Chapter Text
“Why knight a5?”
Mallory looks up from the board, frowning and meets my gaze for all of a millisecond.
“To attack from─ oh.”
Yes, oh.
“You’re leaving your pawn unprotected, Mal,” Tanu chides. Mal flushes and moves the knight back to c3.
Mallory was doing that thing of hers again. That thing wherein she loses her composure and starts making such ridiculous mistakes it’s almost funny. She’d been this way all morning.
I had a pretty good idea of what had her so unsettled. I’d noticed her giving me frequent suspicious looks ever since she’d exited my room, bleary-eyed and clutching the cup of coffee I’d placed at her bedside. There had been a sort of confused relief on her face, mingled with what I chose to interpret as disappointment.
I wonder if she knew how much self-control it had taken me to get out of bed this morning. We’d already taken a day off yesterday. To sleep in today was unthinkable.
Besides, it was better to give Mal the space she wanted. To give her time to clear out her head.
She certainly looks calmer right now, playing through games on the chess engine, making little annotations in this special chess notebook she carries around.
The notebook that I might have accidentally left in her room after I saw her scribbling desperately on the milk carton (and then searching desperately for the aforementioned carton two hours later).
I steal another quick look at her. Mallory often plays against bots for fun when she thinks nobody’s watching. The only reason I keep myself from spying on her all the time is because if she knew I knew, she won’t do it anymore.
Around 3 in the afternoon, it occurs to me that Mal hasn’t eaten anything since morning. She looks up at me when I get up.
“Getting a muffin─ want one?”
“Sure,” she mumbles and I head over to the kitchen.
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to feed Mal again. It wasn’t good for her to skip too many meals. I shoot Emil a text.
Pasta for dinner tonight.
Emil : im not your fucking babysitter asshole
Tanu says she’s craving pasta.
Emil : red or white sauce??
White.
She likes whole wheat spaghetti.
Emil : sod off i knew that
“If Emil asks, you’ve suddenly got a craving for pasta,” I mutter in Tanu’s ear sometime later.
“No ‘suddenly’ about it,” she says with a sigh. “I always crave pasta.”
I chuckle and start to turn around but she stops me with a hand on my arm.
Wait, just take a look at this.”
Emil joins us at the board. It’s one of Koch’s older games, from before he evolved into a human chess engine. That, or he exchanged brains with Bobby Fischer.
Poor Bobby Fischer.
“Left side’s a mess. The whole position is weak as fuck.”
“Hmm, yeah.” She frowns at it, before turning to Mal. “Mal, what do you think?”
Mal doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even look up, too lost in thought.
“Mal?”
Her head jerks up.
“What do you think, Mal?
“About what?”
Tanu inhales with forced patience before repeating herself.
Mal glances briefly at the board.
“It’s weak. The left side could be exploited.”
“Yeah, that’s what Nolan said, too.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her flush.
Emil scratches his cheek. “I mean, the king’s side is completely open for the taking.”
“He castled too late.”
“Would you agree, Greenleaf?” Emil asks.
“Sorry, with what?”
“With what Nolan said.” He stares expectantly at her.
I know damn well that she hasn’t been listening to a word. “He castled too late.”
“Or he shouldn’t have castled at all.”
“Koch’s so uneven.” Emil rubs his temples. “How can one go from disastrous blunders to near- genius moves like the one against Greenleaf? He’s like two completely different players.”
“And which one will he be in Italy?” Tanu asks.
Everyone falls quiet after that. I cannot beat this feeling of being behind for once. I can’t forget the stunned horror of his last game against Mallory. From the look on her face, it’s all she can think of too.
In the evening, Emil gets up to make dinner and I join him while Tanu and Mal are talking quietly in the living room. Emil sets a large pot of water to boil on the stove while I tap my foot impatiently.
“Do we have to wait for the water to boil?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t we just throw the pasta in the water right now?”
Emil gapes at me, aghast. “Are you serious?”
I shrug. “Doesn’t seem to make much difference either way.”
SMACK!
What-!?
Emil waves the wooden spatula he just thwacked me on the head with threateningly when I glare at him.
“What was that for?”
“There’s a method to cooking, you complete imbecile! You don’t just throw stuff into a pot when you want! Don’t disrespect food like that!”
“Who cares? It’ll be faster.”
He lobs an onion at me which I very nearly fail to catch
“You are— and I cannot stress this enough— a tasteless peasant.”
"Who's the one disrespecting food now, head chef?"
Emil merely glares at me then, but he gets his own back when Mallory compliments his cooking profusely. I'm also the one who gets to clean up afterwards.
Emil’s voice carries from the living room. “Hey, do you guys want to play two versus two? There’re four of us, so two teams.”
“I’ll team with Mallory,” I call out. Since Mallory won’t play against me (and that is what will happen if we sit across from each other, pairs be damned) this is the only possible combination.
When I leave the kitchen, I see Tanu and Emil sitting across from Mal. I ignore the empty chair next to her and fit myself behind her in her chair.
Mal sucks in a breath sharply and grips her seat tightly.
I hold her securely with one hand, using the other to move the black pieces to their squares.
I won’t let you fall, Mallory. Relax.
And to my surprise, she does, melting against me in a way that does something strange to my heartbeat.
Tanu raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. Emil doesn’t even seem to notice anything out of the ordinary as he moves pawn to d4.
I tuck Mal’s head under my chin. “Want to go first?”
She nods and reaches for the black knight.
Knight to f6. Grünfeld Defence. It was the most annoying opening she could have chosen.
As punishment, I nip her earlobe, smiling slightly at her shiver.
—————————————————
We play five games and lose the last one because Mallory got too flustered to watch where she moved her pieces. And all because I laid my head on her shoulder and accidentally kissed her neck. Consequently, Mal went all red and her hands twitched violently before she clenched them into a fist.
