Page 55 of Redline Baby

It lands like a physical thing. I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. The deflection I had loaded dies somewhere behind my teeth. Soren picks the torque wrench back up, but he doesn't turn away yet.

"The bike stays. The work gets done. That's the end of it."

He says it easily, no extra weight thrown behind it, like he's telling me the shop closes at six.

"You can argue with me about it if you want. I'll just keep saying the same thing every time, though, so it's really just extra noise for both of us."

"That's... annoyingly reasonable."

"I contain multitudes," he says, his motto now. I huff out something that's almost a laugh in spite of everything. In spite of the guilt sitting in my chest like a stone.

I don't say thank you. The words are right there. I can't push them out. The truth is that I can't afford to have it fixed anywhere. The truth is that he's helping me, and I don't know how to cope with being helped without feeling like I owe someone my whole spine in exchange. So I say nothing.

I just stay. Because he doesn't tell me to leave.

"You eaten?" Soren asks, setting the wrench down for good this time.

"Define eaten."

"Define it however you want. I'm hearing a no."

"I had half a granola bar at like nine. Does that count?"

"It counts as an insult to the concept of breakfast."

He wipes his hands on a rag, methodical, working between each finger, and jerks his chin toward the back office.

"Come on."

The back room is smaller than I expect—a scuffed little kitchenette wedged behind the office, a microwave, a two-burner stove that looks like it's survived three decades of shop life, a window looking out over a gravel side lot.

Soren is cracking eggs one-handed into a bowl before I've even fully settled onto the single stool wedged into the corner.

"You cook!" I say, sounding more impressed than I meant to.

"I feed a six-year-old on Wednesdays. You learn fast or she tells you your eggs are sad."

He glances at me over his shoulder.

"Rue's word. Sad eggs. I've been chasing un-sad eggs for two years."

I laugh.

"High standards."

"Brutal critic. No filter whatsoever."

He cracks a third egg.

"She once told a customer his exhaust sounded like a dying lawnmower. To his face. While he was standing right there paying for it."

"I like her already."

"Everyone does. It's a real liability for me, actually, since she's undermining my professional credibility one honest sentence at a time."

I laugh again.

And I notice, not for the first time, how happy he always makes me.