Chapter 23. Soren
I texted Maren the day before: Bringing someone Sunday. Be normal about it.
She wrote back within ten seconds: I am always normal. Who?
You'll see.
SOREN.
I didn't answer that one. I let her sit with it, mostly because I knew exactly what she was going to do with the information regardless of how much or how little I gave her, and there was no version of this where she didn't end up delighted and slightly insufferable about it either way.
Kit's quiet on the drive over, which is unusual enough that I glance at him twice at red lights.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just—" He picks at a loose thread on his jeans, an old nervous habit I've learned to read correctly by now.
"This is your sister. And your niece. That's a whole different category of meeting people than Ni or the guys at Redline.
And... I've never done this before, you know. Not with Charles or anybody."
"They're going to love you."
"You don't know that."
"I do, actually. I know both of them extremely well, and I know you extremely well, and I've done the math.
" At the next light, I reach over and rest my hand on his knee, feeling some of the tension ease beneath my palm.
"You brought the guitar. That was your idea, not mine.
Whatever instinct told you to do that, trust it. "
"It's just sitting in the back. I didn't decide anything. You mentioned Rue liked music a week ago and I just... happened to bring it."
"Sure."
He huffs something that's almost a laugh, some of the nervousness cracking loose.
Maren's house is a squat little two-story on a cul-de-sac that hasn't changed in the fifteen years she's lived there. A tricycle lies abandoned on its side in the yard, and the wind chime hanging by the porch has been slightly out of tune since a storm bent one of the pipes two summers ago.
I've barely put the truck in park before the front door bangs open.
"UNCLE SOREN!"
Rue comes down the porch steps at a dead sprint, sneakers slapping against the concrete, and I catch her the same way I always do, scooping her up against my hip before she can build enough momentum to actually knock me over, which she's tried more than once.
"Whoa. Easy, menace."
"I made a picture of a submarine and it has a periscope that actually works if you fold it right and Mom said I could show you if you promise not to break it—"
"I promise."
"—and there's also—"
She stops midsentence, her whole attention snagging on Kit, who's climbed out of the passenger side and is standing a little awkwardly by the truck door, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, looking, for possibly the first time since I've known him, genuinely unsure what to do with his own body.
Rue squints at him with the unfiltered scrutiny only a six-year-old can deploy without any social consequences whatsoever.
"Who's that?" she asks.
Not to Kit.
To me.
Like he's a piece of unexpected shop equipment that's shown up without an invoice.
"This is Kit," I say. "He's my—"
"I'm his friend," Kit says quickly, at the exact same moment Maren appears in the doorway wiping her hands on a dish towel.
I feel the small omission land in my chest. Rue considers the information with the gravity of a judge reviewing evidence.
"Do you work at the shop?"
"I do, actually."
"Do you know how to check tire pressure?"
"I do."
"I know how to check tire pressure too," she informs him, entirely unprompted and radiating pride. "Uncle Soren taught me. I do the front tire. He does the back one because the valve is harder to reach."
"That's an excellent division of labor."
She squints at him for another second, apparently satisfied, and then, without further ceremony, grabs two of his fingers with her whole hand and starts towing him toward the porch.
"Come see my submarine. It has a periscope."
Kit looks back at me over his shoulder as he's dragged away, an expression on his face that's several things at once—startled, charmed, faintly panicked, entirely unable to do anything but follow.
I fall into step behind them, grinning the whole way up the walk.
Maren catches my eye in the doorway before either of them reaches her, one eyebrow arched, already reading everything she needs to read off my face alone.
"Friend," she repeats quietly, just for me, as I pass her into the house.
"We'll get there."
"Mm."
Entirely unconvinced. Entirely delighted.
She goes back inside to finish setting the table.
Rue has Kit deposited on the living room rug before I've even gotten my boots off at the door, a battered folder of drawings already flopped open across both their knees.
"This is the submarine," she announces, tapping a finger against a lopsided crayon shape that is, generously, submarine-adjacent. "It goes really deep. Deeper than sharks."
"Does it have a name?"
She looks at him like this is an insultingly obvious question she can't believe he's asking.
"The Rue-marine."
