The next day Evan and Lily both slept in until late morning. By the time they got up it was stifling outside.

"The signal here sucks," said Lily, sitting up in bed, hair a tragic nest once again. "I can't get on Facebook and I need to."

After two nights going to bed angry, Evan felt a dagger in his heart when his eyes met her face.

"It worked fine last night," he said.

"Well, it's not working now."

Evan called down to the front desk. The Wi-Fi was indeed temporarily down.

"What do you need Facebook for?" Evan said as he hung up the room phone. "Why not just text whoever this is like usual?"

"His number's in the Facebook message."

"Whose number?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Why?"

"Cause I don't want to?"

Evan paused. Something didn't add up here but he didn't know what. They looked at each other.

"It can't wait?"

"No, it can't," said Lily. "Do you have somewhere else to be or something?"

"No," said Evan. "Fine."

Evan got dressed, Lily went into the bathroom and hastily got herself ready. She was cheerful again when she came out.

"You're in a good mood all of a sudden," Evan commented.

"Felt good to sleep in," she said, stretching. "Needed that shit."

The day was incendiary. The blacktop was a stove. The car was a hellish oven when they got in, Evan cringing as the steering wheel seared his fingertips. He cranked the air conditioning. The vents blasted hot air until after they were out of the parking lot.

They drove up and down Harding Place, scouring the businesses and restaurants for any free Wi-Fi. After a few unsuccessful go-arounds they finally spotted a sign-- FREE WIFI—in the front window of a big blue Laundromat a couple miles down the road.

As they stepped out of the car, the heat felt like someone draping a hot blanket over their faces.

"You want to go back down to the city after this?" asked Evan once they were inside and Lily had started her important Facebooking. They sat on hard plastic chairs in front of the windows advertising detergent prices and the free Wi-Fi in big yellow letters.

The washers and dryers thunked and clunked against the walls. Laundromat customers glumly folded their clothes and tossed in dryer sheets and slammed doors.

"And do what?"

"I don't know, look around."

"I'm really tired. This heat is fucking terrible."

"True," said Evan.

You're always fucking tired, he thought.

Lily sniffed as she tapped her phone. She pursed her lips, looking like she wanted to say something but was unsure if she should.

"I might have something for us to do," she finally said, giving Evan an impish side-glance.

"Does it have to do with your message?"

"Yes," she said.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I'll find out in a few minutes here."

"What is it, though, what would we do?"

"We can go visit a friend of mine."

"Who's that?"

"Just a guy who I met through work."

"Through the Blue?"

"Yeah."

"What would we do with him?"

Lily looked at the other occupants of the laundromat. There were only about four or five other people.

"Let's go back out to the car and I'll tell you," she said.

They left the Laundromat, the door clinking shut behind them.

The car already felt like a sauna even though they'd only been inside for fifteen minutes or so.

"Jesus Christ," said Lily. "I'm melting." Sweat beaded the hollow at the base of her neck. Evan wanted to lick it off and again reviled his libido.

"So what is it we can do with your friend?" Evan asked. He had a bad feeling about this.

"I just need to go get something from him."

"Is it drugs?" Evan asked sarcastically.

Lily laughed. She laughed hard. Evan stared at her.

"Yeah," she said, getting control of herself long enough to answer him. "Yeah, it is."

"Yeah, drugs?"

"Yeah," she said, giggling. "Drugs."

"Really?"

Lily looked at him, still giggling. It was adorable and infuriating at the same time.

"Yeah, really," she said. "Drugs."

"What kind of drugs?"

"...heroin."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You do heroin?"

"Yeah."

"You do heroin? Really?"

"Yeah, but, like, I don't shoot it. I just snort it. I've been doing it all trip. I can't believe you didn't pick up on my bathroom breaks."

"I did, sort of," said Evan. "I'm just too much of a pussy to really say anything."

Lily snorted laughter and shook her head.

"Oh my God," she said.

"I knew something was going on," said Evan. "How long have you been doing it?"

"Couple of months."

"That shit will kill you."

"Only if you do it ALL THE TIME. And only if you shoot it."

"I don't think that's accurate."

"I'm fine, I don't need it. I just like it. And my friend is offering me a lot of money to pick this up. I could've lied to you but instead I'm just telling you. At a Laundromat. With free WiFi."

She started laughing again. Her laughs were sparkles of sunshine on an ocean, raindrops on a picnic table.

Evan frowned.

"You lied to me last night after I called you out about not flushing the toilet."

