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.
“Spider bite. Or being sarcastic at the wrong time.”
I chuckled as two more cars pulled into the lot in quick succession. A nice SUV and an older model Honda. The rest of my guard dropped.
“Do you like everything?” she asked. “Onions? Hot stuff?” The smell of cooking meat drifted out of the window, and a gray-haired man in a dirty white apron waited for our order as moths fluttered around the light over the whiteboard menu.
“I eat everything,” I said.
She ordered for us, and I paid, putting a twenty through the window before she had a chance to object.
“This isn’t a date,” she reminded me, trying to hand over her own cash. She never let me pay.
“Yeah, but you paid for our protection,” I argued.
She didn’t look pleased, but she accepted my excuse. I watched her standing there, and a twinge of regret that this wasn’t a date washed over me.
I couldn’t believe I had to give her up.
When our food came out, she gave three tacos to Marv and we sat on the hood of the car to eat.
“That was pretty sexy back there when you went Marine Corps on that guy,” she said as she pulled off her heels and chucked them through the open sunroof.
“I wouldn’t have let him touch you.” I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, ever.
She took a sip of her Sprite. “I know. That’s what was sexy about it.”
For all her claims that she found me sexy, it did me no good whatsoever. She didn’t want me. None of this would continue once her boyfriend was here. I wouldn’t be able to take her out for tacos or show up with pizza. I wouldn’t even be able to sit in