“I guess so.” Eve was so happy to see her mom, her eyes burned. “It’s good to see you.”
“Eh, you say that now.” Striding toward the bed with the brisk stride of a retired nurse, Miyoko was a compact whirlwind of energy, a tornado that often left Eve feeling exhausted. “You didn’t move a muscle for a while. I nearly thought you were dead.”
Eve had been dead, that was the problem. “What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
Another noxious breeze assaulted her nostrils and Eve waved a hand in front of her face. Her gaze found the source on her dresser—an incense stick.
“Whatever fragrance that is,” Eve muttered, inwardly reeling that she had lost two days of her life, “it stinks.”
Miyoko moved to the end of the bed and dumped the still-warm pile of clothes onto the comforter. She wore Hello Kitty pajamas—pink flannel pants and a T-shirt that had a giant Hello Kitty face on the front. With her black hair in pigtails and her unlined face, she looked more like Eve’s sibling than a parent. She also acted as if she owned the place, which she didn’t. Darrel and Miyoko Hollis lived in Anaheim—home of Disneyland, California Adventure, and Eve’s childhood. Still, whenever her mother visited, Eve found herself fighting for her place as alpha female in her own house.
Eve watched her mother walk right past the angel without batting an eye. Standing with crossed arms, widespread legs, and folded wings, he was impossible to ignore . . .
Unless you couldn’t see him.
“Aromatherapy aids healing,” Miyoko pronounced.
“Not when it smells like shit. And why are you doing my laundry again? I wish you could come over and just relax.”
“It’s not shit. It’s jasmine-chamomile. And I am doing your laundry because it was piled up. Can’t relax in a messy house.”
“My house is never messy.” Her mom did laundry every time she came over, despite the fact that at twenty-eight years of age Eve was perfectly capable of doing her own. No matter how spotless her condo might be, her mother cleaned it—rearranging everything to her liking in the process.
“Was, too,” her mother argued. “You had an overflowing basket by the washing machine and a sink full of dirty dishes.”
Eve pointed at the boxer briefs, men’s shirts, and towels in the pile. “Those aren’t my clothes. The dishes aren’t mine either.”
She wondered what her mother would do if she learned that she was washing Cain and Abel’s clothes. The brothers went by the names Alec Cain and Reed Abel now, but they were still the siblings of biblical legend.
“Alec has been using all the towels and leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor.” Miyoko’s tone was starkly chastising. No man was good enough for Eve. They all had some flaw in her mother’s eyes, no matter how small. “And both he and your boss get new glasses every time they have a drink.”
“Alec lives next door. Why doesn’t he go mess up his place?”
“You’re asking me?” Her mother snorted. “I still don’t know why Reed spends so much time at your house. It’s not natural. Or why your boyfriend is CEO of a corporation like Meggido Industries, but I’ve never seen him in a suit.”
The thought of Alec in a suit made Eve smile. “When you run the place and you’re good at it, you can wear whatever you want.”
Eve stretched gingerly, wincing at the lingering tenderness in her spine. Then, she hollered, “Alec!”
“Don’t yell.”
“It’s my house, Mom.”
“Men don’t like to be yelled at.”
“Mom . . .” She heaved out a frustrated breath. “What do you care, anyway? He leaves towels on the bathroom floor.”
It was a pet peeve of Eve’s, too, but she didn’t think it made a man unsuitable for marriage.
Eve glanced at the angel, embarrassed to have him witness their squabbling. His burning gaze met hers, then his nose wrinkled.
“Mom!” Eve’s tone was more urgent. “Put that incense out, please. I’m serious. It stinks.”
Miyoko grunted, but moved to tamp out the incense stick. “You’re difficult.”
“And you’re stubborn, but I love you anyway.”
“You’re awake,” Alec interjected, walking through the open bedroom door. He stared at her with fathomless eyes, his gaze darting over her in search of any cause for concern. “You scared me, angel,” he said gruffly.
Angel. It was a pet name only he ever used. Every time she heard it, her toes curled. Alec’s voice was velvet smooth and capable of turning a reading of Hawking’s A Brief