“Checkmate,” Noah says twenty minutes later, wearing a triumphant smile so wide it practically hangs off his face.
“But…wait.” I review our last few plays. “How did you do that?”
“Strategy.” He taps his temple and winks at me. “It’s all up here.”
“Well, you better bring it down here for a rematch,” I say, reaching across the board to grab his king.
“No fair!” he squeals, running around to my side and reaching for the chess piece.
“She cheats, Noah,” Ezra says from the porch door, muscular arms exposed by a short-sleeved T-shirt and folded across his broad chest. His hair is a sable cap shorn into ruthlessly restrained waves. His eyes, that navy color I remember when he’s most relaxed, rest on his son in obvious affection and then turn on me, sending a jolt right down my middle.
“I do not!” I can’t quite meet Ezra’s intent gaze, so I focus on Noah. “That was beginner’s luck.”
“Who’s a beginner?” Noah cocks one brow. “I’ve been playing since I was five.”
“He’s so much like you when you were this age,” I tell Ezra. “And that may not be a compliment.”
Father and son both laugh, and I find myself laughing, too, feeling lighter than I have in months.
“Son, go wash your hands,” Ezra says, bending to kiss Noah’s head. “Food’s ready.”
Noah runs inside. There are other people on the screened-in porch, some playing dominos or cards or just drinking, but the space seems to suddenly cave in on us, making it hard to breathe. It’s the first wave of a Georgia summer, so it’s already hot, but that doesn’t account for how my breaths truncate, and I’m suddenly covered in a thin layer of simmering tension. It feels like this porch just became a tiny chessboard, and I’m awaiting Ezra’s opening move.
“Don’t feel too bad.” Ezra plucks the king from my fingers and lays it on its side. “He almost beat me. Once.”
“You created a monster in your image,” I say, the laugh I force coming out breathier than it should.
“I like to think so. I taught him the most important thing to remember in chess.”
“And what’s that?”
He glances up from the board, his eyes tracing my face in that deliberate way of his. “The queen is the most powerful piece.”
The bridge is out, and we stare at each other from opposite sides of it, each daring the other to leap. I break eye contact and clear my throat. “I think you held back some stuff when you taught me how to play.”
He shakes his head, a rueful tilt at the corner of his mouth. “I never held anything back from you, Tru.”
There’s no innuendo in his comment. He’s not flirting with me, even though you wouldn’t know that by the fluttering wings beneath my ribcage. It’s just the truth. We had that rare friendship with no limits other than the ones the world and our parents imposed.
“Remember when I explained that a black queen starting on a black square is called a queen getting her color?” he asks, grinning.
“I went around for days telling everyone I was getting my color.” I chuckle and lean back in my seat, crossing my legs. I feel his eyes on me, following the length of my body. He lets himself look for a moment and then turns his head to stare through the screen out to Mona’s backyard. I can’t help but think of the man so blatantly staring at my ass a few weeks ago at my doctor’s office. That did nothing for me, but a man restraining himself—Ezra trying his hardest not to look at me—stirs liquid heat in my belly. Even the stare he averts burns.
Mona walks in from the backyard.
“You guys ready to eat?” she asks. “Ezra, you’re the only chef I know who abandons his masterpiece.”
“You mean the hot dogs on the grill?” Ezra asks. “My work was done.”
“And steak, and chicken,” Mona says, looping her arm through his. “Noah will eat so much you have to roll him home.”
“I have no idea where he puts it.”
“You used to be the same way.” I walk with them into Mona’s backyard.
“All Ezra’s food went to the future.” Mona laughs, squeezing one of his well-defined arms. “And was just waiting for him to catch up when he got to high school.”
“Very funny,” Ezra says. “And do me a favor? Tell Noah it was the vitamins that made me grow so much bigger. It’s the only way I can get him to take them.”