From: spiceitup	Date: December 12th, 2010 08:43 pm (UTC)		(Link)

He smiled back at her, a little crookedly. Some of his housemates could be particularly bitchy if you tried to help out with a problem or offer critique. It was a kind of pride that came with all of the housemates shared intelligence. Bobby tried to stay out of it mostly, but sometimes he just couldn't hold himself back. Jools took it well, and he decided he liked her.

"It's cool. I've got a stash of them in my room if you want to try them sometime."

	From: jools	Date: December 12th, 2010 08:50 pm (UTC)		(Link)

She probably would have figured out the puzzle eventually. Ordinarily she'd have been annoyed at someone offering help without her asking for it, but she seemed to be in an odd mood tonight. The help wasn't ingratiating for once.

"It's just something my mom picked up," she said holding up the puzzle to examine. "I spend more time playing sudoku and doing crosswords. Chess is my forte." It was no secret, Jools was aces as chess and an integral part of the chess club.

"Up for a round?" she challenged with an uplifted eyebrow. She had a nice chess set in her room she could go fetch.

From: spiceitup	Date: December 13th, 2010 04:43 am (UTC)		(Link)

"Um, sure! I'm not really good at it though; you'll cream me so fast you won't even have fun."

Actually, Bobby was pretty good at chess, on a normal scale. But in Sonnier House, and especially when compared to a champion of the Chess Club, he was a complete amateur. He could never see enough moves in advance to give them the slightest challenge.

Crosswords, though. "It'd be cool if they could make word games and stuff multi-player or team sports. I'd kick ass in cryptic crossword Olympics." Now that was a ridiculously awesome idea.

	From: jools	Date: December 14th, 2010 02:05 am (UTC)		(Link)

"Maybe I'll have fun creaming you," she replied rising from the couch.

She smiled back at him. "How about competition scrabble?" She waited for an answer before dashing off to her room for the chess set. She returned and set it up on a small end table between two chairs. "Black or white?"

From: spiceitup	Date: December 15th, 2010 12:42 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"That'd be awesome." Awesome was 12 points. 62 if it was the first word on the board and you used all of your tiles to make it. Even more if you hit a score square.

When she returned, he scooted instantly into one of the offered chairs, folding his legs up underneath him protectively. "I like white, but it's your set. Your call."

	From: jools	Date: December 15th, 2010 09:26 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"I'll play either." She ended up playing either side often enough. She flipped the board and opened the little drawer on her side. Pulling out all the black pieces she set her side up for play.

"You can go first," she offered. It was the nice thing to do if she was going to end up kicking his ass anyway.

From: spiceitup	Date: December 16th, 2010 02:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"I tried to teach my sisters chess once," he told her conversationally as he moved a pawn forward. "They don't get it though. I tried to make it interesting for them, and told them about how the little farmers went off to tend the fields, and the bishops would come around all like 'hey you didn't pay your tithe' and then the knights would have to defend when the other farmers tried to barge in on their land--"

He stopped suddenly, mortified to realize he'd just told her about the ridiculous stories he'd made up about the inanimate chess pieces. At least he hadn't spilled that they made him play Pretty Pretty Princess with them instead.

	From: jools	Date: December 17th, 2010 12:02 am (UTC)		(Link)

Jools grinned at Bobby's silly story. She laughed kindly and moved her pawn to counter. "You know Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking Glass drawing strongly on chess movements in his imagery and the progression of the novel. It's pretty brilliant to write a story following such a storied author." It was about as close to a compliment as Jools ever got.