Page 21 of Redline Baby

I love it instantly.

The kid behind the counter barely looks up from his phone when Soren asks for two pairs, sliding our shoes across without much interest. I lace mine up wrong the first time, too fast, have to redo it, and Soren's already finished with his by the time I get it right, sitting there patiently with nothing left to lace, just watching me lose a fight with my own shoelaces.

"Don't say anything," I warn him.

"I wasn't going to."

"You were thinking it very loudly."

"I was thinking you tie a good knot once you commit to it," he says, perfectly even, and I can't tell what he means.

We pick out balls from the rack—I go through four of them, testing the finger holes, before I land on a scuffed green one that's probably been dropped a thousand times. Soren picks the first black one he touches and doesn't second-guess it.

"That's it? No testing? No holding it up to the light?"

"It's a bowling ball, Kit. Not a diamond."

I set my ball down on the little rack by our lane and drop into the plastic seat. Soren settles into the one beside me, close but not crowding, one arm resting along the back of the bench behind me without actually touching me, which I notice.

"I bowled in a league in my twenties," he says. "Thursday nights. Terrible beer, worse nachos. I miss it, honestly."

"League Guy? And what happened to League Guy? Besides the shop."

"Divorce," he says, easy, like the word doesn't have any weight left in it. "Not mine. My league partner's. He moved out of state, the whole team kind of fell apart without him, and by the time I thought about finding a new one, the shop had eaten most of my Thursday nights anyway."

"Were you sad about it?"

"A little." He considers it honestly, like the question deserves a real answer instead of a reflex one. "I think I missed the ritual more than the bowling. Same night every week, same terrible nachos, same four guys getting slightly better or slightly worse depending on how their year was going. There's something to be said for a thing that just happens, reliably, whether or not you're having a good week."

"Structure."

"Structure," he agrees. "I like structure. Machines like structure. People pretend they don't, but I think most people are just starving for it and won't admit it."

I go still for half a second at that, because it lands closer to home than he probably means it to, and I cover it by leaning down to retie my already-tied shoe.

"Is that a Daddy thing," I ask, not looking up, testing the water, "or a you thing?"

"Probably both. I don't think they're that separate for me." He says it plainly, no hesitation, like it's just a fact about himself he settled a long time ago. "I like when things have a shape. I like knowing what's expected and delivering exactly that, and I like giving other people that same certainty back. It's why I like restoring bikes instead of just fixing them. You're not guessing what a broken-down frame needs. You're giving it back its actual shape, the one it was supposed to have all along."

"That's a very poetic way to talk about carburetors."

"I contain multitudes," he says again, and I laugh again, and it's easy. It keeps being easy, which is starting to unsettle me a little, in a good way, in a way I don't have a name for yet.

"Can I ask you something," I say, "and you don't have to actually answer it..."

"You can ask."

"Have you had a Little before?"

Something moves behind his eyes, brief, careful. "Once. A long time ago. It didn't last, but not because of anything dramatic. We just wanted different things eventually. I've been looking, on and off, for a while now. Nothing's really landed."

He turns the black ball over once in his hands, unhurried.

"I'm patient about it, though. I'd rather wait for the right shape than force something into one that doesn't fit."

"That's very you."

"It is very me," he agrees, and there's no self-pity in it, just a plain accounting of the facts.