Chapter Five

Ella spends most of the drive talking. It's her nervous energy and her reaction to these types of situations. She doesn't know Michael and for all her sarcastic barbs, the woman-correction Lopez, angel-before her seems more than content to let Ella take the lead as far as on the road entertainment. She has the ground rules now, and even though she really wants to know all about Jesus and the Big Guy, especially, Ella works hard to blurt about them. It's very weird to think that the Big Guy is Michael's Dad, like literally. Then again, God made everyone but this is so much more immediate.

Besides, Michael has a point, if anyone asks her about her own mamí, well, as much as she cares about her mother, Ella also knows she has huge complaints about her too.

Sometimes, things are too personal, even if she wants to know so much about everything, and she has the expert next to her. Well, as big an expert as she'll ever meet until she's dead. It's heady.

However, she mostly keeps to talking about herself and her life in Detroit, her brothers, and then bits about her work in L.A., stuff from the cases that went well. However, she doesn't want it to be more than that. She can't and won't talk about Pete, even if Michael's more than seen her fears and fed from them. She has no illusions that Michael knows everything about her and her ill-fated romance with the Whisper Killer. However, it's too much to say out loud. She left to Reno to avoid her life back then, to leave forensics and everything behind. The good times she can talk about, but the rest she cannot bear to think about.

Michael nods and makes comments every so often, but often she's doing a monologue on her own. If anything, her angelic (kind of) companion is focused on watching the landscape fly by on them with her stare intent and her hair whipping furiously in the wind. Ella has already offered Michael a couple hair ties and even a scrunchy (going old school) on the way. Michael tried after the third offer to take a rubber band. However, she seemed to flounder when they stopped at a gas station with pulling her hair back.

Could have been the rat's nest the wind made it, but it's also just one of those things you learn to do, and clearly Michael hasn't had any experience with it.

Maybe a headband?

Ella will have to figure it out because the girl has so much hair and it isn't completely convertible, top-down compatible. Or, at the least, it does look like Michael's been shoved through a wind tunnel.

When they get everything settled, they're only about a half hour from Vegas, and Ella's glad because she's been stiff for the last couple hours. She's never driven this much in one day. Being stuck in L.A. traffic can take hours, but she's definitely never joy ridden most of the day across a state. She's going to have to make sure Michael can drive a stick for sure-and she is not grinding Baby's gears, damn it-so they can switch off. She'll never make the next 2500 miles or more if they don't/

Finally, Michael forces her attention from the road as the sun starts to set. "So, Lopez, what's the plan when we get to Vegas?"

She giggles a little as Michael's hair still twists and turns and tangles around her companion's head. "First, we find a place and check in. Second? I figure we can save hitting the tables until tomorrow. Between savings and my winnings in Reno so far, I have about eight grand in the bank. What about you?" Her eyes widen. "Wait? Do you keep it all in your backpack? Do angels get bank accounts?"

Michael sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "This twenty questions might end up getting more intense than I thought, chica. To be fair, I know at least one angel on earth who's chosen to live there just because. A brother who's settled with a human of all things." Michael shrugs. "There's a fallen cherub I have run into named Gaudium too. Both, as far as I know, have legit enough papers and bank accounts somewhere. Well, at least my brother might? He's pretty lucky to have a rich baby momma or so I've heard."

Ella's jaw drops open. "Holy crap! There's a Nephilim? Those are a thing? Ooh so the Great Flood was sent because of tons of human-angel relationships like in apocrypha?"

Michael shakes her head. "Remind me not to road trip next time with a former attempted novitiate."

Ella blushes a little. "Well, it's a lot. I never thought of the possibility there are like part-angels out there too."

"They're not."

"Huh?"

"I suppose, technically, my brother's child is Nephilim but so far that child's the only one and appears completely mortal." She shrugs. "It's underwhelming. But no, the Great Flood was different, and my mother…she never liked humans much."

Ella almost swerves off the road at that and gets a dirty look from Michael for her struggle at the wheel. "Wait? What? You have a mom?"

Michael drums her fingers on the side door's arm rest. "Once. She's been banished to her own universe because the divorce was not a good one." She offers Ella an oddly sympathetic smile. "I warned you that not everything about my father was wonderful. I personally think Mom went way too far trying to commit genocide. I don't hate humans."

"Really?"

