“Risky? How?”
I shrug, not about to explain. “I don’t need that stuff. I’m busy enough.”
He nods like he knows. “Taking care of your family, right?”
I arch an eyebrow. “Weren’t we talking about your Baudelaire affair?”
“I don’t really remember what happened. We— Wait.”
“What?” I lean closer, wide eyed.
“Kasparov was there.”
“The former world champion?”
“Yes. He wanted to play with me.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and? I went to play.”
“Let me get this straight. You chose playing chess with an old man over getting laid?”
He looks at me like he’s a cloistered nun and I’m explaining Bitcoin to him. “Did you get that it was Kasparov?”
I laugh. Then I laugh again. Then I laugh some more, forehead against my palms, thinking that when he’s not a total dick, Nolan is actually kind of cute. When I look up, he has taken a strand of my hair and is rubbing it between his fingertips like it’s mulberry silk. His eyes are still a bit glassy, so I let him.
“Was it at least the best game of your life?” I ask.
He stares into my eyes. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Which one was, then?”
More staring. A stray shiver travels up my spine, coming from who knows where. Then the kitchen timer rings, and we both glance away.
I put the soup in his Emil’s Little Bitch mug because it’s a mental image I deserve to have.
“This is good,” he says after the first spoonful, sounding offensively surprised. “Not as good as your mom’s meat loaf, but— ”
I pinch him on the biceps, where there’s almost no yield because his muscles strain the sleeves of his T-shirt, and his lopsided smile appears. He has four helpings, which he eats boyishly while I munch on my Snickers and pretend not to be flattered. My adrenaline high is coming down, and my body is starting to remember that I have given it fewer than five hours of sleep and no caffeine.
“Do you cook?” I ask distractedly.
“Rarely. And mediocrely.”
“And yet, you have the best kitchen I’ve ever seen.” I shake my head. “The money one can earn from tournaments is a bit obscene.”
“It is, but I was a trust-fund baby. I’ll let you decide if that’s more or less morally vile.”
“Nice of your parents.”
“My grandfather,” he corrects. “He used to own this apartment.”
“Oh.” I bite my lip, thinking whether I want to ask. “Was that your grandfather who . . .”
“Yup. Who played chess and went crazy and almost got me killed when I was thirteen.” His smile is small, not as bitter as I’d have expected. I wince anyway.
“Not the best way to talk about mental health,” I say neutrally.
“Right. My grandfather, who was diagnosed with rapiddecline behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. Does that sound better?” I don’t reply. Then he adds, “There is a familial variant of frontotemporal dementia, did you know?”
I open my mouth, then I close it. There’s a faraway feeling to him that seems to have little to do with his fever. I should tread carefully.
Nolan Sawyer, needing care. Sounds fake. But.
“Are you afraid it’ll happen to you?”
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “You know what’s funny? I used to be terrified of it, but I know it won’t. Because I got genetic testing as soon as I emancipated. But my father, as far as I know, did not get tested, and until I stopped taking his calls, he told me every day, every single day, that if I kept playing chess, I’d end up like my grandfather. As though that’s what his problem was: he played too much chess.”
“That seems . . . foolish.”
“Yeah, well. Foolish people will say foolish things.”
He’s not meeting my eyes. He stares down into his empty mug, elbows on the marble counter, and I feel myself leaning closer. Nolan seems raw, and I don’t want to risk touching him, but I’d like to be here. With him.
It’s something I do with Easton, when she’s feeling down. Darcy. Sabrina, when she lets me. Get a little closer than is polite. Share the same air. Let our scents mix together. I do it for my sisters and my friend, and now for this stupid overgrown world chess champion that I’m apparently nursing back to health.
Weirdos, both of us.
“This apartment he left you . . . It’s big for one person,” I murmur.
“Want to move in?” His tone matches mine, intimate.
“Sure. I’ll sell my pancreas. It should cover the first three months of rent.”
“You don’t have to pay rent. Just pick a room.”
“And I’ll pay you back in company? Save you from having dinner alone at your candelabra-lit fifty-foot cherrywood table, like Bruce Wayne?”
“I usually have dinner standing up in front of that chessboard over there.”
“I’m surprised you have dinner at all. And don’t just sustain yourself on the tears of your rivals.”
He smiles again, and God.
He is offensively, uniquely, devastatingly handsome.
I take a step back, reaching for my purse, throwing away the Snickers wrapper. “Leftover soup’s in the fridge. Take ibuprofen again in five hours. And have someone come over so if you pass out, they’ll notice before the rats eat your intestines.”
“You’re here.”
“I was here. I’m leaving now.”
Nolan deflates visibly, and something like compassion bites into me.
“Where’s Emil?” I ask.
“I’m not going to call Emil because I have the sniffles. He’s busy with midterms and spending three hours a day pining after Tanu.”
“Someone else, then.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t. You were half dead when I got here.”
“Then stay.”
“I’m already late for Zugzwang. I . . .”
He’s staring at me with those dark, clear eyes, and I just can’t go. I can’t leave him. What if he gets dehydrated and dies? Will that be on me, then? I’m not giving his ghost the satisfaction of haunting several generations of Greenleaf women. I’m keeping this jerk alive.
“Since both our jobs consist of playing chess, we should play a game,” he says while I text Defne that something urgent has come up. “Just to be productive members of this capitalistic society.”
“Nice try.”
“Did it work?”
“No. Nolan, you still look like death. Just go nap while I waste my day watching Dragon Age playthroughs on your Wi-Fi.”
“Dragon what?”
And that’s how I find myself on Nolan’s leather couch, telling him about elves and eggheads and the end of the world, soothed by the video and by Nolan’s presence.
“I like this better than the Jughead show,” he says ten minutes in. I yawn, quite pleased.
Then, another ten minutes later, I’m only fast asleep.
THE EARLY AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT IS BRIGHT, BUT I DON’T care. I get to ignore it because the most delicious blanket is wrapped around me. Flawless, A+, 12/10, five-star Amazon review. It keeps me toasty and presses me into the back of the couch, solid and heavy, the perfect mix of hard and soft. Mostly hard, but in a good way. It even slipped a leg right between mine, and its arms are looped around my rib cage. It makes it nearly impossible for me to move, but I don’t mind, because I feel protected from attacks from all sides. Like the king during good chess.