How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend

by Allyson Valentine

  You may, indeed, happen to lose the game to your opponent; but you will win what is better, his esteem, his respect, and his affection.

  Oh my god! Could it be? Is Adam trying to let me win? Is he trying to win my esteem? Or respect? My breath quickens. My affection?

  I could make a move that will wind up two moves from now with him in checkmate. But what if his last move was a total blunder? Do I look for a completely different option that will let him off the hook? Is that what he was doing for me earlier? I wanted so badly to beat him—and now that I can, why am I hesitating? Isn’t beating him the perfect way to end this?

  And then I see something I had not noticed just a moment before, and a thought, a beautiful little thought, occurs to me. There is another option. If neither of us wins—then neither of us loses. I move my rook. The murmuring stops. Adam cocks his head. If he doesn’t move his king, he’ll be in checkmate. Even the kids at Chess Kings know that if you are in check and there is a way out of it, you have to take it. I have left him with no choice. He steps his king one square to the right and avoids checkmate. I move my rook again, and Adam shifts his king to the left. I move. He moves. Back and forth. We could go on like this forever with no one winning. Adam’s mouth breaks into a slow, sure grin. His eyes meet mine. “Repetitive check. Game over.”

  It takes Eric a moment to peel his eyes away from the board and announce the outcome of the game. “Nora has placed Adam in repetitive check. The match ends in a tie. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Riverbend High Chess Cochampions.” He lifts Adam’s left hand and my right over our heads and the crowd claps. Becca nudges Chelsey awake and the cheer squad hoots and shakes their pom-poms.

  When the clapping dies down, Eric presents us with an envelope. “The cochampions will need to figure out how to divvy up the prize.” It’s a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate—to Molly Moon’s! The volume rises as Mark and some of the other chess guys chide Adam for not taking me when he had a chance. He claims to have not seen it.

  Krista slips in beside me. “Nicely done.”

  I lean into her. “Thanks for being here. How’d you get everyone else to come with you?”

  She gives me a squeeze. “It was Chelsey’s idea. Hey, Dex is on his way to pick me up. A bunch of us are getting together at Jake’s house to watch a video of today’s game. Want to come?”

  Adam leans across the table, inserting himself into our conversation. “I believe the champions have a prize to collect.”

  I smile. “I believe you’re right. Shall we?”

  Adam climbs from his chair, comes around the table and with affected formality pulls out my chair. “We shall.”

  And we do.

  Twenty-One

  ADAM AND I KICK THROUGH leaves littering the courtyard outside the school’s front doors. The air at dusk has cooled down considerably since I leapt off the bus and raced to the school library over four hours ago. Thankfully, ever since Krista crowned me Queen of the Nipple Kingdom, I always keep a cardigan in my gear bag.

  “What do you think?” Adam says. “Too cold for ice cream?”

  I respond with a look of utter disbelief. “It’s never too cold for ice cream.”

  We pass by the bike rack. His is the only bike still there. “I’d offer you a ride—” he says kiddingly. “How are you at balancing on handlebars?”

  I regard my skirt. “I’m not wearing my most appropriate handlebar attire. How about the bus?”

  Adam looks at me with surprise. “Really? I sort of figured we’d take your car.”

  The muscles in the back of my neck tense. “The car, yeah. It’s not exactly an option right now.”

  As we walk to the bus stop, Adam doesn’t ask about the car and I don’t tell. Someday, perhaps, I’ll reveal why I should never have driven with him back on the first day of school and why, at this very moment, my car is out on a romantic date with Stuart Shangrove and his girlfriend. Instead, he brings up the chess match. “So how’d you like my opening?”

  I groan. “You had to know I wouldn’t fall for that.”

  He laughs, and does this adorable sideways gallop thing as we make our way down the sidewalk. “I was just messing with you,” he says. “I caught a little bit of your third-round match and it was pretty clear you knew what you were doing. You caught poor Mark totally off guard.”

  I did. It took him three licorice sticks to get that the game was really over.

  Adam presses the button at the crosswalk. I rub my upper arms as the cool air bites through my sweater.