She nods. "I just never thought about you much till, well, I got exiled. You're not completely useless and, well, I had fun for a couple decades in New York when it suited me, but I have siblings far more attached to you guys than I am too. Mom…she was always pissed about the whole idea. But I didn't want her damned and then eventually shuffled off to a universe none of us-even Dad-can reach."

Ella wants to ask how that part's even possible, but she's not even sure she'll understand. "Oh."

"If Mother had just let it go…but she was so hard-headed and wrathful. She's the most like my brother Samael that I know." Michael snorts and looks back to the endless desert passing by them. "No wonder he got damned first and ended up running all of Hell."

Ella blinks. "Oh, I thought-"

"Samael was his original name. He won't answer to it, even now, not really," Michael admits. "However, I gather the humans here have found many names for Satan. Pick whichever you like."

She frowns and considers that as they pass a few cacti on the left. "The guy I worked with in L.A., the consultant, um, he was such an obvious method actor, but he went by 'Lucifer.'"

For a moment, and it's just a quick one but Ella's sure it's there…for a moment something hurt and haunted passes over the angel's features. "Yes, well, humans have their interpretation of so many things, don't they? Lucifer is a bit much for the Devil, I think. He's not a Lightbringer, not now."

"But he was right? He made the stars?"

Michael rolls her eyes, and even if St. Michael is apparently newer to this form, she's excellent at resting bitch face. "He fashioned them. I made the raw energy and he shaped them to the constellations. It was a two-angel process. I suppose it still would be if he weren't damned and I weren't on probation." She spits that last word out with more disgust than Ella thought capable to put on one word.

"Oh, wow. You did a good job then. The stars are really pretty. I think my favorite constellation is probably Cygnus. I mean, who doesn't love blazing stars made to look like a graceful swan!"

Michael chuckles to herself but the tone isn't as much happy as it is bitter. "Samael chose the design, but I'm glad the stars are up to snuff."

"Ooh, did you guys invent spiders or did the Big Guy tell you to?"

"We had a lot of blue prints and rules. Dad's big on micromanaging or He was long ago. I'll admit that much. Some of the weirder stuff, Samael and I came up with on our own."

"So spiders?"

"Nope, hate the things. I have had an endless number of encounters with humans where that's all I read off them. It gets boring, that arachnophobia thing."

"Well, I don't exactly love them, dude."

Michael laughs again, and it's less bitter and more relaxed. "Do you like koalas?"

"Ooh, I think they're so cute. I mean, they have a lot of chlamydia, but they're adorable."

She snorts. "Well, they didn't have chlamydia as an initial design. But back then, when we were doing Australia…well, we did that last and I think Samael and I were going a bit stir crazy."

"Is that why most of it is all poisonous?"

"Maybe a little, but I thought the idea for koalas would balance it out."

"Wild," Ella says, not sure of what else to say.

The fact that the angel before her created half the universe is mind blowing. Yet, here she, so very hurt and forced to do things that clearly Michael's ashamed of to stay in one piece. She bites her lip to keep herself from saying I'm sorry because she knows that Michael can't stand pity. That much has become obvious by now.

"Do you miss it?"

"Koalas and spiders?" She asks. "Not really."

"Creating?" Ella probes as the city skyline comes into view as bright and glittering as ever. "Do you miss that, I mean?"

Michael nods. "I miss not just taking, but that was literally billions of years ago." She sighs and tries yet fails to get a hand through her tangle of hair. "I'm a very different angel now. It was good to serve, to have a true purpose. I haven't felt that since the Fall."

"Oh."

"Yeah, but I'm glad you find koalas up to snuff. I did unicorns too, but then Mom and her flood. I really regret they didn't make it on the ark."

Ella blinks and every fantasy she had at eleven is lighting up inside her even brighter than the Vegas strip before her. "What? Those are real!"

"Were, operative term, Lopez. They've been gone for four thousand years or more." She shrugs, but her right shoulder barely moves. It's so stiff. "But yeah, they were my idea too. Took a while to get Samael to understand the idea. Uh, let's just saw narwhals were a first draft."

"Holy shit."

The angel winks back at her. "Basically, but I've lived enough around mortals to know how banking works. I found a guy before I left Vegas the last time. I have an account and my savings in it. Between what I've been able to do in Vegas and in Reno too, maybe about twelve grand. I have about five hundred in cash on me. I think after we hit the tables tomorrow, we can really ramp that up."

