Page 52 of Repluse

Fucking Mila.

I’ve known the girl years, pretty much since she was born, or at least since her mum left her and everyone in our town was talking about it. I was young when it happened, but I stillremember her being referred to as ‘that poor Grace kid’ as I was growing up, or ‘you know, the Grace kid whose cold-hearted Russian bitch of a mother left.’

I’ve since learned her mum isn’t even Russian, but it would be close enough to the narrow-minded, bigoted townsfolk of Yirabang. I know. I experienced first-hand their uneducated, snide comments for years.

Yeah, I knew all about Mila Grace. I remember my mum dropping care packages at the front door of the Grace family home. The untidy garden filled with broken kids’ toys, the frame of a push bike, the engine of a car, and overgrown with dry grass. The steps up to the veranda had holes in them, as did the veranda itself. The paint was peeling from the front door, and a hole had been punched in it but hadn’t gone all the way through.

At least once a month, I went with my mum to drop a parcel of non-perishable pantry food, new socks, and undies in various sizes to fit the four kids.

Every time my mum made me go with her, she’d explain that it wasn’t the kids’ fault. If I saw them at school I should be kind, and that I was lucky to have been born into wealth—I should never forget that. I never have.

So, yeah, I knew all about Mila Grace.

I just neversawher.

Until I did.

It was right after my dad died, right before we left town.

I’d seen her around—of course I had. It was a small town with a population of less than five thousand. You saw pretty much everyone during the course of a single day, but I’d neverseenher. She was invisible to me until the day she wasn’t.

It was summer, and I was walking out of the milk bar, biting the plastic off the top of the icy pole I’d just bought when it happened. I stepped out into the bright afternoon sun, and there she was. Like a fucking angel, she was right there.

I was around seventeen, so noticing a thirteen or fourteen-year-old isn’t as bad as it sounds now as a thirty-six-year-old, but she moved towards me wearing denim shorts and a bikini top. Her feet were bare, and her legs were long and tanned. Her silvery blonde hair looked like it had glitter or whatever the fuck in it, it shone so brightly.

I was seventeen, I’d already fucked. It was a small country town. There wasn’t a lot else to do. Plus, I was known for being moody. I was captain of the footy, basketball, and swim teams, and we had money. It was offered up to me on a plate, and I devoured that shit, especially from the older girls.

So, I used what I knew and everything I’d learned to charm the knickers off nearly every girl in town over the age of thirteen, and I put it into the smile I delivered to Mila Grace as she floated towards me.

She shyly smiled back, her grey eyes flared, her cheeks now pink, all before she tilted her face down to the ground.

My eyes followed her, and I swear to God, I expected to see white angel wings on her back because that girl was other worldly.

Two days later, Scott Walsh assaulted my mum.

Three days later, we left town.

The next time I ever heard of Mila Grace was when news reached us she’d married Logan.

When I walked into Scott’s sixtieth party, my eyes found her instantly. When we talked, I was bewitched, and even though I thought it was the Prosecco talking, I was desperate to make every one of the fantasies she’d confessed come true. Then Logan called, and I was pissed the fuck off with what he told me, so consumed by rage that this angel I’d set on a pedestal for so many years was as calculating as he was. It never even crossed my mind he might lying. Why? Why the fuck did I believe him?

He wanted me to fuck her and get photos, invite her to the club, where he’d have a PI witness her entering and exiting to basically get anything he could use against her in a divorce case. What I didn’t tell Mila, or even Sam, is that he wouldn’t be doing any of this until Mila had delivered the baby he was desperate to put inside her.

At no time did he consider I wouldn’t be interested. The great Logan Walsh assumed, like he had his entire life, he’d click his fingers, and Frankie Walsh, his ‘poor, mongrel cousin’ would do his bidding.

No fucking way was that happening.

When Mila reached out to tell me she’d be in town, I came up with a way of getting revenge on both of them.

I asked Sam if he’d be interested in a three-way outside of the women we bring home from the club, and at first he was hesitant. He knows my feelings run deeper for him than his for me, and I think he worries he’s somehow going to hurt my feelings, but I convinced him this girl was something special. This girl wanted us to make it all about her, maybe for the weekend, maybe for longer. He agreed to one weekend, nothing more.

And then she rocked up to my apartment looking like sin but as nervous as hell, reminding me of that very first time I’d noticed her, and we were both gone.

I skip through the next few pussy-whipped-sounding songs on my playlist until I find something that better suits my mood. Pausing at the intro of the Foo Fighters’ “The Pretender”, I crank the volume louder as I think about Sam’s reaction when I confessed everything to him after Mila left last Sunday.

He actually threw a punch at me, which I only just dodged, but I didn’t escape the hand that wrapped around my throat. When I finally managed to break free from that, we ended uprolling around on the kitchen floor together like a couple of five-year-olds.

I grin at the thought of how we must’ve looked. What Mila would’ve said if she’d seen us.

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