Marlowe
For the first time since I'd walked through that gate, I wanted something that had absolutely nothing to do with my father's legacy, or King's attention, or anyone else's approval at all — I just wanted this bike to be good, on its own terms, because I'd built it with my own two hands and it deserved to be.
The showcase was three days out, and I'd spent every spare hour I had in that garage bay, watching the frame slowly become something real. Wrench checked in periodically, grunting his particular brand of approval, but mostly he let me work alone, which felt like its own kind of trust I hadn't earned anywhere else in my life before this.
I almost missed it. That was the part that scared me most, afterward — how close I'd come to not catching it at all.
The fuel line looked ri
