Page 22 of Repluse

CHAPTER 7

Mila

I’m not sure what the time is when something wakes me. After two nights in Frankie’s bed, sandwiched between him and Sam, it takes me a minute to get my bearings. I remain still for a long moment, listening for Logan’s snores and feeling for the heat from his body, but there’s nothing.

Opening my eyes, I notice a light shining in our walk-in robe and realise it was the sound of hangers sliding along the rails that woke me. Turning my head, I check that Logan’s definitely not beside me, then slide silently from beneath the doona.

Quietly, I move to the opening to my wardrobe and peer around the corner to see what’s going on. For five whole minutes, I stand there transfixed as I watch my husband use the torch on his phone to search the pockets of my clothes before moving on to my shoes. He takes each one individually off the carousel and tips it upside down. Next are my bags, which he opens, then searches through.

I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but I’m grateful the bank card I use for my secret stash, along with my contraceptive pills, are hidden where they always are when I sleep, slid between themattress and the timber bed frame. The first thing I do every morning when I wake is move them. If Logan’s still home, they go into my UGGs. If he’s already left, they go back into the pack of sanitising wipes, all ready to leave the house when I do.

I watch on in fascinated horror as he moves to my underwear drawer, where he not only searches, but picks up a couple of pairs of my knickers, turns them inside out, inspects the crotch, then sniffs them.

With my mouth hanging open, I back away and climb back into bed. My racing heart has only just started to calm when the light from the wardrobe goes out. I close my eyes, attempt to relax my muscles, and even out my breathing.

He’s close. I daren’t open my eyes, but I can sense his presence, smell his aftershave, and hear him breathing. It takes everything in me not to recoil when the heat of his breath comes closer, and then I almost stop breathing as he sniffs my fucking hair. After running his nose all over my head, he picks up a strand, but I can’t tell what it is he’s doing with it.

When he moves away and I finally hear the shower run, I let out a breath. What the fuck? He’s obviously suspicious. I knew he was the instant I saw him at my mum’s. I wonder if this is the first time he’s searched through my things. Probably not. If he has a tag on my car and a tracker on my phone, it stands to reason he’d be searching through my belongings looking for God knows what.

Evidence that I have a secret bank account set up with the help of my sister, in her daughter’s name, with a few thousand dollars in?

The contraceptive pills I’m still secretly taking, because the last thing I need is to fall pregnant and not know who the father is?

Which leads to the next possibility: something indicating I spent the weekend receiving the best dick of my entire fuckinglife from two of the hottest men in Australia, or even the world, maybe?

Should I be pissed off by all of this? How can I be when I’m doing all the things he probably suspects me of doing? But I wasn’t until this weekend, except for the pills and bank account that is, but doesn’t every woman have a secret stash? Maybe I’m more like my husband than I care to admit, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

My overriding feeling, though, is one of elation that I had the foresight to shower and wash my hair at our Melbourne apartment, and to wash and dry my clothes, removing any trace of Frankie and Sam, and that I brought my bank card to bed with me.

With a contented smile on my face, I fall asleep before my husband even finishes his shower.

When I wakein the morning, it’s to an empty bed. Checking my phone, I see that it’s only six-thirty. I’m ravenous. If I go downstairs now, everyone will be there, and Logan is unlikely to confront me about being seen in public wearing UGGs and my damp hair. Or I could lay here until he leaves, but that’ll give me time to overthink. Also, what if he waits or comes back up here to have it out with me?

Getting up, I retrieve my stashed items and take them with me to the bathroom. Once I’ve done what I need to do—washed my face and cleaned my teeth—I pause and take in my reflection. I look the same, with no shame or guilt to be found anywhere on my face. I’m about to leave, but I pause when my eyes land on my toiletry drawer that’s been left slightly open. Pulling it all the way out, I can see Logan has obviously searched through here, too.

I go through the other drawers on my side of the vanity, as well as my recessed mirror—everything has been searched. I’mstill confused as to what it is he’s been looking for, but when I notice a pot of ibuprofen laying on its side, I have an idea.

I don’t know what makes me do it, but I empty out the pills, pop my contraceptives from their pack, put them into the pot, then put the ibuprofen back in the pot, and put the childproof lid back on. I take the pot to my wardrobe and put it in the side zipper of my favourite Michael Kors bag—the one I use every day. I then grab a pair of socks from the drawer, pop my bank card inside one of them, pull them on, then put on my UGGs.

I’ve never done things this way—this isn’t my usual morning routine—and I can’t explain why I’ve done it today, but after witnessing what he did last night, I just have a feeling in my gut that today isn’t going to be an ordinary day.

“Morning.”I smile and greet my husband as I enter the kitchen. Kissing his head as I pass, I move towards the coffee machine. “Morning, everyone,” I say without making eye contact with the other four people in the room.

Logan and his parents are all sitting at the long Tassie oak dining table, which, according to legend, is as old as the house. Is it wrong that, as I pop my coffee pod into the machine, I have visions of Frankie and Sam fucking me in all kinds of ways on that table? The knot of dread currently occupying my stomach is momentarily replaced with all manner of flapping things as that image runs through my head, but only momentarily.

Ella is on a stool at the kitchen island. Next to her is her ‘friend’ Marcie, who must’ve stayed over last night… again! I’m not sure if Logan, Nora, and Scott have chosen to ignore the glaringly obvious fact Ella is gay, or if they’re so consumed with their own lives, they’ve failed to notice.

“Hey, Cie,” I say over my shoulder as hot water pumps through the pod I’ve placed in the machine and fills my cup with dark liquid.

Like Frankie’s place, this kitchen is fitted out with a state-of-the-art coffee machine, but unless Margie, the housekeeper, is here early and making them, I really can’t be bothered.

“Morning, Mils. Hear you tried fighting a roo last night on the Yira road?” Marcie says.

“You know me, Cie. I don’t like fighting anyone, but that bloody thing came out of nowhere and chose violence. If I’d done the same, I would’ve just hit him. Instead, I swerved and let him live but ended up in the drainage channel.”

“You okay, though?” Marcie asks as I turn and face the room, with everyone except Nora, who’s transfixed on her glass of OJ, staring my way.

“I’m okay, just shook me up at the time. Thank you for asking.” I slice my eyes between Logan and Scott, and they both look away.

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