“I’m not pretending nothing happened. It’s just, I mean—” How to say this? Maeve feels like wringing her hands. The day has been so long and so strange, and she just wants it to be over. “Nothing really happened? Right? It was super-fun, okay, it was a fun night. But I’m here, I’m trying to work, there’s a goddamn avalanche, I’m worried about my kids. Cut me some slack, man.”

Something in what she’s said—she can’t tell what—stops him. The smirk disappears. He nods. “I keep forgetting you have kids.”

Maeve leans toward him, relieved that he’s finally listening. “I have kids. Two of them, little kids.”

He takes that in. She glances up to the door again and then back to where he’s standing.

“You must be really worried.”

“I am,” she says, opting for the full earnest. It feels a little like cracking her heart open: it hurts. “It’s really hard for me to think about anything else.”

“That makes sense, then.”

Maeve is not quite sure what to do with this. She wasn’t trying to make excuses or help him understand. She was trying to say No, thanks.

From down the stairs, there’s a long creak of the lobby door opening and then a new set of footsteps. Maeve looks down between the rails. It really is Anna this time.

“Hello?” Anna stops at the first landing, shining her own phone up at them.

Maeve raises a hand, a kind of wave. Anna climbs another step or two, trying to see. When she lands the thin beam on Sim, it’s obvious—she leans back and out again, catches Maeve’s eye.

“What’s going on up there?”

Maeve looks from Anna back to Sim. There’s a beat, his eyes on hers.

“Nothing,” Maeve says. “Just having a chat.”

But Anna doesn’t move. She holds up a pack of cigarettes.

“Think you can give me a hand?” she says. “I was going out for a smoke. Dan’s got all the doors locked tight, and I don’t feel like arguing. He’s a little wired tonight. I thought I could prop this one open for a minute before he notices.”

Maeve can see that Sim is less comfortable with this new dynamic. This interruption. There’s a moment of silence, and then he calls down to Anna himself:

“I can help you with the door.”

“Great,” Anna says. “There’s a free smoke in it for you.”

Sim just nods and reaches up to touch Maeve’s arm. He doesn’t try to move in any closer, but he gives her a little bow.

“Get some sleep, Queen Bee,” he says.

He has a way of talking to her that’s disarming. His eyes never break contact.