Page 17 of Love Below Zero

17

CHECKMATE

JAMES

Note slipped under Rebecca’s door:

Mars has a north and south pole just like Earth. The polar ice caps are covered in a layer of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice).

I pace around my room, which isn’t easy to do considering the small size.

I gave Rebecca writer’s block. My words, my actions. I hurt her badly. Yes, I’ve made countless reviews criticising books by other popular authors, but this is so much more personal. Those authors never engaged with me. She did. And then it spiralled out of control.

No wonder she’s been ignoring me. I’ve been constantly feeding into her fears without even realising it.

I’m such an idiot.

I have to make this right, no matter what. So I do the only thing I can think that will show her how much I enjoy her books—I give her my annotated copy. I can only hope she’ll actually read it and not just return it without opening it.

I sigh, sitting down on my bed. At this rate I’m going to wear a hole in the carpet. I should be working, not agonising over Rebecca. I should be going over our most recent calorie counts, but I keep putting it off.

After a month in the dome, monitoring every single thing I ate and my feelings toward said food, I’ve become self-conscious.

Bodies are machines, and machines require energy. I am acutely aware of every single calorie consumed and exerted. In short, having a body is uncomfortable, to say the least. They are so demanding.

Food is a big issue for astronauts, especially male astronauts. Our bodies require more calories to function, making it ultimately more costly to send us to space. If you have astronauts who operate on fewer calories, you can send less food and save a lot more space. Escaping earth’s gravity is no easy feat. It’s a delicate balance between opposing forces. The more you weigh, the more fuel you need to burn, the more expensive an already expensive endeavour becomes.

Scientifically speaking, it makes more sense to send women to space. They require less calories and generally weigh less. But try telling that to world governments at the start of the space race.

It’s midnight, and these are the thoughts plaguing me as I review the data from the team. Eli and I consistently take in more calories than the rest. Despite that, all of us are on a downward slope. The menu fatigue is starting to set in. We’ve been eating a lot of pre-packed food, but Joanna’s birthday is coming up, and we are going to start cooking more in the next few weeks.

Still, I am a little concerned, especially about Rebecca. Her caloric intake is dramatically low, and I worry she’s avoiding certain foods because of her health. I have to talk to her about it, but I’m not sure how to approach it.

My stomach gives a loud rumble. I sigh, closing my laptop before going down to the kitchen. I’m not a midnight snacker by nature, but my sleeping patterns are all over the place and it has an impact on my hunger.

I’m surprised to find the kitchen already occupied.

“Can’t sleep?”

Rebecca sits hunched over the table, a small chessboard open in front of her. I have seen her and Eli playing together a few times. She is quite good, according to him. I’ve never been invited to a match. She looks up at me, her expression wary.

“I was going to make tea, then got distracted.” She gestures to the board.

“Who’s winning?” I cross over to the kettle, checking to see if the water is still warm before grabbing her a mug.

“It’s a stalemate.” She sighs. I put the mug in front of her—camomile, a special rooibos blend she brought with because she doesn’t drink caffeine but likes the camomile at night. She raises a surprised brow at me.

“You remember how I take my tea?”

I nod. “I’m still horrified that you don’t drink coffee.”

She looks down at the mug, a strange expression on her face, before picking it up and taking a sip. “It’s good. Thank you.”

I can’t help but feel like this is a small victory for me. I turn back to the kitchen, rummaging around in my personal snack stash before pulling out two granola bars. I hand her one before sitting down across from her.

“Would you like to play a game?”

She looks at the granola bar, then at me, like I just asked her if she wants to go skinny-dipping in the Atlantic. I can’t help but smirk as I watch the gears turn in her head. I decided that I will make an effort with her, that I am going to fix things between us, whatever it is between us. She doesn’t believe me, and she is going to be stubborn as hell about it. But two can play that game.

“Sure.” She’s still eyeing me warily, but she quickly puts the pieces back in place. She spins the board, giving me the white pieces. “Your move.”

I tear open the granola bar, taking a bite while studying the board. I am a horrible chess player, which might come as a surprise to some. I was never good with seeing the bigger picture. I tend to focus on one thing at a time, and chess is a big thinking kind of game. I move the pawn in front of the queen.

She’s much faster than I am, immediately opening in front of her queen as well.

