Page 85 of Redline Baby

"He is."

"Good different. I wasn't sure it was possible, honestly. Watched that kid burn the same candle from both ends for two years and figured eventually there'd just be no candle left."

He looks sideways at me.

"You did that."

"He did it." I watch Kit say something that makes Allie laugh. "I just didn't go anywhere while he was doing it."

Ni huffs something that might be approval.

"Same thing, some days."

He claps one heavy hand against my shoulder and wanders off toward the general store without another word.

The store has exactly the lunch options I'd expect from a building that's been standing on a lake road since before any of us were born: prepackaged sandwiches, questionable hot dogs turning slowly beneath heat lamps, and a cooler of drinks with a handwritten sign taped to the front that says HONOR SYSTEM, DON'T BE A DICK in faded marker.

We eat sitting on the tailgate of an old pickup permanently parked behind the store. Apparently it belongs to the owner. Apparently it's available to anyone who asks nicely, which Dex did with the kind of effortless confidence that gets him what he wants from strangers ninety percent of the time.

Kit buys a hot dog with entirely too much mustard and gets it on his face.

Of course he does.

I wipe it away with a napkin.

Dex makes a disgusted face.

I know perfectly well he loves it.

We ride back in the late afternoon. The light has gone gold across the hills, stretching long shadows over the road, and the formation feels looser now. Everyone is talked out from lunch and content simply to ride. Above us, the sky is doing something spectacular with the clouds, but nobody narrates it. Some things are better when you just look at them.

On the final easy stretch into town, Kit falls back into the position beside mine.

Unprompted.

I feel that small, specific pleasure I still haven't gotten used to: him choosing my company from an entire pack full of people who love him. Not because he needs to make sure I'm still there.

Just because he wants to be near me.

At a red light on the edge of town, Kit flips his visor up and looks over.

"Today was really good."

"It was."

"Like—I don't know." He shifts slightly on the bike. "I used to hate group rides that ended."

I wait.

"Used to want to peel off from everyone and find some empty road to scare myself on, just to keep the day from actually ending. Because ending meant going home to an apartment that didn't have anything in it worth going home to."

He says it easily now. No joke rushing in after it. Just a hard-won fact he can hold up to the light without cutting himself on it.

"Today I just want to go home. Actually home," he adds. "Yours, I mean."

"Mine's yours too at this point."

Kit looks at me.