In the morning she went out in the rain, which was light but steady, and put up the storm shutters. Her neighbors were doing the same. Cut herself on the back of the hand while she was working on the next-to-last one. Bled everywhere. Alan pulled up in Jason’s car while she was still cursing. He went into the house and got her a Band-Aid. They put up the last two shutters without talking.

Finally Alan said, “It was my fault. I don’t think he does drugs.”

“He’s not a bad kid,” she said. “So not your type.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Not about that. You know. I guess I mean about everything.”

They went back into the house and he saw his backpack. “Well,” he said.

“Filhatz warfoon meh,” she said. “Bilbil tuh.”

“Nent bruk,” he said. No kidding.

He didn’t stay for breakfast. She didn’t feel any less or more real after he left.

The six sleepers were out of the warehouse and Jason had a completed stack of paperwork for her. Lots of signatures. Lots of duplicates and triplicates and fucklicates, as Valentina liked to say.

“Not bad,” Lindsey said. “Did Jack Harris offer you a job?”

“He offered to come hand me my ass,” Jason said. “I said he’d have to get in line. Nasty weather. Are you staying out there?”

“Where would I go?” she said. “There’s a big party at The Splinter tonight. It’s not like I have to come in to work tomorrow.”

“I thought they were evacuating the Keys, after all,” he said.

“It’s voluntary,” she said. “They don’t care if we stay or go. I’ve been through hurricanes. When Alan and I were kids, we spent one camped in a bathtub under a mattress. Read comics with a flashlight all night long. The noise is the worst thing. Good luck with Alan, by the way.”

“I’ve never lived with anybody before.” So maybe he knew just enough to know he had no idea what he had gotten himself into with Alan. “I’ve never fallen for anybody like this.”

“There isn’t anybody like Alan,” she said. “He has the power to cloud and confuse the minds of men.”

“What’s your superpower?” Jason said.

“He clouds and confuses,” she said. “I confuse and then cloud. It’s the order we do it in that you have to pay attention to.”

She told Mr. Charles the good news about Jack Harris; they had a cup of coffee together to celebrate, then locked the warehouse down. Mr. Charles had to pick up his kids at school. Hurricanes meant holidays. You didn’t get snow days in Florida.