"Extremely strong branding," Kit says, entirely serious.
I don't know how he doesn't laugh.
"What's branding?"
"It means you picked a good name and you're sticking with it. Like—my bike's called Vera. I've had her three years. Never once considered renaming her, even when she was mad at me and threw me into a ditch."
Rue's whole face lights up, delighted and slightly scandalized.
"Your motorcycle threw you in a ditch?"
"Once. We're past it now. We've talked it through."
"You can't talk to a motorcycle."
"That's what people who've never had a motorcycle throw them in a ditch always say." Kit leans closer, conspiratorial. "You gotta apologize to the tires sometimes. It's a whole thing."
Rue considers this with the same gravity she gave the tire-pressure conversation earlier, clearly filing it away as a fact to repeat to someone later, and flips to the next page in the folder—a horse, badly proportioned in a way that's somehow charming rather than bad, all four legs bent at angles no actual horse leg has ever achieved.
"This is Buttercup," she says. "She's the fastest horse in the world."
"Faster than Vera?"
Rue pauses and weighs the question seriously.
"Buttercup doesn't need gas."
"That's a genuinely excellent point. Fuel efficiency wins."
I lean against the doorway and watch this happen for a minute. Kit is sprawled cross-legged on Maren's rug in his good jacket, entirely unbothered by the indignity of it, taking a six-year-old's opinions on horse physics with total sincerity.
Something in my chest goes warm and a little unsteady.
"Uncle Soren," Rue calls without looking up from the folder, "did you know Kit talks to motorcycles?"
"I did not know that specific detail, no."
"He apologizes to the tires."
"That tracks completely."
Kit glances up at me, grinning and faintly pink around the ears, and mouths she's so cute over the top of Rue's head.
I shrug back at him, unbothered, because he's clearly already lost this particular battle and doesn't seem to mind losing it at all.
Maren pokes her head in from the kitchen.
"Five minutes, you two. Rue, wash your hands."
"I'm showing Kit the submarine."
"You can show him the submarine after you wash your hands."
Rue heaves the long-suffering sigh with theatrical care, and pats the submarine once like she's tucking it in for a nap.
"Don't let anyone touch it," she tells Kit as she stands.
"I will guard it with my life."
She thunders off toward the bathroom. Kit looks up at me from the floor, still grinning and a little wrecked in the good way.
"I think I just got recruited as a submarine bodyguard."
"Congratulations. It's an unpaid position, but the benefits are excellent."
"Yeah?"
He reaches a hand up. I take it and pull him to his feet, and he doesn't let go immediately once he's standing. He stays there for a second, close, his thumb brushing once over my knuckles.
"She likes you."
"I like her. She's got very strong opinions for someone who's three feet tall."
"She gets that from Maren."
"I was gonna say she gets that from you, actually, but sure. Blame your sister."
Maren calls from the kitchen that lunch is ready. Kit finally lets go of my hand, and we head for the table together. I catch him glancing back once at the folder on the rug, making sure it's exactly where Rue left it, like the promise actually mattered to him.
Knowing him, it absolutely did.
The pot is still steaming at the center of the table when I say it. I pick up the serving spoon and look at Maren across the round table with its mismatched plates and striped afternoon light coming through the blinds.
"Kit is my boyfriend."
Maren's hand, already reaching for the bread basket, doesn't pause. Rue's does.
Maren gets the basket to Kit before he's finished processing the announcement and sets it beside his plate.
"Oh, obviously. We're so glad you came. Soren never brings anyone."
I watch Kit's face cycle through the landing. He's shocked that I said it, but he's also highly amused. And happy.
Rue has her arms folded on the edge of the table. She's watching Kit while she eats a spoonful of beans.
"How long have you been working with Soren?" Maren asks, spooning something into Kit's bowl before he's confirmed whether he wants it.
"Several months now."
"That's lovely," Maren says, and means it. "Do you ride as well, or just..."
"Mhm. He used to race," I say.
Kit looks at me. A quick, surprised cut of his eyes, like he wasn't expecting it. Then he smiles, suddenly excited.
"Oh," Maren says. "Do you still compete?"
"I used to," Kit says. "Not anymore. Now I just ride."
