Page 24 of Puck Shots
“Look, you’ll have to get used to saying it without laughing sometime. Go on, try it.”
“Kappa Omicron Kappa’s forever,” he practically wheezes.
“Fine, I’ll take that for now, but seriously, the more you say it the easier it will get. How about every time you steal a piece in chess, you have to say, KOK’s rule?”
“I am the one teaching you, so we play by my rules.”
“Fine, teach me how to play this game already.”
***
“KOKs rule!” I yell, taking one of his pawns and lining it up neatly beside the one other that I have managed to nab.
He chuckles and then takes one of mine in a swift move, laying it down beside the many, many others, like a row of tiny dead bodies from the battlefield of chess.
“How did you do that?” I ask, and he chuckles.
“These move in an L shape, remember?”
“Ohhh, right. Knight moves like up and over or over and up.”
“And that is checkmate,” he then says, pointing to his horse, two pawns and his queen. I learned quickly the queen is the most powerful piece on the board, even though you are after the king to win. She can go any which way she wants and as many squares, too. The only thing is, when a newbie like me found that out, I thought I was being all clever using her to capture one of his horses early on, only he took her with a bloody basic pawn a second later.
“See, if you move here, I can take you with this one, and if you move there, I can take you with that, and then there and there, and there,” he goes on to say as he shows me with the handmade pieces of the board. He crafted them all himself from bits and pieces he found on his walks. He does that often. Takes walks, that is. He says it helps him to clear his head, but I have a feeling he’s more used to being alone than even he’d like to admit. In this house, he’ll never need to be alone again, unless he wants to, that is. Actually, even then he might not be.
“Nice to know you were playing to win. Shit, we’ve been going for over an hour.”
When did Luca even come out of the bathroom?
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” he says, laying the remaining pieces on the comforter beside the captured pieces and flipping over the board.
“Oh cool, it’s like a box.”
“Yeah, it makes storing these easier. So, same time tomorrow?”
“I’m up for it if you are.”
“I’ll be prepared with some more statistics tricks for you, too.”
“That would be great, thanks. I feel like, even after just today, I sort of get it a little more. Maybe I’m not a lost cause after all.”
“You don’t really think that, do you?” he asks, closing the half of the box over the other to enclose the pieces securely inside.
I rub at my wrist where the sharpie lightning bolt stains my skin.
“Sometimes. I mean. I’m not really here because of my brains, like you.”
“Yes, you are. I mean, sure, they might have seen your potential on the ice, but they wouldn’t have given you a place here if they didn’t think you could handle the classwork, too. You don’t get to play if you don’t pass, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, my pounding heart settling just a little.
“Good, then no more talk of you being a lost cause. If I can start to see myself fitting into the most jock house on the row, you can pass statistics 101.”
“You are the smart one, so I guess you could be right.”
“I know I am,” he says, reaching over and resting his hand on my forearm. Heat floods under his touch, and my throat goes impossibly dry. “I better get changed for dinner. It’s pancake and waffles night, and apparently, all the pledges need to cook a full twelve-stack of each before we can join you all at the tables to eat.”
“Ohhh, pancake and waffle night is my favorite. Just be warned, the guys like to spike the pledges’ syrup with whiskey.”
