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“Let’s go.”

Lennie skips out the front door and we make our way to town as the last of the sunset slips down through the orange and pink streaks across the horizon. The Dairy Freeze has beenaround since before I was born. It’s a local hangout on Main Street. It was an abandoned old red barn before Mr. and Mrs. Snyder fixed it up and put a wooden-shaped ice cream cone on top. As soon as we pull in, I’m already on everyone’s radar.

A big black Yukon with blacked-out windows is not an everyday sight in Brooklyn, Michigan.

I hop out, then go get Lennie. The stares and whispers start. A few people recognize me, there’s some tentative waves which I return. That’s the usual drill when I come home, but they still think of me as the motorcycle-riding son of the local mechanic, not Cade Jamison, billionaire by sheer determination and an inability to take no for an answer.

I order a chocolate cherry twist cone with rainbow sprinkles for Lennie and check my phone, knowing the storm is still brewing whether I’m paying attention or not.

Sure enough, Davis has three 911 texts, and I ignore a slew of others. I shove my phone back in my pocket, refusing to let anything ruin this night. Tomorrow will come, and it’s watching Lennie eat her ice cream cone that is the most important thing in my life right now.

I walk her down Beech Street as the breeze cools, the scent of a small-town swirling around, and we end up in front of my old high school.

“That’s where I cut my teeth back in the day. Got my first tattoo over there at Micky’s bike shop.” I nod to my left, where the old sign still hangs on the smaller cinderblock building, but Lennie’s eyes are pinned to George Washington High.

“Really? This is your high school? It’s so small!”

“Small town, small high school.”

“I hated high school.”

“I know. Wasn’t I the one that let you drop out and finish with the tutors?”

She nods. “Yes, but sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to, you know, go to prom and graduate with a class.But, yes, thank you for taking me out. Even with missing prom. I don’t care.”

“I missed prom too.”

“Really, why? You must have been popular.”

I shrug, looking at the overgrown trees and the darkened windows of the school.

“No one I wanted to take.”

“I wish I could have gone to prom with you. Age difference would have made that prohibitive, though. But, you could have chaperoned. That’s what all the fathers do.”

“Smart ass.”

We walk as she finishes her cone, peppering me with questions and I’ve talked more with her in the last twenty-four hours than I have to anyone probably in a year or more.

I suck the last of the ice cream from her sticky fingers then weave my fingers with hers as we pass the old cinderblock building a few doors down from the school.

“That was my father’s garage.” I point as Lennie follows my gaze. “Doesn’t look anything like it used to except for the four basic walls.”

“It’s a storage building now?”

I nod as a hint of nostalgia twists my heart thinking of the hours I spent there not only with my dad, but after he passed away working on cars and listening to mix tapes and the local rock station.

“I re-built my first engine there with my dad when I was sixteen for a 1976 Lincoln Town Car. That thing was a boat. Maybe got four miles to the gallon. I fixed up Dad’s old Harley with him that year too. Then my own. He taught me a lot. Not just about cars.”

She nibbles her lip with a soft smile. “You look happy.”

I stare at the building, her hand in mine, thinking of how many times I smashed my thumb building that engine then nod. “I am. I’m fucking happy Lennie-bird. Here, with you. I think Iforgot what happy was for a long time. I wasn’t miserable, just…sort of nothing. Until you.”

She squeezes my fingers as we start walking again. A squirrel skitters across the sidewalk up a huge oak tree as Lennie looks back at the building and asks, “Do you miss it?”

“What’s that?”

“Working on cars and motorcycles. I meant you looked happy when you were talking about working on that big Lincoln and your motorcycles.”