Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

“Tell Easton that— ”

“Not Easton.” Darcy flushes. “Though you could invite her over. Maybe this afternoon— ”

Not Easton? “Who, then?”

“A random person.”

I groan. “Darcy, I told you: when people from millenarian restorationist Christian denominations come knocking— ”

“— we politely inform them that eternal salvation is beyond us, I know, but it’s someone else. They asked for you by name, not for the head of the household.”

“Okay.” I scratch my forehead. “Okay— tell them I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Cool. Oh, and also, this arrived yesterday. Addressed to Mom, but . . .” She holds out an envelope. My eyes are still blurry. I have to blink to read, but when I do, my stomach twists.

“Thank you.”

“It’s a reminder, right?”

“No.”

“That we have to pay the mortgage?”

“No. Darcy— ”

“Do you have the money?”

I force myself to smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

She nods, but before stepping out she says, “I pocketed it when the mailman brought it. Mom and Sabrina haven’t seen it.” The freckles on her nose are shaped like a cloudy heart, and with the single neuron currently working in my brain I contemplate how unfair it is that she needs to worry about this stuff. She’s twelve. When I was twelve, my life was boba and refreshing chess.com.

I slip on dirty shorts and yesterday’s tee. Given Darcy’s gentle feedback, I decide to gargle with mouthwash while I turn on my phone. I discover that it’s 9:13, and that I have a million notifications. I swipe away dating app matches, Instagram and TikTok alerts, News highlights. I scroll through my texts from Easton (a panicked string, followed by Essay question: what does Nolan Sawyer smell like? Two paragraphs or longer and a picture of her vengefully biting into a cookie- macaron), then head outside.

I’m not sure who I expect to find. Definitely not a tall woman with a pixie haircut, a full sleeve of tattoos, and more piercings than I can count. She turns around with a grin, and her lips are a bold, perfect red. She must be in her late twenties, if not older.

“Sorry,” she says, pointing at her cigarette. Her voice is low and amused. “Your sister said you were sleeping and I thought you’d take longer. You’re not going to start smoking because you saw me smoke, right?”

I feel myself smile back. “Doubtful.”

“Good. You never know, the impressionability of the youths.” She puts out the butt, wraps it in a napkin, and pockets it, either to avoid polluting or to conceal her DNA.

Okay, no more Veronica Mars for me.

“You’re Mallory, right?”

I cock my head. “Have we met?”

“Nope. I’m Defne. Defne Bubikoğlu— but unless you speak Turkish, I wouldn’t try to pronounce it. It’s nice to meet you. I’m a fan.”

I let out a laugh. Then realize she’s serious. “Excuse me?”

“Anyone who trounces Nolan Sawyer like you did gets a lifetime supply of admiration from me.” She points to herself with a flourish. “Free home delivery, too.”

I stiffen. Oh, no. No, no. What is this? “I’m sorry. You have the wrong person.”

She frowns. “You’re not Mallory Greenleaf?”

I take a step back. “Yes. But it’s a common name— ”

“Mallory Virginia Greenleaf, who played yesterday?” She takes out her phone, taps at it, then holds it out with a smile. “If this is not you, you have some serious identity theft issues.”

She has pulled up a video. A TikTok of a young woman checkmating Nolan Sawyer with her queen. There are wisps of whiteblond hair falling across the side of her face, and her eyeliner is smudged.

I can’t believe Easton didn’t tell me that my eyeliner looked like shit.

Also, I can’t believe that this stupid video was taken and it has over twenty thousand likes. Are there even twenty thousand people who play chess?

“What was up with the dramatic exit, by the way?” she asks. “Did you double- park?”

“No. I— okay, that is me.” I run a hand down my face. I need coffee. And a time machine, to go back to when I agreed to help Easton. Maybe I could go back even further, just murder our entire friendship. “The game . . . It was a fluke.”

Defne’s brow furrows. “A fluke?”

“Yeah. I know that it looks like I’m some kind of . . . chess talent, but I don’t play. Sawyer must be in some kind of funk, and— ” I stop. Defne is laughing and laughing. Apparently, I’m hilarious.

“You mean, the current world chess champion? Who also happens to be the current rapid and blitz champion? In a funk?”

I press my lips together. “He can be the current champion and still be having a bad month.”

“Unlikely, since he won Sweden Chess last week.”

“Well,” I scramble, “he’s tired because of all the winning, and— ”

“Dude, stop.” She takes one step closer, and I smell something pleasantly citrusy mixed with the tobacco. “You won against the best player in the world. You completely blindsided him in a damn good game— the way you feinted a feint? How you got yourself out of that pin? Your queen? Stop putting yourself down and take credit for it— you think Nolan would be half as reticent? You think any guy would be?”