How long has it been since I cleaned my kitchen? I’m honestly surprised there’s no flies buzzing around or offensive smell radiating off the stacks of dirty dishes spilling out of the sink. I’ll clean it before it gets to that point. Just…not right now.

  I’m exhausted. Work sucked, per usual, and I’m just ready for bed. I should probably shower. I won’t. I’ll do that later, too. Probably.

  Stepping over a pile of unfolded, possibly clean, clothes, I drop my purse from my shoulder and let it crumple uselessly to the ground. A moment after, I crumple uselessly onto the bed.

  This sucks. Being an adult sucks. When I was a kid, everyone told me this would be fun. That getting to make my own rules and set my own bedtime and spend my own money meant freedom. It doesn’t. It’s a cage of lies.

  How old am I? Twenty-three. Stuck in that weird limbo of adult-enough to be responsible, but not adult-enough to be respected. I thought college would buy me some time to figure this shit out. All it got me is a degree I don’t like and debt large enough to be mistaken for a phone number.

  Something has got to give, and not just the cracked glass of my bedroom window. I need to get that fixed. It’s at the bottom of the list of need tos. Maybe I’ll call my mom. She’s always had good advice, like when she told me to leave my keys in the car while I went hiking. I locked myself out of the car and didn’t know who to call, so I called 911, then got laughed at by the operator.

  On second thought, I will not be calling my mom.

  Shit. I guess I could pray? My dad used to pray a lot. To God or the gods or whatever he thought would answer. It rarely worked, but he was happy enough. I guess he wasn’t that happy, or else he wouldn’t have left Mom the way he did but that’s irrelevant. At least he could fake it.

  Yeah, okay. Pray. I can do that. He used to kneel by the edge of his bed and fold his hands, bow his head, and speak in hushed tones to someone only he could feel. I don’t do that. I just fold my hands on my chest and stare up at the ceiling.

  “Dear God, or gods, or whoever’s listening.” My voice is barely there, broken and raw from a day full of answering calls at the office. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Like, prayer wise. In life, I guess, too.” This feels like a lie. Praying to something I’m not even sure I believe in. “Anyway, I just need something different. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna lose my mind if something doesn’t change. I just…need help. Please.” Blinking, I watch the ceiling stare down at me, mocking me with its judgmental gaze. “Uh, thanks. Er-Amen. Or goodbye. Goodnight?”

  My hands flop to my sides and the ceiling doesn’t answer. I wonder if this is how Dad felt when Mom used to smoke meth in the bathroom. Complete betrayal. My ceiling is like a bad mom, watching me with unearned disappointment. At least my ceiling never lied to me or told me to get a degree in accounting. I don’t even like math.

  I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but when I wake up my eyelashes are crusted together with dried tears. I don’t remember crying last night.

  A loud bang in the kitchen snaps my attention away from the still-judgmental ceiling. This isn’t the first time a racoon has gotten into my apartment. Unfortunately, it’s not even the second. Or third.

  I know the drill by now. I keep a spare broom by my bedroom door for this exact situation. Racoons really hate sweeping. But goddammit, if they’re going to be in my home, they better earn their keep.

  Standing, I brush the remnants of sleep out of my eyes. My hips burn; I fell asleep in my jeans, which is like modern blasphemy. I roll my eyes at my own carelessness, adjust my pants, and grab the broom.

  Wielding it like a sword, I inch toward the kitchen, keeping my back pressed against the wall as I sidestep. Another crash from the kitchen reveals that the raccoons have officially infiltrated the dishes.

  The sound of a drawer opening draws my eyebrows together. Then, the sound of silverware rattling when it slams shut. A gentle hum in a tone I don’t recognize. Very much non-racoon behavior, unless I’m missing a huge evolutionary jump.

  Maybe I’m finally being robbed. Serves me right, always leaving my door unlocked. Occasionally open, when I’ve indulged in too much jungle juice. I should probably just call the police. In fact, I would if my purse wasn’t on the ground…right next to the kitchen.

