“I need to expand Alice’s palate,” I say, thinking of the iceberg lettuce she had for breakfast.

“Chessboard’s by the window if you want to set it up,” Noah says, heading back into the kitchen. “I can make green tea,” he calls, “or open a bottle of sake?”

“Sake,” I say, finding the board and moving it to the table. “We’re celebrating.”

“What are we celebrating?” he asks from the kitchen. I hear the smile in his voice.

“Future epics of the heart. Saying fuck it to the meet-cute. And also . . . surviving a day together.”

“We still have time to ruin it,” Noah says, returning with a chilled bottle of sake.

“Your choice of outing is up next, you know,” I say as he pours sake into crystal cordial glasses. “But don’t worry, no one expects it to compete with today.”

He raises his glass to mine. “I’m not worried. My excursion is pure gold.”

“You have one picked out?” I assumed I’d have to harass him into making any sort of plan.

“I’m in the final scheduling phase right now.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see,” he says as we sit down.

We dive into fresh sashimi, spicy tuna on crispy rice cakes, divine crab handrolls, and halibut carpaccio in spicy yuzu jelly that pairs perfectly with the sake.

“You do takeout really well,” I say, sipping my miso soup.

“You should see what I do in restaurants.”

I laugh. “Where does one even get all these little bowls? And the chopsticks—are they made of jade?”

Noah smiles, watching me mishandle them to seize a slice of halibut. “They’re from a shop called Bo’s. Whenever I go there, I find something special, something I’ve never seen before. It’s not far from Peony. You should check it out. He has chopsticks in pink quartz, too.”

“I will.” I don’t want to let Noah know that most of my sushi eating at home happens on my couch, glued to BBC America, using my hands to drag a spicy tuna roll through the soy sauce I’ve squirted into the lid of the plastic container.

He points at the chessboard between us. “Guests go first.”

I steel myself, intent not to laugh when he debuts that freakish eyebrow tic. But to my surprise, Noah has shifted into serious game mode and clearly isn’t messing around.

I move my pawn into the center quadrant. I watch him do the same.

Though we have never sat across the chessboard from each other quite like this, there is not the curious tension of playing the game for the first time with someone new. We’re used to moving these pieces around each other.

We’re not used to knowing where our real hands go in real life between real turns. Twice our fingers graze at the edges of the board.