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Scheduled for Friday
by Anton M.
17: Fegatello Attack
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Tuesday, January 24 (cont.)
I felt near-intoxicated by being pressed up against Edward in highway wind and traffic lights as he pulled to a stop next to Thinking Man Tavern half an hour later. My palms were warm from holding his stomach under his backpack. Still getting used to straddling his motorcycle, I half-stumbled off of it. My hair was, no doubt, a mess of curls from being squished through his helmet, but I couldn't hold back the grin on my face.
"You enjoy the ride?"
I let out a light laugh. "You explain to my parents why I'm getting a motorcycle for my eighteenth birthday."
He mirrored my grin. "If you can guarantee I'll survive the conversation."
"Guarantee is a strong word."
My stomach fluttered with a thousand butterflies when he laughed.
Holding our helmets, we stood in the parking lot of a red brick, square-looking, one story tavern.
I hesitated.
"You know we can't go in there, right?"
"Relax," he replied. "I'm not taking you to a tavern."
We walked past it to a near-identical house, an old but cozy-looking restaurant called Fegatello Attack. Others followed us as we entered from what appeared to be the back door, and we were blasted with warm air full of spices that made my stomach grumble. A pathway led to a wing of a restaurant where books covered the entire left side of the room and booths divided the other. A mishmash of board games colored the wall above the booths, and the tables were set for chess.
Edward took my coat as I stood in awe of the unexpected coziness. The evening sky appeared black from the windows on the ceiling, and I took three steps downstairs to the magical world of wood pillars, books and board games.
"You'd better have told me the truth about liking people-watching because, if not, you're about to be as bored as you've ever been."
Edward took the three steps downstairs. Rubbing his neck, he looked at me almost apologetically, and I could've kissed him. I didn't know what I'd imagined but it certainly wasn't this, and yet I felt better already. However boring he thought tonight could've been for me, my days of sitting in a restaurant uninterrupted were almost certainly counted. It had been forever since I did anything like this without my parents, and I couldn't wait to order pasta and watch people play chess.
"So how it works is that people who come here to play occupy the booths and order drinks, maybe snacks, but if you want to eat you'll have to sit on the left. That okay with you?"
I grinned, still taking it all in. Over a dozen people had began to settle in the booths, all saying hi to Edward as they passed, and I put down my backpack on a chair by a small table to the left.
"Do you play?" I asked.
"A bit."
A large man wheezed with silent laughter before he patted Edward on the back. Messy white hair surrounded his friendly face, but his square jaw and wide, sharp eyebrows bore enough similarity with Edward's to presume a relation.
"You must be Lauren," he said, holding out his right hand and revealing a missing tooth with his smile.
Edward looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him as he grimaced.
"Not Lauren, gramps."
The man, apparently Edward's grandfather, gave Edward a hilariously scathing look before he turned to me. "I'm very sorry, young lady. I'm Edward. You can call me Senior around Junior here."
"Bella, sir. Hi." Grinning, I returned his strong grip as well as I was able to. "Edward is not dating two girls at once. I'm just a friend."
Edward's gramps raised his eyebrows at Edward, as if to say 'just a friend, huh?'. "And how long have you played chess, Bella?"
I made an apologetic face. "I've never, sir."
"Never?" he repeated. "Well, we oughta fix that today, oughtn't we? My opponent has arrived but I'll be happy to teach you the ropes after eight."
"You don't have to," Edward mouthed to me before he turned to his grandfather. "Bella had a stressful day, gramps. She's just here to chill and watch people."
Edward Senior lifted his hands. "No stress! No stress. Whatever you wish, I'll be here." He smiled at me, "A pleasure to meet you, Bella," winked at Edward, and walked to the last booth on the right. Edward bit his lower lip, assessing me.
"I know it's probably not what you had in mind—"
"It's perfect," I interrupted, quietly, with a blinding smile on my face. "I love it. I'm hungry, though. Is it okay that I eat while you play?"
"Absolutely." Edward hesitated before he got that all too familiar look on his face, fear masked as politeness, one I'd worn many times in my life back when we were poor. "Do you want me to—"
"No, no." I hated that I made him feel like he was obliged to cover my dinner for having technically invited me (a feeling I knew all too well). "A good perk of a side-job in high school is having enough pocket money for dinner. I'm good. Don't worry about it."
