Page 60 of Ruthless Edge

I get back behind the wheel and we head for the highway, and for the first ten minutes I keep things easy by asking about her binder, whether she's got everything she needs, whether the hotel confirmed the time. Emma answers all of it with efficiency. She's got a checklist. Of course she's got a checklist.

By the time we hit the on-ramp she's loosened slightly, shoulders down, binder in her lap instead of clutched to her chest. I reach for my phone and pull up the playlist I made last night, which took longer than I'm going to admit to anyone.

Hacksack Blues. First track. One they’ve only performed live.

Emma's head turns immediately. "You have this?"

"Seems like the right road trip music."

She settles back in her seat, and I let it run for about forty-five seconds before I start singing.

I'm not a bad singer. This is important context for what I do next, which is to be a terrible singer on purpose. I hit the wrong key, wrong tempo, making up words I don't know with absolute commitment to the syllable count.

Emma is shaking her head. "Knox."

I keep going.

"Knox, that's not even close to the right⁠—"

"I'm feeling it," I say, between verses.

"You're ruining it. That's one of my favorite songs."

"Really?" I sing louder.

"You're doing it wrong."

"I'm doing it my way."

She makes a sound of extreme suffering and looks out the window, and I can see her profile in the glass and she's trying not to smile, which is the only piece of information I need. I keep going through the chorus, fully committed, watching her resistance erode in real time.

She lasts until the second verse. Then, quietly, almost under her breath, she starts singing the actual words.

I don't react. I just let her go, let her think I haven't noticed. She gets a little louder, then I join in with the correct lyrics for the bridge. By the time the next song starts we're both just singing, no pretense about it, and Emma is laughing when she gets a line wrong and doubles back to fix it.

"It's a lighthouse," she says. "Not a life vest."

"A life vest makes more sense."

"It's a lighthouse. It's clearly a lighthouse."

"Lighthouses don't move toward you."

"It's a metaphor, Knox."

"A life vest moves with you," I say. "It's right there."

"I'm going to find an interview where he confirms it's a lighthouse and I'm going to send it to you."

"I'll read it," I say. "I'll still think it’s a life vest."

She laughs and the next song starts and we go again, and two hours have never passed this fast in my life. I keep stealing looks at her when she's watching the road or scrolling her phone for a lyric she wants to check. She sings with her whole face, which I know she doesn't realize. When she really knows a song she stops being careful about it.

This is the thing I've been trying to get back to since the first week of committee meetings. Not necessarily the part where I'm in love with her, though that's not going anywhere, but this part, where Emma is comfortable enough to sing with me in a car and not worry about it. The wall she keeps between us is usually about twelve feet thick and made of something I don't have the right tool for. Right now it's gone. I want to know how to keep it gone.

The Hawthorne comes into view on the left side of the highway and I feel genuinely let down.

"That's it," Emma says, leaning forward.