"Well, yeah, I didn't want you to know then. But that was before I was sure this was going to happen. Now you do know, so do you want to do it? We don't have anything else going on, do we?"

Evan looked at the cars rushing by out on the road and felt empty and powerless inside.

"If you don't come with I'll just get a cab and you can do whatever you want," Lily said. "Believe me, I understand."

Evan groaned to himself. He didn't want to stop spending time with her. That was for sure. He didn't want to sit in the motel watching movies on TV while she took a cab down to the city and probably fucked the guy she was picking up the heroin from.

"Well," he said, slowly, giving in. "I was looking on my laptop earlier about the Parthenon and shit and apparently there's been a bunch of flooding recently and so the Grand Ole Opry's closed. And we can't get into that park cause of the flooding either, so the Parthenon's out. I figure we've already seen the gist of downtown Nashville. And I got my CD, so yeah... Then tomorrow's the audition and then Sunday we get to go back home."

"Yep, that's how you explained it to me," said Lily. "That's how I understand it. But what do you want to do right now? Cause I'm going to get this shit. And you can either come with or not."

Evan pulled out his phone to see what time it was.

It was 1:00.

"Sure," he said, going against every nerve in his body. He quickly added, "As long as it's not, like, a huge shipment or anything. I don't feel entirely comfortable smuggling heroin across state lines. In fact, I don't feel remotely comfortable doing it."

"It's not a lot, it's like a couple grams, it's just some other shit that my boss at work might want to start selling. He found out I was coming down here and asked if I could do it if it came up."

Evan gritted his teeth.

"Daddy? Your roommate, again?"

"Yeah, him."

"What's his deal?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, what's his deal? Who calls himself Daddy?"

"That's what everyone calls him. He didn't come up with it. His real name's Dan. And he's a manager for the Blue and a couple other places in the area."

"And he's a heroin dealer."

"Yes, and he deals some heroin and weed and other things."

"And he's your roommate."

"Yes, sometimes."

She texted, always texting.

"Sweet," she said as she typed. "He says we can meet him whenever."

"Daddy? He's down here now?"

"No, the guy I'm picking up the H from."

"I take it that's who the Facebook message was from."

"Yeah, Daddy said he'd be getting in touch with me with a temporary Facebook account this morning. Then he'll delete it once we're done talking."

"You're not worried about us becoming drug smugglers now? You don't have a problem turning my car into a fucking drug smuggling operation? You're not going to ask my permission for this?"

"Jesus Christ, I said you don't have to come if you don't want to. And I can hide this shit easily and even if we do get pulled over I'll just take all the blame for it. But I won't have to. Cause that's not gonna happen."

She tapped send with a theatrical flourish of her hand. Evan had a sudden urge to grab her phone and throw it out the window, get out and stomp on it until it was a scattered pile of metal and glass shards. Instead he just watched her.

"How do you not have a smart phone yet, anyway?" she asked him, not looking up.

"Just haven't got one," he said, knowing full well it was because he couldn't afford it and neither could his parents. His phone had originally been purchased by Jason in 2006. "I know once I do get one I'll be addicted to it, so I'm putting it off as long as I can."

"So we're going then," said Lily, a keen smile on her goddamned beautiful fucking face.

"Yes," said Evan through clenched teeth.

Please God, don't let me regret this, he thought.

"This calls for a new CD," said Evan.

He grabbed his CD book and put in Be Your Own Pet's first album and went to track 2. Breakneck punk clanging and out of tune riffing issued from the speakers.

Jemina Pearl screamed about being an independent motherfucker.

Evan fired up the Civic and pulled out of the laundromat parking lot.

"This is my shit right here," said Lily, reaching forward to turn the music up. She bobbed her head, smiling. "This is, like, my song."

"Have you heard them before?"

"No, I really like it, though."

Jemina screamed about putting you in a trunk and taking you around the world.

"They were only around for like a couple years," said Evan, nervous babbling. It was too late to turn back now. "They only put out two albums and then broke up. They were really young too. I think they were like 16 when this came out. And they're from Nashville, too."

"Fascinating. You know where we're going?"

Evan realized he didn't.

"No. Where are we going?"

"Here's the address," said Lily, showing him her phone. Evan hurriedly put it into the TomTom, then wished he hadn't. It was traceable now. FUCK.

Jemina screamed about how she loves you so much so you'd better love her.

The TomTom revealed their destination was outside of the city, about half an hour away.

"He knows we're coming," said Lily. "I'm actually really glad you get to meet him."