“When did he leave?”
“Three hours ago.”
Dean looked at Walter carefully.
“Maybe he had an emergency.”
Walter nodded quickly.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
Dean pulled out his phone.
“You got his number?”
Walter gave it to him.
Dean called.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Then Dean noticed something Walter had not.
A woman leaving the store looked at Walter, then toward Dean.
“You’re still here?”
Walter nodded.
She frowned.
“I saw the man who brought you.”
Walter straightened.
“When?”
“Hours ago.”
She pointed toward the parking lot.
“He walked out the side entrance, got into a dark SUV, and drove away.”
Walter’s face collapsed.
Dean saw it.
The woman realized what she had revealed.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Walter stared at the pavement.
Dean’s jaw tightened.
He had buried a father twenty years earlier and would have traded almost anything for one more afternoon with him.
Walter was sitting beside him with a son who apparently considered three hours too much.
Dean leaned forward.
“What’s your address?”
Walter looked up.
“Why?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“No.”
Dean frowned.
Walter shook his head.
“I don’t want to be anybody’s problem.”
“You’re not.”
“I can get a taxi.”
“You could.”
Walter looked toward his cardigan.
Dean noticed his hands trembling.
“Sir.”
Walter turned.
Dean lowered his voice.
“Nobody spends their eighty-ninth birthday alone while I’m standing here.”
Walter’s eyes filled.
He looked away.
“I didn’t need much.”
Dean waited.
“Just someone to remember I was still here.”
Something in Dean’s face changed.
He looked toward the parking lot.
Then pulled out his phone.
Walter assumed he was ordering a ride.
Dean was doing something else entirely.
He opened the Iron Ridge group chat.
Need everyone who can move today. Walmart on East Broad. Elderly gentleman abandoned here on his 89th birthday. Family left him. I’m taking him home. Anyone nearby, come say happy birthday. Keep it respectful.
Dean expected maybe twenty riders.
The first reply came almost immediately.
On my way.
Then another.
Bringing cake.
Another.
Give me 30 minutes.
Another.
Calling Westside chapter.
Dean stared at the screen.
Walter noticed.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a small problem larger.”
Walter smiled.
“You bikers are strange people.”
“You have no idea.”
Ten minutes later, the first motorcycle arrived.
Then another.
Then four more.
Walter turned toward the growing sound.
“What’s happening?”
“Friends.”
Dean stood.
Five bikers approached carrying coffee and a blanket.
A woman named Rosa Alvarez, forty-eight, leather vest over a red sweater, crouched beside Walter.
“Happy birthday, handsome.”
Walter laughed nervously.
“You don’t know me.”
“Dean says you’re eighty-nine. That’s enough.”
She wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.
Another rider handed him hot coffee.
Someone brought a second cupcake.
Then motorcycles started arriving from the highway.
The rumble grew.