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.
“Your hand is so cool,” he says, closing his eyes in relief.
I make to take it away, but he traps it under his. “Stay.” He leans into me, breath warm, chapped lips against my temple. “You never stay.”
“Nolan, you’re ill. We have to do something about it.”
“Right. Yes.” He straightens away from me. “Breakfast. Will be like new after.”
“After this? You need nutrients, not food coloring in microdonut shape.”
“It’s all I have.”
“Seriously?”
He shrugs. “I was gone somewhere. Canada?”
“You were in Russia. Also, you have a stack of bowls in that credenza— who has cereal in a mug?”
“Oh.” He nods. Then collapses slowly, until his forehead rests on the kitchen island. “Who’s Credence?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m a good person. I pick up Mrs. Abebe’s garbage can when the wind tips it over, smile at the dogs at the park, never make fun of people who say irregardless. I don’t deserve this. And yet. “Listen, stay here. Don’t eat that. I’ll be right back.”
I half carry him to the couch, his solid muscles heavy and scorching hot against me. In less than ten minutes, I run downstairs, spend a small European country’s GDP at the corner bodega, and come back up to find him sleeping.
I’m Mother Teresa. Reincarnated. I need a halo for my trouble.
“Take this.” Nolan’s couch is a giant sectional but still too short for him. Ridiculous.
“Is it poison?”
“Rapid-release ibuprofen.”
“What’s that smell?”
“Your armpits.”
“No, the good one.”
“I’m cooking.”
His eyes spring open. “You’re making chicken soup.”
“Which you do not deserve.”
“From scratch?”
“It’s really easy, and canned stuff tastes like lead poisoning and despair. By the way, you owe me forty-three dollars. Yes, I’m charging you for the emotional-support Snickers bar I bought for myself— you can Venmo, but please don’t write For Drugs in the memo line. Just . . . take a nap. I’ll be back.”
He doesn’t, though. Take a nap. He sits at the kitchen island and watches me in a glazed-over, pleased way as I move around quietly. It doesn’t bother me, really. His eyes on me usually do strange, uncomfortable things, but today . . . maybe I just love this kitchen. It’s large and cozy and modern, and I want to use it every day. I want to common-law marry it and adopt an entire pack of incontinent shar-peis with it.
“Why are you here?” he asks twenty minutes later. With the meds kicking in, he seems a little less out of it.
“There is this article in Vanity Fair,” I explain absentmindedly while chopping carrots. Now that I’m here, taking care of Nolan in his warm apartment that smells like him and comfort food, it’s hard to scrounge up the level of indignation I felt one hour ago. “About you losing to Koch.”
“I drew with Koch. But I did lose to Liu, who in turn won to Oblonsky, and I tied with Antonov, so I placed second at the tournament— ”
“Yes, I’m sure your dick is longer than Koch’s, but let’s focus on the matter at hand, which is that Koch told Vanity Fair that you and I are dating, and Page Six published pics of us in Toronto, and now whatever small nerdy percentage of the world cares about chess thinks that we have a thing.”
“And we don’t?”
I turn to glare at him. “You don’t have things. You told me so.”
“I also said ‘until recently.’ ”
My heart skips a beat. “You should be way more upset about this. Since you’re on your deathbed, I’ll let that slide, but we’ll have to set the record straight.”
“Sure. Feel free.”
“What does that mean? Together. We’ll do it together. We can release a press statement. Invest in skywriting. Something.”
“I won’t. But you can.”
I scowl. “What do you mean, you won’t? My sister, my friends, they’ll read the article and think it’s true.”
“I’m happy to text your friends, or FaceTime them, or skywrite at them to explain the situation. But I won’t talk about my personal life to the press.”
“Why?”
“Mal, I understand that this is upsetting, but it’s not the first time this has happened to me. There’s no way to fight the press when they’re wrong. You can only ignore it. First rule of Chess Club: never google yourself.”
I cover the soup with a lid and lean against the counter, arms crossed. “Pretty sure the first rule of Chess Club is White moves first. And I understand you were burned by the Baudelaire rumor, but— ”
“I was referring to the shit they printed about my grandfather.” He gives me a vacuous look. “What’s the Baudelaire rumor?”
I look away. Embarrassing, that I know of it and he doesn’t. Makes it sound like I care more about his love life than he does. “Just . . . people said you dated a Baudelaire?”
“Oh, yeah. The sisters, right? Emil told me about it.”
“Is it true?”
His eyebrow lifts. “You know it isn’t.”
Right. I do. “How did the rumor start, then?”
“One of them was at some party my manager made me go to, back when I still listened to her. That was probably enough.”
I lean my elbows on the island, hating how interested I am. “Which Baudelaire?”
“Name started with a J, I think?”
I sigh. They all have J names. “So, what happened? You were talking and you didn’t want to . . . you know.”
“Would you?”
“If it were me? Hell yeah.”
He tilts his head. “Why would you?”
“What do you mean?”
“What would you get out of it?”
I shrug. “I like sex. It’s fun. It feels good— really good, sometimes. Especially when you’re in the mood and you do it with attractive or interesting people. I’m not ashamed of it.”
“You shouldn’t be,” he says, but I can tell that he doesn’t completely get it. That sex, desire, are something he’s still wrapping his head around. “What about feeling closer to someone? Making a connection?”
“Maybe. I’m sure sex means different things to different people, and they’re all valid.” I swat the memory of last night and Alex away, like it’s a fruit fly. “But the human connection part . . . that’s not why I do it. It’s risky.”