexpected fun day you ever had."

"When my dad took me to bet on horses with him," he replied. "I thought he was going to go to the racetrack alone, but he thought I was lucky that day and asked me to come."

They continued their stream-of-consciousness lightning round for another several minutes, and it was the mental balm that Esmé didn't know she needed. This guy was a godsend. At least he was now. Originally, he'd been just another pain in the ass.

She squinted at him in the moonlight, noticing for the first time that he looked a lot like Michael B. Jordan. Maybe leaner and bit taller, but definitely resembling the actor and definitely cute.

"Favourite lipstick shade on a woman?" she quietly asked after letting a few more rounds pass as she worked up the nerve. He paused, then averted his gaze back out toward the downtown core.

"Red," he muttered. She snorted.

"Red... you just named about 75 shades."

"And they're all red!" he protested. Esmé moved toward him until she was just a few inches away.

"You mean red like this?" she asked, pointing to her lips.

"Um... yeah. That's a nice colour," Jace tried. Esmé realised she'd been wrong earlier about the rum not taking effect. It suddenly didn't seem like a problem that she'd just met this Killmonger-looking dude but wanted to kiss him. She leaned in and raised herself up on her toes--only to have him hold her by the shoulders and gently push her back.

"Look, you've been drinking," Jace said.

"I don't see how that's your problem." Esmé moved close to him again, hoping he didn't notice the stumble.

"We just met," he tried.

"So what? I have 300 Internet friends who know less about me than you do." Still, Jace's grip on her shoulders stayed tight.

"Biggest turn-off in a love interest?" he asked. Esmé didn't realise they were still playing.

"Uhhhhh... insecurity and control issues. You?"

"Smoking."

The word hung in the air like it was a nicotine-laden cloud Esmé had just exhaled.

No, come on, I just need a win this week, she thought to herself, not wanting rejection by a polite, decent guy to top off the hellish five days she'd gone through at work. She knew deep down he was simply another attempt to self-medicate but she was okay with that. Rather, the rum was okay with that.

"Then let's go down to my place," she suggested, refusing to be encumbered by useless emotions like shame. "I'll brush my teeth and we can--"

"Esmé?" a voice called out in the darkness. "You up here?"

Annette, you bell pepper, Esmé mentally cursed her roommate, despite simultaneously being grateful and flattered to have someone look out for her safety for once. They'd lived together for a year at that point, but it was still such a new feeling.

"Yeah, I'm... don't worry, I'm not going to jump, Annie," she called back. "At least not tonight."

"I know," Annette stayed at the door but tried shining her flashlight to where Esmé and Jace stood. "I found your rent cheque for next month." Esmé sighed, knowing she'd lost but also knowing it was for the best because let's face it, she was piss-drunk.

"Go back down, I'll be right there," she shouted toward Annette, not wanting to have to introduce her to Jace. "Thanks for the cheering up," she told him once they were alone again. "Sorry I smell like an ashtray."

"Don't worry about it," he grinned. "Quit one day, and maybe I'll finally figure out what shade of red you're wearing."

Esmé receded toward the rooftop door, her cheeks feeling even warmer than that hot summer evening. It was only a faint, passing thought as her head hit her pillow minutes later that she'd forgotten to get Jace's number.

***********

"What did you do?" Bryce cornered him in their office the second ­­­Jace walked in after a relaxing weekend of doing nothing.

"I binge-watched The Mentalist," ­­­Jace hung up his laptop bag on the hooks behind the door. "And I helped my landlady move some furn--"

"I'm not talking about your sadsack weekend," Bryce hurried on. "What did you do after I left on Friday??" He pointed to his computer, which was still running the program. Jace sat down and peered at the screen. He'd completely forgotten about the gaming set-up he'd organised Friday night.

"Whatever it was, it seemed to have won your white ass a 45-inch TV."

"Don't do that, man," Bryce grinned. "You know very well I can't make reference to..."

"...my Black ass?" Jace met his smile. Then he turned his focus back to their computers. "That's all it won?"

"What do you mean, 'that's all?'" Bryce was incredulous. "That was one of only three such TVs available to be won in the province of Québec, and it's pretty early on in the contest. The big stuff wasn't expected to go until the end of the month."

"Well, at least my comp-sci degree came in handy for something useful," Jace muttered before smiling again. "Ahhh, that's what I'm talkin' about," he said, pointing to his own screen. "A $500 gift card to The Bay. Bryce, my man, clear your weekend because I'm taking you shopping Saturday."

"I can't believe you did this," Bryce pulled his hands through his hair after Jace explained in detail the scripts he'd been running over the weekend. "You're gifted."

"Come on, it was just a shot in the dark," Jace waved him off. "Not like it took any amount of real talent."

"No, this is beyond talent," Bryce insisted. "Talent is when you hit the target no one else can hit. Genius is when you hit the target no one else can see."

The two floated through the next two weeks like it was a stretched-out version of Christmas, at first surprised by the little prizes that continued to trickle in. Ten days in, they were expecting at least two bonuses per day.

"Jace, what are you doing with all the extra stuff? Selling it?" Bryce inquired one afternoon after they'd just come back from a department meeting.

"Extra stuff?"

"Yeah, like the ladies' luggage set, the assortment of kids sandals..."

"I gave the suitcases to my regular barista and the flipflops to some of the kids at the splash pad down at the Y. And before you ask about all the $5 coffee shop vouchers, those go to the guys sleeping on the vents outside work."

"I like this Robin Hood side of you," Bryce smiled. "If I had to aid and abet anyone in committing this crime, I'm glad it's you."

"Crime, my ass," Jace rolled his eyes. "I'm playing Arcot's game fair and square--just 1000 times faster than anyone else could, 24 hours a day."

That Friday afternoon carried the opposite mood to the one just 14 days prior. The two hadn't been able to go shopping the previous weekend so they were excited for Saturday. Jace went to set things up on his work computer a few minutes before they were set to clock out.

"Let me just check the pro--" his words died on his lips when he found he was locked out of Arcot's site. "What the hell...?" He shut down the browser, then shut down the computer and restarted it.

"What's going on?" Bryce asked, taking his shoulder bag off.

"Arcot's site isn't letting me on," Jace murmured. Bryce was silent for a minute.

"It's probably nothing," he finally said.

The computer was booting back up when a hefty, middle-aged man with a goatee and a tweed suit rapped on their office door.

"'Scuse me, gentlemen," he said. Jace's hackles immediately went up. No one ever visited them, not even their boss. "I'm looking for Jace Marçeau?" Bryce's expression showcased the dread Jace felt coursing through his stomach.

"You've found him," Jace answered, trying to keep his voice steady. The older man immediately handed him a package of papers in a manila envelope, saying the words both young men were expecting to hear.

"You've been served," the suit said, disappearing out the door as quickly as he'd come. The two immediately dove into the stack, Jace hyper-focused on finding out exactly what he was accused of, and Bryce swearing a blue streak while trying to help.

"Arcot, those motherfuckers," he hissed, spreading out the papers before discovering a number he could call. "I don't care if we can read through this, I'm going to make them explain it to us."

"Cool your jets," Jace calmed his friend without taking his eyes off the legal forms in his hands. "I don't think they're suing me for anything. This looks like some kind of cease-and-desist type thing, but I have to show up in court if I want to fight it." He looked up to see Bryce already on the phone.

"Hi, I'm looking for..." he squinted at the contact information sheet on his desk, "...someone named E. Aguado? They're in the promotions department. Yeah, I'll hold, thanks."