"Me too!" she enthuses, pulling off toward the older section of the city.

Part of her would love to just be indulgent, go to the Bellagio or the Hard Rock, but Michael has already nixed that idea. They're going to be frugal, and Ella's reminded of her Abuelo Jesús and how he was always clipping coupons and looking for the next deal. Michael may be many things, including the Angel of Fear, but she's also kind of a cheapskate. However, they've settled on Circus Circus, and Michael was thrilled when Ella looked it up on her cell at a pit stop that they could get a room together for under fifty bucks a night.

Cielos, but it's probably not going to be the difference in species and experiences that separate Ella and Michael the most as much as the angel's quest to save a buck.

However, it seems easy enough to go along for now, but if this is her big, once-in-a-lifetime road trip, then they are going to have to splurge on some places, really do the sites up well. Maybe Michael will feel differently after a couple days running the tables. Ella hopes she will.

"So," Ella continues, honking at the traffic and cursing in Spanish at a complete moron of a driver who didn't even use their turn signal. "Are real vampires a thing? Cause, I admit it, I really liked Twilight when the books came out and-"

The last few hours have not gone well.

Ella is having serious second thoughts about their big trip. At least, part of her wants to make this work, of course she does. Ella needs to make the voices stop and the nightmares, and she always feels better when she's out there in an alley, when she's stopping another complete pendejo from hurting someone else. It started as an accident in Los Angeles, just overhearing a scuffle on the far side of Lux after leaving the tribe at girls' night. It had been dumb to run into that alley, but she'd been there and had her taser out in a heartbeat. It had felt beyond gratifying to stop that pawing, grasping asshole from hurting some girl at least ten years younger than Ella.

And then it had become an obsession, and the biggest part of her flight to Reno and beyond there. Because if she was going to be a vigilante, then she couldn't do it in her own backyard. Chloe wasn't stupid and neither were Lucifer or Dan for that matter. They'd figure her out. She'd just needed a change. And even she could admit this, okay? Ella had fucked up in Reno. Without Michael she'd have been-

So, this arrangement had the bonus of safety. For both of them really. Michael might not want to admit it, but she was fragile in her own way too. Fuck, Ella had felt it, that pain and need and hunger almost electrifying her when she'd held Michael's hand at the club. The angel needed her own back up too.

But after a night in which they'd been stuck with a room with one bed and then gone to the buffet where, and no joke, Michael had dragged a Mary Poppins-style purse with her and started discreetly shoving food into Ziplock bags and then in there. Apparently, Michael was going to get her money's worth. Technically, a security guard followed them on the way out and would have snatched the angel's bag treats (and, dude, really?) but the guard also had an insane fear of snakes and had spent five minutes after accosting them both having a huge, attention-grabbing freak out.

Now they are back at their room, and Michael-who apparently has no shame-is sitting at the desk and cataloguing her bounty before putting it in the hotel refrigerator as if nothing totally batshit had happened.

All this over mostly a mix of chicken fingers, egg rolls, and cake. Lots of cake slices.

Ella's not even sure how much Michael needs to eat, but the girl has a sweet tooth. Why does Ella suspect that her companion has a Celestial metabolism to go with her love for sugar? Would it be too much to hope that Michael can get fat just a little? After all, Ella's not the one who stole four slices of double chocolate cake from then buffet to save for later.

"You're quiet," Michael notes, even as she literally gets out a napkin and counts exactly how many chicken nuggets she's secreted up here. "Something wrong?"

"Wrong? Are you serious? You won't let us switch out the room for double beds-"

"There's a ten dollar surcharge even though it's the hotel's error. That's a rip-off."

"We have almost twenty-one grand combined and we haven't even gotten to gamble yet. And then you have to make a guard freak out at the buffet over snakes so you can steal half of it to our room! I've seen mezquino before, but this is something else. I mean, you're really cheap."

"I like to save for a rainy day," Michael counters as if this hasn't all gone batshit-well more so-since they hit the Vegas city limits. "Besides, it's the weekend so the buffet was an extra three bucks and they definitely owed us!"

Ella hops off the bed and starts to pace. "Okay, we need some ground rules."

"Well, I thought we had them, chica," Michael replies, finishing up her nugget count and then finally taking her ill-gotten gains to the fridge and stowing them away. "I thought they were great rules even: you don't ask about my punishment, my dad, or Jesus Christ and we're golden."

