Page 59 of Repluse

“Fuck off.”

“Grow up.”

My brows shoot up my forehead because he’s just called me out and I like it.

I’ve been married for years but have never had this kind of interaction with my husband. He dishes out his orders, his rules, and like a Stepford wife, feeling hollow inside, I just follow. But this back and forth, the banter, and the fact they show interest in me, my thoughts, feelings, and emotions makes me feel alive.

“I’m sorry,” I say on a sigh. “I’m not used to anyone giving a fuck. I need to learn to regulate my emotions when I’m talking about them and not throw thirteen-year-old girl type tanties.”

“Throw what you like, we’re here for it. Just an FYI, though, he called after he spoke to you because he was worried.” He pauses, drains his cup, sets it down, then leans back into his seat with much more grace than I did. “And you need to get used to us giving a fuck and asking how you’re travelling, because we’re gonna check in and we’re gonna ask, probably to the point of annoying you,” he says with a shrug. “So, you gonna tell me?”

“Logan called this morning. It’s the first time he’s called since dropping me off on Monday.” I watch as Sam shakes his head while raking his top teeth over the corner of his bottom lip. “He told me he was in Queensland and wouldn’t be able to make it back for my appointment at the fracture clinic this arvo. He asked if I could get myself there.”

“He’s a piece of fucking work.”

“Then,” I add on a sigh, “he said he’d try and make it back for the weekend, because, ya know, he wants to try and stick his dirty dick in me and implant his devil’s spawn. I told him I was on my period, it was heavy, and I was having cramps, yada yada. So he said he wouldn’t bother.”

“He’s not in Queensland.”

“What?”

“He’s not in Queensland. Frankie has an entire team watching him. He’s mostly been in Albury with the side piece.”

I know I have absolutely no right to feel any type of way, but I do, and as usual, something sharp stabs at my heart. “Alice?”

“Yeah.”

I’m not jealous. Alice is more than welcome to him. It’s the fact he lied. I know, pot, kettle, and all of that, but it’s the fact he has no idea about my extra material activities and that I’m no longer the dutiful little wifey he always assumed he’d moulded me into. As far as he’s concerned, I’m tucked up in our apartment with a broken wrist that he stood by and watched his own father do. I’m all alone, and he can’t even be bothered to take me to my hospital appointment. Plus, the fact that he left me alone overnight, after the hospital told him not to, with a concussion. He obviously feels absolutely nothing but contempt for me, and I’m now more determined than ever to escape my marriage and face whatever consequences might come my way when I tell him I’m leaving him.

“What are you thinking?” Sam’s question brings me back to the room.

“I don’t want to wait for whatever it is Frankie has planned. I don’t want to go back to him. I want out now.”

Sam nods slowly. “Let’s do that, then. It’s what I’ve wanted since I saw what they’d done to you on Monday.”

“But what do I do? Where do I go?”

“Mils, not this again,” he says on a frustrated sigh. “We’ve got you. Let’s work it all out over the weekend, and then we’ll get you sat down with one of our legal team. We’ll get your mum moved to a different facility, and you can stay with me, with Frankie. We can get you your own place in the city if that’s what you prefer. You can go to mine down on the peninsula, or we have a couple of places up in Queensland. We’ll find you somewhere, and we’ll keep you safe.”

“It’s been a week. You’ve only known me?—”

“Believe me, I’m well aware. We’re both very aware of how quick this is all moving, but you know what?”

I know it’s probably a rhetorical question, but I ask anyway. “What?”

“If you’re feeling what we are, chances are, the three of us can’t be wrong, so let’s just go with it and see where it takes us.”

My heart feels like it’s stopped beating inside my chest and has started to try and punch its way out. I’m not sure if it’s nerves or excitement at what the future might hold for the three of us.

I nod. My stomach now feels like it’s got its own heartbeat that’s totally out of sync with my real heartbeat as the caffeine from my second coffee hits and accelerates my nerves and excitement.

“Right, you two ready?” Frankie asks, and I’m so lost inside my own head I physically jump.

“Where we going?” I ask, when what I really want to know is who Bella is.

“If I tell ya, I’ll have to kill ya, Mils, and no one wants that.”

Sam and I make eye contact and smile at Frankie’s unusually jokey demeanour.

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