Page 17 of Redline Baby

I text him on a Tuesday, which is not a day anything happens at Redline, which is exactly why I pick it.

Ni gave me your number. Hope that's alright. Wondered if you'd want to get food sometime this week. No occasion. Just food.

I set the phone face-down on the workbench and go back to torque-checking a wheel hub I've already checked twice. Rue isn't here today. It's a school day, and Maren has her until four, so the shop is quiet. No small sneakers on the concrete, no bright noise filling the corners.

I've never minded that quiet before.

Today, I keep glancing at the phone.

It takes him forty minutes to answer, which I respect. I would have thought less of him if he'd answered in four.

sure. i know a place. fair warning i talk a lot when i eat

I smile at the bench, alone, which is a foolish thing to be doing.

I've noticed. Thursday work?

Yeah

Thursday, then.

He picks the restaurant—a small sushi place tucked into a strip mall between a laundromat and a shuttered video store, the kind of place that looks like nothing from the parking lot and turns out, when I step inside, to be doing something quietly excellent with the fish.

Kit is already at a table near the back when I arrive, ten minutes early by my watch, which I take to mean he was considerably early.

I don't say that out loud.

He's changed since Redline. No leather jacket tonight, just a gray henley, his hair pushed back off his forehead instead of falling into his eyes, the sides still shaved, his build still small.

He looks up when the door chimes, and there's a half-second where he looks almost nervous before he arranges his face into something easier.

It's a good look on him.

Not because I want him nervous.

Because it's real, and I've spent three weeks watching him wear things that aren't.

"You found it," he says, standing halfway out of the booth like he isn't sure if that's a normal thing to do and does it anyway.

"You gave good directions." I slide into the seat across from him. "Turn at the laundromat, can't miss it. You undersold the laundromat's importance to the directions."

"It's a real landmark around here. Regional pride." He's already reaching for the menu, flipping it open. "I usually get the same three rolls. I'm not gonna pretend I'm adventurous about it."

"Tell me the three rolls."

"Okay, so." He sets the menu down. He doesn't even open it, because he clearly doesn't need it. "Spicy tuna. The classic. Non-negotiable. I judge a place almost entirely on this roll. If they skimp on the tuna or drown it in mayo, it's over. We're done. I've made my assessment of their entire kitchen."

"Harsh but fair."

"Then the dragon roll, because I'm shameless about eel sauce. I will drink eel sauce out of a shot glass if they let me. And this place does this thing where they actually torch the eel instead of just microwaving it like some places do, which—genuinely criminal, by the way. Some of these places just nuke frozen eel and call it a day."

"You have real opinions about this."

"I have opinions about everything. You're gonna learn that about me real fast." He says it easily, like a warning label he's proud of. "And then the volcano roll, which is technically a mess. It's just a pile of spicy crab and mayo baked on top of a California roll, but it's an emotional support roll.”

"An emotional support roll?" I ask, noticing how much fun I'm actually having.

"Exactly. Everyone needs one. It's self-care."