Rue, who has not touched her bowl, says, "Why do you have a motorcycle?"
Maren says, "Rue," in the gentle way that acknowledges the bluntness.
Kit looks at her, his fork going still between his fingers.
"Because it's fast like a roller coaster. Have you ever been on a roller coaster?"
"Yeah. I went to Disney World with Mom and Uncle Soren when I was four." She considers this for approximately half a second. "Can I have a motorcycle when I grow up, Mom?"
"No," Maren says.
"Yes," I say at exactly the same time.
Maren glares at me. Kit laughs, loud. Rue looks extremely pleased with herself for causing it. The meal moves on. Maren circles back to ask where Kit grew up. He tells her Colorado, and she offers small pieces of her own life in return.
She is good at making people feel loved. She has always been good at that.
After everything that happened with her husband, after the long months of quiet, she became even better at it. As though grief refined rather than complicated her instinct for warmth.
"Do you live with Uncle Soren?" Rue asks.
Maren pauses fractionally.
Kit shrugs.
"Sort of, but I'm there most of the time." He points his fork at Rue's plate. "You should eat your carrots. I ate all of mine."
Rue looks at him.
"Why?"
"Because they help you see in the dark. And you have to be able to see in the dark if you want to drive a motorcycle."
Rue goes completely still. She looks at her carrots. Then at Kit. Then back at the carrots. Finally, she picks up her fork and eats one.
Both Maren and I are smiling now.
He's good.
The meal winds down. Rue has eaten most of her carrots by the time Maren starts stacking plates. Kit gets up and offers to help, and Maren waves him away, but I'm proud of him for offering anyway.
When she comes back, I look across the table and find her watching me.
She doesn't say anything. I know that smile far too well.
Rue doesn't ask. She appears at Kit's elbow the moment the last plates clear the table, takes his wrist with both hands, and makes the direction she intends entirely obvious.
Kit goes. He looks briefly over his shoulder at me with an expression that is several things at once—amused, slightly helpless, asking nothing specific and everything generally.
I follow them, just in case.
The living room is actually lived in rather than managed for the impression of living.
The low coffee table holds a scatter of Rue's drawings in pencil and crayon—horses and dogs and one very elaborate submarine.
The couch is wide and worn at the arms, a knit throw folded over one end, and books cover the shelves along the wall.
Kit's guitar case is propped near the door. He brought it inside when we arrived after tossing it into the back of my truck this morning because I'd mentioned, offhand, a week ago that Rue liked music. He set it just inside the entryway and didn't mention it. Neither did I.
It's been leaning there through the whole of lunch, waiting.
Rue notices it.
"What is that?"
"A guitar."
Her eyes widen.
"Are you a rockstar?! Play something."
Kit looks at me from the couch.
I smile and nod.
He gets up, crosses to the door, and lifts the case.
When he settles back onto the cushion, Rue sits beside him, bouncing slightly with excitement.
Kit unzips the case. The guitar inside isn't new.
He lifts it out and settles it across his knee, runs his thumb across the strings, and spends a minute tuning.
Rue watches his hands. Watches the tuning pegs turn.
For once, she says nothing. When he's satisfied, Kit forms the first chord and holds it for a moment without playing. His thumb rests against the strings.
I watch him make a decision. Then he plays.
The opening is gentle. The melody follows, and I know the song within the first several bars.
"You Are My Sunshine."
But when he reaches the later part, after the songs talks about waking up, he changes it.
Kit's version starts:
Dear, you were there!
So I never ever need to cry!
Then the song begins again.
His version is so much happier than the original. My heart gets lighter. The song has always been sad. Rue's dad used to sing it to her, and he isn't here anymore. But Kit has changed it.
Rue is laughing now, delighted rather than sad. I look at Maren. She's wiping her eyes. But she's smiling. The last chord fades. The strings vibrate, then quiet.
Rue looks up at Kit with complete seriousness.
"Again."
Kit laughs. The rolling pattern begins again, the melody returns, and before he's finished the first line, Rue is singing with him. Then they're both singing Kit's version.
My heart is beating fast in my chest.
That's when I realize I love this boy.