Leo grinned. “Lesson two: Why you never store a raft on concrete.”

Leo didn’t move. He unzipped the bag, pulled out a wadded repair kit, and held up a leaf. “You don’t repack a raft,” he said quietly. “You rebirth it.”

“Sit down,” Leo said. Not mean. Like a coach.

Step five: The repack. He rolled the raft from bow to stern, squeezed out residual air like rolling a sleeping bag, then nestled it into the bag with the repair kit, pump adapter, and a laminated checklist. “Now,” he said, “when you’re thirty miles from a takeout and a rock snags your floor, you’ll know exactly where your patch is. Because you put it there.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “It’s just folding and stuffing.”

Maya ran the Rogue that weekend. On day two, a submerged root wrenched a valve slightly loose. She remembered Leo’s checklist, found the wrench in the side pocket, fixed it in six minutes, and kept going.

“Teach me the rest,” she said.