No, Florence didn't want too nice. No, she didn't want him to be a right git all the time, he was impossible to live with when he got that way. It was moments like that where she found excuses to head back to London for a while if he was being intolerable, or at least down to the store if he was just being annoying. But she fell for him for his spirit, his cheek, and his outright zest for life. And the game. No, she couldn't be with anyone as mechanical about the game as Brent had been. Even Anatoly, who socially could be as much a machine as a computer, had a love for the game. Sometimes it seemed it had been driven out of him, but from time to time it surfaced. But Freddie... When Freddie Trumper was passionate about something, it showed. And for a long time, he'd been passionate about exactly two things: chess and her.
"It might have been that night," she agreed, though she ignored the bit about seven years later. Five years later, it had begun to disintegrate. Six years later, they were hanging on by a thread. Could anyone really be surprised at the seven years later? Seven years later he was treating her like just another member of the paparazzi, someone to yell at and scold and push around as he chose. And she'd yelled right back, that fiery temper coming to the surface as only he could make it. Even just remembering it filled her with dread regarding the rest of the evening. What if one wrong word caused this to fall apart, too? "Could've been the match the next day. Guess you'll never know, will you?" Her smile was smug, but her eyes showed genuine affection, if only he bothered to look. He knew her well enough. He'd know every facial movement, every tick and twitch, if only he'd allow himself.
"And you never let me win, Trumper, and don't try to convince yourself you did." Florence was grinning despite herself, though. The few times she did win, she'd won fair and square. Those rare moments she could catch him off guard. Sometimes with a really brilliant move, and yet others, she flat out used his greatest weakness: her. A well placed foot to his calf or a sly, even seductive look across the table and he was as good as done. Fine, she played up her strengths, so what? She still maintained he'd won the championship against her by flirting with her so shamelessly that he'd flustered her so badly she couldn't have stopped his queen if she'd wanted to.
Her mum was a much safer subject than either of his parents, and she squeezed the arm holding hers as she laughed. "She liked you," she protested, though they both knew it wasn't entirely true. Freddie was too controversial for Edita Vassy to want him for her daughter. She wanted someone Florence would settle down with. She wanted grandchildren sooner rather than later, and instead she got her daughter traveling internationally with a man who was most certainly not her husband.
In his defence, though, her mother had liked Freddie better than Anatoly. But only because she was even less likely to marry the Russian. Seeing as he already had a wife and all.
"Okay, most of the time. I think she'd like this new version of you quite a bit, though. Away from the competition and all. Mum wanted me to be a ballerina or something a little more proper than a competitive chess player." Florence shrugged, finding herself absently leaning against his arm. By the time she figured out she was doing it, she didn't bother moving. Who cared? They'd made it perfectly clear that's what this night was for. Getting closer.