  “Oh, hey, put this on.” Adam slips off his fleece coat and drapes it over my shoulders. His hand brushes the back of my neck, sending a shiver down to my toes.

  “Are you sure you’ll be warm enough?” I croak.

  “Yeah, no problem. I’ve still got this.” He tugs at his sweatshirt.

  We walk on and I wrap myself in his jacket. In Adam’s jacket. In Adam Hood’s soft blue jacket that is warm and fuzzy under my chin and totally smells like boy body. If I were a cat, my purring would drown out the noise of the approaching bus.

  “So, who do you usually play chess with?” Adam asks as the bus doors open. He steps back, allowing me to board first.

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  Adam follows me up the steps, into the bus. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  We find two seats together. All around us people mess with their phones or talk in muted voices while I tell Adam about my early days as the next Judit Polgár. About Dad leaving. About me quitting. I blame the recent reigniting of my chess fuse on Joshie and Phil. I pull out my phone and fire up the chess app, which displays the game Phil and I are currently in the middle of. It’s Phil’s move.

  The bus jerks to a stop. A few people clamber off and Adam notices that a woman has left gloves on her seat. He chases after her to return them, and I remind myself that he’s not just nice to me, he’s nice to everyone. He’d give any girl his coat. He’d let any girl climb onto the bus ahead of him. He is no longer Tallulah’s but that does not, by default, make him mine.

  The bus makes a sharp turn and suddenly my body and Adam’s are pressed together. I try to catch myself and my hand slaps onto the back of his hand, where it rests beside his thigh. His skin beneath mine is cool and smooth. If only the bus could continue this way for the rest of the ride.

  “I’m sorry!” I say, repositioning myself in my seat, pulling my hand back into my lap.

  “It’s all good,” he says. And I couldn’t agree more. We chat about biology. History. The bus lurches to a stop, and Adam stands, grabbing on to the stainless steel bar that runs over our heads. I am still in my seat and he towers over me, which is nothing new. Even when I’m standing beside him in history or in biology he towers over me, and I love the bigness of him. I love the fact that the sleeves of his coat extend a good six inches beyond the tips of my fingers.

  We hop off the bus. “Molly Moon’s,” Adam announces as we arrive at the ice cream shop. He opens the door and follows me inside. There’s no one waiting to place their order, and I beeline to the counter. “Two scoops of Theo’s Coconut Kiss in a cup, please.”

  “Wow, remind me to never get between you and a dish of ice cream,” Adam says, laughing as he catches up to me.

  “Hey, I take my ice cream very seriously.”

  He’s still smiling as he studies the chalkboard on the wall behind the counter and I try not to be too obvious about studying him. I find myself wondering what he looked like when he was Joshie’s age—cute. Very cute.

  “Earl Grey in a cone,” he finally says to the girl waiting to take his order.

  “I would have pegged you as a Cherry Chunk guy,” I tell him.

  Adam smiles. “I’m full of surprises.”

  I am eager to be surprised. I head to the counter by the window and sit on one of the tall wooden stools. Adam grabs a paper cup of water and meets me there. As he sits, a drip of ice cream slides from his cone onto his sweatshirt.

/>   “Would you mind?” He offers his cone and I hold it as he wipes at the errant drip. A wave of hair spills over his face, obstructing my view of his nose, his cheekbones, his eyes. What if I reached up and tucked his hair behind his ear? I picture him pulling my hand away and tenderly pressing his lips to the tips of my fingers. I imagine us, right here and now, admitting our passion for each other. To honor the moment, years from now, our wedding cake will be made of ice cream: bottom tier—Coconut Kiss; middle tier—Earl Grey; top tier—Salted Caramel and Vivace Coffee with sprinkles, for my maid of honor.

  Crap! Don’t go there. I remind myself again, this is not a “date”! We are here to collect our prize. He’s nice to everyone.

  Adam finally sits. “I love this place,” he says, looking around. “We came here the first day we moved to town. I even got a T-shirt.”

  “I know,” I say, instantly regretting it as he looks as me wondering how I know intimate details of his wardrobe. “You, uh, you were wearing it the first day I met you.”

