"Good." He'd just completed a clean circuit of thelot, slow and wobbling but uninterrupted. "Now try a turn."
His head snapped toward me. "A turn?"
"Gentle. Wide arc. Keep your speed low and look where you want to go, not at the ground."
"What if I fall?"
"Then you'll learn something."
Tyler stared at me for a moment, something unreadable flickering through his expression. Then he squared his shoulders, pointed the Sportster toward the far end of the lot, and began to move.
The first turn was ugly—too sharp, too fast, the bike leaning further than his body was prepared for. He overcorrected, jerked the handlebars, and somehow muscled through it without stalling or dropping.
"Worse." I called it out before he could feel proud. "Try again."
"Worse?"
"You fought the bike. Don't fight it. Work with it."
He tried again. And again. By the fifth attempt, the turns were starting to smooth out—still wobbly, still uncertain, but recognizably turns rather than controlled crashes. His body was learning to lean with the bike instead of against it.
"Better. Take a break. Your hands need rest."
Tyler dismounted and flexed his fingers, grimacing. His palms were probably cramped, the small muscles burning from two hours of sustained grip.
"How do you do this for hours at a time?"
"Practice. Your hands will build endurance."
"My hands feel like they're going to fall off."
"They won't. They just want you to think they will."
He laughed at that—a short, surprised sound that transformed his face. The guarded watchfulness dropped away for just a moment, replaced by something younger, lighter.
I looked away and reached for a water bottle.
"I want to try the figure-eight."
We'd been at it for nearly three hours. Tyler's shirt was soaked through, his face flushed with heat and exertion, but the determination in his voice hadn't wavered.
I'd set up cones at the far end of the lot—a simple course for low-speed maneuvering, two circles joined at the center. We'd practiced the approach once, with mixed results.
"Your hands need more rest."
"One more try." He was already moving back toward the bike. "I almost had it before."
He'd almost dropped the bike before, but I didn't say that. Something in his expression—the stubbornness, the need to prove something to himself—made me step aside instead of arguing.
"One more. Then we're done for the day."
He mounted, started the engine, and eased the bike toward the cones with a smoothness that hadn't existed two hours ago. Progress showed in everymovement—the looser grip, the steadier posture, the way he'd stopped death-clutching the handlebars every time the bike moved beneath him.
The first turn of the figure-eight went cleanly. He'd found the friction zone quickly, keeping the bike at a steady crawl, leaning his body into the curve the way I'd shown him. The cones passed on his left, orange and weathered, and he began the second half of the pattern.
I saw the problem before he did.
His speed was wrong—too fast for the tightness of the turn, his body not leaning far enough to compensate. The front wheel cut sharper than his momentum could handle, and suddenly the Sportster was tipping, gravity taking hold, the whole machine starting to fall toward the low side.
