“Ithit Thcabble night?”
“Scott, sweetheart, put your teeth in.”
“Thowwy. There, now, is it Scrabble night tonight?”
Jean smiled and put a hand on her elderly husband’s arm. “Yes. Right after the ice cream social.”
Scott smiled and gave his wife of fifty-three years a determined nod. “Wonderful.”
“Why are you so excited about Scrabble night, dear?” Jean sipped on her tea and adjusted the quilt around her socked feet.
“Because. If there’s one thing I can beat Logan at - besides BINGO - it’s Scrabble. Of that I’m sure.”
The older woman just smiled and shook her head. “Some things never change,” she thought to herself.
***
“Oh, Logan, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were busy.”
Marie felt her cheeks rush with blood as she started to turn her walker around and head in the opposite direction.
“Oh, no. Hey, darlin’. It’s okay. This young lady just insisted on seein’ me naked, so I had to oblige her. That’s all.”
Turning back around, Marie caught the frazzled look on the young nurse’s face and couldn’t help but smile.
“Now, Mr. Logan, you know I’m just giving you a sponge bath! It’s my job for Pete’s sake.”
Logan just sat back in his bed and smiled around the stub of his unlit cigar. “Sure, sure. That’s what they all say, sweetheart,” he remarked cooly as he grabbed the edge of his nursing home issued pajama bottoms and started tugging them down. “This is just one of the fringe benefits, ain’t it?”
Marie decided to step in at that moment and save the young girl any further embarrassment. “Now, now, sugar, you can’t be doin’ all that right now. Especially in front of the new ones. Besides, you gotta get ready for Game Night.”
The nurse flashed Marie a grateful smile as she gathered her bucket and sponge and all but ran out of the door. Marie just shook her head at Logan and stuck a finger out at him. “You know better.”
He just shrugged his shoulders and pulled his robe on over his bare shoulders. “Oh really? And you know when it’s my bath time, dontcha?” he said with a wicked grin on his face.
Blushing for the second time in as many minutes, Marie decided not to comment and waited for Logan to finish getting ready.
He pulled his slippers onto his feet and pushed off of the bed with an arthritic grunt. “I’m gettin’ too old for this.”
“You’ve been too old for this for as long as I can remember, Logan,” Marie said, smiling, as she held out the top to his pajamas.
Logan just waved his hand and threw an arm around Marie’s shoulder. “Leave it, darlin’. I think I’ll give the ladies a treat tonight.”
***
“Okay, now. Is everyone finished with their ice cream? No? Well, you can bring it over to your tables if you’d like. Just be careful not to spill it.”
The head RN was standing behind a podium in the large recreational lounge, her eyes watching the crowd of elderly patients and a clip board in her hands. She started reading off names of some of the patients and assigning them to different tables.
“On Table One, we’ll have Mr. Allerdyce, Mr. Drake, Miss Kitty and Mr. Rasputin. Table Two will consist of Miss Marie, Miss Jean, Mr. Logan and Mr. Summers. On Table Three...”
Nothing else was heard as the two old timers stared one another down from across the room. Each of them stood slowly and shuffled their way across the floor, taking seats across one another at the table. Jean and Marie moved along behind them, shaking their heads at the two’s childish antics.
“So - we meet again, One Eye,” Logan commented as he rested his cane against the table and sat in the chair after he‘d turned it backwards.
Scott just nodded and pulled the chair out for Jean to sit in.
“Ya ready ta get yer ass kicked, Dyklops?”
“You ready to eat your words, Mountie?”
The ‘eyebrow’ made an appearance on Logan’s face, but nothing else was said.
Jean opened up the box and started laying out all the pieces, while Marie reached over and grabbed the score sheet and pencil. They all drew letters from the bag, Scott getting a ‘B’ and Logan getting a ‘D,’ with Marie and Jean drawing a ‘J’ and a ‘P’ respectively.
After carefully sorting through his letters, Scott laid down the word ‘bark’ in the center of the board.
Smiling, and barely even pausing to think before he laid the letters down, Logan spelled out the word ‘balls,’ with a satisfied smirk.
Marie and Jean both covered their mouths as they saw Scott’s jaw begin to flex. It was so easy for Logan to get him riled up.
The next few rounds continued, each of them laying down tiles and adding up the points. Most of the words were common, like dress and trees, fish and horse, but then there were Logan’s. Pansy and scrotum were the next two on his turns, and he ended up spelling ‘libido’ by using one of the blank squares.
Scott huffed as the tiles were laid down, his frustration showing more and more with each letter.
“Why do you always have to build off of my words, Logan? Why can’t you use Jean’s or Marie’s?”
“Because I like gettin’ your toupee tilted, Cyke.”
Scott instinctively reached for his head, gripping his hair tightly, and Logan burst out laughing.
***
The other three players leaned in carefully, but Logan shielded that area of the board from their sight with a forearm. The tip of his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on placing the tiles ‘just right.’ When he was finished, a wide grin spread out across his face and he sat up straight in his chair, crossing his arms triumphantly.
