Maeve thinks about warning Steve, telling not to ask the question she thinks he's about to ask, because there's no taking it back, but it's said before she even has the chance. She grows still beside him, very still, her body clutched under fingers gripping the spine so hard her knuckles start to turn white.

"That isn't a fair question at all," she says. "It feels like a trap. You know I've already had an abortion, you know I don't want to be a mother, and you're asking me about something that will likely never happen, some hypothetical maybe, knowing the answer is only going to make you feel worse. I'm not playing that."

For the first time tonight, she's angry, but at least she's mostly taking it out on the book. The pages are so bent now she's sure they'll be impossible to flatten out again.