“Let me tell you, humans have found incredibly bizarre ways to die, and there was one who died that way. Except he was older, and the story of his death amused me. It stuck with me for many years.”

“The...story of his death...amused you?”

“It did, so I borrowed his death.” His head tilted—oh dear God, it tilted in the way it often did when Peanut looked at me. “You should sit down.”

I couldn’t move. “Peanut wasn’t real?”

“Peanut is real,” he corrected. “He is, well, a figment of me. A manifestation or projection of me, when I was a...younger, vastly more annoying angel prone to all manner of things.”

“Like creeping into the bathroom when Zayne showered?” I screeched like a full-blown pterodactyl.

“When you say it that way, you make it sound perverted.”

“Because it is perverted.” Oh my God, why would I even have to explain that to anyone, let alone an archangel?

“I was curious about the man who I knew would own my daughter’s heart. Wasn’t like I looked where I shouldn’t.” He shrugged. “Besides, there is nothing in this world we have not seen a million times before.”

“Somehow that makes it all the worse,” I murmured.

One side of his lips curled. “It is so human of you to imply that there is a sexual motivation behind literally everything. Newsflash, Trinnie,” he said, and every muscle in my body seized. He sounded so much like Peanut. “It’s not.”

“I think I need to sit down.”

“You do.”

I didn’t. “You would watch me sleep! The way you would talk? The things that came out of your mouth.”

“As I said, Peanut is a figment of my youth,” he explained. “I was quite obnoxious as a young angel. Ask Lucifer. He can confirm that.”

“But all the ’80s stuff—”

“The ’80s always amused me. The music. The hair.” He paused. “The leotards. Very interesting decade that proved, well, you haven’t seen it all when you think you have.”

Oh God.

Peanut was my father.

My father was Peanut.

I did sit down then, right there, on the floor. “Is it possible that I had, I don’t know, a stroke, and that explains all of this?”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” A moment passed and my father peeked around the bed. “Would it be easier for you to see me as Peanut? I can change back into him. I just cannot maintain the projection for very long.”

Understanding struck me upside the head. “That’s why you were always disappearing! Even back in the community. I just thought you were off doing...ghost things.”

“The projection requires my attention. Not a lot, but enough that it can be a distraction. Do you want me to change back to him?”

“No. That would...that would be even weirder, and I don’t think I can deal with that.”