Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

“What?”

“This is why chess players study, Mallory. Why we’re so obsessed with replaying games and memorizing openings.”

“Because we hate to draw?”

“Because we hate feeling like we did anything less than our absolute best.”

The hotel is a five- minute walk from campus. My room is nothing to write home about, except that it is because: privacy. I cannot remember the last time I had access to a bed without the audience of a twelve- year- old goblin and the three- thousandyear- old demon who possesses her guinea pig. I should take advantage of it. I consider watching a movie. Then I consider whipping out my phone, pulling up dating apps, looking for matches in the Philly area. Perfect no-strings- attached opportunity. Plus, orgasms do improve my mood.

Instead I stare out the window, replaying my last game as the sun sets slowly.

It’s like that time I accidentally sexted Mom. Like that day the entire cheering team walked in on me while I pretended to open the automatic sliding doors with the Force. Like in middle school, when I walked into the teachers’ restroom to wash my hands and found Mr. Carter sitting on the toilet doing a sudoku. Whenever I do something really embarrassing, for days after the incident I live in a state of utter mortification. At night I close my eyes and my brain will yank me back to the deep well of my shame, projecting cringeworthy scenes in excruciating detail against my eyelids.

(Overdramatic? Perhaps. But I sexted my mother. I am allowed.)

My neurons cling to every splinter of embarrassment, won’t let go of the mistakes I made during my matches. I won, fine, but in my second game I left my knight open like that. Gross. Disgusting. Appal—

Someone knocks.

“Defne asked me to take you to the social and introduce you around,” Oz says when I open the door. He’s staring at his phone.

“The social?”

“There’s a reception downstairs, for players who moved to day two. Defne can’t go, since it’s only for players. There’s free food and booze.” He glances up, assessing. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

He mutters something about babysitting toddlers and not being Mary Fucking Poppins. “They probably have Sierra Mist somewhere in a cooler. Come.”

I’m not sure what I expected from a chess party. Easton aside, I never hung out with the PCC people, but they always struck me as quiet and escapism- driven. The players here, though, look more like businessmen, wearing tailored suits and laughing over champagne glasses. There are no sweater vests in sight, and no one is bemoaning the untimely end of Battlestar Galactica. They all seem boisterous and confident. Young. Wealthy. Sure of their place in the world.

One of them notices Oz and leaves his group to approach us. “Congrats on breaking the top twenty.” He glances at me— first distracted, then appraising, then lingering. An unpleasant shiver travels up my spine. “I didn’t know we could bring a plus-one.”

Oh, yeah—the people in this room? They’re 98 percent male.

“Is this your sister?” He must be around my age, and theoretically he should be handsome in a classic, wholesome way, but there’s something waxy about him, something unsettling in his blue gaze that lifts my hairs.

“Why the hell would she be my sister?” Oz asks.

“I dunno, man.” He shrugs. “She’s blond. You’re blond. And she’s way too hot to be your girlfriend.”

I stiffen. Surely I misheard.

“Mallory is a chess player, man.” Oz’s tone drips disdain. Whatever antipathy he may harbor toward me, the Office Intruder, it’s nothing compared with what he feels for this guy.

He doesn’t hate me, after all. I might even be his best friend. How heartwarming.

“If you say so.” His English is perfect, if slightly accented. Vaguely Northern European. “Well, honey, this party is for people who won all their matches, so . . . wait.” He leans back, making a show of studying me. “Are you the girl who trashed Sawyer at the charity tournament?”

“I— ”

“Yes, you are. Guys, this is the chick who humiliated Sawyer!”

I’m not sure what’s happening, or why, but the group of people (men, all men) Northern Europe was chatting with give us interested glances, then make their way to us.

“What did you do before the game?” a tall man in his thirties asks. His accent is so thick, I can barely make out the words. “I need that kind of luck.”

“Was Sawyer having a really bad day?”

“Were you wearing something low- cut? Is that the trick?”

“Does he know she’s here?”

“Well, she’s still alive. So, clearly no.”

Everyone laughs, and I am . . . paralyzed. Mortified. They’re staring like I’m a barely sentient slab of meat, and I feel like a daft child, on display, out of place in my flowy lace sundress. I’m no withering flower, and over my years with Bob I’ve had my fair share of sparring with older, sexist men, but these people are just so— so blatantly, openly rude, I’m not even sure how I should be responding to—

“Excuse us”— Oz grabs my elbow and tugs me away— “we’re going to go find some food and maybe people who aren’t total assholes.”

“Oh, come on, Nothomb!”