On The Edge

The crowd's roar was still ringing in my ears when I saw her. Arms crossed, that look. You know the one.

"Seriously, Jake?" Mara materialized right beside me, her wings doing this annoyed flutter thing. "That was your what... eighth near-death experience this month?"

I grabbed a beer from a nearby cooler, popped it open. "Eighth? Nah. Probably like... fifth? Maybe sixth?" I grinned, knowing exactly how much it would drive her nuts.

Mara pinched the bridge of her nose. Classic guardian angel move. "The motorcycle stunt over the Grand Canyon? You were literally millimeters from—"

"—from absolute awesomeness?" I cut in. "Nailed it."

She wasn't amused. Her celestial clipboard—yeah, guardian angels have those—materialized, pages fluttering with what looked like my increasingly ridiculous risk assessments.

"Do you have any idea," she started, voice getting that pitch that meant serious business, "how many miracles I've had to pull to keep you alive? The paperwork... my god, the paperwork."

I took a long swig. "Part of the job description, right?"

Mara's eye twitched. Not an actual eye-twitch. More like a metaphysical one that somehow communicated pure exasperation.

"You're pushing it, Jake. One of these days—"

"—one of these days what?" I challenged. "I'll actually mess up? Not likely."

She leaned in close. Close enough that normal humans would've freaked out at the sudden supernatural presence. Me? I just grinned wider.

"Luck," Mara said slowly, "is not a sustainable life strategy."

I shrugged. "Been working pretty great so far."

The thing about guardian angels? They might look human-ish, but they've got this whole cosmic accounting system going on. Every risk, every near-miss, every batshit crazy stunt gets logged somewhere in the great bureaucratic system of... whatever.

Mara's clipboard started making this weird calculating noise. Beep. Whirr. Some supernatural Excel spreadsheet nonsense.

"Your risk-to-miracle ratio is astronomical," she muttered.

"Is that math for 'you're awesome'?" I winked.

She didn't laugh. Shocker.

"One more stunt," Mara said, pointing a finger that definitely wasn't human-regulation finger-pointing, "and I'm requesting a transfer. Maybe to someone who appreciates being alive."

I raised my beer. "Cheers to that."

We both knew I wasn't stopping. And somewhere in the cosmic admin office, some angel was gonna have one hell of a headache.