Page 2 of Redline Baby

And now, he is effortlessly handing it to John. John, who is friendly and completely blameless, happily occupying the space that used to be mine, part of a dynamic I am now totally locked out of. Without Charles, I cannot find that softer version of myself. I am trapped in the armor of a racer, and Charles is sitting twenty feet away, being a Daddy to someone else.

My throat closes.

I look away.

I snap my head back toward the bar. I pick up my glass of whiskey, pointing a finger directly at Ni.

For the next twenty minutes, I do not let the conversation drop for a single second. I perform at an elevated pitch.

Allie slips into a stool a few feet to my left during a loud recounting of a disastrous cross-country ride. I don’t stop talking to acknowledge her, but I know she is there.

She isn’t drinking. She has a cocktail napkin on the wood in front of her, and her water rests in the center of it. She is watching me. We share the same sad story of being Littles without the Caregivers who anchored us. But where I cope by moving faster than the pain can travel, Allie copes by standing still and watching the horizon. She sees everything. She sees the frantic pacing of my words, the desperate way I am clinging to the attention of the group.

The way I’m close to tears.

I turn my head and catch her looking directly at me. Her expression isn’t pitying, which would instantly make me angry, but it is highly perceptive. Her long black hair is braided down to her chest, her black eyes focused on me, her brown skin gleaming. I give her a grin.

Allie doesn’t return the grin. She doesn’t buy the performance. She never does. I break eye contact, spinning my shoulders back toward Dex.

“So anyway, the guy is stuck on the shoulder of the highway, no cell service, and his primary sprocket is literally missing half its teeth,” I say, picking up the story without dropping a beat. “I told him he was lucky I stopped, because the vultures were already circling his reputation.”

Dex shakes his head, oblivious to the silent exchange I just had with Allie. I keep pushing. I keep the noise up. But not for long. I can’t take it anymore.

“Alright,” I say, sliding my boot off the bottom rung of the stool and letting my feet hit the floorboards. “As much as I love educating you all on basic mechanics, I’ve got to head out.”

Dex pauses, his beer halfway to his mouth, raising an eyebrow. “Now? The night’s barely hitting its stride, Kit. King just got here.” He nods toward the owner of the club.

“I have an early morning,” I say, which is absolutely a lie. He knows my part-time job at the store hasn’t been giving me hours lately. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“Yeah, yeah. Ride safe, idiot,” Ni says, waving me off.

I turn away from the bar. I do not look toward Allie, because I know what she’ll say, and I simply can’t withstand it. I don’t look toward the back corner of the room, either. I set my gaze firmly on the heavy metal door at the front of the clubhouse and begin to walk.

Outside, I stand on the concrete apron of the clubhouse, staring out into the sprawling parking lot. The lot is crowded with metal and chrome, rows of motorcycles. I walk to my bike. It’s parked at the end of the second row. I spent my entire life savings on it three years ago. It’s my pride and joy.

I reach it, grabbing the handlebars, and swing a leg over the saddle. I sit there, staring straight ahead into the dark tree line that borders the back edge of the property. The club is a converted industrial shed, still basically the same from the outside. My neon-green helmet rests on the tank in front of me, entirely unbothered. My gloves are still shoved in my jacket pockets.

For an entire, drawn-out minute, I allow myself to feel exactly how broken I am: the sheer weight of the Little side of me screaming in the dark, trapped behind my ribcage, desperately needing a hand that is currently wrapped comfortably around John’s shoulder.

I swallow against the pain in my throat. I cannot afford to stay here in the dark. I grab the helmet off the tank before anything else can happen. Before a tear can actually form. I pull it on. The thick padding muffles the remaining sounds of the outside world.

I turn the key. The dashboard comes alive. I pull the clutch in, stomp down on the shifter, and hit the starter. The engine turns over instantly, roaring to life.

I pull out of the lot, banking hard onto the main stretch of road that leads away from the property.

The bike accelerates violently, eating up the distance in seconds, the force of the acceleration pulling hard at my chest. I keep going, putting more and more dark road between me and the heavy door of Redline MC.

Chapter 2. Soren

I am crouched beside the exposed primary drive of a late-model touring bike, the heavy metallic mass of the engine ticking faintly as it cools. I hold a half-inch drive torque wrench in my right hand. I appreciate machines because they tell you precisely what they require. You give them the correct input, and they give you the correct output. People are rarely that straightforward.

Halverson Moto operates entirely on that principle. I built this shop to reflect the things I value most: order, precision, and a complete absence of pretense. The polished concrete floors stretch out toward the front windows. I sweep them every evening to eliminate the metallic dust that naturally accumulates in a working garage. My custom-fabricated steel workbench runs the length of the far wall, bolted securely into the concrete. Down the center aisle of the shop, custom bikes sit elevated on display stands.

A customer stands near the front window. He is wearing a crisp button-down shirt and has spent the last twenty minutes staring at a rebuilt bobber like he’s trying to convince himself he has the necessary grit to actually ride it. I let him look. If a man wants a motorcycle, he doesn’t need me breathing down his neck to finalize his decision.

The heavy thud of the side door being thrown violently open shatters the calm.

“Uncle Soren!”