“Lying to your sisters, huh?”
“It’s not a good idea, mentioning chess around my family.” And I’m telling him this . . . why?
“I see.” He leans his forearm against the rail, drumming his fingers unhurriedly. “You know, I played against your father once.”
I freeze. Force myself to relax. “I hope you won.” I hope you humiliated him. I hope he cried. I hope it hurt him. I miss him.
“I did.” He hesitates. “I’m sorry that he— ”
“Mallory?” Mom leans out from the doorframe. While we’re talking about Dad. Shit, shit— “Who’s your friend?”
“This is . . .” I close my eyes. She probably didn’t hear. It’s fine. “This is my colleague Nolan. We work together, and we . . . made plans to go get a bite, but I forgot about it, so he’ll just . . . he’ll leave now.”
Nolan smiles at her, looking not at all like the sullen manchild I know him to be. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Greenleaf.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Nolan, would you like to stay for dinner? We have plenty of food.”
I know what Nolan sees: Mom’s in her late forties, but looks older than that. Tired. Fragile. And I know what Mom sees: a young man who’s taller than tall and handsome to go with that. Polite, too. He showed up to visit the daughter who dates a lot but never brings anyone home. Ripe for misunderstanding, this situation. It needs to end ASAP.
That’s what I’m thinking when I open my mouth to tell Mom that Nolan really can’t stay. What I’m thinking when Nolan is just a fraction of a second quicker and says, “Thank you, Mrs. Greenleaf. I would love to.”
HE SITS WHERE DAD USED TO.
Which doesn’t mean much, since our dinner table is round. And it makes sense: he’s left-handed, so am I. We should cluster— avoid elbowing the righties. Still, there’s something beyond weird in Nolan Sawyer taking jaw-unhinging bites of Mom’s meat loaf, wolfing down a portion, two, helping himself to more green beans, nodding gravely when Darcy asks, enthralled by his appetite, “Do you happen to have a tapeworm?” He obviously enjoys Mom’s cooking. He made a deep, guttural sound after the first bite, something that reminded me of . . .
I flushed. No one else paid attention.
“Have you been working at the senior center long, Nolan?” Mom asks.
I stiffen, spearing a single green bean. I press my knee against Nolan’s under the table, to signal him to be quiet. “We don’t have to talk about— ”
“A while,” he says smoothly.
“Do you like it?”
“It has its ups and downs. I used to love it, but a little . . . sameness set in, and I actually thought about quitting. Then Mallory arrived.” His knee suddenly pushes back against mine. “Now I love it again.”
Mom cocks her head. “You two must work very closely together.”
“Not nearly as much as I’d like.”
Oh my God. Oh. My. God.
“How’s Mallory at work?” Darcy asks. “Do the old people like her?”
“She has a reputation for pocketing puddings.” Everyone stares at me like I’m that Pharma bro who hiked basic meds’ prices. “And for public near-nudity.”
Mom’s eyes widen. “Mallory, this is concerning— ”
“He’s kidding.” I kick Nolan’s calf, hard. He doesn’t seem to care, but he does trap my foot between his own. “He’s known for his terrible sense of humor.” My leg is now twined with his. Cool. Cool.
“Okay.” Sabrina sets her glass down. “I’ll go ahead and ask it, since we all want to know: Are you guys having sex?”
“Oh my God.” I cover my eyes. “Oh my God.”
“Sabrina,” Mom chides, “that is really inappropriate.” She turns to me. “But yes, are you?”
“Oh my God,” I moan.
“We aren’t,” Nolan says between bites of meat loaf. Third helping.
Oh.
My.
God.
“Maybe you’ll have sex tonight?” Darcy asks. “Is that why you came over?”
My twelve-year- old sister, who sleeps with a stuffed fox, just asked the world’s number one chess player if he came over to bang me. And he just replies, matter-of-fact, “It seems unlikely. And no, it’s not why I came.”
“Did you know Mal has sex with boys and girls?” Darcy adds. “I’m not outing her— she told me I could tell anyone.”
Nolan glances at me. Lightning-quick. “I did not.”
“He doesn’t care, Darcy. And FYI, that didn’t mean ‘please go tell everyone.’ ”
“Would you like more meat loaf, Nolan?” Mom interjects, and leaves for the kitchen when Nolan nods gratefully.
“So, Nolan,” Sabrina continues, “do you also have sex with boys and girls?”
“Jesus.” An image of the entire Baudelaire family flashes in my head. “Okay, I’m going to nuke this conversation and remind you that you cannot ask people you barely know about their sexual orientation during dinner. Or at all.”
“Maybe he doesn’t mind,” Sabrina says. “Do you mind, Nolan?”
“I don’t,” he says, remarkably unperturbed.
Sabrina shoots me a triumphant smile. Sistercide. Sistercide is the only option. I’ll make Darcy help me hide the body. Or Mom. Or Goliath. “So, boys and girls?”
Nolan shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Mostly girls?”
“No.”
“Mostly boys?”
“No.”
Sabrina looks briefly confused, then delighted. “You don’t want to exclude nonbinary people!”
“So,” Darcy interjects, “when are you guys going to have sex?”
Nolan’s “Hard to tell” overlaps with my “Never!” and completely swallows it.
I face-palm.
“I bet Mallory’s really good at it. She sure practices a lot.”
Nolan gives me a long, assessing look that’s mercifully interrupted by Mom arriving with more meat loaf. “Do you have any siblings, Nolan?” she asks. I’ve never been more grateful for a change of topic.
“Two half brothers. On my father’s side.”
“How old are they?”
He squints, as if trying to remember a remote piece of information. “Somewhere in their early teens. Maybe younger.”
“You’re not sure?”
He shrugs. “I never see them.”
Mom’s brow furrows. “You must spend most holidays with your mother.”
He lets out a hushed laugh. Or maybe it’s a scoff. “I haven’t seen either of my parents in years. Usually a friend invites me over.”
“Why don’t you see your parents?” Darcy asks.
“A . . . difference of opinions. Over my career.”
“They don’t like the senior center?”
Nolan bites back a smile and nods solemnly.
“That’s kinda sad,” Darcy says. “I see my family every day of every week of every year.”
“That’s also kinda sad,” Sabrina mumbles. “Wouldn’t mind some space.”
Darcy shrugs. “I like it, that we’re always together. And we tell each other everything.”
The pointed look Nolan gives me makes me want to kick him in the gonads, but my leg is still stuck between his, so I consider drowning myself in the gravy. A slow, nutritious, tasty death.