  He smiles and takes a lick of his Earl Grey ice cream. “Wow, good memory!”

  I resist the urge to tell him the other things I recall from that day. The way the pale hairs on his forearms stood out against his toasted marshmallow skin. How the muscles in his hand flexed as he gripped my apple between his middle finger and thumb. That even his toes were tanned.

  Don’t obsess, Nora. Don’t obsess! I close my eyes and savor a spoonful of Coconut Kiss instead. Taste bud elation. When I open my eyes, Adam is watching me, and the intensity of his gaze makes me look away for fear I will misinterpret it. Instead, I allow myself to seem interested in life outside Molly Moon’s plate-glass window, where a couple of college-age girls stroll past holding hands. A guy whizzes past on a skateboard. A car pulls into an empty parking space.

  Ice cream catches in my throat. No way. No possible way! What are the chances that of all the cars in the greater Seattle area, mine would be the one sliding into a parking space right in front of Molly Moon’s? Two scoops of crap in a sugar cone! Stuart Shangrove climbs out, then opens the door for his girlfriend.

  “Look, a car just like yours,” Adam says.

  “Um, that actually is my car. I sort of lent it to Stuart and his girlfriend.”

  Adam licks a renegade drip off his cone. “That was nice of you.”

  I nod dully.

  When Stuart and his girlfriend come in, I wish them a happy anniversary and mentally will them to get their ice cream and get the hell out of here, and at first it seems to have worked. But no such luck. They wander over, licking their cones.

  “Excellent ride,” says Stuart, his arm wrapped around his girlfriend’s shoulder. “Thanks for setting up the whole switcheroo.”

  “Yeah, the car is great,” says his girlfriend. “And it’ll be really nice to sit together at a football game for once.” She rises up on her toes and plants a kiss on his cheek.

  “See you at the game!” says Stuart as they leave.

  “Go, team,” I say, like I’m the cheerleader at a funeral.

  With my plastic spoon, I flip over the lumps of ice cream in my cup so I can scrape off the softer ice cream around the edges. And so I can avoid Adam’s gaze.

  “‘Switcheroo’?” asks Adam.

  A gust of cold air blows in as Stuart and his girlfriend leave.

  For the first time in my life, I lose my appetite for ice cream. “I kind of arranged a little trade. Stuart gets my car, and in exchange, the guy who’s usually the mascot is going to announce a game in Stuart’s place.”

  “And Stuart is going to be the mascot? He doesn’t seem like a fish suit kind of guy.”

  I glance at the ceiling for help, but get none. “No. Actually, Eric is going to be the mascot.”

  Adam chokes on his ice cream and gulps some water to stave off a full-on coughing fit. “Eric?” he finally manages to say. “Chess Club Eric?”

  I nod and watch as a flicker of understanding lights up in Adam’s eyes. “And Eric gave you his spot in the chess match. Kind of like how you traded that guy at the dance a date in exchange for my schedule?”

  I feel so incredibly small. Small and lost and dumb. I moan and hide behind my open hand. “I am so embarrassed.”

  Adam wraps his fingers around mine and slowly pulls my hand away from my face. He gives my fingers a tender little squeeze before letting go. He looks at me with such incredible warmth that I almost feel worse. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” he says. “I was flattered about the whole schedule thing.” There they go—his earlobes tinge pink.

  A cavalry of butterflies beat their wings silly inside my stomach. I finally meet his gaze. “Really?”

  He doesn’t quite smile, but he nods, and the corners of his mouth curve up just enough to tell me that he means it.

  “When Mitch had that tantrum at the dance, I wanted to run away,” I say.

  Adam looks at me skeptically. “Which, as I recall, is exactly what you did. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Do I have to answer it?”

  He smiles. Dimple! “Yes, you do. Why? Why did you want my schedule?”

  I am full-frontal cringing. I choose my words carefully. “After you showed up at my house that day in your Molly Moon’s shirt, I knew you were someone I could be—friends with. I mean, we are practically neighbors, right? Joshie had fun with you. The dog liked you—and Copernicus is a great judge of character.”

  Adam, never taking his eyes off of me, rests his elbow on the counter and his head against his hand. Hair spills out between his fingers. He looks at me as if to say, “Go on.”

