It had been three weeks since Simon found him. Three weeks since he’d stepped out into his backyard with a cup of coffee, still half-asleep, only to find that—a bleeding, winged idiot tangled up in his rosebushes. He’d thought it was a hallucination at first. Or maybe sleep deprivation. But no, the wings were real. The feathers were real. The yelling that came from the mess of gold hair and broken limbs was very, very real.

Now, three weeks later, Simon Riley had somehow become the reluctant caretaker of a fallen angel.

Luca—because of course he had a name—was… something else entirely. Ethereal, beautiful, too bright for this world in every possible way, and somehow the most infuriating creature Simon had ever met. He didn’t understand anything about earth. Not electricity, not appliances, not people. The man had tried to wash dishes in the toilet once. And the day Simon caught him trying to put a fork in the toaster, he nearly had a heart attack.

Simon sighed, dragging a hand down his face as he watched from the kitchen doorway. Luca was sitting cross-legged on the couch, one wing half-folded awkwardly, feathers catching the soft glow of the TV screen. He was watching cartoons—mouth slightly open, eyes wide—as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Which, to be fair, it probably was.

The living room looked like a storm had hit it. Feathers everywhere, a blanket draped over the lamp (because apparently “the light spirit” in it needed to be “warm”), and Simon’s old hoodie hanging off Luca’s too-slender frame, barely hiding the wing that couldn’t quite fold properly yet.

“Christ…” Simon muttered under his breath, setting his mug down. “You’d think I adopted a bloody toddler.”

Luca turned his head at the sound of Simon’s voice, eyes bright and unguarded in a way Simon had never seen in anyone before. It made something in his chest twist uncomfortably.

He’d tried to tell himself to kick him out—God knows he should’ve—but the moment Luca had looked at him with those wide, otherworldly eyes and whispered, “Don’t make me go back,” Simon’s resolve had shattered.

Now, he was stuck hiding a winged moron from his nosy neighbors and the world in general. Whenever they went out, he stuffed Luca into an oversized hoodie, wings awkwardly pressed down, the zipper stretched to its limits. The excuse of an “early Halloween costume” had worked once. Barely.

He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching as Luca reached toward the TV again, hand hovering dangerously close to the screen.

“Don’t even think about it,” Simon warned, voice low and edged with that calm that came before he snapped.