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“I’ll be out of your hair tonight. Today, when you were out, your neighbor across the street brought his son over. Apparently he and his little friend were stealing beers from his dad’s fridge and drinking them in your backyard. They tried to get into your house to steal liquor. The good news is you’ve got a kid whose dad is making him mow your lawn for the next month.”

I looked over at her, and the expression on her face looked like disappointment.

Disappointment.

Could she feel the same way about this that I did? Was it possible she didn’t want me to leave either?

“Oh. Well, I’m glad the mystery is solved and you’re off the hook,” she said.

“Can I be honest?” I paused, debating what to say. “I liked hanging out with you.” It was the closest thing that I could bring myself to say to her without feeling like I was crossing a line.

“I liked hanging out with you too,” she said quietly.

The silence between us was heavy.

Why did I feel like we were breaking up? I guess in a way, we were. The two of us as we knew it was about to be over.

On Monday when I got to her house, I’d have to meet this guy. Shake his hand. See them together. I didn’t think I could do it. I really didn’t. I was going to give her my notice. I’d help out until she found someone, but I couldn’t stick around after this.

The taco place ended up being a food truck. It sat in a vacant parking lot in the seediest part of Los Angeles with poor lighting and grass poking out from the cracks in the asphalt.

It made me wish I had my gun.

Tents on the sidewalk lined the outside of the lot’s fence, and the streetlight over the entrance flickered.

“Are you sure you want to eat here?” I asked, turning off the engine and scanning our surroundings, not liking at all what I was seeing. Buildings with broken windows, graffiti on the walls. I responded to calls to areas like these frequently. None of them good. Stabbings, overdoses—rapes.

“Why? You don’t have to parallel park. What’s the problem?”

I scoffed. “Really? Parallel parking is the only thing that would keep you from eating here? Look at this place.”

“These are the best tacos in the city,” she said, getting unbuckled. “And don’t pretend you know how to parallel park. We both know how well you drive.” She grinned at me.

An old homeless guy who had been sitting on the inside of the fence shambled toward the car. “Nope. Let’s go.” I said, turning the key in the ignition. It made a weak cranking noise that I didn’t have time to process because Kristen opened the door and got out.

“Shit,” I mumbled, quickly following. The door didn’t close all the way when I slammed it, but I didn’t have time to fix it. The homeless guy was almost to the car, and Kristen was…walking toward him?

“Hey, Marv,” she said as I bolted in front of her to put myself between them. I threw an arm across her chest and a hand out to stop the toothless man’s advance.

“Hey,” Marv said, ignoring me and talking around me to Kristen like I wasn’t there.

She rummaged in her purse and handed him two dollar bills over my arm.

“Enjoy your food. Your door’s open, son,” the guy said before shuffling back to the fence.

Kristen turned to me. “He’s the guy who watches the lot. Come on.” She motioned to the taco truck.

My heart still thrummed in my ears. “Are you serious? The guy who ‘watches the lot’?” I followed her, looking over my shoulder back at the man.

“Yeah, it’s a thing. Kinda the Skid Row version of valet. He picks up trash, keeps the shady guys out. He does a good job. Look, no needles anywhere. And that guy’ll shank somebody for so much as looking at our car. Not that it’s anything to look at.” She gave me a crooked smile.

I shook my head. “You have no survival instincts, do you? You deliver dog sweaters to a felon, hunker down when you’ve got a prowler in the yard. Now you’re paying off homeless guys who ‘watch the lot.’”

“Hey, my instincts are spot-on. The prowler turned out to be a nonissue. And anyway, I already know how I’m going to die.”

We stopped in front of the truck window. The generator made a whirring noise, and the scrape of spatulas on a sizzling grill clinked from inside.

“How?” I asked.