He deflated in relief. I floated away when his eyes lingered on my lips, but he snapped out of it when his opponent, a middle-aged man, greeted him, and the two sat a few booths away from my table. I ordered Paccheri al Forno at the server's delicious description of it but could only eat one third of the enormous dish. The restaurant felt like a cozy blanket, totally out of my ordinary routine and all the more comforting for it, and I had tremendous fun watching the players.
Their eyes flickered between chess pieces. They knocked their knuckles against their teeth, pressed their palms together as if in prayer, and moved their index finger in the air as they calculated their next move. Edward had this thing where he brushed his closed fist along his lips, back and forth. I caught his eye as he did it, and he had such an intense, focused gaze it set my heart on fire, but he seemed so concentrated I didn't think he actually saw me as he looked at me.
I also noticed an odd thing. It seemed mandatory to order drinks to play in the booth (how else would the restaurant make money off of these guys?), but Edward got away with not doing it, and I caught the attention of a server to ask why.
"Oh anyone above FIDE Master gets free drinks here," the server with the name-tag Elio, said. "He just didn't want any."
Confused by what that meant, I waved my hand in the air. "Are they all…?"
"No." Elio laughed. "Only the man with the piercing, Edward, he's an International Master. His guest opponent, Dhruv Shah, is a Grandmaster. Only those two today." He paused, leaning closer. "Between you and me, it's about to get heated, so if you have any interest in chess, you should go see the game up close before you can't."
He was right.
I found the second book of Underground Memories from the endless shelves to my left to refresh my mind for the second season, but I was torn out of my book by the 'uuu'ing and 'aah'ing next to Edward's table, and people had abandoned their games to go watch Edward and Dhruv's. A tense-looking half an hour later, the crowd erupted in cheers, and I watched, amazed, as Edward emerged from the scene with handshakes and pats on the back.
The crowd dispersed, and Edward and Dhruv shook hands, joking with each other before Dhruv sat down to play with someone else. The rest of them continued playing, switched opponents, or crossed the tiny hallway to eat dinner. Edward declined an invitation to play before he took a chair beside me, turned it around, straddled it, and crossed his arms over the backrest. His eyes were sparkling with energy, a bit wild, like a person whose passion had been ignited.
I, of course, had the most ridiculous soft spot for people when that happened.
I'd seen it in Alice when she discussed some graphic design obscurity in Canva, in my dad when he discussed the intricacies of achieving a certain look in making Christmas tree ornaments, in my mom when she figured out the perfect metaphor for an untranslatable expression, and now, of course...
In Edward, when he looked at me like he was on fire, all simmering energy beneath, and I was sure I'd melt when he licked his lips and stared at mine with that wild, passionate expression in his eyes.
"International Master Edward Masen," I teased, having to break the tension before I attacked his lips with mine. "I feel stupid that I didn't know."
"How could you have known?"
Of all the stupid things I'd done in my life (and there were many), I'd never actually googled Edward, and I did know that Willie W. Smith had several students who made it to Georgia Top Scholastic Players in Chess and that the school had had a guy who'd won some kind of world championship in an online game during corona, but I'd been in middle school at the time and had no clue it was Edward.
"Tell me, what is an International Master and how does a guy from Willie W. Smith become one?"
And didn't they have award money for winning? How was he so poor if that was the case?
He bit his lower lip as he stifled his smile, and the way his eyes locked with mine sent a shiver down my spine. "You win the World Youth Chess Championship and get a rating above 2400."
"But I have no context for what you just said," I replied. "Are there age groups? Are you the best in the world? What's above and below International Master and how far is that from a Grandmaster? What's a Grandmaster, anyway? Is it also based on ratings?"
Edward made a funny sound, something between a groan and a laugh. "I see. I've met a girl I can't impress with the title."
"No!" I argued, embarrassed. "I'm very impressed. I just, I don't have context for what you're telling me."
"I was giving you a compliment, Bella," he replied, eyes alight with humor. "Those are not the questions of a person who sucks at everything, so you do not have my permission to drop out of high school."
I crossed my fingers furiously in front of his face, forgetting that he had no clue what it meant, and Edward blinked at my hands before he laughed.
"What is—" He crossed his index fingers just like I had, pretending to be furious. "—that?"
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