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“Right, that’s all it is,” he grumbles, rubbing his chin so hard that little hairs fall onto the board. He blows them away and moves his next piece, another move that’s going to spell trouble for him in a minute.
I make another move, and he grunts, leaning forward and looking at every piece like he can intimidate them into playing worse. He sinks deeper into concentration, calculating his moves for much longer amounts of time, calculating every countermove possible before he’ll even touch a piece.
And yet, despite his best efforts, I tear his position down until he starts getting desperate and aggressive, taking pieces even if it means he’ll lose twice as many. He’ll do anything to throw me off balance, but it’s not working.
His other knight falls.
And then, his queen.
By the time I back his king into the corner, Jasha is visibly agitated. His hand hovers over the board, hesitating, and then finally, he lays down his king in defeat.
Checkmate.
He sits back, shaking his head and laughing the stress of the game away. “How the fuck did you do that?”
“Maybe I’m a better player than you thought,” I reply with a wink.
“Much better. I don’t believe you only played a few games.”
I shrug. “Well, I was on the chess team in high school. Never defeated, actually.”
He scoffs. “You didn’t tell me that. I could’ve beaten you. I was just taking it easy because I thought you were an amateur.”
“Want to play again?” I ask, jumping up in my seat. “I’ll reset the board.”
He checks his phone and sighs. “Fine, since we have some time to kill, but be warned, I’m not taking it easy on you this time.”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” I reply with a smirk.
Jasha plays a completely different opening the second time, but it’s questionable at best. He’s trying to imitate something from a famous game, but I’m already ten moves ahead of him.
“Don’t try to be clever,” I warn. “It’s only going to get you into more trouble.”
“Enough talk,” Jasha replies, moving a piece so far across the board that he’s nested in my pawns. “Let’s play for real this time.”
I fall into silence, allowing my moves to do all the speaking while I try not to get distracted by the way he smells. It’s so rich, licorice and spice with an underlying note of orange. I could just sit here without a moving a piece and smell him all night, but that would give away how utterly obsessed I am with him.
He can’t know that. Like a chess game, I need to keep my motives hidden.
That’s how I beat him.
I knock one of his pieces over as I take more room on the board, leaning in just a bit to get a better whiff of him as he grumbles something under his breath.
I have to stifle a laugh several times when he leaps up from the table, circles the room a few times, and comes back, only to lose another piece.
He loses even faster the second time around.
Finally, with another checkmate, his scowl turns into a deep laugh. “You surprise me, Lola. You really are good at this. You have to play my brother sometime.”
“Maybe another game with you, first?” I ask. “I’m still a bit rusty.”
“No, I think I’ve learned my lesson. Never underestimate the woman sitting across from you, especially when she’s pretending like she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
He allows me to revel in my small victory over him for a minute, but then quickly goes back to his serious self when he checks his phone and realizes we have a signal again. Even the snow outside seems to have cleared up a bit, which means all hope isn’t lost after all.
“I need to call Nikolai,” Jasha says, holding up his phone. “I’ll just be a minute.”
I nod, leaning back in my seat as he leaves, thinking of what’s to come. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to meet the family after all this is over. If Nikolai likes to play chess too, I wouldn’t mind challenging him to a game, especially since I suspect he might be better than Jasha.
