Evan pulled up to Lily's trailer at seven sharp. It was another moist summer morning, the air thick and flowery. The dirt road leading to Lily's trailer park stank of rot and mud. The sun struggled through a lace of mist.

Evan was really hoping he wouldn't have to go inside and get her and potentially meet her male roommate, who was undoubtedly a drug dealer of some kind, big as a junkyard pit bull and just as mean-- a hulking predator of a man who would probably belittle him in front of her, totally compromising his chances of scoring.

Fortunately when he pulled up, there she was, waiting for him on the dirty wooden porch steps with her bag next to her, surrounded by dead leaves and cigarette butts overflowing from an old coffee can. The black pick-up was gone from the driveway.

She was smoking and texting and looking serene.

He waved through the window, the car running, but she just gave him a cursory head toss and continued texting and smoking her cigarette. He sat and waited a moment, then rolled down the window.

"Hey!"

"Hey."

"You ready?"

"Yeah, I'm just waiting for someone."

"Oh... well, do you want to wait in here with me?"

"No."

"...oh, okay."

"He's almost here. It'll only take a second."

She exhaled a jet of smoke and looked at her phone.

Evan sat back and waited. And waited. And waited. After five minutes he began to want to say something to Lily, and after ten minutes he opened his mouth to speak up.

"How long is—," he began, but then Lily waved vigorously at something behind him and he turned to look.

A black sedan with shiny silver rims rolled up behind Evan. The driver door opened and out came a threatening-looking guy in sunglasses. He glanced Evan's way like a coyote looking at a tortoise.

He strode over to Lily and hugged her with his tattooed, piledriver arms. The two of them went inside.

After an additional five to ten minutes, they emerged and the threatening guy went to his car and Lily came over to Evan's car.

Lily was now as sunny as could be, her bag over one shoulder. She reached the car and tried opening the door but it was locked.

Evan scrambled for the button, unlocked it, accidentally locked it again when she tried to open it, then unlocked it again but she pulled the door handle at the same time and fucked up the locking mechanism and it didn't catch. She let go of the handle and waited. He locked and unlocked the door one final time and she opened it and got in, swinging her bag into the backseat.

The black sedan pulled out from behind them and rolled down the street like a shark prowling the shallows. Evan started his Civic and followed the guy out towards the entrance of the trailer park.

"What was that about?" he asked her, nodding at the sedan.

"Look, I brought my book of CDs," said Lily, not acknowledging the question. "Cause I remembered your car doesn't have any way of hooking up to an iPod."

"Oh, cool," said Evan. "Yeah, I just listen to CDs or the radio. I've got mine, too."

He gestured to the backseat where his own fat black book of CDs lay open faced.

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"What's your favorite band," Lily wanted to know.

"U2," said Evan, proudly.

"UGH," said Lily, disgusted. "Bono. Yuck."

"Hey, they-they're- they're, like, one of the biggest bands in the world," Evan protested, shocked and a little hurt by her reaction.

"Yeah, more like, were," said Lily, half-playfully, half-derisively. "I guarantee you in like five years they're gonna put out another album and no one's gonna care."

Evan was offended but didn't want to be too confrontational.

"W-well, who do you like," he asked. He should give her some sass back. She was being sassy. "Miss Sassy-pants?"

Lily looked at him like he'd just told her he'd shit himself.

"Oh, my God," she said. "You are so cute."

Evan's entire body rang like a cloister of church bells at the compliment.

She flipped through her book, reading off the names of CDs.

"Let's see... I like Alkaline Trio, I like Death Cab, I like Pantera, I like pretty much anything Mike Patton does, I like Deftones, Clutch, Tool, Mastodon, Rise Against, I LOVE Billy Talent..."

She flipped through the book.

"God, I haven't looked through this in so long, I usually just go off my phone."

"Who's your favorite band?" Evan asked her.

"I'd probably have to go with Billy Talent," she said, after considering for a moment.

