Chapter 1
ONE
LAUREN
Holy shit, I’m actually writing this down.
My pen hovers over the diary page like it’s confessing to murder. Which, maybe it is—murdering my last shred of dignity. But here goes nothing:
Dear God or whatever deity gives a damn about hot messes in small-town cafés—I just want to get laid.
There. I said it. Well, wrote it. Same difference when you’re a twenty-eight-year-old virgin living in her mother’s spare bedroom, sending job applications into the void like messages in bottles that nobody’s ever gonna find.
I bite my lip and keep writing, because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment:
Actually, scratch that. I don’t just want some mediocre five-minute fumble in the dark.
I want to know what it feels like when a man looks at me like I’m the only woman in the world.
I want him to worship every curve, every imperfection, like they’re masterpieces.
I want to shake and scream and completely lose my shit from pleasure so intense I can barely catch my breath before he’s making me come again, harder than before.
Jesus. The words stare back at me like they’re written in neon. Part of me wants to rip out the page and pretend I never had these thoughts. The other part—the part that’s been suffocating under my mother’s constant criticism and my ex’s casual cruelty—wants to shout it from the rooftops.
I might as well be wishing to sprout wings and fly to Mars. But a girl can dream, right?
The late afternoon sun slants through the café’s tall windows, casting everything in honey-gold light that makes even the chipped paint on the window frames look romantic.
I’m curled up at my usual wrought-iron table on the outdoor patio, the metal warm against my bare arms, my laptop balanced precariously next to a half-empty iced coffee that’s gone watery in the heat.
The fountain beside me gurgles and splashes, sending up a fine mist that catches the light like tiny diamonds.
It’s one of those perfect summer days in Springfield—the kind that makes you forget this place is basically a glorified truck stop on the highway to somewhere better.
The air smells like fresh bread from the bakery across the square and the sweet, cloying scent of the magnolia trees that line the cobblestone walkways.
Around me, the town square buzzes with lazy afternoon energy.
A young couple shares a cone from the ice cream cart, her sundress fluttering in the breeze while he laughs at something she whispers.
Moms push strollers along the brick paths, their toddlers scampering ahead to chase the pigeons that cluster around the fountain’s edge.
An elderly man feeds ducks from a bench, his weathered hands gentle as he scatters breadcrumbs.
Everyone existing in a world where dreams actually come true sometimes. Everyone except me.
Meanwhile, I’m the sad girl in the corner, watching life happen to everyone else.
God, listen to me. Poor little Lauren, all tragic and shit. My friends would roll their eyes so hard they’d see their brain stems. “You’re not a victim,” my best friend Jess told me last week over video chat. “You’re just stuck. There’s a difference.”
Easy for her to say. Jess has a corner office, a hot boyfriend, and zero toxic mothers breathing down her neck twenty-four-seven.
Speaking of which—my phone buzzes with an alarm. Fifteen minutes until I have to drive Mom to another doctor’s appointment for another imaginary ailment. Because God forbid I have one afternoon to myself without her reminding me what a disappointment I am.
“Did you go for a walk today, Lauren? Really, how do you expect to lose weight and find a man if you aren’t even trying?”
Or my personal favorite: “Why don’t you come into the salon with me? That frumpy look isn’t going to get you any job interviews. Employers respect presentation.”
The woman puts on full makeup to check the mail. She cannot comprehend that her daughter—her “life’s great embarrassment,” as she so lovingly puts it—dares to leave the house in leggings and a t-shirt without a full face of war paint.
I used to be pretty, according to her. Back in high school when I had an eating disorder and she still found ways to shame me about my weight. Even when I was literally starving myself, it wasn’t enough. When I ended up in the hospital, barely conscious and hooked to IVs, she visited once.
“Why do you have to be so dramatic about everything?” she’d cried, like my near-death experience was a personal inconvenience. “Why can’t you be normal like everyone else’s daughters?”
Yeah. Mother of the fucking Year material right there.
I shake off the old wounds and check my phone again.
Ten minutes now. These stolen moments away from her, here in the open air with the breeze carrying the scent of summer and possibility, feel like the only times I can actually breathe.
The café’s striped umbrellas flutter overhead, and the distant sound of traffic from Main Street mingles with children’s laughter from the playground on the far side of the square.
Which is ridiculous at twenty-eight—needing to escape to a public space just to feel human—but here we are.
I always dreamed of finding adventure. Of traveling the world, having a grand love affair, doing something—anything—that mattered. Instead, I’m living in my childhood bedroom, unemployed, single, and writing sex fantasies in a diary like I’m fourteen years old.
Life was supposed to be different by now.
Seven years with Michael should’ve led somewhere, right?
College, marriage, a future that didn’t involve explaining to my high school classmates why I’m back home, defeated and alone.
Instead, all I got was a heartless boot to the curb when he “upgraded” to someone skinnier and younger.
