A Fallen Angel Rings the Doorbell

An unexpected guest announces himself in this week’s new story from Jennifer Hudak.

~ Julian and Fran, September 21, 2025

For September, The Sunday Morning Transport brings you new stories by Cecilia Tan, Brenda Cooper, Jennifer Hudak, and Mari Ness. As always, the first story of the month is free to read.

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A Fallen Angel Rings the Doorbell

by Jennifer Hudak

He looks just like I imagined he would: black leather jacket, ripped jeans, unwashed hair. His wings, which are only visible on moonless nights, are the gray of shadows. Even before I invited him in, I was a goner.

I don’t know why he chose my door. Maybe it’s because I live on the top floor of my four-story building and he still yearns for the sky. Maybe this was just the first apartment he saw. Whatever the reason, I offer him a drink. I’ve got two kinds of scotch and he goes for the peaty one. “I’ve developed a taste for smoke,” he says with a dangerous grin, and if I wasn’t completely smitten before, I am now.

I’ve always liked them a little rough around the edges. A little dirty under the fingernails. I like the ones others have tried to make into projects, the ones who’ve resisted improvement. When he meets my parents, he wears a short-sleeved shirt so everyone can see the snake tattoos coiling around his biceps, the studded bracelet around his wrist. My mother eyes his chipped black nail polish and her mouth tightens, but I don’t care. Why should he hide who he is? Why should anyone?

I just want to make sure you’re safe, she texts me later.

I resent the implication that he’s unsafe just because he’s fallen. What does it mean to fall, anyway? Babies do it all the time when they’re learning to walk, and then they get back up. It’s part of the process. It’s how you learn.

Besides, it’s all so thrilling at first, with his hellfire eyes and his sword-calloused fingers. Underneath it all, I can tell he’s still wounded. It’s not easy to be expelled from anywhere, and though his bruises are invisible, that doesn’t mean they don’t pain him. When we coil together in bed, looking out my window at the icy moon, I whisper to him that I’d fight all the angels who forced him out. I’d make them pay for betraying him.

“There’s no need,” he whispers, running his hands down my back until I shiver. “I’m right where I want to be.”

#

He takes a job at the liquor store on the corner. It surprises me—not necessarily the liquor store itself, but that he thought to get a job in the first place. It seems so ordinary. So pedestrian.

“Are you saying we don’t need the money?” he asks me.

“No, we need it. It’s just, shouldn’t you be . . . I don’t know. Fighting the angelic host or something? Plotting your revenge? I’m serious,” I say when he laughs.