“It was obviously a stare-off. I won. The end.”

He shakes his head. “I demand a consolation prize. The truth.”

“Ugh, fine. If you didn’t know my real name, and if you lost interest, it wouldn’t have felt as personal . . . or as painful.”

“I see.” He glances down at his hands. “Well . . . Turned out to be a nonissue after all.”

“Right. Since this is all one big joke.”

Another stretch of quiet holds between us before he says, quieter, “I meant that, in talking all week, I didn’t lose interest.”

“Oh.” My eyes widen.

Oh.

I’m still processing that when Jamie clears his throat, then glances my way. “This certainly is not what I was expecting or what either of us deserved.” He stands and slides his bag over his head, onto his shoulder. “But I say we at least get a hot beverage and a game of chess out of it.”

I stand, too, and peer up at him, stunned. All this shit our “friends” put us through, and he’s going to let it slide over a game of chess and a cup of coffee? Like hell.

“I want more than coffee and chess, James.” My eyes narrow at the matchmakers across the road. “I want revenge.”

· TEN ·

Jamie

Bea sips her coffee from a bowl-sized cup cradled in her hands. I watch her through curling wisps of steam wafting from its surface, puffing a mouthful of air that swoops her long bangs out of her eyes. It isn’t the first time I’ve thought this, but after realizing she’s the one behind this week’s messages, it feels riskier to admit the truth—Beatrice is very beautiful.

Even when she takes ten minutes to make a move.

“You really weren’t joking about being a slow chess player.”

She glares up at me. “I don’t see the board easily. I have to think through my options.”

“Take your time. I don’t have hours of work to do or anything.”

“James,” she warns, finally advancing her pawn. “It’s not my problem you’re a workaholic. It’s Saturday, for Christ’s sake.”

“Saturday is an essential day in my workweek.”

“What do you do?”

Staring at the board, I consider my options in light of her move. “On the weekends? Everything that I can’t get done during weekdays. Professionally? I’m a pediatrician.” When I glance up, Bea’s watching me. “What is it?”

“A pediatrician?” she says faintly. “Like babies and kids?”

“That is generally what indicates a physician is a pediatrician, yes.”