Hayden crossed the room and retrieved a chess set. Tamara's eyes followed him as he moved. Was he here as a joke? He carried the chess set close to his body and traced the box’s design with his finger tips.
“It’s not as hard as it looks,” Greg told Tamara who was still holding her breath. It was odd that no one cared that she didn't know how to play. The volleyball team wouldn’t even accept girls who hadn’t played at least one year in middle school. That's why chess wasn’t considered a sport.
“Well, I don’t know much.”
“That’s okay. Everyone has to start somewhere,” Greg said, sliding into a chair, “What do you know?”
Tamara quickly recounted her limited knowledge of the game as Hayden rejoined them and set up the board one piece at a time. His fingers traced the contour of each piece as if he were committing it to memory. Tamara felt heat creeping up her neck onto her cheeks. She wished she had paid more attention when her grandfather had tried to teach her to play.
“At least you know to protect the king,” Hayden chuckled.
Tamara crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
“No, seriously, I’ve met people who don’t even know that.”
“Sucks to be them,” Greg said, leaning back in his chair.
“You’re playing white so you go first,” Hayden said.
“I know.”
“Are you going to take your turn? You can only move a pawn to start with. They normally only move one, but on the first turn….” Hayden began to explain.
“I know that!” Tamara said and moved a pawn forward two spaces.
“If it were me I would have moved the pawn to the left of that one,” Greg said.
“Well, it was me, not you!”
“No, it's okay, just remember for the next game.”
“No, not that piece! If you move it there he could capture it in like three moves, maybe even two!”
“Then let him have it, if he's going to go through all that trouble for one little pawn!”
“Don't move that one either!”
“Greg! Please! Shut up! I can't think!”
Greg fell into silence, but out of the corner of her eye Tamara could see him covering his eyes and making pained faces with every piece she moved.
“Greg, quit making faces every time I try to make a move! I can’t concentrate with you doing that! You're acting like I'm about to cut the wrong wire and blow us all up. It's just a game!”
“Sorry, I know it’s a bad habit. You’ve passed up a lot of good moves though. I can't help it! It's too painful to watch you surrender pieces like that. Some of them could have gone on for six or seven turns, maybe more. It's hard to watch pieces get captured too early in the game.”
“Maybe I would have seen them if you weren’t looking like I was about to murder a kitten!” Tamara said.
“I think I’ll go see how everyone else is doing. Maybe play Cindy or something,” Greg said and left the table.
“Checkmate.”
“What?”
“Checkmate.”
“What? How did you do that?”
“Simple.”