He might know it, too. He’s starting to get nervous, judging by how much he stands to pace around. He’s a fidgety player, but this is a lot, even for him.
I feel an optimistic, voracious sort of hope bloom inside me. I’m going to do this. I can do this. I am going to the World Championship. I’ll play against . . .
Nolan.
It’s incandescent, the blend of joy and excitement that seizes me. Something utterly new and reckless finally allowed through the floodgates. As impossible as it sounds, I haven’t let myself think about it, or dream of it. I haven’t admitted it to myself before now, how much I want to sit across from Nolan, a chessboard between us. How much I want to look him in the eye as he does the astounding, magical things only he is capable of. I want to be his adversary. I want to tear his strategy apart, I want to field his attacks and terrorize him with my own, I want to chip at every little tactical choice, till he looks at me and says again, “Do you know how incredible you are?” He will smell like he did on his couch, soap and leather and sleep and that unique scent of him. He will smile, small, lopsided, and I’ll smile back at him, and neither of us will hold back, and it will be the perfect game to—
Koch sits back in his chair, moves his queen, starts my clock. I drop back into my brain from whatever that was.
I frown. I’d figured he’d go for my rook, or break a file. But he moved his queen to a position I did not expect, so I study the board. I could— no. He’d check me in two moves. But I still need to back my knight. If I don’t . . . a mess. A disaster. No. I could counter with my other bishop— though he would easily block the diagonal. And there’s the fact he’ll be queening in three moves. It wasn’t really a problem before, but now that his queen is there, it changes everything. I cannot really fight back there.
But I can elsewhere, I’m sure.
I start scanning the board again, deconstructing every position, every move, every combination, listing long-range threats, analyzing possibilities, scouring for the one choice that will end up saving my useless king, sure that it’ll become apparent any moment now.
Any second.
When I come up for air, fifty-seven minutes have passed on the clock, and I have not found a way out of this pin.
Because there is none.
My mouth is dry. My throat stings. If I were to move a piece, my hand would shake.
Because if I were to move a piece, I’d be dooming myself to defeat.
I look up to Koch, and I see it in his eyes, in his knowing, cruel smile: he was just waiting for me to come to the realization that it’s over. I was running in circles all along, and he was watching from the sideline. Triumphant. Entertained.
I turn to the overflowing audience. A sea of faces I’ll never know, and my eyes stumble on Defne’s familiar hair. She streaked it pink— so pretty. I wonder what she’ll tell me when all of this is done. I’m sure she has the right words. I’m just sorry she’ll have to use them.
I take a long, deep breath. Then I force myself to look back at Koch, and I force myself to say what I must.
“I resign.”
I wonder if the waitress at the IHOP finds it weird that we’re showing up twelve hours later than our usual time. She deposits our coffee mugs on the table, and doesn’t bat an eye at how obviously shell-shocked we all are, or the tight way I’m sandwiched between Defne and Tanu in the booth. Then she disappears into the bowels of the kitchen, never to be seen again.
We should tip her a thousand percent.
“Impossible.” Across from me, Emil shakes his head. His board is out, arranged on the final position of my match. Very tactful, Emil. What a triumph of empathy you are. Consider a career in counseling, Tanu told him when he started setting it up, but I shook my head and she fell silent. The image is scorched in my brain anyway.
“It was the perfect move.” Emil’s voice is half reverential, two-thirds horrified. “It tied up your pieces. It had staggering long-range implications. It pinned your active and inactive pieces. It’s . . . I’ve never seen anything like this. Definitely not from Koch.”
I hate his name. I hate how it reminds me of his soulless grin when I resigned, of his gloating during the endless mandatory press conference, of the disappointed expression on the faces of the other candidates, the women in the audience, even some of the reporters. I knew you’d show your belly, he whispered in my ear. Tell Sawyer he’s next.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Defne tells me. “You didn’t make any mistakes. Not until . . . You played beautifully, Mal.”
“Does it matter, though?” I ask. Not bitter. Just curious.
She sighs. Not really is the clear answer. “The second-place prize is still fifty thousand. And it’s yours.”
I nod. Earning money for my family was always the goal. Financial security was the destination— chess, just the means to get there, like an old, beat-up car I wanted nothing to do with but had to ride on my yellow-bricked quest. In the last half an hour I’ve made enough to solve all our financial problems and then some. I should be celebrating, not sitting in an IHOP, trying not to burst into tears over my stupid hunk of junk croaking.
And yet.
I feel like I’m falling. Like I’ll never meet the ground again.
“If it makes you feel better, the entire VIP lounge gasped when you resigned.” Tanu sounds concerned. I should reassure her that I’m fine, but I can’t tear my eyes from the black queen. “No one expected this from Koch. I swear, they all . . .” She trails off. A tall shade appears on the board, and someone slides into the booth, next to Emil.
I glance up and let out a shaky laugh. Nolan is wearing his usual jeans-and-shirt combo. His hair is starting to grow long, and like every time I see him after a while apart, I’m surprised by how much room he takes up— at the table and in my head.
“You asshole,” I say without heat.
He lifts one eyebrow. “Uncalled-for.”
“Finally revealing yourself.”
“You knew I was here.”
Until ten minutes ago I’d have denied it, but yes. And I liked the idea, though I’m not going to admit it to him or to myself. There’s been enough soul-searching for today. Time to engage in some soul ditching.
“We didn’t tell her,” Tanu hurries to say.
“She knew anyway.” Nolan doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t look at anyone but me, and I feel blood in my cheeks.
“I did. It was that fishy smell.”
He laughs, low and deep, and after a second I’m laughing, too, and the others look at us like we’re bananas. Which we might be.
“Thoughts on Koch?” Defne asks him when we’re done. She, too, seems unsurprised by his presence.
“I hope he sits on his balls,” he says. “Aside from that, none.”
“Really? No thoughts about this man you flew cross-country to creep at?”
“Not why I came to Vegas.” He shrugs. “Koch’s the human equivalent of a dirty toilet brush, and hasn’t changed in the ten years I’ve known him. Would you like more hot takes?”
Part of me is surprised to hear Nolan and Defne bicker like they’ve been acquainted their entire life. But it doesn’t get to ask follow-up questions because of the other part of me, which is too busy wallowing.