[Outside Len's house: The Buick] [Len, Bill, De]
It was late afternoon when Leonard stepped outside his front door, the sun hanging low in the sky and casting shadows in its wake.
Whilst his conversation with De this morning hadn't exactly made things any clearer for him, it had still left him feeling a little calmer, a little more at ease. Maybe it was merely the fact that he'd finally expressed his feelings so openly, or maybe it was the how convinced De had sounded when he'd told Len that he wasn't going to make things worse, the look on his friend's face just before Bill had interrupted them - as if De knew something that Leonard himself was still unaware of.
Whatever it was, he'd felt far more at ease today than at any point in the last week, if still confused. The three of them had settled down for a late breakfast and for once the banter had flowed easily between them, like back in the old days. And if Len's gaze caught for a moment too long on Bill's lips as they curved into an impish smile, if at times, Bill's eyes on him made his stomach flutter as if it were filled with butterflies - well, then that just was how things were for the time being.
And now he was on a mission. For meat. He couldn't help but smirk again, as he got out his car keys, remembering how Bill had failed to see the humor in declaring loudly that he. Needed. Meat. Leonard had been too busy cracking up under the irony of it all, whilst Bill explained patiently, as if he'd gone off his rocker completely (and De smiled at them both in amusement), that given the weather, it would be an offense to the Gods if they weren't going to have a thoroughly unkosher BBQ this evening.
So. A mission for meat it was, then.
Len shook his head, glancing down his driveway, hand on the open door of his car... and froze, dead in his tracks.
He blinked.
Then he slammed the door closed, and walked towards the street.
It couldn't be.
But there she was, in all her original sixties glory, black and gleaming silver, standing broad and proud on the sidewalk before him.
He hadn't been imagining things, after all. There, in front of his house, parked his old Buick Riviera.
He stopped. Touched her briefly, just to assure himself she was real. Walked around her, slowly, checking for scratches, little marks he still remembered.
Came to a stop again. No doubt about it, it was her, alright, trademark dent in the hood and all. She even had the same licence plate that she'd carrried, back in the sixties, when he'd owned her.
For a second, he just stared, uncomprehending. And then he legged it, much faster than he should at his age, back to the front door, fumbling his keys in his haste to get it open, and shouted: "Guys! Come out front, you have to see this!" into the general direction of the lounge. And then he darted straight back, back to her, resting his palm against the sun-warmed metal.
Things were just getting weirder by the day.