He got up from the couch and went to a bookshelf in the corner. When he came back, it was with a book that looked old and worn in a way that nothing else in the house did. It all looked old, but it all looked well-preserved. Not this book. I couldn’t read the title but was curious at what he’d picked up so easily. An old favorite.
Carson moved another pawn, and I could almost feel Nash holding back his retort.
We played this way in quiet.
“Tell me why you made that move,” Carson prompted after a few minutes of silence, and it drew Nash’s eyes to us and the board again.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I said back.
Carson laughed, and even Nash’s lips curved up at the corners. “I’m not going to use it to my advantage. I was going to explain some of the strategies behind it to you.”
“Ha, no way. You’ll just have to tell me when I’ve lost. I have two sisters, a brother, a father in the military, and a grandfather in politics. I know you never give away your strategy in the middle of the game.”
Carson’s eyes twinkled. “I see why Nash likes you.”
“Otter? Like anyone? Sure, he can charm. Seduce. Tease. But actually like? It’s impossible. It’s not in his makeup.”
Nash made a pained noise again, and Carson’s smile widened. It looked so much like Nash’s that it seemed impossible for this man to just be an uncle instead of his father. As if the genes had been handed down one to the other instead of skipping through an X chromosome.
We played for about an hour, with me slowly losing two or three pieces for every one of his. We continued to play even when Maribelle brought in peach cobbler on a tray. Nash carried the bowls away when we were done only to return to the loveseat. Maribelle joined him with some knitting, which made me ache for my mom and my grandma who did the same. I’d never had the patience or desire to learn how to knit.
Eventually, I lost my queen, and I knew enough to know I was done for, but we continued until Carson called out, “Checkmate.”
It was said with pleasure in his voice, like when you haven’t done something you enjoy in a very long time and suddenly can do it again.
“I told you,” Nash said.
I stuck my tongue out at him. “And I agreed I’d lose.” I turned back to Carson. “Tell me where I went wrong.”
Carson got up, went to the desk, and then came back with a yellow legal pad and an embossed pen that had to cost as much as a pair of my designer shoes. He started explaining things I’d done right and wrong, going all the way back to my very first move of the pawn to block his. I was both surprised and not surprised at the number of steps he remembered, the number of moves we’d each made, and the possibilities he scattered down two pages of lines.
“I see I have much to learn.”
The grandfather clock in the entryway chimed, the music graceful and deep. I was amazed to find it was ten o’clock. It hadn’t felt like we’d been playing that long. As my brain wound down, my body reminded me it was still tired and recovering from the drama of the day before.
I stood, stretching. “Thank you. For everything,” I said, looking from Carson, to Maribelle, and even to Nash. They were an odd combination. A woman old enough to be Carson’s mother but somehow not tied to the family at all, a man who acted like Nash’s father but was really an uncle, and a SEAL who refused to acknowledge them to the rest of the world. “I’m grateful to be here, but if I don’t go to sleep now, I’ll never be up for my morning meetings. So, goodnight.”
Carson and Nash both rose as well—like we were in some historical novel.
“It was a pleasure,” Carson spoke, the honesty resonating through his tone.
“Goodnight, love,” Maribelle said. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to tell Nash. His room is only three doors down from yours toward the stairs.” A mischievous smile returned to her lips that made me want to laugh. I just smiled and let her think what she wanted to. It wouldn’t hurt.
I made my way out the door with Nash on my heels.
“You don’t have to come. I think I can find my way,” I said.
He didn’t respond, and he didn’t turn away. When we reached the stairs, he walked with me all the way to my room, well past the door that was supposedly his.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said.
“About what? Carson? Chess? It was all very enjoyable.”
“It was a test,” he said, his arms crossed over his chest. A defensive move as much as it was a move of strength.
“A test?” I asked.
“Yes.” He uttered the words as if he didn’t want to.
“A test for what?” I asked, trying not to smile at his glower.
“It’s his way of judging people’s worthiness.”
“Or maybe he was just a man wishing to play a game he loved.”
He gave a sarcastic snort. “Carson does love his games, but that was not done from a desire to play. That was done from a desire to dissect you like he’s dissected any friend I ever brought home.”
Like so many of the emotions and words Nash had shared since we’d arrived on the estate, the bitterness in his tone was not one I was used to either. Anguish from the loss of his team. Sexiness filled with flirtation and desire. But never bitterness. I put a hand out to his arm, feeling a need to reassure him in some way. As if I could swipe at the screen and delete the hidden pain that was marking him.
“I don’t care. There isn’t anything he can see that hasn’t already been seen by a million other people,” I told him. It
