Francesca

 

I was alone when I woke up. It took me a minute to realize where the heck I was. I thought I’d fallen asleep on the couch last night, but now I was in a bed. I racked my brain trying to figure out how I’d managed to get up and walk without realizing it, when I remembered a blurry scene I’d thought at the time was a dream of Milo picking me up and tucking me gently into bed. I guessed it must have been real. Weird. The way I remembered it, he was so soft and careful, almost tender with his touch. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. That was not Milo’s way at all. More likely, he’d slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and dropped me off here.

 

Speaking of Milo, I wondered where he was. The other half of the bed looked like it had been slept in, but now it was cold. Either I was wrong and he hadn’t slept here at all, or he’d been gone for a long time, a few hours at least.

 

I sat up and swung my legs over the side. My feet came to rest on the cold floorboards, sending shivers up my spine. This place needed a rug. As a matter of fact, this place needed a lot of things. The way it was set up now, it felt more like a morgue than a home. If I were going to be living here, I would want to get some decorations, put things on the walls—anything I could do to keep it from resembling an abnormally roomy jail cell.

 

That would have to wait until Milo got back from wherever he was, though. For now, all I wanted was a shower. I felt crusty with sleep and yesterday’s makeup. I’d fallen asleep without washing my face, and now I could feel the raccoon eyes from my mascara smudging against the pillows. Some hot water would do me justice. Getting out of this wedding dress wouldn’t be so bad either.

 

I stood up but immediately collapsed back down. My legs felt weak and shaky for some reason, and the sudden motion had brought a sickening wave of nausea crashing over me. I put a hand on my stomach and felt it gurgling. It had been almost a week since I’d last noticed any kicking or had morning sickness. I’d almost forgotten all about the baby.

 

I closed my eyes and breathed carefully until the nausea passed and I felt my pulse settle down to normal again. When it had, I took to my feet slowly, keeping a palm flat on the bedside table for support. This time, I didn’t feel sick, thankfully.

 

Reaching behind my back as far as I could manage, I unhooked the top of the dress and found the zipper. I dragged it down and breathed a sigh of relief as the tight upper portion peeled off of me. I wriggled it down my hips and stepped out in my bra and panties, leaving the dress pooled behind me.

 

I found the bathroom jutting off of the bedroom and stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. It felt good to be in a small space, like there was nothing that could happen in here that was out of my control or that I wouldn’t see coming. I started the shower and the room began to fill with steam.

 

Looking in the mirror, I saw a nightmarish reflection staring back. Makeup was streaked across my cheekbones and my hair had begun to work itself loose from the tight coils I’d worn during the wedding ceremony. I raised my fingers to my scalp and began finding all of the pins keeping the hair locked in place. As I pried them off one by one, my hair fell around me in a blonde tumble.

 

I stripped off my underwear and bra and stepped into the shower. The water was blazing hot, and at first I could barely stand to stick a toe under the scalding stream. But gradually, I worked my way underneath until it was pouring over my head and cascading down my skin. I closed my eyes and stood there for a long time. The shower beat down blissfully on my neck and back, trickling between my breasts and the welts that the dress had left on my spine and hips.

 

I found some soap and scrubbed at my skin. I couldn’t explain why, but it was as if I was peeling free of something, like a snakeskin, and the me that stepped out of this shower was going to be a completely different person than the one who had first stepped in. Like I was embracing my new life in yet another way, after Milo and I had had our first bike ride and first night under the same roof as Mr. and Mrs. Shaker. It wasn’t the worst name in the world, I supposed.

 

Then I shuddered. I was not about to let myself get used to this. One way or another, I’d find a means of escape.

 

Finally, after I’d soaped every inch of my skin and rinsed the suds away, I cut the faucet off. The silence of the room was perfect. I stood there for a moment longer, soaking it in, breathing in the warm air and letting it fill my lungs before it whooshed out in a long, tension-melting sigh. Then I climbed out of the shower and used the lone towel in the room to dry off my hair and body.