Ella stops and turns to glare at the angel. "No, you got to set rules that make you feel better about yourself. I respect that. You don't owe me everything about yourself, and I don't owe you everything about my life either." Like Pete. "But I have some rules too. I get it. Dude, I really get it. I grew up in an apartment with my parents and four brothers. I had a bunk bed with my brother, Ricardo, till I was like sixteen. It sucked. I know how to save, but there's gonna be some basics. Okay?"

"I don't understand," Michael replies, stepping back from the refrigerator and sitting on the bed. She crosses one long leg over the other, and Ella swallows a little, realizing how tight the cut of Michael's pants actually are.

Nope, no good comes from that. I'm done with anything at all romantic ever. I just find disasters.

After all, who can top all other disaster dates than the literal Angel of Fear?

And yet, Michael's even more attractive than Eve was, and, apparently in women, Ella has a weakness not for bad girls as much as acres of long, dark hair and huge brown eyes that look like something from a Disney movie.

Yikes. Nope, that's…focus on the anger. I have tons of that, should be easy.

"I'm not a complete bitch," Ella counters, swallowing hard and it's so hot in here suddenly. "I…look, Michael, there are some rules I want to set out on this girls' trip for me too, okay?"

The angel regards her and narrows her eyes almost to slits. "Not a girl."

Ella blinks and suddenly feels the flush of embarrassment spreading over her cheeks. "Oh, do you not…I guess in my head I mostly think of you as a woman because it's hard not to see you and frankly think like Amazon princess or runway model."

Michael's eyes are still narrowed, and her chin is held so high that Ella can envision her on a throne somewhere, almost see the divinity thrumming through her. "Lopez, my other ground rule then, and I'll hear yours out."

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. "You're so generous."

She still regards her with that regal, imposing posture, and it's a lot to feel that focus completely n her…Ella can admit that. Michael gestures to her body and there is the first crack in her demeanor, the slightest darting away of her eyes from Ella's. "This was done to me. It's punishment and nothing more. It might be millions of years until Father fixes it, if He ever thinks that I've earned a reprieve. I mean, who knows? Samael's been waiting since the Fall, and he still shouldn't hold his breath. However, I'm not a girl. I don't feel like one, and I'm not. So can we deal with that?"

Ella bites her lower lip and nods vigorously back at her…no him. "I'm sorry, Michael. That was…I'll do better from now on. Not a single girls' trip crack from me. We'll keep it all Bonnie and Clyde." She thinks better on that and fumbles her next sentence. "Well without the forbidden love affair and the dying in a hail of bullets. But you're my guy partner in crime, gotcha."

Michael nods at that and his posture relaxes. "Good then. Because three months out of about fourteen billion years of existence would be like a second for you as a guy, got it?"

Ella nods. "Yup, and I'm sorry before that-"

"I should have specified. But sure, I can handle Clyde in this partnership. I am still not sold on you being my Robin. I don't…we will have to talk about the vigilante idea some time, Lopez. It's a piss poor idea. I won't even call it a plan because it's not."

She narrows her eyes at him. "We'll negotiate for sure on that. I need it."

"You've obviously been through a lot, so you don't know what you need." Michael sighs and regards her with such deep, soulful eyes and seriously, Ella is not going to start falling for him. She is not. "I'm good, okay? I'm still even without my wings, an angel of the lord. But I can't be everywhere all the time and accidents happen and what if a scumbag gets off one good shot. I'm not my brother. I don't have a way to heal people."

Ella blinks. "Oh, right, Raphael."

"Actually, both him and Samael…even now. I just don't want you hurt."

"And I want you to trust me, at least give me a chance out there. I'd been doing it for months without you as my guardian angel, okay?"

"Alright, but before we go and do this, then we'll do some training. Maybe when we hit Tucson, because it's a smaller city, we'll start. We do it my way." Michael stands and steps close to her and Ella has to crane her neck to look into his eyes. Idly, Ella wonders how much bigger Michael was before he was punished because a six-foot girl is no slouch at all. "I trained the legions of Heaven and, it might have ruined me, but I was good at it. You want to go out? Well, we're not going to just rely on the fact I can save you because sometimes I can't."

A smile spreads across her face. There are few things cooler than the idea of being trained to fight not just by an angel but by the Saint Michael himself. Even if he currently is a cheap, bitter asshole who steals from buffets and cheats at poker. It's still badass.