“Are you going to eat that?” I gesture to the untouched bar on her side.

“I don’t eat after 9 p.m.” Her gaze is locked on the board, and for once I’m missing the eye contact. Normally it makes me uncomfortable, but I want her to look at me.

“Because of the pre-diabetes.”

“And I don’t need the glucose spike this late.” She moves her king’s pawn, and at least I know enough about chess to block a three-move checkmate attempt.

“It won’t spike your glucose. The bar is low in refined sugar with extra protein and fibre. Gluten- and dairy- free.” I drop my voice a bit, taking care to keep my tone gentle. “You’re not eating enough, darling. Please.”

Her eyes snap up to meet mine, and my breath catches in my chest. I never noticed the light smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Her gaze is stormy, but she says nothing as she reaches for the bar. She studies the ingredients list briefly before opening it and taking a bite.

“Where did you get these?”

“From the snack cupboard. You watched me do it.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “I meant where did you buy them?”

“A place called Food Stop in Cape Town.”

“You got these in Cape Town?”

I nod, moving my knight to protect my king. She’s studying me now with the same intensity as she studied the chessboard earlier. I start to sweat under her gaze. I am not going to tell her that I went out of the way to get some snacks she could eat after our conversation in the bookstore. I consider it briefly, wondering if it would endear me to her, then discard it. Those actions don’t retroactively make up for me being an asshole, as she puts it.

Luckily she drops the conversation, turning her attention back to the board as she eats. We play in silence for a while. I study her face, watching the decisions she makes play out on the board. She is good—far better than I am. I want to know what she’s thinking, so I ask.

“What are you thinking?”

She finished the granola bar and is taking another sip of her tea. “I’m wondering if you put your queen there on purpose to lure me into a trap, or if you’re just really bad at chess.”

It’s the latter, but I’m not going to tell her that .

“You’re going to have to find out.”

A slight crease appears between her brows as she takes my queen. I don’t have some devious master plan, and within the next two moves she has me in checkmate. She grins.

“So there is something you’re bad at.”

I snort. “I’m bad at plenty of things, don’t you worry.”

“Oh, like what?” She leans her elbows on the table, giving me a curious look. I indulge her.

“Communicating, clearly. Reading people. Social situations.”

“Chess,” she adds helpfully.

“Chess,” I chuckle, running a hand through my hair. “I could go on.”

“Please do. I enjoy hearing about your flaws.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. I reset the chessboard, turning it to give her the white pieces this time. Maybe I’ll have more luck with black.

“I can be a bit of an asshole, or so I’ve been told.”

“More than a bit,” she mumbles, opening in front of her queen again. I make the same move. “I understand being bad with people and social situations, but what made you into an asshole?”

I consider my answer for a while, tapping my fingers against the table. Perhaps I am overly cautious because of what happened with Sara. When the first significant relationship of your life ends in disaster and almost terminates your academic career, you’re bound to carry some trauma around because of it. I don’t want to talk about Sara though, not with Rebecca. I don’t want to compare the two in my mind, because it’s not fair. Rebecca isn’t Sara. She’s given me no reason not to trust her. Yet my feelings for her are so similar to the feelings I had for Sara, I don’t know what to make of it. They scare me. There is too much on the line.

“I worked with a partner once. I trusted her to do the right thing. She didn’t, and it ended badly for me. I’m aware of the fact that I shouldn’t have taken those feelings out on you. Just because a person I trusted broke that trust, doesn’t mean everyone I trust will do the same.” It’s what I tell myself, yet saying it out loud and believing it are two different things. I might be able to intellectualise my trauma, but that sure does not help to process it. Maybe when we return to Earth I should look into therapy.

“So your lack of trust in me actually has nothing to do with me?” She seems almost relieved at that. Has it really been bothering her that much?

“I’m the problem,” I confirm, frowning at the board. Without even realising it, she trapped me. I try to distract her by moving my knight at the other end of the board, but it doesn’t work. She takes my queen, and with a triumphant smile says, “Checkmate.”

I like watching her win. Her small, lopsided smile as she topples my king spreads warmth in my chest. I want to reach out, trace constellations on her freckles. Watch her think through every move, make strategic choices before completely obliterating me. This is the Rebecca I know, the one I haven’t seen in a while. The one sharp and cunning enough to write a whole book series set in another galaxy. The one who can send me scathing messages with the friendliest smile on her face. I would rather she plot my untimely demise than give me the cold shoulder. At least then I would have some of her attention.

