Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [24]
Milo looked forward to Wednesday nights with great excitement and loved the time that he spent with his friends. He and Andy had been friends since high school, and Danny had joined their group several years back. Since then, the three of them had been inseparable, and rarely did they miss a Wednesday meet-up. Andy owned a comic book store in Bristol (where he and Danny had met) and Danny worked as a dog trainer and part-time landscaper and gardener. Both were in their early thirties, living alone as bachelors, and occasionally involved with women, though not nearly as often as either would prefer. They reminded Milo (and Christine) of a couple of grown-up teenagers, and Milo loved them for it.
Christine’s opinion of the boys was somewhat less appreciative.
Eric Cushman had recently joined them on Wednesday nights, and since then, the group dynamic had suffered terribly. Cushman was a tall, pale-faced, balding blackjack dealer who worked afternoons at Foxwoods and routinely gambled his paycheck away ten minutes after receiving it. He still lived with his mother (making Wednesday nights at his place especially nerdy), mooched beer off his friends, and insisted on getting his D&D party killed by bursting through doors without checking for traps or taking on monsters well above the party’s level. Worse still, Cushman insisted on dressing up as his Dungeons & Dragons character regardless of their activity or locale, so in the past six months, Milo had found himself eating burgers in Applebee’s, playing basketball at the Churchill Park courts, and attending the latest Spiderman film at the Berlin Cinemas with a guy dressed like Dumbledore from the Harry Potter novels, complete with a crimson robe, tiny spectacles, a wooden staff (ironwood, Cushman insisted), and a four-inch-thick spell book in which he actually wrote down the spells that his Dungeons & Dragons character had learned.
Cushman had also met Andy at the comic book store, and though he had seemed likable at first, he quickly managed to embarrass and annoy Milo to no end. Though there was a great deal not to like, Milo’s greatest problem with Cushman was the flaunting of his eccentricities. While Andy, Danny, and Milo attempted to conceal their love for Dungeons & Dragons from the rest of the world, aware of the stigma that came attached to it, Cushman flaunted his affection and utter devotion of the game wherever he went. As someone very intent on appearing normal despite his many abnormalities, Milo could not abide this kind of behavior, and as a result, he had been looking for a way to get rid of Cushman for some time.
It was also equally clear to Milo that Cushman did not like him and had not liked him from the start, and though he wasn’t sure why this was the case, it made Milo nervous. Though he despised the man, Milo had made every effort to conceal his feelings from Cushman, ever cognizant of the danger associated with an enemy. When one had as many secrets as he did, the best course of action was to maintain friendly relations with all parties, regardless of their stupidity or selfishness, and Milo managed to do this surprisingly well. Though it sometimes required a great deal of effort on his part, Milo tried to ensure that his friends, his clients, Christine’s family, and even the annoying blackjack dealer whose primary form of sustenance was Hot Pockets and Dr Pepper approved of him and liked him, and almost always he had found success in this endeavor. This occasionally meant compromising a belief or ideal, but more often than not, Milo found that if he simply remained silent when the opportunity to debate or disagree arose, friendships and goodwill could be forged, maintained, and even strengthened over time.
To voice an opinion might invite disagreement, strife, anger, and genuine hatred. This would simply not do for a man who tried to avoid confrontation at all costs. Milo knew