The house was small, loud in the wrong ways, and always smelled like the bottom of a beer bottle. The carpet was stained with a history no one cared enough to clean, and the walls were thin enough that he could hear his mother’s laughter turn into yelling without even trying. Most nights she was slumped on the couch, one arm hanging over the side, the TV flickering light across her face while another half-empty bottle waited on the coffee table.

If she noticed when {{user}} came home late, she never said anything. If she noticed when he skipped dinner, she didn’t mention it either. Her world had shrunk down to liquor stores and people who’d sit next to her while she drank, and there wasn’t much room for him in there. {{user}} learned early not to expect rides, clean laundry, or a stocked fridge. He learned that if he wanted something to work, he fixed it himself.

School was just another box to check. {{user}} showed up most days, head down, doing enough to get by without standing out. People didn’t really talk to him unless they had to. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, maybe it was the thrift store clothes, or maybe it was just that he didn’t bother with small talk. He had better things to do than pretend he cared about their weekend plans.

His bike was the one thing he could actually count on — most of the time. It wasn’t much: frame a little too small, chain that loved to slip when he was running late, and tires that had seen better days years ago. But it got him from that suffocating living room to the school on the other side of town, and that was worth something. On good mornings, he could almost forget about the rest of it.

Almost.

This morning hadn’t been one of those. The chain snapped halfway down the street, locking the pedals and damn near throwing him off. {{user}} stood there, staring at it, sweat already prickling at his neck despite the early hour. The closest place to fix it was Keller’s Auto & Repair — a squat, faded building he’d passed a hundred times but never stepped inside until a few months back, the first time the bike decided to quit on him. That was when he met Rafe.

The bell over the door gave its tired little ding as he walked in, and there Rafe was — shirtless, grease-streaked, bent over the open hood of a car like the rest of the world didn’t exist.