Checkmate

8 years ago:

“Chess is the only game that truly prepares you for life pumpkin, why don’t you sit down with me for a round?”

Jaime had looked at her dad, at his bright eyes and smiling face and couldn’t help but nod. She had never had any reason to play chess. She thought it was boring and there were too many rules to follow. So, while her dad had urged and urged her to play with him, she never had. She merely watched through the years as he practiced, read books on Chess Tactics and Defenses and smiled all the while doing it. She never touched a board though, no matter how much he tried to convince her to take up the hobby, she never had. That is, until the month after his death. She still remembers just sitting in their lounge, crying as she let her fingers graze over the board he had loved so fondly. She remembers seeing the dust start to collect on the books and the pieces he held so dear. That’s when she made the decision, right then and there to start playing Chess but she had never truly been grateful for it until tonight.

Jaime glances around before stepping into the library, just double checking no one else is there. She doesn’t necessarily know why she’s even worried, it’s 11:17 P.M. Hopefully, she thinks, all the guys are sleeping. She moves like a ghost, her light footsteps hardly audible on the polished oakwood floor. 

“Miss Bishop?”

Though, unlike a ghost, she’s the one who ends up getting a fright when she hears his voice break the eerie silence.  Jumping, she nearly slips on the waxed floors but catches herself on a bookshelf and tries to lean against it casually. Almost as if she had merely decided to change position rather than prevent a bruise. She hears a soft exhale of air which she figures is Chase’s version of a laugh. 

So clearly he’s not buying the whole casual change in position thing... she rolls her eyes but clears her throat and turns around slowly to where the laugh came from. 

She freezes when her eyes finally make out his figure. Though mostly cloaked in darkness, she can still see his slightly amused smile. No actual bruise but does an injured ego count? She sighs but slowly steps towards the table he’s sitting at. With the window directly behind him, the moonlight streams through, playing in his black hair to make it almost seem a silvery blue. The light causes shadows to dance along his features, high lighting his pointed nose and statue-like cheekbones but she has luckily, started getting used to his good looks. She takes another step forward but stops when she notices him tense. She waits for him to tell her to leave like he did before but he doesn’t, which she takes as encouragement. She comes to stand behind the chair opposite him, only noticing now the black and white checkered board in front of him 

“May I sit?” Her voice is quiet, a mere whisper so she isn’t sure he hears it but then, after a few seconds of contemplation, he nods. She smiles, beyond surprised yet glad he’d let her join him and pulls out the chair as lightly as she can. She takes her seat, now completely facing him. They’re still aren’t quite at eye level since Chase is far taller than her but she thinks it’s close enough to meet each other’s eyes comfortably. That’s why she can’t fathom why he won’t look at her. Chase though, has thousands of reasons. The main one constantly reminding him with the fast pace and loud thump of his beating heart wherever she was around. They just sit there are a moment, neither one of daring to break the silence but both their thoughts are loud enough to compensate for it. Jaime’s too busy still wondering why he’s avoiding eye contact and Chase is trying comprehend why he agreed to let her sit so close to him. 

“Do you play?” Jaime’s voice startles both of them since she hadn’t really planned to speak but she figures the silence become too much for her eager vocal chords. She points to the Chess Board when he doesn’t answer and he nods,

“Yes but I haven’t in a while.”

Jaime nods. She can see he’s about to break his gaze away from hers again so she hurries to say “Do you want play now?”

Chase tilts his head, trying to gauge what exactly she’s suggesting “with you?”

Jaime shrugs “I used to watch my dad play all the time and I was on the team in my old school. I never lost a match. So, how about we verse each other?” 

Chase feels a smile play at the corner of his mouth at her words. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why?” Jaime’s eye brows furrow, her forehead crinkles from discombobulation. 

“I’m competitive. You think you’re good and I want it to stay that way.”

Jaime’s eyes narrow as she dissects the real meaning behind his insult dressed up as a compliment. “I’m not a sore loser but besides that,” she leans in, her eyes more red than brown from fury “What makes you so sure you’ll win?”

Chase ignores her proximity since it seems his heart can’t and leans forward too, his eyes glinting dangerously “This was the favored sport in a house where only the best were loved, Miss Bishop. My older brothers and I competed with each other in everything but we treated Chess matches like battle fields. We were raised to be winners and the only people I was expected to lose to...were them,” Chase’s pushes his glasses back up when they slide down the bridge of his nose as he continues “ and as you can imagine,” he leans back, taking a pawn in his fingers and examines it before turning his sharp dark eyes back to hers “that only made me want to win more.”

Jaime’s eyes widen “Chase—” she starts but he hates the way she says his name, with concern and affection. 

“It’s not a bad thing Miss Bishop. Since then I’ve been able to treat life like a Chess game. Strategies, defenses and attack tactics. I know how to pick my battles and I’m gladly willing to lose a few pawns,” he shrugs, though Jaime notices even that action is measured and polite “if it means I can checkmate the king.”

“You know,” she speaks after several minutes, mulling his words over in her head. He looks up and he’s thrown by the fact that she’s still there and the warmth in her eyes remains “my dad would’ve liked you.”

Chase’s eyes narrow in confusion, he tests his voice “I...,” it comes out strained so he clears it “I don’t understand.”

Jaime smiles, and reaches over so fast that Chase doesn’t even get the chance to lean back. His eyes widen as her face hovers just centimeters away from his own. 

“You will,” she replies calmly as she takes the pawn out of his hand, not noticing the slight flinch from him as she does. 

