Page 34 of Chess Not Checkers
I sprinkle the salt on each of the remaining pastries. He picks his up and takes a bite, his eyes closing as he chews. I bite my lip. It shouldn’t be attractive that he likes my food, but it is.
“Yes, you do. You can take the crown, or chef hat. Whatever you want, so long as I get more of these.”
I laugh. “I told you—I’m not baking for you.”
“We’ll see about that,” he says, smiling as he takes another bite. Once he finishes chewing, he adds, “I’m glad you came over.”
I look down at the board, pretending to be thinking of my next move when, in reality, I’m thinking of him. “Me too. It’s kind of nice to play alone. While I don’t get what it’s like to be you, it was weird feeling like people were watching us play in chess club.”
He nods. “Yeah, that’s how I feel all the time.” I scrunch my nose up at the thought. “Well, except for right now.”
My heart warms at his words. Out of words, I simply make my next move. All the while, I’m wondering how I became a person that Shepherd Kingsley feels at ease around.
Chapter nineteen
Out of Time
Jasmine Chamberlain
“Heghostedme. Can you believe that? A summer of flirting, only to pretend I don’t exist once the season kicks off,” Emmaline says to Claudette next to me.
We’re doing tumbling drills, each of us waiting for our tumbling coach, Vanessa, to call out our name to go. She’s assessing each of us individually on the skills we use in our competition routine at nationals. But while we wait, some of the girls like to make conversation. I’m a little too busy panicking that my skills have slipped with the schedule I’m keeping, but it’s hard not to tune in to their conversation when they’re so close.
“Are you sure he’s not just busy? I mean,myschedule is crazy. I’m sure a football player has to block off time to breathe,” Claudette says, sounding reasonable to me.
Shepherd’s schedule rivals Saylor’s with how often he practices, trains, and goes over game tape or plays. Add on school and chess club? I don’t know how he sleeps. After I went to his dorm last week, we exchanged numbers, and he sent mehis schedule so we could try to make time for another game. We haven’t found it yet.
“I would have thought that if he wouldn’t have dodged me when he saw me on the quad the other day. He ducked behind atree. Who does that?”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
“Maybe he didn’t know how to tell you he wanted to end things?” Claudette suggests.
“Jasmine, you’re up!” Coach Vanessa shouts.
I take a deep breath, frustrated that I let myself get caught up in the conversation instead of staying focused. I shrug, then break into a run down the indoor field we share with the football team. The turf scrapes my hands as I do a roundoff into a back handspring, then a back tuck. I stick the landing, then immediately bend my knees and do a straddle jump.
Coach Vanessa waves me over. My stomach is a swirl of anxiety as I jog over to her.
“It was a good series, but your tuck needs to be tighter,” she says. I nod in response. “And, I know your jumps can be higher. I noticed that when we ran the routine too.”
I nod again. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll work on it. Thank you.”
“Good.” She turns slightly away from me and cups her hands around her mouth to help project her voice. “If you’ve done your drills, go on the other side of the fifty-yard line and start doing the jump exercises we gave you over the summer.”
I jog across the center of the field with several of my other teammates, both guys and girls. The Thrashers have a coed team that cheers at every football game and competes in nationals. But I’m also on the all-girls team that goes to other sports events to support the athletes.
“I hate these,” Harry groans as he sits down nearby.
“They improve our jumps, though,” I reply and push my legs into a straddle. Once in position, I lift my left leg off the ground for a few seconds, then do the right.
“Your jumps are perfect, though,” Felicity says from across from me. Our movements mirror each other.
I shake my head. “Vanessa said they could be higher.”
And they will be. I can’t slack off, no matter how stressful my schedule is. Dahlia paid for training camps and came to all my games and competitions. Grayson didn’t just teach me chess; he also got me a membership at his state-of-the-art gym. He tried to hide that he paid for it, but I still found out. When I did, he told me it was just what family does. Which I might be able to stomach, if we were blood family. I’m just the tagalong sister of the woman who married his brother. He was generous enough to help me in multiple ways, and I won’t let him down by being subpar. This is how I’ll repay him until I open my restaurant and canactuallypay him back. Dahlia, too. She gave up her life to be my guardian. The least I can do is make something of myself.
“Vanessa always thinks something could be better,” Harry says. “Sometimes she’s right; sometimes she’s just picky.”
