Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

“Learn to take a joke.”

“Let her stay— bet she wants to get to know us!”

I stumble after Oz, mouth dry, hands shaking. He drags me all the way to the other side of the room, to a table laden with hors d’oeuvres. I think I’m shell- shocked. “Who were they?”

“Malte Koch and his minions.”

I shake my head. Rack my brain. His name sounds familiar, but I can’t quite point—

“He’s been world number two for the last couple of years. And an asshole since birth, one can only assume. The slightly older guy who asked if Sawyer knows you’re here is Cormenzana, number seven, the tall Serbian is Dordevic, somewhere around thirty, but the others are about as consequential as a block of concrete with googly eyes. Little shits whose claim to fame is licking Koch’s anus.” He rolls his eyes and reaches blindly for a bacon- stuffed mushroom. Oz Nothomb: unexpectedly, an emotional eater. “I had no intention of introducing you. No one should ever talk to them. Their place is on a top- secret mining colony on Mars, if you ask me. Sadly, no one ever asks.” He chews on his mushroom for a moment and then mumbles a stilted “Sorry about that.”

I wonder if it’s the first apology of his life. It sure sounds like it. “It’s not your fault. But that was . . . I think I hate them?”

“Yeah, I’ll get you the club’s laminated badge.” He studies me. “Are you going to cry?”

“No.”

“Are you going to pass eye water?”

“No. I’m fine. I just . . .” I lean against the wall behind me. “Are they like that with all women?”

Oz snorts. “Look around. How many women do you see?” I don’t need to look around. Instead I reach out for a piece of Brie melted on a crust of bread. “Most women in chess decide to skip these events and compete in women- only tournaments. I bet you’re wondering why.”

“Total mystery.” I put my cheese on a napkin. I have no appetite. “What did it mean, that thing about me being alive?”

He sighs. “Koch and his gang love it that you made a fool out of Sawyer, because they hate him. But they also hate that you beat him in one go, because Koch fancies himself to be Sawyer’s lifelong rival.”

“But he isn’t?”

“He cannot compete. No one can compete with Sawyer, really. He’s been dominating for nearly a decade. I mean”— he pops half a deviled egg in his mouth— “Koch’s an excellent player, if inconsistent. He has moments of brilliance. He’s forced Sawyer into draws, and once even came close to beating him. But ultimately they’re not comparable.”

Must be miserable, losing game after game. “Koch’s not aware?”

“I’m sure he’s plenty aware, but you’ve seen the kind of people he holds court with. Their narrative is that Sawyer is some superevil villain who made chess predictable by being unbeatable— as though he isn’t the reason chess got so big among younger people in the last few years. They make it sound like Sawyer’s Thanos and Koch’s Tony Stark.” He rolls his eyes. “Obviously, they’re both Thanos.”

Oz Nothomb: unexpectedly, a Marvel guy. “Are we . . . in middle school again?”

Oz shrugs. “Close enough. Koch is just a child, salty because he always ends up dead in FMK. Meanwhile Sawyer gets all the attention, makes serious bank, ends up on Time’s Most Influential, and sleeps with Baudelaires or whatnot— ”

“Baudelaires?”

“Yeah. It’s this experimental rock band— ”

“I know who the Baudelaire sisters are.” Sabrina is obsessed. I like their music, too. “Sawyer sleeps with them?”

“Yes. And Koch wants that for himself. As if.”

My head is exploding. “Did he— Which Baudelaire did Sawyer . . . ?”

“I don’t know, Mallory. I do not watch reality television.”

“Right.” I look away, chastised. I’m going to have to google this. I’m dying to whip out my phone right now. “Well, the top ten sounds pretty crowded with assholes.”

“Mostly just Koch and Cormenzana. And Sawyer, but he’s a better brand. I’m not gonna make a friendship bracelet for him, but I’ll take a sphincter- clenchingly scary asshole like Sawyer over a slug-slurping-moisture-after-a-rainstorm slimy asshole like Koch any day.”

They both sound uniquely horrible, I think as a man plucks custard- filled beignets off the table and quickly scurries away, unimpressed with the anus talk.

“Anyway,” Oz concludes, “everyone else in the top ten is less punchable.”

I smile faintly. “Is ‘less punchable’ Oz-speak for ‘nice’?”

He arches one eyebrow. “And what does that mean?”

“Well, you’re not the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

“I am a motherfucking delight, Greenleaf. And for the record, you and I are equally hot.”

I only stay at the reception for about thirty minutes. Oz is right, and not everyone in chess is a dick: he introduces me to several people who do not insult me, sexually harass me, or act with a messianic- grade superiority complex. But his group of friends is a few years older than me, and I drift out of conversation when it falls on their wives and graduate education. I feel the occasional side glances from Koch’s gang on me, and cannot quite relax, so I wave goodnight and head back to my room, ready to spend the rest of the evening berating myself over my mistakes.