“You and Hutchins talk. You are friends.”

Chris glanced at Hutchins, who had his arm slung through one of the hanging straps to keep himself more or less upright, wishing he would wake up and explain things to Mr. Okeefenokee. “You can’t just be friends. You have to spend time alone together so you can talk without other people listening, and so you can…”

“Neck,” Hutchins said, yawning. He eased his arm out of the strap.

“Neck?” Okee said, with the smile starting again that meant he didn’t understand. He put his hand on his neck.

“Mr. Hutchins means kissing,” Chris said, glaring at Hutchins. He was looking at Okee, though, with that thoughtful expression on his face again. “This is our stop.”

It was raining when they came out of the station. People were asleep on the sidewalks, huddled under umbrellas and makeshift tents. There were half a dozen asleep under the overhang of Chris’s building. Inside, Mr. Nagisha lay curled up by the front door with his arm around his lap terminal and disk files.

“Shh,” she said, and tiptoed to the stairs.

Hutchins tiptoed after her, stopping to take off his shoes. Mr. Okeefenokee followed, juggling his bento-bako boxes. Fan Tan Fannie’s fan dragged across Mr. Nagisha’s nose. He sneezed but didn’t wake up.

Chris started up the stairs. The old man was stretched out like a corpse on the third step up, his hands crossed on his breast and the baseball cap over his face. His running shoes were on the step above him, and his feet in their pink socks stuck through the banisters.

There were at least five extra people sleeping on the landing, each clutching an overnight lease contract. Mr. Nagisha must be making a killing. Molly and Bets’s mothers were asleep sitting up against the banister, still holding an open copy of Variety between them.

Molly was asleep against the door of Chris’s apartment, wrapped in a sleeping bag with blue kittens on it.