Mrs. Frank calls on Salem then, and while I would’ve been completely lost, he, annoyingly, gets the answer right and earns a nod of approval. As soon as she’s moved on, he starts writing another note. Teach me laundry and you get to go shopping in my stuff.

Okay, that actually is a pretty decent deal, even with Salem being a foot taller than me. There’s plenty I could do to crop one of his T-shirts, which on him look grungy but on me would look cute AF and definitely edgier than anything I own, and I do love that leather jacket …

I turn the last note over and pick up my pen. Deal. Be ready for me after dinner on Friday. I’ll be the one knocking like a banshee.

I would’ve chosen a card-game club if there’d been one, but since there wasn’t, I figured I could probably like other games as much if I gave them a chance. It was true for Board Games Club, where I played Codenames with a bunch of other sophomores and had a solid time despite losing miserably, but as I stare at the collection of black and white plastic pieces in front of me, I fear both my partner and I have sorely miscalculated.

“Do you know how to play chess?” Sabrina whispers to me from across the board.

“No clue,” I admit as I glance around, watching other people set up their pieces in a way that suggests there is very much a right way and a wrong way. “Do you?”

“I know the queen has the most power,” she says, touching a chipped black fingertip to the top of a crowned piece I assume is the royalty in question. “But it’s killing the king that wins the game.”

“Okay, yes, I know the king part. But I kind of thought they’d be teaching us how to play.” I glance around at the duos who’ve already begun their games, and am more than a little disappointed that we don’t get those clock things to press when our turns are over. “Or that it’d be easy to figure out.”

“You thought chess would be easy to figure out.”

“Well why are you here, if you knew you wouldn’t know what you’re doing?”

“I signed up for the GSA on Wednesdays, but apparently I was the only one, so they shuttered it for lack of interest,” she says with a tinge of annoyance. “There weren’t a lot of choices left by then, so I just picked something chill where no one would bug me for an hour.”

“That sucks,” I say, and I mean it. “Is it open to allies? I am such a good friend that I would totally bail on chess if it’ll help get the group started.”

“I think that ship has sailed, but—”

“Ladies, do you two need help?”