(Rebecca's POV)
The same coastline. The same car. The same playlist — jazz arguing with a synthesizer, defending itself with citations from a journal no one subscribes to.
"Tempo progression." Eric's hand leaves the wheel to conduct. "Matched to the coastal drive's emotional arc."
"You rehearsed that in the shower."
"Twice." He doesn't deny it. He has never denied it.
I do not pump his gas this time.
I sit in the passenger seat with a bag of chips balanced on my thigh and the ocean opening wide and gray through the clean windshield, and I do nothing else. My hand twitches once — toward the dashboard vents, toward the angle that would direct airflow at him instead of me — and I catch it. Put it back in my lap. The old programming fires and misfires and fires again, quieter each time,
