Angel

I was quickly running out of money and clean clothes so Angel and I drove back to LA at dawn to avoid traffic. Angel was chaotic but always made me feel safe. When we got to her place, we realized she’d left her apt windows open and there was a visible layer of ash and dust on her books, the tables and every piece of fruit. I watched Angel push it all onto the floor while smiling at me.

Let’s bake something,” Angel said.

I agreed but told her I couldn’t bake for shit.

“It’s fine, just do what I say” Angel said.

I mixed the ingredients and followed her instructions the best I could. Eventually, we had what looked to me like cake batter. “Needs more egg” she told me. I closed the kitchen windows to the outside to keep the smoke out of the house a little longer. I pushed my body against her body from behind. I watched as she stuck a finger in the batter bringing it to her mouth.

“They’re Muffins” she said smiling as I kissed the back of her neck. Angel smelled like food to me always, if food and a French fragrance from a magazine you’d sniff as a kid were the same thing. It was around this time we both decided to fuck thru the fires for as long as we could. The smoke outside was getting worse and we knew we didn’t have long. I lifted Angel onto the kitchen counter pushing her ass into the broken egg shells and bowls. I pulled off her shorts with my left hand while holding her head with my right, doing my best to keep it from banging into the cabinet. We fucked for a very long time, Angel fumbled through a junk drawer to my right to find a small black vibrator. She came twice as I fucked her, my jeans around my ankles. Just before finishing, she told me to do it in the muffin batter.

I laughed but did what she asked - just as I pulled out to finish I aimed at the glass bowl of muffin batter and didn’t miss. A few moments later I watched as Angel lovingly mixed me into the muffin batter. With a small spoon she filled each of the round muffin shaped holes in the tin tray and placed them into the oven she’d preheated to 375.

We packed a small overnight bag as the muffins cooked, I could see the orange glow from the flames just at the top edges of the canyon across from us. There was white ash covering the black BBQ outside, it looked like snow. After 20 minutes Angel took the muffins out of the oven, and placed them on top of the stove. Grabbing a towel from the bathroom, she spread it across the top of the hot tray.

“If they’re here when we get back, we can eat them.” She said.

We hurried back outside to my car again. The sky was pitch black, it was 10am. The winds had been breaking 100 mph since last night, shaking the windows of the house and snapping the small trees in the garden.

We drove for three hours until the sky was blue and behind us was black. Angel squeezed her small body through the sunroof to film it with her phone while I drove us up the 5. Angel had ashes in her hair when she climbed back in. Eventually we found a tiny motel outside Ventura and we fucked and drank the way we drink when only we’re together. Angel liked when I told her stories about other girls. She would blush and smile and bite my bottom lip while she kissed me until it hurt too much and I’d pull away - which always made it hurt more. We smoked cigarettes thru the late afternoon on a small balcony attached to our room as Angel sat in my lap in white cotton shorts. We watched four yellow haired California kids playing in the clean green grass as their parents stood by nervously talking in whispers and comparing notes about the fires.

Everything felt heavy but we decided to work harder on being drunk.

As the sun set we drove to a nearby bar called “The Deer” to share a burger and keep drinking. I watched Angel shooting pool while I stared at her ass . She locked eyes with me as she played. That night we fell asleep at 9pm and woke up again very early at sunrise. The fires were spreading deeper into Los Angeles now - Angel’s roommate Sarah needed us to come pick her up since she’d been forced to abandon her car on Sunset the night before. The drive back was two hours. Together we watched the sky go orange and then red and then dark grey. The road was covered in ash and downed trees - Angel’s house was standing untouched, but the power was out. We headed in, and heard the sound of Sarah’s phone. She was sitting at the kitchen island in the dark, thumbing thru TikTok and eating a muffin.

“Do you guys really think they’re gonna ban this shit?”