Finally able to see, each of the other players leaned over the board to get a good look at what the self-proclaimed ‘Scrabble Master’ had placed on the board.
“Logan, ‘fuckhead’ isn’t technically a word...” Scott remarked with a disdainful frown.
The Scrabble Master just shrugged his shoulders and took another drink of his Ensure milk shake. “It’s in the dictionary, bub,” he said with a smack of his lips.
“Where?”
“Right by your picture, Scooter. Now gimme my seven-letter bonus.”
Scott gave a conceding nod over to Marie, who was diligently keeping score on her notepad. “Fine,” he muttered under his breath. “If that’s how we’re going to play...”
***
Logan leaned over the table, resting on his forearms and giving Scott a flinty stare. “You’re outta letters, One Eye. Give it up. I win.”
Logan was the score leader, and the current winner as Jean and Marie had both used up all their letters and Scott was still behind by a total of nine points.
Scott shook his head, his brain twisting and turning all the while. “No. I’ve got two left.” He fingered the two tiles nervously, glancing back and forth between them and the board.
Logan just leaned back in his chair with a derisive snort. “It’s a P and a X. That’s shit. Yer dead.”
Ignoring the fact that Logan somehow knew what his letters were, Scott kept his gaze focused on the board. Suddenly, as if a ray of light had just been shined down on the table, Scott’s face lit up and he reached for the two letters on his rack. It was as if the world was moving in slow motion as he laid the two letters down on the board - using libido as his word builder. A bolt of lightning crashing outside would have certainly been fitting as the crack of the last wooden tile being placed on the board was heard.
“Pox? You’re callin’ pox a word?” Logan asked incredulously. “Ya gotta be kiddin’ me here.”
“I win,” Scott replied smiling as he calculated his word up to being worth twelve points.
“Oh the flamin’ hell ya do. Pox ain’t a damn word,” Logan shouted as he looked over to Marie and Jean for help.
Marie just shrugged her shoulders, trying to hide her smile.
“Actually, Logan,” Jean started. “Pox is a word that describes any of the various diseases marked by a rash on the skin. You’ve got small pox, then there’s chicken pox and -”
“Okay, I got it, Jeannie. Thanks for the help,” Logan said sourly as he waved his hand to stop her. He looked over to Scott, pausing for a moment, then giving him a forced nod. “Good game.”
It was far more than Scott expected from him and he was taken back for several seconds before being able to respond. “Th-thanks, Logan. It was a good game,” he managed to say.
“Ya know, just because ya beat me this once don’t mean that you can go around braggin’ about it and all. I let ya win anyways,” he said nonchalantly, his mood suddenly lightening.
Knowing that the art of losing gracefully was something that was completely lost on Logan, Scott just folded his arms. “Oh really?” he asked. “And why would someone like you go and do that?”
“Because,” Logan shrugged. “If I didn’t lose, I wouldn’t get any sort of consolation prize.” He reached out to Marie and gave her a wink as he pulled her chair closer to his.
Scott was about to return the comment, but the microphone turned on with a loud squeal. “Sorry about that everyone. I just wanted to let you know that we appreciate you all coming out tonight for the games. We had a great time,” the nurse announced as she gave a small applause and nodded to all of the volunteers. “And, we also want to invite you to our next Game Night, which will be held on the fourteenth, right here in the rec room.”
“What’re we playin’?” came a shout from the back of the room.
The head nurse flipped through her calendar until she found the right date, and adjusted the volume on the microphone as it squealed again. “We’ll be playing Monopoly, so make sure you’ve got your rest for the day because we may be up far past your bedtime,” the woman said, laughing at her own joke.
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the two men were eyeing one another, sizing each other up for the competition.
“I’m here. What about you?” Scott asked Logan with determination in his voice.
“You can bet yer balls on it, Boy Scout.”
Jean and Marie just gave one another exasperated looks and stood from the table.
Taking a hold of Scott’s arm, she helped him to his feet and patted his back. “You ready to go to bed, hot shot?”
He nodded and threw away his trash from the table.
Marie stood next to Logan as he pushed himself to his feet and clucked her tongue at him when he looked down at her.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“Can’t you ever just let him be, Logan?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Aww, come on, Marie. Where’s the fun in that?”
Logan threw his free arm around Marie’s shoulder and started them both off down the hall. “Now, about that consolation prize, darlin’...”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This fic is dedicated to mjules, who gave me the idea for the whole story with her lines: “Logan, ‘fuckhead’ isn’t technically a word...”, “It’s in the dictionary, bub.”, “Where?”, “Right next to your picture, Scooter. Now gimme my seven-letter bonus.” I used them in the story and without them, I probably wouldn’t have written this. Thanks, girl! So, you can either thank her or shoot her, depending on your opinion of the story. *g* This is kind of a sequel to “BINGO!,” but really just set in the same world.