“You just don’t fit into my five-year plan anymore,” he’d said, like I was a subscription he was canceling. Seven years of free labor, free sex, free emotional support, and I “didn’t fit.” The gall of that man. Guy. Whatever the hell he was.
A scream cuts through my spiral of self-pity, sharp and sudden in the peaceful square.
I look up from my notebook to see people running—families abandoning their picnics on the grass, couples dropping hands to sprint away from the center of the plaza.
Phones are out everywhere, filming something behind me.
The pigeons explode into flight, their wings beating frantically as they flee whatever’s spooked everyone.
Even the elderly man feeding ducks has abandoned his bench, breadcrumbs scattered across the brick walkway as he hobbles toward the safety of the surrounding buildings. What the—
I turn around and my brain short-circuits.
A man is descending from the cloudless blue sky above the fountain.
Not rappelling. Not on wires. Flying. Huge black wings spread wide, beating against the air with a sound like thunder, sending ripples across the fountain’s surface and making the nearby magnolia branches sway violently.
His chest is bare, muscles rippling with each powerful wingbeat, a torn hood barely covering his head to accommodate those massive wings that block out the sun.
He lands in the center of the square with an impact that cracks the old bricks beneath his feet, arms spread wide like he’s claiming the entire world as his stage.
The fountain behind him seems to pulse higher, as if responding to his presence, water droplets catching the late afternoon light and creating a backdrop of liquid fire.
“Mortals, behold!” His voice booms across the plaza, rich and commanding and absolutely insane. “Your god is here among you!”
I should run. Every rational brain cell I possess is screaming at me to get the hell out of here. But I can’t move. I’m frozen, transfixed, caught between terror and the strangest sense of recognition.
I was just praying for something—anything—to happen. And here’s a literal answer falling from the sky.
“Your god seeks a consort!” he continues, still grinning like he’s having the time of his life. “Volunteers may line up now before me and bow down so that I may choose amongst you!”
Security guards appear from behind the brick buildings that ring the square, their radios crackling with panicked chatter.
Summer uniforms already dark with sweat, tasers drawn, they form a loose circle around the winged man.
“Get down on the ground! Now!” Their voices echo off the historic facades of the shops and cafés that have watched over this square for over a century.
The winged man just laughs—actually laughs, the sound rolling across the cobblestones like music—and raises his hands. White-blue electricity arcs between his fingers, crackling with power that makes the hair on my arms stand up and sends the café’s striped umbrellas snapping in an impossible wind.
One guard fires his taser. The electricity from the man’s hands deflects the prongs like they’re nothing and travels back up the wires, frying the weapon and sending the guard convulsing to the brick walkway.
The air itself seems to hum with energy now. Street lamps flicker on despite the daylight. The fountain’s water starts glowing faintly blue.
Holy shit. This is really happening.
The rest of the security detail flees, along with every other person in the plaza.
Every person except me, sitting alone at my little café table like an island in a sea of abandoned purses, dropped ice cream cones melting on the hot bricks, and overturned strollers.
The pigeons have returned, strutting around the empty square like they own it now.
Because apparently I have a death wish. Or maybe I’m just so starved for adventure that I’ll take it even if it comes with a side of potential murder.
The summer air has gone still and charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. Even the fountain has stopped gurgling, as if the whole world is holding its breath.
The winged man’s eyes scan the empty square—past the abandoned café tables with their fluttering umbrellas, over the scattered breadcrumbs and forgotten shopping bags—and land on me.
Time stops.
The late afternoon sun creates a halo around him, making his dark hair gleam and throwing his sharp features into stark relief.
He’s beautiful in a completely terrifying way, like a storm made flesh.
Those massive wings fold against his back, and I can see the play of muscle beneath bronze skin, the confident way he holds himself like he’s never met an obstacle he couldn’t destroy.
There’s something wild about him, untamed, like he’s never followed a rule in his life and never will.
The air between us shimmers with heat and that strange electricity, making everything feel hyperreal—the rough texture of the wrought-iron table under my palms, the distant smell of magnolias now mixed with ozone, the way my heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
For one insane moment, I think about my diary entry. About wanting to feel desired, worshipped, claimed by someone who can’t get enough of me.
This man looks like he could be that someone.
On pure impulse—the same impulse that got me into trouble with Michael, that made me stay too long, hope too hard, believe too much—I raise my hand.
His grin widens, and he starts walking toward me across the cracked bricks, each step deliberate and predatory. The fountain behind him pulses brighter with each footfall, and I swear I can feel the ground vibrating beneath my chair.
Oh fuck. What am I doing? What have I done?
I drop my hand, but it’s too late. His sights are set, his path decided. The summer air crackles around us, and somewhere in the distance, I hear sirens wailing—the real cavalry finally coming. But they’re too far away, and he’s too close, and the space between us is shrinking with every heartbeat.
This is either the best decision of my life or the last one I’ll ever make.