  Looks like it’s just me and the mysterious drawer slamming hummer.

  Closing my eyes, I squeeze my fingers tighter around the broom. Don’t fail me now, single karate lesson I took fifteen years ago.

  Taking a step out into the open, I squint against the sunlight spilling in through the open window. As my eyes adjust, I take another silent step toward the kitchen. The floor creaks under my foot, and I push on. I don’t care if the intruder knows I’m here, it’s my house. He should be scared of me, not the other way around.

  As if my stomach isn’t in knots.

  I push on, the kitchen just a few short strides away now, an awkward block of wall sectioning off the pantry the only thing blocking my view of the not-racoon.

  My shoulder presses into the pantry wall as I lean forward. A large golden feather lays at my feet, probably laughing at me. It shifts in the light, shimmering like a sunbeam caught mid-fall. A bird? In my kitchen? What kind of golden birds are there in downtown St. Louis? I follow the path into the kitchen, eyes peeled for any suspicious birds and instead find a man.

  A man?

  Not a man.

  He’s dressed in what looks like a bedsheet, with ridiculous sandals wrapping up his calves. Blonde curls cover the tips of his ears, and his biceps catch the sunlight just enough to glow in a golden hue.

  Oh, and the wings.

  Two giant wings sprout from somewhere under his bedsheet-robe, tucking in close to him as he dries a dish.

  What the hell?

  Leaning against the wall, I watch him set the plate down on the counter and pull another dish from the stack.

  A golden-feathered stranger broke into my apartment…and started scrubbing spaghetti crust off my plates. I’ve got to be dreaming. Or dead. Or both.

  “You live like a pig,” the stranger mutters in a posh, anciently British sounding accent. Like water flowing over polished marble.

  And then the insult hits me, and my mouth falls open. Crossing my arms over my chest, I watch his head tilt just enough for the curls to shift against the back of his neck. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I retort, the words coming out higher pitched and angrier than I expected. “You just busted into my house to insult me?”

  “Actually,” he starts in a ridiculously pompous tone, “I busted into your shabby little apartment to do my job. You just so happen to be filthy.”

  He doesn’t even turn around, continuing to scrub as he insults my existence. “Well excuse me, princess. I didn’t exactly plan on a surprise robbery today.”

  “No?” He sets the plate down and spins, his wings spreading wide as his shoulder roll back. And oh my god, his face looks like it was carved from stone. Beautiful is an understatement, but the only thing I can think of as I’m currently mid-surprise cleaning service. High cheekbones and a subtly sharp jaw, he looks like he could either be a gorgeous woman or an incredibly handsome man. I’m honestly surprised I don’t have to pick my jaw up off the floor.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  An infuriating grin is plastered on his face as his eyes flick down to my feet, then back up to my face. He leans against the sink like he already owns the place. “You prayed, I answered.”

  My eyes narrow as I watch his foot tap a chaotically rhythmic beat on the tiled floor. “Your shoes are stupid.”

  A laugh pushes out of him, and the sound is like church bells on a Sunday morning. Peaceful, inspiring, maybe a little ominous. “Your shoes are half-torn open by the doorway. I think you can forgive the sandals.”

  “Why do you have wings?” I shoot out, my lip curling into a snarl as he continues to grin at me.

  “The same reason you don’t.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  His eyebrow quirks as dimples emerge on his cheeks. He shouldn’t be this pretty. Like, besides the actual criminality of him being in my home, it should be double-illegal for him to look like this. Like an angel or a fairy in one of the hundreds of fantasy books I’ve stolen from the library. “You prayed for change, and you got it.”

  “That’s not what I—” My stomach clenches and I nearly puke all over his ugly sandals. “How long have you been watching me? Are you a stalker?”

  “I wasn’t watching you,” he says with a scoff. “I was forced to listen to you and decided to spare you the suffering of waiting for a god to answer.”

  “Oh yeah?” My back knocks into the wall as I take a step away from him. “So, what are you, some sort of angel? Bird of prophesy?”