Ella kind of, maybe a little, squeals when she replies. "Oh my God! That's so so awesome. I really want to do that!"

Michael rubs at his ears and winces. "Great, then be thankful at decibels that don't blow out my ear drums." He quirks his head at her. "What other rules do you have for me, chica?"

"Cheapness. I get it. You apparently love a deal. And I grew up super poor, dude, so I do understand, but there's a difference between saving up, which we have to do because I get that moving to Atlantic City isn't going to be cheap, but come on, socio. I am not going to smuggle leftovers into my purse from here to New Jersey. I am also so so not getting your stink eye for leaving tips for the waiters."

"It's a buffet! You served yourself."

Ella curses a long time in Spanish, and it's gratifying to see Michael, the former Sword of God, take a step back at her fury. Good, she's not a push over. "That's not the point. It's embarrassing. I'll be cheap most of the time, but not a total mal educada. I am not going to stiff waiters, and I am not going to shove random food in my purse!"

"But it's already paid for!"

"Qué avaro!" She shakes her head. "We'll save some, and then sometimes I'm going to actually do things too. My money is my half and my take, Mikey, and so I get some say in it. So, seriously, trust a girl who grew up in Detroit and had zero dollars to her name. I can throw down and super save. But I've never been on a road trip before, and I'm going to have a blast. Please, you can shove buffet food in your big ass, Mary Poppins purse-"

"My what?"

"Never mind, it's basically a backpack at this point. Anyway, when you do your super saver and way embarrassing grocery shopping with your purse, then you need to do that solo, me entiendes?"

Michael puts his hands on his hips and rolls his eyes. Seriously, guy has skills with being condescending to people. "Sure, but you're missing out, Lopez. If you pay the twenty bucks, it should last you a couple days. I have extra Ziplock bags…"

She pinches the bridge of her nose. "But we have those ground rules. I won't go setting money on fire-"

"Debatable if you don't want to really milk a buffet."

"But you'll give me space to actually tip waiters, not run out of diners with stolen food, and, like, you know, not go an extra twenty miles to a different gas station with 5 cents less per gallon, which, dude, makes no sense after I've driven an extra twenty miles to find it!"

"See, what I'm hearing is you're not open to cost saving."

Ella shakes her head. "Do you think maybe you're here because you're just too annoying?"

Michael sits back down on the bed. "In a way, I guess that's true. I'm practical, Lopez. One of us has to be since you're over here being Scrappy Doo to fight bad guys and already planning a sight-seeing road trip where we're just gonna waste our nest egg."

"Maybe, but you want to do the Fear Angel version of dine and dash, just let me skip it, k?"

He nods. "Deal then."

Then, Michael stands and goes to his duffle. There's not much in there compared to Ella's three suitcases, she's sure, but Michael clearly has perfected the art of not spending money and packing light. Eventually, however, if they're going out-once Ella convinces Michael to let her really patrol and set incels up-they'll need to get him a more comprehensive wardrobe. And won't he just bitch about the cost of that too. But more flies with honey and all that…

He pulls out a pair of boxers and a plain, white t-shirt, and she hears him yawn. Which, weird. Who knew angels yawned? Then again, assuming Rae Rae is really real and not her imagination, Ella has met a ghost who wears glasses, which is pretty strange too. So, who is she really to judge or even guess. But still, Michael's yawned more than once by now, and it's really later than Ella realized, and she's bone weary too, especially from driving.

She shuffles to her suitcase and crouches by the neon green one with the leopard dots. It's ugly as sin, but it's so easy to tell apart at the airport. All her suitcases are bright and weird, things she found in various thrift shops in L.A. This one has all her jammy stuff. Ella's pulled out her favorite sleep shirt, the one with all three Power Puff Girls on it in battle against Mojo Jojo, and turns to head to the bathroom to change.

Ella pauses a little when Michael's just topless and in the process of shoving on his t-shirt. Her heart skips a beat and she strangles a yelp before booking it to the bathroom. Nope, didn't see much and no different than getting changed backstage when she took dance as a teen. Nothing at all…well, except for the fact that her face is flush and a huge part of her wishes she could have stayed in their room. But nope; she needs to just focus. Focus and not think about long dark hair and pert breasts and tan skin and…where was she again?

