Ellie’s face lit up.
“Oh, I love this one.”
I looked toward the speakers because looking at her suddenly felt dangerous.
“Do you?”
“Perfect equipment-cleaning music.”
“That’s a category?”
“A very important one. There’s music for driving, music for crying, and music for pretending you’re not cleaning someone else’s sand out of a wetsuit.” She lifted her cup toward the speaker. “This belongs in the last category.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“Do you know who sings it?”
Ellie gave me a look like I had asked whether dolphins were waterproof.
“Savannah Brooks.”
The name hit the table and sat there between the coffee cups.
My body prepared itself again.
This was the moment when the air changed. When Annie disappeared and Savannah walked in wearing my face.
But Ellie only tore a piece from her muffin and popped it into her mouth.
“So you know her,” I said carefully.
“I mean, who doesn’t? Unless you only listen to whale sounds or men with banjos and unresolved feelings.”
“That eliminates more of the country chart than you’d think.”
“You’re not wrong.”
Any sensible fugitive would have nodded, finished her sandwich, and avoided discussing her own market positioning before breakfast.
Unfortunately, Ellie’s complete lack of reverence made me reckless.
“I like some of her music,” I said. “But she always seems a little artificial in interviews.”
Ellie tilted her head.
“Artificial how?”
“You know. Polished. Smiling at the right time. Saying whatever everyone expects her to say. Pretending each answer just occurred to her instead of being reviewed by a publicist, a manager, a record label, and possibly a focus group in Ohio.”
The words tasted stranger than I expected.
I had meant them as bait. Something light. A way to find out whether Ellie was a serious fan or whether she had merely survived repeated exposure to my summer single.
Instead, I sounded like someone who knew exactly where the costume pinched.
Ellie considered it.
“I wouldn’t know.”