  His eyes roll back before he stands straight again, his arms coming out around him like he’s spreading the room wide enough to fit all of him. His wings stretch out fully, reaching just past the tips of his fingers and about half a head taller than him. Again. Hot. Aggressively attractive. “Wait, did you just call me a bird of prophesy?” His expression falters just long enough for him to catch and correct.

  “I don’t know!” I shout, holding my hands up in front of my face like the broom will protect me from whatever the hell he’s doing. “Moth man? Winged asshole?”

  His mouth falls open in mock offense. “I am the great herald of the gods,” he says with grandeur, as if that’ll make what he’s saying any less unbelievable. “The psychopomp. The god of travel.” His head bows just slightly, like a nobleman greeting his fresh catch of the evening. “Hermes.”

  “Isn’t that, like, an STD?”

  “Hermes!” He shouts back, his eyebrows knitting together. But his smile somehow stretches wider, like this isn’t the most ridiculous thing that’s happened on this side of the equator. “Son of Zeus? Ring a bell?”

  I nod, humming in disbelief. “No. No bells have been rung in this house.” He tenses, his chest rumbling with a deep laugh. “I think you’re delusional. And definitely need to get the fuck out of my apartment.”

  “I’ll leave once your residence is less hoggish.” His wings tuck in like a sad moth’s as he turns back to the sink. “I’d be praying, too, if I lived like this.”

  I take a step toward him, holding the broom out like a foil. “Don’t you dare touch another dish.”

  “Or what?” His head shakes in a way that feels like an insult. “You’ll clean your kitchen?”

  “I’ll call the police,” I say in a low voice, shimmying sideways until my feet knock against my discarded purse. “I’m pretty sure forceful cleaning is a crime.”

  He chuckles, the sound more mocking than cheerful. “You have a god in your kitchen, and you’re threatening the law?”

  “Watch yourself, feather boy,” I start in a pinched tone, leaning down to clutch my purse. “I bet jail’s not very fun for pretty wing boys.”

  “Feather boy?” The plate in his hand slams down onto the counter, and I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter with the force. He whirls around to face me again, his expression tight with something akin to amusement. “Do you have zero self-preservation skills? I just told you I’m a god. You should be thanking me.”

  The broom slashes through the air, carving the air between us open with a single, embarrassingly slow sweep. “You’ve given me no proof to your claimed godhood, and also that’s bullshit.” My weight shifts onto one hip as I plant the broom on the ground. “You’d be, like, ten thousand years old if you were a god. And probably way cooler.”

  His eyes narrow as he watches me, folding his arms over his chest. “You want proof?”

  My eyebrows pull upward as I shake my head, digging through my purse for my phone. Twelve percent. Probably should’ve charged it last night. “I’m calling the police.” I dial the three quick numbers as he tilts his head cockily.

  I blink, and he’s gone. My lungs ache against a sudden change in air pressure. My ears pop. Spinning in a circle, my breath catches as the air ripples, then stills. The room around me breathes, the walls closing in then exploding outward as my vision turns gold.

  My phone falls from my hand—no, it’s plucked from my hand. That infuriating smirk is less than a foot away from me.

  “What the fuck.” I stumble backward, my lungs finally filling with much needed oxygen. He just…He teleported? He—

  I trip over my own ankle and fall back onto my ass. He’s got my phone pinched between two fingers, holding it like a dirty sock. “How did you do that?” I breathe out, my words as frantic as my thoughts. “What are you?”

  Everything in me tenses as he bends at the waist, staring down at me with eyes of molten gold. “Hermes,” he says simply, holding his hand out to me like a petition for peace. “Like I said.”

  “Hermes,” I parrot, feeling my lips quiver as my stomach churns with all the food I didn’t eat yesterday. “Fuck.” Ignoring his outstretched hand, I plant my hands behind me and push myself up to stand. Wobbling on unstable knees, I scrub a hand over my face. “This is so fucked. Why the hell are you doing my dishes? Aren’t you supposed to be in, like, Greece or something?”

