Darcy once told me about a study they did, monitoring the heart rate of top chess players during important games. Nolan’s was always the slowest. The steadiest. Is that why he’s standing in front of me in boxer briefs and a Coimbra Chess 2019 T-shirt and I’m shaking like a leaf? “Do you not want this?” he asks. “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I don’t not want this. But…we just kissed out of the blue, and you seem so okay with it, and…” He shrugs. “It’s not out of the blue for me.” “It isn’t?” “I came to terms with this months ago, Mallory. The first time we played, maybe.”
