Check Date: The Romantic Defense

Revised Premise
Chuck, a lonely autistic man in a small town, loves to play Chess online but wants to play Chess over the board like he has seen in only online videos. However, no one else in his town knows how to play Chess. He decides that he will have to teach people this game. He disappointingly finds out that no one is interested in learning Chess. He decides to hire a random woman, Laura, on a dating app to pretend to be his Chess student and play with him at the park so that people can witness.

At first, the woman is in it only for the money and doesn't care about Chess. After a few days of playing, she sees why he loves the game. However, a boy named Simon at the park has noticed the board game they are playing and asks to be taught. Chuck goes to the park with Laura once a week and teaches the rules of Chess to Simon and other children who Simon has told about Chess.

Laura sees how the children love Chuck as he teaches them the game. She thinks about how he would be a good father because of how he is with children. Over time, Laura begins to develop romantic feelings for Chuck, but he is only interested in Chess. When she says she wants to date him romantically, he declines and tells her that it was entirely a business relationship and that her services are no longer needed.
Chuck continues going to the park by himself and teaches the children Chess. However, one day, Simon's father, Derk, comes to the park and sees Simon talking to Chuck. Not knowing the context and jumping to conclusions, Derk reports to the police about a suspicious man who spends time with the children at the park. Chuck is arrested and registered as a sex offender and branded as a pedophile by most people in the town even though he never did anything wrong, and there is no evidence to convict him. He loses his home, job, and everything that matters to him.

When Laura finds out what has happened to Chuck, she goes to the police and tells them that they have made a mistake and arrested an innocent man for nothing. When she is questioned about how she knows him, she explains that Chuck is her Chess Coach and that he never caused harm to her or any children. By the time this happens, Simon has told his father the truth about everything and also taught him to play Chess. The police speak to Derk, and he apologizes for accusing Chuck of having wrong intentions with children. Chuck is released from jail and thanks Laura, Simon, and Derk for their honesty and for saving his reputation.

Later on, when Laura asks Chuck why he would not date her, Chuck explains that he is gay and doesn't date women but that he fears homophobia if he spends time with a man in public. Laura explains that this experience shows that people will accuse people of doing something wrong, no matter what they do. She encourages Chuck not to let other people keep him from living the life he wants. Chuck and Laura get to know each other over time and eventually get married, despite only caring for each other emotionally and playing Chess together. They open a Chess school together, and everyone understands that Chess is a great game and that Chuck is a good guy. People realize they were wrong to make false accusations against him.

Chuck
Chuck is a lonely single man who does not have much of a social life outside of playing Chess online and occasionally other multiplayer online role playing games. Because he seeks connection with real people, he tries to teach Chess to people. However, his social awkwardness and autistic brain cause most people to be suspicious of him, and they assume Chuck is dangerous. Chuck needs someone else to help him appear more normal in society.

Chuck is afraid of people and, therefore, limits going out of his apartment in most cases. His world is entirely the internet. He is a computer programmer who has made several applications and games that provide him with a constant income. He works for himself because no company will hire him. Unfortunately, Chuck never even got his high school diploma because he was homeless in his teen years after being kicked out of his parent's house.

An unfortunate rumor spread by the boys at school resulted in his parents and teachers finding out he was gay. Therefore, he was expelled from school and disowned by his parents when he was 14 years old. He lived by himself in the woods until he was 18 and then managed to get a job as a janitor and live in a homeless shelter. Over the years, he used the internet to teach himself everything he wanted to know about computers, games, and religion.

At the beginning of the story, he is 40 years old and has no friends or family. He thinks he will never have a family because Chuck has no relationship with his parents, and he doesn't try to find a partner because he is too afraid of human contact because of the rejection of his parents and school. He is incredibly smart at Chess and Shogi and writes blog posts about strategies for winning these games. The comments he receives on his writing and videos help him to interact with people socially, but only from the safety of his computer in his studio apartment.

Laura
Laura is a hopeless romantic who has joined Tinder, hoping to find a future husband and live happily ever after. She has received many unwanted messages from men she is not interested in. However, Chuck's message catches her attention because he is offering her a paid role as an actress to pretend to be interested in learning Chess. Thrilled at the idea of having the closest thing to a date so far and not being required to have sex with someone, she accepts.

Laura is quite surprised that Chuck seems only interested in Chess and computer programming. Chuck is the first man she has met who does not make comments about the appearance of her body or request to have sex with her.

Laura was raised in a "Christian" home until the age of 12 when she was raped by her father. She took this as a sign that her father was too hypocritical to be a follower of Jesus. Laura ran away from home and became rebellious and anti-religious. She survived by stealing food, lying, and later became a prostitute because she had no means to get a job or even finish high school. Laura used every means to obtain money regardless of morality. She had no identification documents, such as a birth certificate or social security card, because obtaining them would require parental consent. She refused to risk being raped by her father, so she never made any attempt to contact her family.

When she turned 18, she contacted the police and Social Security Administration about obtaining her birth certificate and social security card. As a legal adult, she was able to get them without parental consent. She applied to various jobs but was always rejected because she was homeless and had no address. She lived on the streets and eventually got a job at a pizza shop. She was trained to make pizzas and take orders from customers. The owner understood her situation and let her work regardless of her homeless status. After some time of holding this job and having a stable income, she was able to rent a cheap studio apartment.

Laura still wants to know what it would be like to have a family. She is still a member of Tinder from when she used to date men only for financial advantage, but she is looking for a future husband without much luck. That is why Laura was quite surprised when Chuck messaged her about Chess. Though she wasn't sure where this would lead, this man was clearly different.

Simon
Simon is a young boy who does not fit in with other children. He usually talks about Minecraft, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and other games to kids his age who would rather play in the dirt or play sports that he is not physically adept at performing. However, Simon likes to learn games requiring strategy and complex tactics using his mind rather than his body. For this reason, when he sees Chuck and Laura with a Chessboard, he wants to know what this game is about because he has never seen it.

Simon is socially very awkward and has a habit of talking to strangers about video games, cartoons, his favorite stuffed animals, or whatever he is thinking about at the time. Children get annoyed by him, and adults tell his parents to get him checked for autism. He is only 9 years old, but he reads a lot of books and strategy guides for completing video games. His parents love him and tend to be very protective of him because he must be watched so he does not wander off with strangers and get kidnapped.

His favorite place is the park because he likes to swing on the swing set and climb on the monkey bars. Most of the time, his mother or father stays at the park while reading a book and lets him play at the park for an hour or two after school. His life changes when he meets Chuck and Laura because they seem as trustworthy as his parents, and he wants to know what game they are playing. For some odd reason, Chuck explains the game to him in a way that he understands without trying to dumb it down and assume he can't understand because he is a kid. This kind of respect is what Simon has wanted all his life.

As much as Simon loves his parents, he does not always get along with them because the truth is that he is so intelligent at math and games that they never seem to know what he is talking about. His parents love him but don't know what he is because it seems like he is from another world. What they don't know is that Simon is an autistic savant who cannot perceive other people's emotions. Simon can predict what his opponents will do in games because he has a photographic memory and can play movies in his head of anything he has seen before. He knows humans are quite predictable and expects them to behave the same way they have in the past.