Evan hated Billy Talent but he wanted to be nicer about it than she'd been about U2. At the same time, he didn't want to give her the wrong impression and get stuck listening to the Billy Talent singer's nasal voice all day.

"Well, it's funny, cause I gotta say," he said. "The way you feel about U2, I feel about Billy Talent."

He waited, then added, "There's few bands in this world I can say I legitimately hate, and Billy Talent is one of them."

"That's too bad for you," said Lily. "I'm all about them. Clancy at work calls me Lily Talent cause I used to dance to Devil On My Shoulder all the time."

"Who's Clancy?"

"You remember, the black guy the other night? One of my managers. It's my Facebook name."

"Oh, yeah."

Evan's mind flashed to the friend request. Had she seen it?

"I almost never go on Facebook, by the way," said Lily. "I haven't been on it in like, months."

Whew.

"So who are you staying with in the trailer?"

"My friend."

"Oh, the night shift guy?"

"No, another guy."

"And he's not your boyfriend?"

"No, he's just a friend. He's also my boss."

Daddy. She's living with Daddy, Evan thought. Daddy, with the lazy eye. Old, flabby, scary Daddy.

His gut turned to liquid metal.

That kiss the older man had planted on Lily's forehead the other night now took on an even more sinister bent.

Evan played it cool. But a thin scrim of sweat broke out on his forehead, and his abdomen now felt like a hollow winter cavern with bats fluttering around in it.

"Oh, is that the guy you were with the other night, when you were leaving the Blue?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"How old is he?"

"Like in his thirties, I think."

"Ah."

Unbelievable. He thought of Daddy's massive hands around Lily's tiny waist, his hips thrusting violently.

Evan nearly began to cry. He swallowed.

It was official. She was having sex with someone on the regular. Evan had a face to put to the action. And it was the most horrific possible face.

"Let's listen to something," said Lily, thankfully derailing his train of thought. "You want to pick or should I?"

"Can we wait until we get on the freeway, actually?" Evan said, hoping his distress wasn't showing. "I have to stop at work and get my check and then deposit it, so we're still about forty-five minutes away from actually leaving here."

"Oh," said Lily. "Well, we can still listen to something. Here, let me put in Billy Talent and if you don't like them by the time we get to your work we don't have to listen to them again. As long as you don't make me listen to U2. Deal?"

"Deal."

He thought of Daddy and her cuddling. He thought of them spending every night together.

Lily threw in a CD. A song began, loud and jagged.

Yes, Evan definitely still hated Billy Talent. The guy's voice was what really killed the whole thing.

"Where do you work?" Lily wanted to know.

"Kensington."

"Oh, the park?"

"Yeah."

"Nice. What do you do?"

"I'm a janitor."

"A janitor?"

"Yeah."

"In a park?"

"Yeah."

"Do you like, sweep the dirt paths or something?"

"I clean the buildings. The park office, the nature center, all the bathrooms."

"Ohhh, right... right. Must be nice. Y'know, to, like, be outside all the time and stuff."

"It's all right," said Evan. "I like it. I like the people I work with, and mostly I just drive around all day. Occasionally there's some godless messes but mostly it's really peaceful. And I make decent money. This paycheck is covering this whole weekend."

"Do you get paid every week or every other week?"

"Every other week."

Lily nodded, half-interested. She turned up Billy Talent and pulled out her phone again. Evan said nothing.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the carpenter shop behind the park office at Kensington. Evan killed the Civic's engine, neatly parked in his usual spot.

Rex and Rex's assistants James and Greg were standing out by the picnic table near the carpenter shop door. One by one they headed inside. It was just before 8:30, break time.

"It'll just be a second," said Evan, turning down Billy Talent and undoing his seat belt.

"I'll be here" said Lily, her eyes on her phone. She pulled out her cigarettes and lit another.

"I'll leave the keys in for you."

"Thanks, bro."