Different Roads

Chapter One

The thing about a 1972 Honda CB750 was that it demanded your full attention, which was exactly why Riley Chen was lying on their back under one at two in the morning on a Tuesday in November.

Their phone buzzed on the concrete floor beside them. Riley reached for it without looking away from the carburettor they were rebuilding, muscle memory guiding their hand to the screen.

**Meg**: *You're still at the shop, aren't you?*

Riley grinned and typed one-handed: *How did you know?*

**Meg**: *Because I drove past and saw the lights on. Also because you're predictable. Go home.*

*Five more minutes.*

**Meg**: *You said that three hours ago. Jake texted me worried.*

*Jake needs to stop tracking my location.*

**Meg**: *Jake needs to stop WORRYING about you like you're his kid. But until you stop pulling all-nighters in his shop, that's not happening. Did you take your meds today?*

Riley paused, trying to remember. Morning meds, yes. Evening meds... maybe? The day had been a blur of brake jobs and oil changes and one extremely satisfying transmission rebuild.

*Probably?*

**Meg**: *Riley.*

*I'll take them when I get home. Promise.*

**Meg**: *WHEN you get home. Which should be now. Sleep is a thing humans need.*

*Sleep is overrated. Motorcycles are forever.*

**Meg**: *You're impossible. I love you. Go home before I call your therapist.*

*You don't have my therapist's number.*

**Meg**: *I'll get it from Jake. Don't test me.*

Riley set down their phone, smiling despite themselves. This was what family looked like-people who cared enough to call you out on your bullshit at 2 AM. People who knew that ADHD time blindness meant "five more minutes" could easily become five more hours if nobody intervened.

Not their biological family, who hadn't called in seven months and still used their deadname when they texted. But the family Riley had built here in Willow Creek. Jake and Emma. Meg and Carmen. Tom and

David. Even Mrs. Henderson, who had taken exactly one week to switch to Riley's correct pronouns and now corrected anyone who got it wrong.

Riley wiped their hands on a rag and rolled out from under the motorcycle. The shop was quiet except for the hum of the space heater and the distant sound of a truck passing on Main Street. Jake's shop. Riley's refuge. The place where things made sense even when nothing else did.

The CB750 sat on its stand, half-reassembled, beautiful in its incompleteness. Riley had bought it for $500 from a guy in Millbrook who'd been convinced it was beyond repair. But Riley knew better. Everything could be fixed. You just had to understand how the pieces fit together.

Unlike people, motorcycles had manuals. Unlike relationships, carburettors didn't require you to guess what they needed.

Riley's phone buzzed again. This time it was Jake: *Meg says you're still there. I'm not mad. Just checking in. You good?*

Riley looked around the shop-at the Mustang in the corner that Jake still drove on weekends, at the new mechanic's toolbox by the far wall, at the coffee maker that Emma had installed last month because she was tired of Riley drinking motor oil by accident.