Jeff Blackhawk was asleep on her couch when Mira got back to the apartment. His socks were off, tossed on her floor. He had his jacket pulled over him as a blanket. She passed him without stopping on the way to the twins, who were just where she’d hoped they would be: in their cribs, asleep. Matty had his cow down at the bottom of the crib, by his feet. Andy’s rested against his cheek. She kissed their heads, breathed in the sweet sweaty scent of them. She closed their door softly behind her.
In the hallway, she hesitated, looking toward the couch. Should she wake him? Let him know she was back and he could go home?
But no one should be driving in this storm anyway, she thought. And, surely, if her opening the door, crossing the room, and clearing her throat hadn’t woken him up, he needed his sleep.
She would not, she decided, wake him.
She changed into a T-shirt of Clark’s and, after brushing her teeth quickly, got into bed.
“Jesus, Jeff,” Mira said to him in the morning. Her hand was trembling as she put the phone back on its cradle. “I can’t believe this. You’re never going to speak to me again. I’m the friend from hell.”
“No.” Jeff was shaking his head, rubbing his eyes. “It’s fine.”
“I’ll tell him twenty minutes. That’s it. I’ll be back before the twins wake up.”
“Believe me, if Fleming hadn’t called, I’d still be asleep until then myself. I may never have mentioned this, Mira, but I sleep like the dead.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, and put her hands over her face. “What does he want, Jeff? Why did he call me in the morning, at seven o’clock? What’s he even doing in his office at this hour? Didn’t he think I got enough of a reprimand yesterday? He’s hauling me back in already?”
Dean Fleming had said, “I need you to be in my office as soon as possible. I would prefer that it be within the hour,” and the tone had taken her breath away. She’d started to shake—although, in truth, she’d woken up shaking when the phone rang, with no idea where she was, and only the vaguest awareness that she had run out of bed to answer it.
“The man’s an administrator, Mira. He probably sleeps in his office. Or he doesn’t sleep. Who knows where administrators go when the lights go out?”
She liked that Jeff was making light of it without trying to make her feel stupid for being worried. Clark would have dismissed it, been annoyed by her “overreaction to every little thing,” but Jeff told her he’d be worried, too. “It’s creepy.”
But he didn’t seem to have any guesses, either, about what the dean could want.
Mira did what she could with her hair, her face. She pulled on a white blouse, black skirt, and a sweater. Jeff was asleep on the couch again by the time she closed, and locked, the door behind her.