Chapter 30. Kit
Soren is at the back counter, and I’m working on a particularly stubborn bike when he says it.
I still haven’t forgotten what it felt like to wake up to an empty bed.
No calls. No messages. He told me before he left.
I know that now. I know it was Rue, know she was sick, know he had every reason in the world to go.
He apologized for not waking me properly and for not checking his phone afterward.
We talked about it. We built a fucking fort about it.
None of that changes the fact that I hated it.
It cracked something back open, and there’s still a small part of me that hasn’t figured out how to close it again.
“I have a surprise for you, baby.” Soren’s voice comes from behind me. “Your bike’s almost done. Maybe two more days.”
My hand stops on the wrench. I hadn’t noticed he was working on my Yamaha. Weirdly, I don’t feel excited.
The truth is, I’ve been dreading this exact sentence for months.
Vera has been mechanically roadworthy for weeks, the last of the work mostly cosmetic: fairing alignment Soren decided wasn’t quite right, paint he wanted touched up, trim pieces he kept finding reasons to fuss over.
Things that could have been finished in an afternoon if either of us had pushed.
I never pushed.
Every time he brought it up, I told him not to rush. Take your time. No hurry.
And I meant it in a way that scared me a little even while I said it, because some part of me had quietly decided, without ever putting words to it, that as long as the Yamaha sat half-finished on a lift, I had a permanent, unkillable reason to keep showing up at Halverson Moto every day.
Which is fucking stupid.
I work here.
Actually work here.
My name is on the board. I have jobs assigned to me. Soren pays me every other Friday, and after our argument about my starting rate, he pays me exactly what he’d pay another mechanic with my experience.
I live with him.
Not sort of.
Not one drawer.
My clothes are upstairs. My boxes are unpacked. Pretty sits on the dresser with Milkshake and Duffy. I no longer have another apartment waiting somewhere else for me to retreat to.
Soren told me he loves me.
None of it matters to the part of my brain doing the math.
Bike done equals nothing left to fix.
Nothing left to fix equals nothing left that needs me here.
“Cool,” I say.
I try not to sound like this. I fail.
My eyes move toward the shop door. The glass is smudged at handle height, somebody’s palm print pressed into it. Probably mine from last week.
Soren turns back toward the counter. He says something else.
I don’t hear it.
“Did you get the gasket issue sorted?” I ask automatically.
He answers. I don’t hear that either. His mouth moves. Words come out. I nod at what I assume is an appropriate interval while my jaw locks tighter and tighter until I can feel the pressure in my temples.
The cage is there today.
I’ve barely noticed it for hours, but suddenly I’m aware of every point of contact. I shift my weight. The pressure changes.
Nothing improves.
I have an emergency key.
I could unlock it.
The thought arrives ugly and impulsive, less because I actually want the cage off than because some primitive part of me suddenly wants to reject everything that proves I belong to someone.
I notice the impulse. But I don’t obey every thought anymore. Soren sets his rag on the counter.
“I need something from the back.”
I nod. The door swings shut behind him with a soft click. I’m alone in the middle of the shop.
And suddenly I’m not here anymore.
Charles didn’t say anything the last time.
That’s the part that comes back hardest—not the fight, not even the boxes.
The quiet afterward. I sat on the floor of our bedroom with my back against the closet door.
His side was already half-empty. Hangers clicked against each other every time the air conditioning kicked on.
I remember thinking, very clearly, in a voice that didn’t sound like mine: nobody is coming.
I called Dex.
I didn’t tell him why. I just needed to hear a voice that wasn’t the silence in that apartment. When he asked whether I was okay, I said fine, obviously, and hung up before he could hear the rest of me break loose.
I cried on that floor for over an hour.
Pretty was pressed against my chest because I’d already taken him down from the shelf, and there was nobody else left to hold.
Nobody came. Because there was nobody left to come. When the thing someone needed you for is finished, they leave.
I look at Vera. She looks good as new. Better, maybe. Soren rebuilt parts of her that I thought were gone for good. Every panel sits clean. Every line is right.
Finished.
He won’t need me here anymore.
Deep down, I know it makes no sense. I’m just very upset.
The empty bed.
The cold pillow.
Waking up and not knowing where he was.
Lying in the dark telling myself it was fine until my chest got tight, then tighter, until breathing became something I had to think about.
And he knew what Charles had done.
He knew what leaving meant to me.
And he left anyway.
The thought isn’t fair. I know that too. It comes anyway.
I set the rag down.
I roll Vera off the lift.
For half a second, I stand beside her. I could wait.
Soren is thirty feet away.
I could walk through the back door and say:
Daddy, my brain is doing something bad.
I could do exactly what he has spent months teaching me to do.
Instead, I put on my helmet.
I leave.
The road opens beyond the city limits, and I open the throttle with it. Two lanes. Almost no traffic. I tuck lower over the tank. My knees lock against the frame. The engine climbs through the revs beneath me, eager and familiar, and I let it.
The first corner arrives fast. Too fast. I know that before I enter it. I should scrub more speed.
I don’t.
I press the inside bar and tip Vera into the turn, carrying more pace than I have any business carrying on a public road. The chassis loads beneath me. The tires work harder than they should.
She holds. Of course she holds. Soren tuned her. Soren doesn’t build things that fail. My knee drops instinctively. The slider kisses asphalt. Then my toe touches too. A sharp scrape. Too close. I stand the bike up out of the corner and roll the throttle open harder.
My shoulders are rigid enough to hurt. My hands clamp around the grips. Wind hammers my helmet. The vibration travels through the pegs into my boots, through my bones, through every part of me that feels too full of something I don’t know how to name.
