Page 28 of Redline Baby

"Yeah—yeah, I'm fine. Just embarrassed." The guy gestures toward the gravel. "Chain went and I got it off the road before it locked anything up. Lost my footing when I stopped and dumped it. I don't even know what happened."

Dex crouches by the bike, running a hand carefully along the chain before looking over the rear sprocket.

"Chain's thrown and kinked," he says. "Rear sprocket took a hit too. You're not riding this home without a new chain, and I'd want to inspect that sprocket first."

The guy closes his eyes for half a second.

"I don't even have a tow service." There's a rawness under the words that tells me this is worse than a bad morning for him—that this bike, wherever it came from, however new the gear is, matters more to him than the casual way he's trying to play it. "I just bought it. Three weeks ago. First real ride out on it."

"Where's home?" King asks.

"About forty minutes from here. Past the diner, other side of the county line." The guy scrubs a hand over his face, and I watch something crack behind his composure, quick and involuntary. He has dark eyes, a beard, and brown hair. "I don't—I don't even know anybody out here. I just moved."

Kit's already moving.

I almost miss it, because he doesn't announce it, doesn't make it a moment.

He just walks past Dex, past King, heading straight to his own Yamaha where it's parked at the edge of the gravel.

"What are you doing?" Dex asks.

"Giving him a ride," Kit says, like it's obvious, like there's no other possible answer to the math everyone else was still working out. "You said forty minutes from here?"

"Yeah, but—"

"So it's forty out, forty back. I can live with that." Kit's already pulling his gloves back on, brisk, matter-of-fact, no drama in it at all. "Climb on behind me. I'll get you all the way home. Better than sitting out here waiting on a tow just to figure out the next problem, which is you still being forty minutes from your own bed with a busted bike."

"I can't ask you to do that. That's, what, an hour and a half round trip? More?"

"You didn't ask. I offered."

Kit shrugs, easy, already checking the strap on his tank bag out of habit more than necessity.

"Look, man, I get it. First ride on a new bike, nobody around you knows your name, and now you're stuck on the side of a road forty minutes from home with a busted chain. That's a genuinely shit morning. I've got a full tank and nowhere I have to be until the diner. It's not that big a deal."

"It's a lot," he says.

"It's a full tank of gas and one missed breakfast," Kit says. "I've spent worse on dumber things. Come on, before it gets colder out here."

"I don't even know your name."

"Kit."

He holds out a hand, brief, casual, like they're meeting at a bar and not in the aftermath of a wreck.

"And don't worry about the bike behind us. It's not going anywhere the tow truck can't handle."

King's already got his phone out, calling a tow service he apparently keeps on speed dial for exactly this reason, rattling off the location. Dex crouches back down by the bike, checking that nothing is leaking and making sure it's safe to leave for the tow. Sol's found a strip of reflective tape in his own saddlebag and is wrapping it around the crash bar so it's visible to traffic while it waits.

I don't say anything.

I watch.

Kit swings a leg over his own Yamaha and settles into the saddle like he's done it a thousand times.

The stranger hesitates beside him.

"You ridden pillion before?" Kit asks.