How Green Becomes Wood

Milo led Alec to the games cabinet, and opening it up, he stepped aside so his guest could pick. They had the classic games like Monopoly, Clue, and Life, but also Settlers of Catan, Mysterium, and Love Letter. There were more in the cabinet besides those six, like Jenga and Operation.

"You can pick whatever. Grandma meticulously keeps all the pieces."
 
"Before we ended up with our foster family, we didn't keep many board games because they were annoying to pack and we kept losing the pieces," Alec remarked and he browsed the selection. "Now that we can have board games, we don't really because Mama is blind. It makes it a bit hard for her."

Xander glanced at Alec, trying to remember if Milo knew that about Daizi or not. Dark was pretty strict about not sharing personal information with the other students, but this was Milo. He was a friend, and even if he wasn't, who was he going to tell? Xander cautiously pointed at the Jenga box. "Maybe that one?"
 
"Oh yeah, that would probably make it more difficult," he said, not being surprised at the revelation, because... he had met their mother at their birthday party. "I think they probably have tactile board games or ones made for the blind, but I don't know." He said, picking up Jenga, "I once saw a video saying Jenga is more fun with a chess clock."
 
"Sounds stressful," Alec said, who did remember that Milo had officially met Daizi and not just avoided her and she him. "I think I have one on my phone. Chess clock, I mean. Want to give it a try?"

"Sure, sounds fun," Xander agreed.
 
"I'm not sure exactly how it will work with three people, but it stops people from spending forever contemplating their moves," Milo said, going back into his bedroom, where, thankfully, because of his scant belongings, he didn't have to bother clearing a space for them to play. "Some of the bricks are a little chewed up because of Paisley, but they're all still functional."
 
"That's cool." Xander took off his jacket and laid it across the end of Milo's bed before plunking himself down. "It's just pull out the pieces and don't topple the tower, right?"

"That's what I remember," Alec said, lowering himself down cross-legged. "Of course, I also remember us using them as building blocks a lot more than actually playing the game." Something sparkly caught his eye, and he leaned back a little. Glitter clung to the back of Xander's black tank top. He bit his lip and leaned forward, trying to focus on the game.
 
"That's basically it," Milo confirmed as he set up the tower. "I remember playing it with my cousins a lot, growing up. You can basically play it as soon as you have fine motor skills, but I think my oldest cousin would cheat."
 
"They table would always seem to shake on our turns, but never on theirs," Milo said, "Or they'd claim you have to go with the first block you touch, but then tap other blocks on their turn to find the loosest."
 
"Tapping is totally a cheat!" Alec protested.

"At least you can't shake a floor. Usually," Xander said, straightening out the tower. "Remember that trailer when we were eight? The one on ninth?"

Alec shuddered. "Biggest place we ever lived, except we didn't dare go into one of the bedrooms, and the kitchen was like playing 'the floor is lava.'"
 
"My mom and I once rented out one room in a boarding house. It had two twin beds, and we shared the dresser. We stayed in some really nice places, some really awful places... that one was somewhere in between. It was when I lived in Chicago," Milo said, finishing setting up the tower and sitting back, trying to figure out who went first, "I really liked Chicago."
 
"Maybe. It's freezing in winter. And you really have to be on your guard, depending on where you go. Sometimes it was overwhelming, and oppressive, because it was all so... crowded, but Lake Michigan is beautiful." He sat back, and waited for Alec to make his move before making his own, "when I was there, I really wanted to get out."
 
"And now that you're out, you want to go back. That makes sense." Alec bit his lip and chose his block carefully. "I want to live in an idyllic little country town, like the ones in those cozy mystery books or Murder She Wrote, but without all the, you know, murder."

Xander snorted and waited for Milo before taking his turn. "Little town people are all up in your business. I'd rather a prairie or maybe the woods."
 
"There were people in the boarding house I liked," Milo told them, watching the tower, although he was exaggerating about people, "I liked when I lived in California, too. I wasn't in LA or anything, just some little beach town. In the summer it got touristy, but was quiet the rest of the time. I lived a few years, there."
 
The tower still stood steady since it was early in the game, but that wouldn't last long. Alec took his turn. "Oh, California! Nice. I hear parts of it are really lovely. Did you get to go to the beach very often? We might get to go during summer break."

"We moved a lot, but only inside this town," Xander said, watching Alec.
 
Milo took his turn quickly, focusing on the higher middle pieces while he could, "I lived right there, so I walked down to it pretty often. I liked watching the sun set. Sometimes I'd see dolphins. We moved all over. My mom liked it, I guess." Or, it was easier to think of it that way.
 
"The home my dad and I had," Milo responded immediately. Even though he knew that wasn't the real question, "Other than that, it's hard to say. That town in California, I guess. We lived there for a few years, so we were almost normal. And we had a pretty nice apartment. After that it sort of..." He shrugged, "The weather was nice, but I missed the rain."
 
Alec nodded. "I really like the rain. All the seasons, really. I even learned to like winter."

Xander scowled at the tower as he tried to figure out which piece to remove. "Who even came up with this game and its arbitrary rules?"

"All rules are arbitrary, if you think about it. At least, when it comes to games," Alec pointed out.
 
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