Nicholas Sparks - The Lucky One

Back inside, Elizabeth slipped the cookie sheet into the oven and stirred the meat and salsa before ladling both into bowls. As she brought them to the table along with a stack of paper napkins, Thibault straightened the silverware and plates and grabbed the cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. When Elizabeth set her beer on the table, Thibault was struck again by her natural beauty.

"Do you want to call Ben, or should I?"

He forced himself to turn away. "I'll call Ben," he said.

Ben was sitting on the front porch, stroking a panting Zeus from his forehead to his tail in one long stroke.

"You tired him out," Thibault observed.

"I run pretty fast," Ben agreed.

"You ready to eat? Dinner's on the table."

Ben got up, and Zeus raised his head. "Stay here," Thibault said. Zeus's ears flattened as if he were being punished. But he laid his head back down as Ben and Thibault entered the house.

Elizabeth was already seated at the table. As soon as Ben and Thibault sat down, Ben immediately started loading his taco with the seasoned ground beef.

"I want to hear more about your walk across the country," Elizabeth said.

"Yeah, me too," Ben said, spooning on salsa.

Thibault reached for his napkin and spread it on his lap. "What would you like to know?"

She nourished her napkin. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

For a moment, Thibault considered the truth: that it began with a photograph in the Kuwaiti desert. But he couldn't tell them about that. Instead, he started by describing a cold Match morning, when he'd slung his backpack over his arm and started down the shoulder of the road. He told them about the things he saw-for Ben's sake, he made sure to describe all the wildlife he'd encountered-and talked about some of the more colorful people he'd encountered. Elizabeth seemed to realize that he wasn't accustomed to talking so much about himself, so she prompted him by asking him questions whenever he seemed to be running out of things to say. From there, she asked him a bit more about college and was amused when Ben learned that the man sitting at the table actually dug up real life skeletons. Ben asked a few questions of his own: Do you have any brothers or sisters? No. Did you play sports? Yeah, but I was average, not great. What's your favorite football team? The Denver Broncos, of course. As Ben and Thibault chatted, Elizabeth followed their exchange with amusement and interest.

As the evening wore on, the sunlight slanting through the window shifted and waned, dimming the kitchen. They finished eating, and after excusing himself, Ben rejoined Zeus on the porch. Thibault helped Elizabeth clean up the table, wrapping the leftovers and stacking plates and silverware in the dishwasher. Breaking her own rule, Elizabeth opened a second beer and offered another to Thibault before they escaped the heat of the kitchen and went outside.

On the porch, the air felt noticeably cooler, and a breeze made the leaves on the trees dance. Ben and Zeus were playing again, and Ben's laughter hung suspended in the air. Elizabeth leaned on the railing, watching her son, and Thibault had to force himself not to stare in her direction. Neither of them felt the need to speak, and Thibault took a long, slow pull of his beer, wondering where on earth all of this was going.

Beth

As night fell, Beth stood on the back deck, watching Logan concentrate on the chess board in front of him, thinking, I like him. The thought, when it struck her, felt at once surprising and natural.

Ben and Logan were on their second game of chess, and Logan was taking his time on his next move. Ben had handily won the first game, and she could read the surprise in Logan's expression. He took it well, even asking Ben what he'd done wrong. They'd reset the board to an earlier position, and Ben showed Logan the series of errors he had made, first with his rook and queen and then, finally, with his knight.

"Well, I'll be," Logan had said. He'd smiled at Ben. "Good job."

She didn't want to even imagine how Keith would have reacted had he lost. In fact, she didn't have to imagine it. They'd played once a couple of years ago, and when Ben won, Keith had literally flipped the board over before storming out of the room. A few minutes later, while Ben was still gathering the pieces from behind the furniture, Keith came back into the room. Instead of apologizing, he declared that chess was a waste of time and that Ben would be better off doing something important, like studying for his classes at school or going to the batting cage, since "he hit about as well as a blind man."

She really wanted to strangle the man sometimes.

With Logan, though, things were different. Beth could see that Logan was in trouble again. She couldn't tell by looking at the board-the intricacies that separated the good from the great players were beyond her-but whenever Ben studied his opponent rather than his pieces, she knew the end was coming, even if Logan didn't seem to realize it.

What she loved most about the scene was that despite the concentration the game required, Logan and Ben still managed to… talk. About school and Ben's teachers and what Zeus had been like when he was a puppy, and because Logan seemed genuinely interested, Ben revealed a few things that surprised her-that one of the other boys in his class had taken his lunch a couple of times and that Ben had a crush on a girl named Cici. Logan didn't deliver advice; instead he asked Ben what he thought he should do. Based on her experience with men, most assumed that when you talked to them about a problem or dilemma, they were expected to offer an opinion, even when all you wanted was for them to listen.

Logan's natural reticence actually seemed to give Ben room to express himself. It was clear that Logan was comfortable with who he was. He wasn't trying to impress Ben or impress her by showing her how well he could get along with Ben.

Though she'd dated infrequently over the years, she'd found that most suitors either pretended Ben didn't exist and said only a few words to him or went overboard in the way they talked to him, trying to prove how wonderful they were by being overly friendly with her son. From an early age, Ben had seen through both types almost immediately. So had she, and that was usually enough for her to end things. Well, when they weren't ending the relationship with her, that is.

It was obvious that Ben liked spending time with Logan, and even better, she got the sense that Logan liked spending time with Ben. In the silence, Logan continued to stare at the board, his finger resting momentarily on his knight before moving it to his pawn. Ben's eyebrows rose ever so slightly. She didn't know whether Ben thought the move Logan was considering was a good one or a bad one, but Logan went ahead and moved the pawn forward.

Ben made his next move almost immediately, something she recognized as a bad sign for Logan. A few minutes later, Logan seemed to realize that no matter what move he made, there was no way for his king to escape. He shook his head.

"You got me."

"Yeah," Ben confirmed, "I did."

"I thought I was playing better."

"You were," Ben said. "Until?"

"Until you made your second move." Logan laughed. "Chess humor?"

"We've got lots of jokes like that," Ben said, obviously proud. He motioned to the yard. "Is it dark enough?"

"Yeah, I think so. You ready to play, Zeus?"

Zeus's ears pricked up and he cocked his head. When Logan and Ben stood, Zeus scrambled to his feet.

"You coming, Mom?"

Beth rose from her chair. "I'm right behind you." They wended their way in the darkness to the front of the house. Beth paused by the front steps. "Maybe I should get a flashlight."

"That's cheating!" Ben complained. "Not for the dog. For you. So you don't get lost."