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Victoria stared at him flatly, then moved her king’s pawn into the center of the board.

“Yeah, I finally found out,” Liam admitted, mimicking her. “I can’t believe all of you let her keep me in the dark like that for so long. It’s going to cause me trust issues.”

“You could have easily googled her name once,” Victoria said. “It’s not exactly a state secret.” She moved out her first knight, and the bishop sitting beside it would depart on her next turn.

“I’m not really in a habit of searching up people online. That seems kind of creepy.”

More moves took place. Victoria and he both got their knights and bishops out early, and she castled her king. Compared to where he’d been a couple of weeks ago, he could actually see the reasoning behind these moves. Freeing pieces, connecting rooks, getting the queen out of her opening position, it all flowed through his mind, no longer as overwhelming as it’d once been. Victoria had never put up a turn timer; she let him take as long as he wanted, within reason. But here, he felt capable enough to have worked within the restraints of a timer. He wasn’t floundering, flailing about. He was playing chess. At a level below Victoria, yes, but at least he was in the same building.

He didn’t plan to fall to the Scholar’s Mate ever again, checkmated in just four turns by white, at least.

“Well, you know all of our secrets now,” Victoria said. “So, you’re safe from any more jaw-dropping reveals. None of us are billionaires-to-be, I should think.”

“Is the plan for Avril to take over once her grandfather retires?” Liam asked. He hadn’t had much time to ask Avril on the car ride back to his place; they’d been a little preoccupied.

“I think that’s what he wants, and I know Avril adores the team, the sport, all of it. But she has at least a decade or two before she needs to worry about that.”

Around the time they reached move ten, Victoria finally struck, and Liam riposted. Pieces began to fly off the board, and maintaining space and maneuverability became key.

“No chance it goes to her parents?”

“I think not,” Victoria said, barely batting an eye at the question. “They’re undeserving, and Rory knows that. Every venture they’ve attempted, they’ve botched.”

“Is it the same for her brother? I met him today.”

Victoria’s fingertips had connected around her queen, which she’d intended to use as a weapon in the center of the board. A mention of Casey Knight, however, delayed that action.

“He was at the stadium?”

“With Rory Knight himself. I met them both. He was… holding a grudge over Avril getting to use their extra jet. It was a brief run-in, not the best first impression. I liked Avril’s grandfather, though.”

Victoria made her move, but Liam wasn’t so quick to retort. Her eyes betrayed nothing, but her lips seemed slightly thinned. “I assure you, there’s very little to go uphill with when it comes to Casey. You’ve seen him as he truly is. Anything more cleaned up that he displays, it’s a veneer.”

Liam nodded, then made his next move. “I’m squarely in camps Avril and Victoria already, so I don’t think I’m going to spend much time around him—or worry about him at all, really.”

“We have camps, do we?”

“The kind I want to spend all summer at, yeah,” Liam said.

Victoria rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’ll have that opportunity. My gardening camp is waiting, after all.”

He hit her with a dazzling smile as a response. And then he took one of her bishops with his queen. She frowned, then tore her attention away from his face.

“I can’t wait,” Liam said, feeling galvanized by the misstep that had allowed him to take that bishop—and without outright losing his queen in the process. Chess was a battleground, the ultimate game of stratagem. But not all warfare took place on the board, so Liam didn’t allow himself to feel too regretful for his mind games. “I can’t wait for Fiji, either. Just one week away.”

“Yes, it is,” Victoria agreed, working to fix the vulnerability in her board state. “Are you planning to sleep on the trip, like Avril has suggested? I’m sure the chairs on her jet are comfortable enough for it.”

“It seems like the sensible thing to do,” Liam said. “But I know I have to watch some mandatory education before I’m allowed to do that.”

Victoria arched an eyebrow, and he explained how he’d failed to recognize Avril’sThe Sandlotquotes.

“Really?” she said once he was through, squinting at him. “Geez, youareyoung.”

“A few years younger than she is,” he protested.

“My younger cousins watched that movie religiously growing up,” Victoria said, taking another pause—he didn’t call her out for stalling, but there was a chance it was her goal—from their match. “Many of them dreamed of being the next Benny ‘The Jet’ Rodrigeuz. Every trip we took through Alentejo, visiting relatives living in other municipalities, it’d be playing on this ugly block of a portable TV, stuck between the sides of the front two seats so we could watch.”

“Where’s that?” Liam asked. “Alentejo?”

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