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“Definitely not.”

“What about dramatic musician staring at a dramatic ocean?”

I look over at him. “That depends. How dramatic can you look?”

He shifts his gaze toward the horizon and gives me his best serious expression.

I laugh before I can stop myself. “Terrible.”

“Wow.”

“You asked.”

We stay there a while longer, and the conversation wanders away from the album without either of us deciding to change the subject.

Zander mentions a little town in Portugal where they had half a day off and ended up eating at a place none of them could pronounce. I tell him about a bakery near my old apartment in San Francisco that I still miss enough to consider driving five hours for a pastry.

That turns into a debate over how far is reasonable to drive for food, which somehow carries us all the way back to the truck.

We eat lunch at a picnic table above the beach, sandwiches spread out between us while the wind moves through the grass along the bluff. Zander stretches his legs out beneath the table and looks toward the water.

“This was a good idea,” I say.

“The sandwiches?”

“The whole day.”

He looks back at me, and his smile softens a little. “Yeah. It was.”

I take another bite and look out at the ocean, trying not to make too much of how easy this feels.

We stay at the table after we’ve finished eating, talking about nothing important. A dog on the beach that refuses to bring a ball back to its owner. Conlin deciding last week that Zander needed him to check the gas lines on the duplex, just to be sure they’re safe. Nell’s growing conviction that everyone who walks into Black Fern secretly wants a fern tattoo, whether they know it or not.

When we finally head back toward the truck, I glance at the time and realize we could easily call it a day. I have more than enough photos to work with, and we’ve been out for hours.

“We should probably head back,” I say, even though I’m not particularly excited about the idea.

Zander looks at me as he opens my door. “Do you want to?”

The answer comes easier than I expect. “Not really.”

His smile tells me that’s exactly what he was hoping I’d say.

So instead of turning toward Redwood Point, we keep following the coast. There’s no plan anymore, which might be why the rest of the afternoon feels so relaxed. We stop at another beach simply because it looks quiet, and this time I leave the camera and sketchbook in the truck.

We walk close to the water, talking without any real direction. Zander tells me about the limited number of things he can cook without consulting a recipe. Somewhere after that we get sidetracked into movies we’ve walked out of, terrible first jobs, and the kind of food neither of us understands people willingly eat.

None of it matters, and I think that’s why I like it so much.

There’s no tattoo appointment waiting, no band business to discuss, no argument hovering around the edges. We’re just walking along the beach with nowhere else we need to be, and every time Zander makes me laugh, I find myself moving a little closer to him.

By the time we finally turn back toward the truck, I can barely remember the last time we had harsh words for each other.

The sun is getting lower when we pass through a small coastal town and hear music coming from a building near the end of the block. The place has a wooden sign out front, a couple of strings of lights around the windows, and a chalkboard announcing a local band starting at seven.

Zander slows as we drive past.

I glance toward the open door. “Want to go in?”