  His hand retreats as he stands straight. “Olympus,” he corrects, placing the same hand on his hip. “Above Greece, technically. Do you know nothing?”

  My lip curls. “I know a lot of things, thank you. Just not about fictional gods on mountains that are very much not fictional. Wait—”

  My chest heaves with ragged breaths. I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming. This is so stupid. Of course this would happen to me. This has gotta be a joke, right? The wings; they’re like prosthetics or something. No. They moved. They… He’s… Is he really who he says he is? Hermes. A god. A Greek god. Like Persephone and Hades and Hercules and all those stories we used to talk about as kids?

  “Like the blue guy from Hercules?”

  The words come out before I can piece my thoughts together and his mouth falls open. He just stares at me for a moment, the world around us pausing as if waiting for a pin to drop and shatter whatever is happening here.

  “Heracles?” he asks, as if he’s disgusted by my question. “That is what you know my name from?” I can’t tell if the offence is genuine or feigned, but his wings tuck closer into his back as if trying to disappear altogether.

  “That’s where I know everything from!” I shout defensively. “You’re acting like this stuff is common knowledge. I took one class on Greek history in college, and it was mostly about how all that stuff was bullshit and the Trojan war was actually caused by money.”

  His mouth opens, closes, then he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you joking?” he asks in a pinched tone. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”

  “Serious as inflation.”

  His hand flattens over his eyes as his head shakes slowly. “This is pathetic,” he mutters dryly. “Heracles was over three thousand years ago, and the least epic of my escapades. What about the moly? And—” He lowers his hand to glower at me— “the Trojan war was caused by Eris’s ridiculous golden apple. Not something as profound as a monetary payoff.”

  The longer he talks, the less posh his accent is. More rolled rs and throaty vowels. And something clicks. “If you’re Greek, why is your accent British?”

  He’s still scrubbing his forehead in some sort of existential temper tantrum when he his lip pulls into a scowl. “Because your puny mortal brain couldn’t handle hearing the language of the gods.”

  “Like…Greek? I’ve heard Greek before.”

  “No.” I’m pretty sure his eyes are going to pop out with the amount of rolling they’re doing. “Not Greek. Older.”

  “Latin?”

  “No!” His hands slam down on the counter, and I expect to see an expression of divine anger across his features, but he’s still smiling. Like he’s enjoying this. Asshole. “Why would a Greek god speak Latin?”

  “Why would a Greek god be in my fucking house?”

  His smile cracks open and a laugh spills out. His shoulders hunch as he leans against the counter, his whole body shaking as he cackles. I just watch with wide eyes as he composes himself, swiping a hand under his eyes as he gathers the little tears that sprung in their corners. “Fair enough.”

  I lean my weight back against the wall and tap the heel of my shoe against the floor. “No, like, actually. Why are you here?”

  He takes a deep breath as his eyes scan the walls, his lips pursing as he spins in a slow circle. “I don’t know.”

  I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks as the silence creeps up on us. He doesn’t look away as I stare at him. “Did you really listen to my prayer?”

  The corner of his mouth quirks, then dips into something closer to a frown. “Every word.”

  “That’s…” Personal. Embarrassing. “Really, really weird.”

  “Not really,” he says too quickly, scrubbing at a spot of dried spaghetti sauce on his arm. “I hear everyone’s prayers.”

  My eyes fall from his, instead finding purchase in the ridiculous straps of his sandals. “What do you do with them?”

  “Deliver the ones that sound desperate enough.” He taps a finger on the counter, shifting his weight between feet.

  “What did you do with mine?”

  The question hangs between us with too much tension. My heart is beating hard enough to make my eyes ache with the pressure. The air feels thicker now, like standing outside the morning after a heavy rain.

  He opens his mouth—probably to say something stupid—but shuts it again. His shoulders shift, restless, and for once he doesn't meet my eyes. "I kept it," he says, so quietly I almost miss it.

  I let out a painful breath, drug from somewhere too deep in my lungs.

  And then he’s gone.