She moves back and places the pawn back on the square he’d taken it from. Chase takes a moment to calm his breathing but when he speaks its his usual steady tone

“What do you—”

“One game. I don’t care if I lose. You know you’ll beat me, so,” she shrugs and leans back in her seat, folding her arms over her chest and tilting her head mockingly at him “what exactly is there to be afraid of?”

Chase bites his lip as he sees that small teasing smile on her lips but brings his charcoal eyes to meet her auburn ones. 

“I should warn you Miss Bishop, I only play to win.” 

“How coincidental” Jaime smiles and leans her elbows on the table “so do I”

Chase feels his breath catch on her smile but luckily the movement of her hand as she pushes her pawn forward distracts him. He assesses her move and hides his smile. She had moved to block 1.c4. The start of The English Opening defense. So...she does know what she’s doing after all...  

Chase doesn’t miss a beat and places his pawn on 1.e5. She looks up him but he suddenly can’t read her eyes, all the warmth in them is gone and replaced by pure unadulterated focus. She moves another pawn, he matches it. She moves her rook and he shifts his bishop. She castles her king and he continues to make the attack toward her queen. He knows he’d thrown her when he started with the Reverse - Sicilian but he had told her he only plays to win. She stares hard at the board, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Chase sits back and just looks at her. He knows she’s concentrating too severely to notice. So, he decides to take this chance to document the light in her eyes. That endless sparkle that seems to constantly be there. His eyes trace her features, her short brown pixie-cut hair, the slight curve to her nose, her big round red-brown eyes with long black eyelashes shadowing them and of course, that signature ever-present glowing smile. She looks up, the moment so sudden it catches him off guard. 

“Uh Chase, it’s your turn.” 

His inhales sharply at having been caught but she seems not to have noticed so he nods, and looks back at the board. His eyes widen when he sees that she’d got her pawn to the end of the board. He’d been so focused on going after her queen, defending his king and preparing to get hers in check that he had completely missed the pawn. He shakes it off, sacrificing his bishop to block her queen from checking his king.

She doesn’t take it though and instead moves her Knight forward. Chase looks up at her, confused as to why she did that but he takes the opportunity and cuts her queen. He lifts his gaze again, expecting to see regret in her eyes but that’s the furthest emotion in them as a smug smile spreads slowly across her face as she moves her rook from the end of he board forward. Chase’s eyes widen when he realizes that his Bishop was the only thing standing in the path of her rook and his king.

“Checkmate.” He looks up are her stunned into silence. She had used one of the simplest check patterns of all : Mayet’s Mate. That is why he couldn’t believe he didn’t see it.

“How did you...”

She shrugs, yawning, the time catching up to her “You’re a complex guy Chase, I knew you would overlook my simple strategy. You’re so used to playing with your brothers that you’re not used to a player who uses basics.”

Chase can’t believe he lost. He’s never loses. He hadn‘t even lost to his brothers in years. Before he can start analyzing where he went wrong, she stands up and rubs her eyes. 

“Okay, that made me tired. I think I’m going to go to bed. Thank you for the game.”

He wants to ask her to stay, to remind him of the basics but he knows that’s cruel. Weirdly, he’s not even mad or disappointed for losing. Even though he should be, even though he usually would be he just can’t help feel even more intrigued by her. He watches her leave, his eyes lingering on her shadow until she completely slips out the library. He stands up slowly, turning away and walks the rest of the distance between him and the large rectangular window. He glances at his reflection. He seems the same. The same Chase Carlyle. The same boy who is cold, heartless and selfish. His whole life people have been nothing but assets, playthings, which he could manipulate in order to achieve his goals. He had never cared about using people. In fact, he had never cared about people at all. He was raised to be a monster. A purebred , heartless monster yet he’s still not expected to become better than his brothers. He’s not expected to be the Prince to his Father’s Kingdom. The sole heir to all the hotels. That’s all the more reason he wants to, just to prove he can. He doesn’t even want the crown or the Kingdom or the money. He just wants to get it simply, so he can destroy it. He thinks of his father’s bottomless greed, endless lies and love for money. The way he’d spent every single minute he wasn’t at work raising him and his brothers to be just as heartless as he is but Chase had learned a while ago that the last thing he ever wanted to be was his dad. The terrible fact is though, the closer he came to getting the shares, the closer he came to over-powering his dad, the more he started to feel like him. Recently though, something had changed. He looks at his reflection again. His dark eyes are glinting, his black hair falling into them, the heart he had claimed not to have beating loud enough to confirm that even if he really is like his dad, there is one thing that keeps them different. Chase’s whole life he’s been calculating his next move, treating life like a chess game. One where he is king and everyone else is simply pawns all under his influence. He knows he is going to be the king that causes castles to crumble at the touch of his fingertips. The one that makes other kings who have never flinched cower in fear. The one that causes their kingdoms to crash and burn to the ground and in the centre of all those those furious flames, he would stand.

The boy no one expects to be more than one of his father’s hotel owners. The boy no one expects to be more than just one of the Carlyle sons. Basically, if life’s a chess game, he’s the boy no one expects to win and definitely not to be king.

But he will. He must and yet...

For so long he had never found anyone worth caring about, no one challenging enough to change his mind. No one unpredictable enough to surprise him. No one strong enough to overpower him. No one clever enough to beat him. That is, until now. He looks out into the dark night, that same thought bouncing along every corner of his brain and echoing through his neuro pathways. It’s fights through the chaos and fire, through the crowns and broken rubble that scatter his mind and eventually it’s too loud to ignore. So he stops, takes a breath and lets it surface... 

How unexpected, he slides his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, his obsidian eyes flash as he remembers her story about snow-in-summer, for me to finally meet a pawn... he remembers that spark in her eyes, that bright fiery light and feels a smile edge its way onto his lips, strong enough to overthrow a king...