Was it a real accident? Yes. Would I do it again, this time on purpose? Also a resounding yes.
Tanu and Emil ripped us a new one while I hid in Mal’s neck, unable to watch.
Once the slaughter has terminated, Tanu suggests a movie.
“Go ahead,” I tell her. “I’m going to bed.”00
Mal walks in just as I take off my shirt. I like that she didn’t feel the need to knock. I like it far too much.
She freezes us though, leaning back against the door uncertainly.
“That hung queen…" It had been a critical blunder, one that weakened her defense considerably, not to mention how scattered and disjointed the rest of her pieces seemed without the queen there to tie everything together. "Though I’m sure Tanu and Emil appreciated the win—”
“Can you please explain?”
“Explain?”
She waves her hands about confusedly. “Last night, and then this morning, and then today, tonight, just now.”
I blink at her, head cocked to one side. “Yes. That is how time works.”
“No, I— I hate this.”
“Hate what?”
“That I’m here asking you . . . that you’re in my head, and I— ” she rubs her eyes, shaking her head. “No. Listen . . . I don’t care. I’m not supposed to care about whether you . . . I’m not supposed to be thinking about you at all— I have a family to take care of. Shit to get done. But you kiss me, then ignore me like nothing happened— ”
“Riiight.” I drawl, crossing my arms across my chest. “That’s your move, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You’re the one who ignores people. Leave them behind before they leave you, right? Spare yourself the mortifying ordeal of being known.”
The conflict on her face makes me want to take my words back, but I wouldn’t even if I could. They had to be said.
“That’s unfair,” she says, pacing the room anxiously. “It’s different. I don’t usually— I have responsibilities. I don’t have time to moon, Nolan. I cannot be distracted by people who don’t need me, but then you— you— ”
She trails off, her gaze fixed on something on my desk. Curious as to what caught her eye, I walk over to her.
“The tic- tac- toe sheet.”
“What?” Then I notice the corner of the chess flier. “Oh, yeah.”
It takes her longer than usual to speak. “Why did you keep it?”
I wrap my hands around her waist from behind. “It made me think of you.”
“Why would you keep something that makes you think of me?”
“Because I think of you anyway, Mallory.”
All the time. Continuously. She slipped in and out of my thoughts all day, only to haunt me in my dreams all night.
She wriggles in the cage of my arms and turns around to face me. I smile in spite of myself.
“What do you want from me, Nolan, and— will you please stop smiling.”
“I’m not,” I argue, still smiling so wide my cheeks hurt.
“I’m serious, if you don’t quit smiling.”
“That’s not a threat. It’s not even a grammatically correct sentence.”
“What do you want from me? What are we . . .” she closes her eyes and buries her face in her hands. “I don’t understand why you’re in my head.”
The plaintive tone in her voice is what gets to me. The smile slides right off my face.
“You’re in mine, too. But I know why.”
She groans and says almost pleadingly. “Just . . . what do you want from me?”
I want all of you. Everything of yours that you are willing to give me, I want it all.
“I want everything. I’m all in.”
I dip my forehead until it touches hers. “What about you, Mallory?”
Something is happening. I can’t pinpoint the exact change in Mallory’s demeanour that tells me what she’s going to do, but I know all the same.
That when she moves closer to me, loops her arms around my neck and tilts her chin, it results in her lips pressed against mine.
And just like that, I’m gone. Swept away helplessly by the fierce desire coursing through my veins. Drawn irresistibly closer to the unstoppable force that Mallory is.
It’s even better than yesterday. Her hands roam over my back exploratively. There is nothing tentative about the way she opens for me, how her tongue brushes against mine, how she lets out little sounds that I drink in eagerly. My hands tighten on her hips, wanting nothing more than to hoist her around my waist
She breaks apart just then, breath shuddering. Her pupils are blown outward, turning the sky blue of her eyes midnight-black.
“Slow down,” she pants, “Let’s just . . .”
“I think about this every second of every day.” I tell her, voice rough with arousal. I shift one hand between her shoulder blades and push her down on the bed. “You’ll be playing the most beautiful chess I’ve ever seen, and I dream about having you under me. It’s fucking confusing.”
Mallory arches her back, pulling me even closer. The hand that’s not currently on my shoulder, brushing over my ribs, dipping lower still over my abs, until –
Her hand nudges the waistband of my jeans and I still, hesitant and uncertain.
“Do you . . .No?”
Somehow, impossibly, there’s still a section of my mind capable of forming thoughts and converting those thoughts to coherent words. I swallow, my throat dry and struggle to speak. “Are you real?” The words tumble over each other trying to make it out of my vocal cords. “Sometimes I’m scared that I imagined you. Sometimes I think you’re only in my head.”
Her other hand squeezes my shoulder briefly, reassuringly. “I’m here,” she breathes out.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I tell her, nuzzling at her earlobe. I experimentally graze my teeth against it and feel the full-body shudder that goes through her.
She presses a kiss to the hollow between my collarbones. “I can help.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s kind of like chess. I do one thing . . .” she undoes the first button of my jeans. My next breath catches in my throat. “And you do another.”
Hmm. I lift up slightly on my elbows, wondering where to start.
Clothes. The most unnecessary clothing she had on. I pull up the hem of her shirt and drag it upto just below her bra. The smooth, pearl white skin beckons me closer.
I’d done my one thing. But it wasn’t enough.
“I want odds. Since it’s my first time.”
She lifts her head and gives me an incredulous look. “You want a handicap?”
“I want two moves.”
That makes her laugh. Me pinning her hands above her head makes her stop.
She looks up at me, dead serious.
“I hope that you’re going to like this as much as chess.”
I smile. “I think that I already do.”