“I have a suggestion for your next book,” I say as we reset the board. She stiffens. I’m taking a risk by bringing up the book, but I have to.

“Go on,” she says.

“I would like my character to freeze to death.”

A surprised laugh jumps out of her. I’m putting that down as another point for me. “That seems very tame. I was thinking more along the lines of a space squid sucking your eyeballs out through your nose. Besides, you have no proof that there’s a character based on you in my books.”

She’s creative, I’ll give her that.

“You just confirmed it.”

“I did not. I plead the fifth.”

I’m the white pieces again, so I open in front of my castle this time. It doesn’t faze her at all.

“Hypothetically,” she starts, “if there was a character based on you who died a gruesome death in each book, why should I consider freezing?”

“It’s quite dramatic, I assure you.” As if on cue, the wind picks up, the tarp of the dome softly flapping in the breeze. “First, your blood vessels constrict, limiting blood flow to the major extremities. This is extremely painful. Then you lose the ability to think or speak. Your brain is sending you warning signals, alarm bells are going off, but it’s already too late. When it starts, you feel terrible. Your whole body hurts. But then the pain fades away, and all you want to do is sit down in the snow. You’re almost at peace, and you just want to be left alone. Your body knows it’s dying, but your brain isn’t getting enough blood flow to save you, so it shuts down. You don’t really want to die, but every part of you is betraying that instinct because it’s just so cold, and you just want to lie down for a while.”

She’s staring at me now, mouth slightly open in rapt fascination. I might have spent too much time reading accounts of Arctic exploration and all the ways it went wrong. I wanted to be prepared in case of emergencies. Even though we are here in the summer, hypothermia is still a real concern.

“That’s ... surprisingly horrifying.” She blinks at me, folding her hands together and resting her chin on top. “I didn’t peg you for a horror fan.”

I shrug, moving my queen to block her bishop. “Contrary to popular belief, I do enjoy sci-fi. And sci-fi horror.”

“No comment on how most of it is unrealistic and unscientific?”

“I think most of it is realistic. Space is incredibly dangerous. It’s inhospitable to humans, yet we constantly try to conquer it. Space isn’t this big bad villain that wants to kill us all the time. It just is. That thought alone is scary enough, but then add in the radiation, liquefied eyeballs, blood boiling, explosive decompression, and more, and you’ve got a recipe for horror. I’m surprised the astronauts on the ISS are still sane.”

“Right? And that’s just the physical danger.” She grins at me as she takes my queen. “The mental load is insane. Going mad up there is substantially worse than going mad down here.”

“You’ve seen Away , right?” I ask, giving the board one last look before toppling my king. She is definitely going to win.

“The dehydration episode? Had me on the edge of my seat.” She rubs at her eyes, yawning. It’s nearly 1 a.m., and we really should be going to bed. Not together, obviously. I am definitely not thinking about going to bed with Rebecca. I am not wondering how soft her body would feel next to mine, or how warm she would be. I am absolutely not wondering if she’d give me that same cunning smile if I asked her to show me what she liked, to teach me where to touch her, how to make her come.

Shit, I have to stop not thinking about her or I’m going to be in trouble.

“Maybe we can watch it sometime, for movie night.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended it to, and I clear my throat.

“Maybe.” She looks at me again, that look that I can’t puzzle out. Almost a mix of curiosity and caution. Like she wants to know me but she’s too afraid to get any closer.

This was probably the longest we’ve talked without snapping at each other, and she probably doesn’t know what to do with that information. Hell, I barely know what to do with it.

She looks down at her lap, biting her bottom lip between her teeth. The sight sends a straight shot of lust right through me, and I almost topple out of my chair.

God help me.

A strand of hair falls in front of her face, and before I can talk myself out of it, I reach across the table, tucking it behind her ear. Her skin is softer than I could have imagined, my thumb tracing lightly over her cheek.

I have to stop this, now, before I do something rash and out of character.

I pull away abruptly, standing up so fast I almost knock the table over.

“Thank you for the chess game. Good night, Rebecca.”

I high-tail it out of there, practically leaving dust in my wake as I rush up to my room. I am in so much trouble.