Anna gives Maeve’s shoulder a squeeze, but the gesture knocks them both off balance, and Maeve recovers by grabbing Anna’s arm so she won’t fall. They’re laughing, and Maeve is grateful for the moment. The temperature has taken a serious dip. Anna flops along in her giant snowshoes, a scarf wound around her face so that just her eyes are showing. Her explanation, that she grew up in the South and never saw a snowflake until she was twenty-five, is a reasonable one. How can anyone be expected to grow used to this kind of cold?

There’s a moment of quiet between them, both women relaxing into it. An unstated, easy closeness. Maeve glances up, gauging their privacy. Looking to see if the others are far enough ahead for the two of them to really talk. With Sadie left behind, it feels like the right time to tell Anna about her, how Sadie might get her kicks from spying on others or might have it in for Dan in some crazy way. She’d hate for Anna to get caught in the crossfire.

But it seems a shame to break the moment with something so ugly. She doesn’t want to push Anna away.

“Look—” she begins, but Anna cuts her off.

“Hey, I didn’t fuck things up for you last night, did I?”

Maeve tries to recalibrate.

“With Nielssen,” Anna says. “I wondered if I was, you know. Interrupting. A cockblock. But for girls.”

“Oh,” Maeve says. “I believe the expression you want is beaver dam.”

“Yes. Did I dam your beaver?”

“You did not.” Maeve looks ahead to where the others are, checking the distance between them again. She pulls her thin hood a little closer over her ears and gives a comical shrug. “I…just kinda wanted to go to bed. Is that bad?”

“He finds himself irresistible, so why wouldn’t you?” Anna waits, but when Maeve doesn’t respond right away, she puts on her best high-society accent: “Ohhhh—he thinks it’s an affair.”

“I don’t know what he thinks,” Maeve says. “Maybe I’m just thrown off by”—she gestures around them—“the unexpected winter wonderland. I thought it was a one-nighter! With a goddamn sculptor! Aren’t artists supposed to be promiscuous loners?” She’s laughing now. “I mean, Gawd.”

“Well, we weren’t expecting to be up here playing Swiss Family Robinson in the snow,” Anna says. “Maybe he’s just bored.”

Maeve nods and watches Sim walking up ahead.