Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

ALEX: Hey!

MAL: love the dog in your profile pic, is he a pitbull?

My phone immediately pings with a reply, but for several minutes I’m too distracted with lying back on the couch and analyzing the Sawyer variation for the Berlin Defense to check it.

ALEX: Yup. How have you been?

How have I been? That’s kind of a weird question. I scroll back to his profile pic, thinking that he looks a bit familiar. He’s cute. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Not that dark, though. Not as dark as . . .

MAL: have we met before?

ALEX: Are you kidding?

Nope. Not kidding. Thankfully, he reminds me before I have to admit it.

ALEX: We went to school together. I was a year ahead of you. I asked you to junior prom.

Oh. That Alex— except, now he has facial hair. I do remember. He’d been so . . . bland. Probably why I haven’t really thought about him since.

MAL: sorry, i didn’t recognize your pic. how’ve you been?

ALEX: Good! I’m at Rutgers. What about you?

MAL: i’m not in school

ALEX: Taking a year off? It suits you, from your profile pic. You were always really hot, but now . . .

The next text is three fire emojis. Given the reason I’m on this app, I should probably find it flattering instead of . . . blah.

Instead, I wonder how Nolan would do this. Be online. Hook up. Poorly, probably. Isn’t he a virgin? Useless in the sack.

But it’s so hard to picture him doing anything poorly. With his dark, attentive eyes; the precise, purposeful way his large hands close around the chess pieces; his voice, always so careful; his beautiful, brilliant strategies. He’d murmur indiscernible words under his breath at the Olympics, when he made a mistake or regretted a move. Sometimes the hairs at the nape of my neck would rise, and it shouldn’t have been pleasant, but I—

My phone pings again and I look at it, startled. I forgot it was in my hand.

ALEX: Do you want to meet sometime soon, catch up?

Hook up, he means. Though he’s being appropriately subtle about it. I bet Nolan wouldn’t be nearly as low- key. I bet he’d say something like “to have sexual intercourse” and—

Oh God.

Oh God.

MAL: actually, probably better not. i’m way too busy with work, shouldn’t even be online. so sorry to waste your time.

I silence my phone, and when it vibrates with Alex’s response, I don’t bother checking it. Why the hell am I thinking about Nolan right now, while setting up a meeting with another person? Why is he in my head?

That’s it. I’m done. This is upsetting. Confusing. Stupid. Unprecedented. No more Nolan games. No more Nolan. I need to— I can’t keep thinking about him.

Starting tomorrow, I tell myself as I wait for the shower jet to warm up enough. I won’t look at his games anymore. I’ll purge him. Starting tomorrow.

I actually believe it. Until tomorrow happens.



THE PIECE IS IN VANITY FAIR.

Which is a problem in and of itself, as I’m out of free articles for the month. It means that when Easton texts it to me (Are you hooking up with him? Good to know I have to find out about my BFF’s life from Vanity Fair!!!), I can see the title (Sawyer places second at Pasternak invitational, draws to Koch in volatile final match) and nothing else.

I just woke up after tossing and turning all night. Outside it’s still dark, the glow from my phone pierces my bleary eyes, and Goliath is proudly licking his butthole somewhere by my left ear.

I really do hate my life.

MALLORY: don’t have access to the article. tl;dr?

MALLORY: how are you, by the way? did a sasquatch capture you and make you her bride?

BOULDER EASTON ELLIS: You WANT to read this.

MALLORY: im poor and i hate jeff bezos.

BOULDER EASTON ELLIS: That’s the Washington Post and USE INCOGNITO MODE jeez what’s wrong with you. Boomer.

Incognito mode works, and how did I not know about that? I’m wondering how to exploit this newfound knowledge when the first paragraph of the article catches my eyes.

. . . that Sawyer seemed uncharacteristically out of shape. Of course, out of shape for the world’s No. 1 is still better than most Super GMs, but many were surprised when he placed second at one of the most important tournaments of the year— and did not attend the awards ceremony.

“He seemed tired,” Andreas Antonov, the Georgian GM, said in an interview. “Which isn’t surprising, considering that he came on a red-eye straight from Toronto and played his first match one hour after landing.” Sawyer’s decision to participate in the Olympics was a topic of much discussion in the chess community. He was the only top-20 player who chose to do so.

“That’s what happens when you put chess after your girlfriend,” Koch, Pasternak’s winner, said to ChessWorld.com. “The Sawyer era of chess is over. Next month I’ll triumph at the Challengers, and then I’ll take the World Championship.”

Although Sawyer hasn’t spoken publicly about his personal life, it seems likely that Koch was referring to Mallory Greenleaf, a talented player who has drawn some attention since the Philadelphia Open. Greenleaf is currently rated 1,892 but is rapidly climbing the rankings. At the Olympics, Greenleaf and Sawyer were part of the US team with Tanu Goel (ranking: #295) and Emil Kareem (ranking: #84) and placed third. They were also spotted together outside the tournament (see this picture) . . .