She shoves her sleep shirt on in double time and leans over, quickly brushing her teeth and taking extra seconds to splash water on her face.

Everything will make more sense when they hit Tucson. They'll make sure they have double beds then, and Ella will get her inner existential crisis at least under enough control not to be all flushed and skittish around Michael. Poor guy is clearly no more in the head space for that than she is.

She runs the water at the sink longer than she has to and adds an extra splash to her face, some of it hitting her bangs and long strands of the hair at the side of her face. Come on, Lopez, focus on him being annoying at dinner. No problem after that.

"Hey! Scrappy Doo, I'm about to turn off the light and I know mortals see like crap in the dark. You coming?"

Ella stifles the most strangled noise before finally being able to talk. Rayos, as if "coming" isn't an operative term. "I'm good, uh, un ratito no más, and I'll be right out."

"Whatever. I'm tired, can we hit the hay yet?"

She giggles at that, and maybe Michael really was here during the 1950s and 1960s, it's such a grandpa thing to say. Like that, the spell is broken, and she can see him as the grouchy, super cheap, and mostly annoying angel he is.

Ella swallows and walks back in the room and slips into her side of the queen bed. It's kind of spacious, but Michael's tall and all gangly limbs, so it's not nearly as much space as even being a kid and sharing space with a cousin visiting at Christmas time or with her mom when traveling to dance competitions. But they'll make do, right?

Michael slips in one his side and the bed dips and it's all fine.

Everything is perfectly normal, Ella. It's no big deal. You're just sharing a bed with a hot angel. Totally happens to everyone.

Yeah, fucking right.

Michael curls under the comforter and closes his eyes. That doesn't last very long. Ella can't help staring at him and feeling like this is one of the more surreal moments of a pretty weird life already. God, how come his eyelashes get to be so long and curly naturally. Seriously, Big Guy, how is that fair?

She must have been too weird for too long because the angel cracks open one eye and glares at her. "You good? I hear if you take a picture, it lasts longer, right?"

Ella rolls her eyes. Right, annoying. Michael's good at that too. She feigns slapping his shoulder because she's learned already the dude is made like granite underneath and it hurts to hit him for real. "I'm fine. I…good night, Michael."

He opens both eyes then and frowns a little, the motion making his scar stretch more dramatically over his face. It's not as off putting as it has been, but it makes something inside her wince, especially because like his shoulder and his side, she knows that the actual Devil probably put that all in place during the Rebellion. It must have hurt, and clearly Michael's side still does.

"Chica…Ella, are you going to do that prayers before bedtime thing. I kind of had you pegged as that type. It's okay if you do. I won't take offense or anything. Obviously, a lot of people have better relationships with my dad than I do." Michael laughs, and he probably doesn't realize how bitter it sounds. After all, most of the time he's totally like her brother Ricardo and gives off a "doesn't give a shit" vibe. Ella has enough brothers to see through that. "Maybe everyone but Samael does. But you can…I won't hold it against you."

Ella nods and curls up on her side to look at him better. "I don't need to kneel and be showy. It's more like a conversation with the Big Guy, just between me and Him."

Michael frowns and the practiced sarcasm melts from his expression. "Do you ever hear Him back?"

"It's not direct, but I think I get what I need most of the time, you know?"

"Even after everything in L.A.?" And his tone is quiet, curious.

Ella's heart constricts in her chest, and it almost hurts to breathe. Almost. But she forces herself to keep talking. She will not break down in front of him, not again. "Maybe, you know? I mean, after all, I was going to get…bad things were clearly going to happen to me in Reno, and you showed up."

"I'm hardly a guardian angel, Scrappy Doo."

"Maybe or maybe not. But yeah, me and the Big Guy is quiet, like a conversation I have running."

"Understood." He turns back on his side and closes his eyes. "Night, Lopez. Oh, seriously, what the hell are you even wearing? Is that a chimpanzee with a turban?"

"Dude! We are catching up on pop culture, promise."

Michael doesn't answer and soon after, Ella's conked out beside him. When she wakes first in the morning, she tries to ignore the fact that in the middle of the night-somehow-the grumpy angel beside her has tossed and turned and who knows what all else enough to end up wrapped around her.

And for the first time in a long time, Ella feels safe and shoots the Big Guy a bit of extra thanks for sending His wayward son to her.

Even if he's painfully, painfully cheap.