“Check.”
“Damn.” Scarlet glowered at his chess board as if he could melt the glass and plastic with the sheer force of his ire for betraying him.
Across the board from him, Seymour fidgeted with a captured black pawn. “Do you surrender, Captain?” He grinned, sure of himself and his pending victory.
“Do I ever?” Paul asked, head tilted and one brow raised in a very close approximation of Colonel White’s famed and feared expression that Magenta had dubbed the ‘by the way, you are doomed’ expression. But the grin he flashed at the younger man softened it into teasing banter. He reached out and saved his king from a marauding bishop. “Your turn.”
“Huh.” Green paused in thought. He hadn’t expected that move and it neatly avoided the trap he had set with his remaining rook. He drummed his fingers on the lounge table as he considered his remaining options, realising with dismay that the proverbial tables were about to turn for him. Seymour looked across the chess board at Scarlet, noting the ever so slight twinkle in the older man’s eyes. “How many moves?” he asked, resigned to his fate.
“Four,” was the answer. “But it would have been two if you hadn’t trapped me just now. That was a clever move.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Green straightened up from his slouch at the praise.
“Shall we back the game up nine moves?” Paul offered, half-reaching out to the board. “You almost had me two other times. I want to see if you can figure it out.”
“Yes, please.” Green could barely keep from grinning and picked up the coffee cups. “I’ll get us refills while you do.”