Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

“I was thinking of maybe taking a walk downtown— ”

“Oh, no. No way.” She pulls back and takes my face between her hands. Her eyes are night stars bursting with excitement. “Tonight, Mallory, we play Skittles!”



SKITTLES IS LIKE CHESS.

Actually: skittles is chess— without a clock or scorecard, surrounded by half-empty beer cans and Salt-N-Pepa songs that are older than us, under the light of a starry- sky LED projector that some girl from Belgium brought as a “hotel room– warming present.”

It’s a multicultural frat party, with chess instead of spin the bottle. For reasons that I must attribute to Tanu and Emil’s event- planning skills and Nolan’s reputation, taking place right in our shared area. People have been coming and going in a steady stream for hours, bringing their sets and playing blitz, rapid, Fischer Random.

Strip chess.

“Drinking age’s nineteen, Mal,” Tanu says when I decline a fruity drink for the second time. She lost a bishop and her socks about ten minutes ago. “It’s legal! Like en passant capture! Or queening! Or castling sho— Crap, I’m so sorry!” She spills her glass onto the Italian guy Nolan defeated yesterday and promptly moves to paint whiskers on a cute Japanese guy, forgetting all about eighteen- year- old me.

I go back to focusing on my rapid game against a Sri Lankan girl I bonded with after noticing her Dragon Age Solas pin. She’s very pretty, and a great player to boot, and a-couple-of-monthsago- Mallory would be making a move on her. I swore to Saturn and back that I wouldn’t play for fun. Yes, it’s exactly what I’m doing. Nope, I would not like to talk about it.

“—that time Nolan stole a black knight from Kaporani’s board at GE’s tournament and all matches were delayed by twenty minutes because of the search?”

“That was after Gibraltar, when Kaporani switched my water with distilled vinegar.”

“We’d already gotten revenge for that with the glitter bomb. He sparkled for months.”

People laugh. Emil and Nolan are on the couch, playing tactical team, surrounded by a mix of old friends and fans. There’s a girl, for instance, who’s almost as blond as me, curled up next to Nolan. Hard to tell how he feels about it, since he’s so focused on his game. He must have run a hand through his hair, because it’s vaguely mussed, unbearably attractive.

Something else I’d rather not talk about.

“Must be cool to play with him,” the Sri Lankan girl says, following my gaze.

I look away. “He can be kind of a dick,” I say, though he hasn’t really been one to me.

She chuckles, low and smoky. She’s really my type. “All geniuses are. I heard he has an IQ of 190. Maybe higher, but tests cannot measure it.”

“He doesn’t eat meat loaf like someone with a 190 IQ,” I mutter, resentful.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing. Um, checkmate, by the way.” I stand, wiping my palms over my leggings and abandoning my half- hearted seduction plans. My heart’s not really in it, or maybe I’m too tired to get laid. “It was great to meet you. I’ve got an early morning and— ”

“Where are you going, Mal?” Tanu appears out of nowhere. “It’s like, not even midnight!”

“Oh, you don’t have to keep it down for me. I just need to buy presents for my sisters tomorrow morning, so— ”

“But don’t go now! Don’t you want pizza?”

“Pizza?”

“Yes, let’s go get pizza!”

“I’m kind of tired, and— ”

“Then we’re getting it and bringing it back!” She turns around and bellows drunkenly, “Who wants to come get midnight pizza?”

Might be because Tanu is the life of the party, or because pizza is hands down the best food in the world, but in half a minute the music is turned off and our shared area empties out of everyone but me.

Maybe I’m eighty years old inside, but: Blessed. Quiet.

“You’re not coming?” the blond woman who was with Nolan earlier asks from the door. Her accent is very pretty. But we’ve never really talked, so I’m confused why she’d want to know whether I—

“No.”

I startle and turn around. Nolan— she was talking to Nolan. Who’s still on the couch.

“You sure?”

He barely spares her a glance. “Very.” He probably hates pizza. Only eats authentic Sicilian calzone made with tomatoes grown around the mouth of Mount Etna.

Whatever. I’m going to bed. “Nolan, when Tanu comes back, will you tell her that I went to sleep?” I wave past the chairs, the chess sets, the couch. “Have a good— ”

His hand snatches my wrist. I’m too surprised to wiggle out. “Let’s play a bit, Mallory.”

I freeze. I stiffen. And this time I do wiggle out. “I told you, I don’t— ”

“— play outside of training and tournaments. Yes. But you’ve been playing all night, outside of training and tournaments. With five different people.”

I scoff. “Did you count?”

“Yes.” He looks up at me. Stars dance occasionally across the line of his jaw, his cheekbones. “I was sure you’d end the night in Bandara’s room.”