“Literally always. But he did just teach us half the game, so I feel like we should play.” In my head I can hear Salem mocking me for being a softie, but I can also see myself giving him the finger, so I feel like it all evens out.

“Fine, then. I’m gonna take one of your pawns with my queen.”

“That’s fair,” I say with a nod as Sabrina sweeps her queen across the board and knocks off one of my defenseless little guys. “And I’m gonna do the same with my horsey.” I take off the pawn in the adjacent square and move in my piece, just as a girl from the table next to us says, “It’s called a knight. And it moves in an L shape only.”

I’m about to open my mouth to thank her for the information, even if she’s being a little B about how she imparts it, when Sabrina says, “Not in our version.”

The other girl rolls her eyes but returns to her game to mind her own business, and I make a mental note that maybe I’m channeling the wrong Grayson twin in my endeavors.

And also to stop calling it a “horsey,” maybe.

We settle into our game, making up rules as we go along and talking about our other cocurricular choices. I hadn’t even known there’s a tarot club on Mondays, or that Sabrina’s signed up for Book Club tomorrow, same as I am. “Guess we’re going to spend the entire first meeting fighting about what book to read,” she says as she takes another of my pawns with her queen. She’s done that every move so far, leaving me with one left.

“Can’t wait.” I actually kind of can’t. I used to only read books with happy romances and happier endings, but these days I feel like I could stand to be introduced to books with revenge and murder. Or at least dragons.

But speaking of happy romances and happier endings, it occurs to me that I know very, very little about Sabrina’s once-happy romance and its very unhappy ending. I know it isn’t any of my business, per se, but, well, I’m trying to get my shit together so I can have a normal relationship someday, and maybe Sabrina would like to come along for that ride.

“Can I ask you an incredibly invasive question?”

“What better time is there to be incredibly invasive than over a chessboard?”

“That’s shockingly open of you,” I say as I jump my other knight around on the board, taking him on a little sightseeing tour of the black and white squares.

She shrugs. “If it’s none of your business, I’ll tell you it’s none of your business.”

“Oh, I already know it’s none of my business.”