Page 18 of Redline Baby

He's grinning by the end of it, pleased with his own case, and when the waitress comes over, he starts ordering on autopilot.

"We'll do the spicy tuna, the dragon roll, the volcano—"

He catches the we'll out of his own mouth and stalls, glancing at me sideways like he's just realized he's been narrating a meal for two without checking whether I wanted in on it.

"Sorry—I mean, unless you want your own thing, I just—"

"Add a yellowtail roll and a bowl of edamame," I tell the waitress. "And he's not wrong about any of it."

He exhales, some tension leaving his shoulders. There's something almost boyish in the relief of it, like he'd braced for me to find the whole performance excessive and instead found me enjoying it.

"Yellowtail," he repeats, testing it, filing it away. "Simple guy."

"I like knowing exactly what I'm eating. Yellowtail, a little scallion, a little ponzu. No mystery sauce required."

"That is such a Daddy order."

He says it lightly, teasing, and then goes very slightly red, like the word slipped out ahead of where he meant to take the conversation. He reaches for his water.

"I'll take that as a beautiful compliment," I say.

I let him have the exit.

He takes it gratefully, launching straight back into an argument for why the volcano roll is an underrated feat of engineering, no matter what "sushi purists on the internet" have to say about it.

We talk about nothing at first. The restaurant. The neighborhood. A pothole on the main road that's apparently been there since before either of us learned to drive, one the county keeps patching and the winter keeps reopening.

"It's basically load-bearing at this point," Kit says. "If they ever actually fix it, half the block's gonna structurally collapse."

I laugh because he's telling it exactly the way he told stories at the bar the first night I watched him, but there's no bar noise to fight through this time, no crowd to perform for. And it's just funnier.

Then the food comes, and he's talking again, easier this time, telling me about the shop where he works part-time, how the hours have been thin, how his manager keeps promising a schedule that never actually materializes.

"It's fine," he says. "I don't need much. Rent's not bad. I just need enough to keep the bike running and gas in the tank, and everything else is negotiable."

"What'd you do before the shop?"

He picks up his water glass, looking a little uncomfortable.

I almost regret the question.

"Racing," he says. "Not—like, real racing. Amateur circuit, regional stuff. But I was good. I was actually good."

I don't react immediately. Ni told me Kit had been on track for MotoGP. Had the times. Had the talent. Kit is describing it like a weekend hobby. I don't think Ni exaggerated. I think Kit is making the thing smaller because the smaller it was, the less it should have hurt to lose.

"Had a sponsor lined up," Kit continues. "Small one, but real. Enough for a proper season. Entry fees, a mechanic who wasn't just me at two in the morning with a headlamp."

"What happened?"

"Funding fell through." He says it lightly, the way he says most things, but there's a flatness underneath. "Sponsor's company got bought out. New owners didn't care about a bunch of regional amateurs. Cut the whole program in one email. Real professional. Real efficient."

He picks up a piece of the roll, examining it like it's suddenly interesting.

"Two weeks before the season opener."

"That's a hell of a thing to lose two weeks out."

"Yeah, well."