  I glance at the ice cream melting in my cup. “I didn’t stand a chance of getting to know you if we weren’t in some classes together, and Mitch wouldn’t show me your schedule unless I agreed to a date.”

  Adam’s forehead creases in thought. He looks like he is trying to solve a problem with way too many variables. “And suddenly you were at my lab table in biology, and my partner in the history project? More ‘switcheroos’?”

  “Well, there was no point being in your classes if I’d never get a chance to talk to you, right?”

  He looks into the distance and nods. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But if all of this was about getting to talk to me, and becoming friends, why have you been totally avoiding me?”

  I wince. “Seriously? After the dance I figured you thought I was a crazy stalker. I mean, I already knew that you’d written me off as a half-wit, you know, a dumb cheerleader—”

  He bolts upright. “What?!”

  I am left momentarily speechless by the look of absolute incredulity on his face.

  “Come on!” I say. “Every time you saw me in my cheer uniform, or with other cheerleaders, you got all Icicle Boy on me, like I wasn’t good enough for you.” I quickly backpedal. “I mean, not smart enough. You know. To be friends with you.”

  “Wait. Wait wait wait. Wait!” Adam says, waving his arms in front of him to get me to stop talking. “Me getting all ‘Icicle Boy’ had nothing to do with you being a cheerleader. Or with the fact that you’re always surrounded by other cheerleaders. There are plenty of brilliant cheerleaders in the world, and I would never judge someone like that. But as you may recall, at least up until the dance, you were also always surrounded by a certain enormous football player, and I didn’t want you or Jake to get the impression that I was making a play for you. The guy is huge, Nora! His biceps are the size of my thighs! And back at my old high school, guys like Jake made life miserable for anyone that even talked to their girlfriend.”

  I stare at him, feeling like the dumbest cheerleader ever. Not a half-wit, more like a quarter-wit, or an eighth-wit, perhaps. “But I was never his girlfriend.”

  He looks unconvinced. “Come on, he popped up everywhere, or other people brought his name up. Jesus, Nora, you had a giant heart with his name and yours drawn inside your locker door!”

  “Krista wrote that! She thought it would be funny. Really, I was never go
ing out with him.”

  He lets this sink in. “Well, it wasn’t until the dance that I found out Jake was going out with Fuzzy, not you.”

  “Fluffy.”

  “Whatever. So, after the dance I figured it was safe to talk to you in public, but whenever I tried, you ran away. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. You’d done the whole crazy swap with Mitch and gotten into my classes. You managed to sit near me. And now I find out that you cleverly got yourself a spot in the chess tournament—where you just about kicked my ass, by the way.” He shakes his head.

  “But I’m not running away from you right now,” I say meekly.

  He shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re not running away. Although this is an ice cream shop, so I don’t know whether it’s me or the ice cream that’s keeping you here.” He relaxes into a smile. I smile back, and there it is again, the feeling that he is a planet and I am an intergalactic butterfly being pulled into his gravity. In a shaky orbit, I flutter around and around and around him. But I am tired of spinning. I am tired of fluttering out of control, wondering whether he could ever be mine.

  “Nora Fulbright,” he says. “You confuse the hell out of me. What is it that you really want?”

  I press my lips together to keep the first word that comes to mind from leaping out. You. That’s what I want to say. I really want you. But I know there’s more to it than that. More that needs to be said. I take a deep breath. “What I really want, first of all, is to apologize for confusing you. I confused myself, too. And a lot of other people along the way. Next, what I really want is for you to know that all those crazy swaps were about this.” I point to myself, then Adam, then my melted ice cream. “They were about me and you hanging out, without it mattering who is smart and who is dumb and who is a cheerleader and who is a chess geek—”

  “Chess geek?” Adam jerks back, feigning a look of horror.

  I laugh. Okay, actually, I giggle, and it is silly and lame, but it is a giggle that starts in my heart and ends in Adam’s ears and causes him to tip his head and gaze into my eyes like they contain the world’s deepest, most profound secrets. “So it was all about wanting to hang out with me? Like, as friends?” he says.