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Oh.
Oh? “Why?”
“It should have been you, yesterday. It was . . . I had you there. In front of me, across the board.” His lips press together. “It should have been you.”
“Yeah, well.”It would have been fun if it had been me.A knot of regret squeezes inside me, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it has nothing to do with the prize money, and everything to do with the fact that my match against this guy— this sullen, handsome, odd guy— was the most fun chess I’ve ever played. “Malte Koch had other ideas.”
“Koch is a nonentity.”
“He’s the second- best player in the world.”
“He has the second- highestratingin the world,” he corrects me.
I remember the way Nolan humiliated him yesterday, and say, “Have you considered that Koch might be less of an allaround jerk to all of us if you spent a couple of minutes per week pretending to indulge his delusions of archrivalry?”
“No.”
“Right.” I start to turn around. “Well, this was fun, but— ”
His hand wraps around my forearm. “I want to play.”
“Well, I don’t play.”
His eyebrow lifts. “Could have fooled me.”
I flush. “I don’t play unless I’m at work.”
“You don’t play unless you’re at Zugzwang?” He’s clearly skeptical. And still holding my wrist.
“Or at a tournament. Never in my free time. I try not to think of chess at all in my free time, actually, and you’re kind of making it impossible, so— ”
He scoffs. “You think about chess all the time, Mallory, and we both know it.”
I would laugh him off, but I’ve been going over Koch’s games all day in my head, and the jab hits close. I pull free, ignoring the lingering warmth of his skin, and square my shoulders. “Maybeyoudo. Maybeyouare thoroughly addicted. Maybe you wrap chess sets in plastic bags and hide them in your toilet tank because you have nothing else to think about.” I remember the Baudelaire rumor, and it hits me that out of the two of us, the one without a life is certainlynotNolan. Still, I’ve come too far to stop. “But some of us see chess as a game, and enjoy work- life balance.”
He leans in. His face is just a few inches from mine.
“I want to play chess with you,” he repeats. His voice is lower. Closer. Deeper. “Please, Mallory.”
There’s an openness to him. A vulnerability. He suddenly looks younger than I know him to be, a boy asking someone to do something very, very important for him. It’s hard to say no.
But not impossible.
“I’m sorry, Nolan. I’m not going to play against you unless it happens in a tournament.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I can’t wait that long.”
“Excuse me?”
“You barely have a rating. You’re not going to be allowed into invitationals or super- tournaments for years, the next open isn’t until late spring— ”
“That’s not true,” I protest, even though I have no idea. His stubborn, displeased, near-worried expression lets me know that it likely is.
Something twists in my stomach.
“Why?” he asks. “Why this bullshit no-play- outside- work rule?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”Then why are you giving him one?“But . . . I don’t like chess. Not like you do. It’s just a job, something I fell into backward, and . . .” I shrug. It feels tense, unnatural. “It’s just the way I want it.”
