Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

I click on the link, which brings me to Page Fucking Six. It’s a photo of Nolan and me on our last night in Toronto, playing tic- tactoe in a semi- dark room. My head is bent, pencil in hand. He’s staring at me, an oddly soft expression on his usually unreadable face.

Who took this? When? Why?

. . . Sawyer, who’s a bona fide rock star, is rumored to be dating fellow chess player Mallory Greenleaf. The two were caught having an intimate moment late on . . .



Oh, fuck. No no no. Oh, fuckity fuck fuck.

I spring out of bed. This is bad. Badder than bad. Baddest. What do I do? How do I ask for a retraction from Vanity Fair? Do they have a manager I can pull a Karen with?

Nolan. Nolan will know. He’ll want to fix this, too. I need to get in touch with him, but how? I don’t have his number. Do I summon him with a pentagram made of rooks, or— Emil!

I text him, then remember his schedule back in Toronto: not a morning person. Who knows when he’ll wake up, and I can’t wait that long when someone is wrong about me on the internet. So I run a hand through my hair and do what anyone else would: I google Nolan. I have to comb through more results than anyone who’s barely twenty years old should have, including a Tumblr of him as a cat, and explicit erotic fanfiction of him and Percy Jackson sixty- nining on a hippocampus. Then find something useful: an article about Nolan emancipating himself from his family and moving into a Tribeca penthouse.

And because the internet is a scary place that doesn’t believe in boundaries, there is an address.

Apparently I don’t believe in boundaries, either: I’m going there to talk to Nolan. It’ll take over an hour. By then Emil will have replied, and I’ll text Nolan that I’m in the area. Let’s get Starbucks to talk about chess and a possible defamation lawsuit to a major news outlet! Coffee’s on me! Perfect plan.

Made only slightly less perfect by the fact that I find myself in the lobby of Nolan’s building, and Emil still won’t reply or take my calls. Because he’s still asleep. The doorman takes a look at the oversized sweater I threw over my most boho dress and is ready to eject me from the building.

I smile shakily. “I’m here to see Mr. Sawyer.”

The doorman’s expression clearly says, I know you chess groupies, and I won’t hesitate to bother the police with this. It makes me want to die a bit.

“Please?”

“I’m under instruction not to let up unexpected visitors.”

“But I . . .” An idea occurs to me. It makes me want to die a lot. “He just came back from Russia and I wanted to surprise him, because I’m his . . .” Don’t gag. Show the good doorman the Page Six article. “Girlfriend. See?” See this pic that’s on the internet and must therefore be true?

Two minutes later I’m on the fourth floor, thinking Nolan needs way better security, when he opens the door.

I fully expected to word- vomit at him and demand that he ask his . . . publicist? Press team? Masseuse? That he ask someone to fix this shitshow. But when he’s standing in front of me, hair wild, skin pasty white, white tee and plaid pajama pants rumpled from the mattress, I cannot help but say . . .

“You look like death.”

“Mallory?” He rubs the heel of his palm in his eye. His voice is hoarse with sleep and something else. “Another dream, huh?”

“Nolan— are you okay?”

“You should come to bed. This is a stupid setup. I like it much better when we— ”

“Nolan, are you sick?”

He blinks. His expression clears. “Are you really here?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with you?”

He scratches his nape and sinks into the doorjamb, like orthostatic balance is not something he has fully mastered. “Not sure,” he mumbles. “Either everything or nothing.”

Nolan’s apartment is a duplex three times larger than my house, a giant expanse of uncluttered spaces, wide windows, hardwood floors, and bookshelves. In the middle of the hallway there’s an open suitcase, abandoned; on a nearby table, a stack of books that include Emily Dickinson, Donna Tartt, and a monograph on the Macedonian phalanx; all over, the deep, complex scent I’ve come to associate with Nolan— but better. Stronger. Deconstructed in its separate layers.

I follow him as he leads somewhere he forgot to say, trying not to be nosy about his space, not to stare at the cotton clinging to his wide shoulders. It’s odd, being here. Like the peculiar atmosphere that every room exudes as soon as Nolan Sawyers enters it has been distilled, condensed, poured over the walls and the floors.

This impromptu trip might not have been a wise decision. “Do you have a fever?” I ask in the kitchen.

“Impossible to tell.”

I arch my eyebrow. “Let me tell you about thermometer technology.”

“Ah, yeah. I forgot.” Thing is, I don’t even think he’s being a smart-ass. I watch him grab two regular-sized mugs that look almost comically small in his hands (one says Emil’s #1 Little Bitch), a box of Froot Loops, a half- drunk gallon of milk that’s visibly curdled. He offers me the non- Emil mug like it’s a whiskey shot.

“Nolan, you— ” I push up my toes to reach his forehead. He’s burning. This close, he smells like sleep and fresh sweat. Not unpleasant.