The bike is done.
Are we done?
The digital tach climbs into the red. I keep it there longer than I should, the engine screaming beneath me.
The road curves right ahead, a long sweeping bend along the hillside.
I enter too hot. Again. The rear steps sideways under power.
I feel it immediately. Know exactly what’s happening. Know exactly what I should do.
Ease the demand. Give the tire back some margin. Stop asking a public road for something it was never designed to give me. Instead, I hold the throttle steady. The slide carries. For a few horrible, exhilarating seconds, I let my own skill become another weapon I can use against myself.
Then the road begins to straighten. The tire hooks back up. Vera surges forward. The engine is still screaming. So is everything inside my helmet.
I check my mirror.
He’s here.
He’s fucking here.
Not close.
Not chasing.
Soren’s bike sits far enough behind me that I know he isn’t trying to catch me. His posture is upright, controlled, exactly the way he always rides.
He’s just here.
With me.
My grip tightens.
The throttle stays open another half mile. The road stretches straight ahead.
I could keep going.
I could pin it until the tank runs dry.
Until the engine gives out.
Until something else gives out.
Something that can’t be fixed.
I look in the mirror again.
Still here.
Not closer.
Not smaller.
Here.
My right hand moves.
Barely.
Then more.
The throttle eases closed by degrees.
The engine note drops.
Wind becomes wind again instead of violence. My fingers loosen around the grips. I can feel how badly my hands are shaking now. There’s a gravel turnout ahead. I extend my left arm low and point toward it. I don’t check whether Soren sees. He sees everything.
I roll off the road carefully, tires crunching over gravel until Vera slows beneath me and settles to a stop.
I kill the ignition. Silence lands hard. Behind me comes another crunch of tires over gravel. Slower than mine.
Soren rolls in and stops ten feet back. I pull off my helmet with both hands. Cold air hits my face. My hair is damp with sweat. I set the helmet carefully on the tank because my hands aren’t steady enough to trust anywhere else.
Soren dismounts. Sets his helmet on his seat. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t storm toward me. Doesn’t demand an explanation. He stands there with his hands at his sides and waits. I stare at the road.
My eyes burn.
“I…” Nothing. My throat closes around the word. I try again. “The bike is done.” My voice breaks on done. Not a little. It splits straight through the middle. And then I do too. I break down entirely.
Soren reaches me before my knees figure out whether they’re going to keep working. He pulls me against his chest and holds me. That’s all. His arms around me. My helmet forgotten.
Vera ticking softly as the engine cools behind us.
I cry into his jacket hard enough that breathing becomes difficult again, but this time his hand is in my hair and his chest is solid beneath my cheek.
“You don’t have any reason to keep me around anymore.”
The words tear out of me.
“The work’s finished. The Yamaha is finished. You don’t need me here. You can leave. You can leave whenever you want.”
His arms tighten.
“I’m a mess. Look at me.” I’m crying too hard to get the sentences out properly. “A depressed, fucked-up mess. And I know how this goes. I’ve watched it happen before.”
I don’t have to say the name. It lands between us anyway.
“Oh, baby.” Soren’s hand cups the back of my head. “My love.” I press my face harder against his chest.
“You had to help Rue,” I whisper.
“I did.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong by going.”
“No.”
His hand moves slowly through my hair.
“But I meant what I told you afterward. I should have woken you properly. I should have checked in once Rue was stable. I handled that part badly, and I’m sorry it hurt you.”
My hands tighten in his jacket. Then his voice changes slightly. Still gentle.
“But listen to me.”
I try.
“The Yamaha being finished has nothing to do with whether I want you.”
I close my eyes.
“You work for me because you’re an excellent mechanic, not because I needed an excuse to keep you in my shop.”
My chest hurts.
“You live with me because I want you in my home.”
Harder.
“I love you because you’re you.”
I make a horrible little sound against him.
“The bike was never the reason, Kit.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, crying so much now.
“For what?”
“For taking Vera. For riding like that.”
I swallow.
“For breaking the rule. I know I did. I’m not even gonna pretend I didn’t.”
“I know.” There’s no anger in his voice. “We’ll talk about that properly later, once you’re steady.” I nod against his chest. “That conversation is still coming. It doesn’t disappear because you’re upset right now.”
“Okay.” Something inside me settles. Not dread. Relief. Of course the conversation is still coming. There is still a later.
The structure hasn’t vanished because I fell apart. Daddy hasn’t vanished either.
Soren strokes my hair.
“You’re safe.” I breathe. “I’m not leaving you.” Another breath. “Daddy is here.”
We stand there for a long time. Gravel beneath our boots. Cold air on my wet face. The road stretching empty in both directions. Soren doesn’t rush me. Eventually my breathing finds something resembling a rhythm again. My hands loosen from his jacket. I wipe my face with the back of one glove.
Soren kisses the top of my head.
“Ready to go home, angel?”
Home. I nod.
“Yeah.”
He steps back just enough to look at me.
“Can you ride safely?”
I check. Really check. My hands are still a little shaky, but the pressure in my chest has loosened. The violent need to outrun something is gone.
“Yes.”
“If that changes?”
“I pull over.”
“And?”
“I tell you.”
“Good boy.”
He brushes his thumb over my cheek.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
I put my helmet back on. Swing onto Vera.
Start the engine. She settles beneath me into a smooth idle.
Soren gets on his bike behind me. I pull onto the road.
This time, I don’t open the throttle until the world blurs.
I ride. Normal speed. Clean lines. Margin everywhere.
At the first long straight, I check my mirror.
Soren is there.
Not chasing.
Not holding me back.
Just behind me.