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“What?” I lean closer, wide eyed.
“Kasparov was there.”
“The former world champion?”
“Yes. He wanted to play with me.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and? I went to play.”
“Let me get this straight. You chose playing chess with an old man over getting laid?”
He looks at me like he’s a cloistered nun and I’m explaining Bitcoin to him. “Did you get that it wasKasparov?”
I laugh. Then I laugh again. Then I laugh some more, forehead against my palms, thinking that when he’s not a total dick, Nolan is actually kind of cute. When I look up, he has taken a strand of my hair and is rubbing it between his fingertips like it’s mulberry silk. His eyes are still a bit glassy, so I let him.
“Was it at least the best game of your life?” I ask.
He stares into my eyes. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Which one was, then?”
More staring. A stray shiver travels up my spine, coming from who knows where. Then the kitchen timer rings, and we both glance away.
I put the soup in his Emil’s Little Bitch mug because it’s a mental image I deserve to have.
“This is good,” he says after the first spoonful, sounding offensively surprised. “Not as good as your mom’s meat loaf, but— ”
I pinch him on the biceps, where there’s almost no yield because his muscles strain the sleeves of his T-shirt, and hislopsided smile appears. He has four helpings, which he eats boyishly while I munch on my Snickers and pretend not to be flattered. My adrenaline high is coming down, and my body is starting to remember that I have given it fewer than five hours of sleep and no caffeine.
“Do you cook?” I ask distractedly.
“Rarely. And mediocrely.”
“And yet, you have the best kitchen I’ve ever seen.” I shake my head. “The money one can earn from tournaments is a bit obscene.”
“It is, but I was a trust- fund baby. I’ll let you decide if that’s more or less morally vile.”
“Nice of your parents.”
“My grandfather,” he corrects. “He used to own this apartment.”
“Oh.” I bite my lip, thinking whether I want to ask. “Was that your grandfather who . . .”
“Yup. Who played chess and went crazy and almost got me killed when I was thirteen.” His smile is small, not as bitter as I’d have expected. I wince anyway.
“Not the best way to talk about mental health,” I say neutrally.
“Right. My grandfather, who was diagnosed with rapiddecline behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. Does that sound better?” I don’t reply. Then he adds, “There is a familial variant of frontotemporal dementia, did you know?”
I open my mouth, then I close it. There’s a faraway feeling to him that seems to have little to do with his fever. I should tread carefully.
Nolan Sawyer, needing care. Sounds fake. But.
“Are you afraid it’ll happen to you?”
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “You know what’s funny? I used to be terrified of it, but I know it won’t. Because I got genetic testing as soon as I emancipated. But my father, as far as I know, did not get tested, and until I stopped taking his calls, he told me every day, everysingleday, that if I kept playing chess, I’d end up like my grandfather. As though that’s what his problem was: he played too much chess.”
