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It feels hopeful enough now that conversation comes easier.

Talk drifts somewhere beyond Maggie, beyond shelter routes and timelines. We talk about ordinary things that feel almost foreign after the past few weeks.

Briggs starts it accidentally while complaining about roadside coffee tasting “emotionally dishonest.”

Laurel snorts softly. “What does that even mean?”

“It promises everything but tastes like disappointment and battery acid.”

“That’s because you drink coffee like somebody trying to survive interrogation.”

“You put cinnamon in yours.”

“I contain whimsy,” she replies.

Torin makes a thoughtful sound beside Briggs. “No, you don’t.”

Laurel turns slightly in her seat. “Excuse me?”

“You organize your emails for fun.”

“That’s called professionalism.”

“It’s concerning is what it is.”

I listen while they argue about coffee classifications for nearly ten minutes.

The thing about forced proximity is that people eventually stop performing. Walls slip. Patterns show.

Laurel gets sarcastic when comfortable. Briggs grows softer around laughter. Torin speaks more when the atmosphere relaxes enough that silence stops feeling necessary.

Apparently, I keep looking at Laurel every time she speaks without realizing I’m doing it.

I catch myself looking at her again and immediately regret how automatic it’s becoming.

Further along, conversation shifts unexpectedly toward childhoods.

Briggs blames the playlist. “You put on Fleetwood Mac,” he tells Torin. “That’s dangerous music.”

Laurel says, “Ben used to play this album constantly.”

My hands tighten briefly against the steering wheel. I glance over and see her expression softened by memory.

“He couldn’t sing at all,” she continues. “He had genuinely catastrophic levels of confidence without ability. Maggie used to throw couch pillows at him to make him stop.”

Briggs laughs behind us. “Yeah. Sounds like Ben.”

Warmth settles among us afterward.

Grief too.

Laurel glances toward me suddenly. “What were you like as a teenager, Ashby?”

“I was exactly like this,” I answer.

Briggs makes a choking sound behind me. “That’s a downright lie.”

“It’s objectively true.”