 

When I was dry, I wrapped the towel around my chest and opened the door separating the bathroom from the bedroom. After the scorching shower, the blast of the A/C felt like an Arctic breeze. I shivered and rubbed the goosebumps that rippled up and down my arms.

 

One glance at the wedding dress I’d left on the floor and I remembered I didn’t have any other clothes with me. It was a weird thought, to realize I’d left my whole life behind. My clothes, my belongings, all of it was still back at my father’s house. Did I just bring it all here? I didn’t like the idea of facing Daddy yet. It was too soon.

 

I decided to borrow some clothes from Milo for now. I found his closet, opened it, and saw a few shirts hanging inside. One of them looked wearable. I took it out and laid it on the bed, then padded back to the bathroom to put my underwear back on.

 

I rifled through the drawers beneath the sink and found an unused comb. As I started to brush through my wet hair, I realized with a start that I was singing to myself. I froze. I couldn’t get over how normal this all felt. Sleeping in a comfortable bed, showering, as if nothing in my life had changed.

 

But it had. Everything had changed.

 

I resumed combing, but I made sure I stayed silent. Despite the part of me that wanted to accept all this chaos with a smile, there was another, more stubborn voice in my head that refused. My father could threaten me into doing whatever he wanted, but he couldn’t decide what I thought about it. That was for me and me alone.

 

When I had finished tugging out all of the knots, I turned to go put on the shirt of Milo’s I’d laid on top of the comforter. I took half a step into the bedroom and froze.

 

There was a man walking through the doorway from the living room. “Hello?” he called.

 

I saw his head whirl just as I slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it. My heart was pounding a thousand beats a minute as I yelled through the wooden frame, “Whoever you are, leave me alone! I have a gun in here!” I didn’t have anything of the sort, but I figured the man on the other side of the door wouldn’t know that. I looked around for something to defend myself just in case he tried to force his way through. All I could find was a plunger. I grabbed it anyway, fully aware that I looked like a massive idiot, crouching against a bathroom door in my underwear as I squeezed a plunger in my fists like it was a sword.

 

The man said something, but I couldn’t hear him.

 

“What?” I said.

 

“I said, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, Francesca. My name is Pete; Milo sent me to check on you.”

 

I lowered the plunger slowly but I didn’t set it down just yet. The man knew my name, he knew Milo, and he obviously knew where this apartment was and had some way to get inside. He was probably trustworthy. But I was still going to be cautious.

 

I unlocked the door, twisted the handle, and let it swing open a little bit. I still couldn’t see him, but I felt the breeze of the air conditioning drift through the opening. “How can I trust you?” I asked. I kept my right hand wrapped around the plunger’s handle.

 

“Milo sent me, I swear. I work with him. I was at the wedding, remember?”

 

The door eased open a little farther and I could finally see him. It was a familiar face after all. He had a brown beard speckled with gray, kept trimmed tightly against his jaw, and dark brown hair that he swept straight back away from his widow’s peak. He’d been sitting in the front row, I remembered, with an expression that was neither a smile nor a frown, but instead somewhere in between.

 

When he saw I was holding the plunger like a weapon, the corner of his mouth twitched up into a grin. “You’ve got a gun in there, eh?” He chuckled.

 

“Not quite,” I admitted. I pointed at the shirt on the bed. “Can you hand me that? I’m not dressed.”

 

I was surprised to see him lower his eyes immediately. My mental image of how a Devil’s Sons member acted certainly did not include modesty for an unclothed woman. He spun on his heel, picked up the shirt from the bed, and walked it over to me, all while keeping his gaze trained on the floor at his feet.

 

I took it from him carefully and ducked back behind the door to pull the garment over my head. It fell down almost to my knees. It was as ridiculous-looking of a dress as I’d ever seen, but it would have to do for now, at least until I got some new clothes of my own.

 

When I was dressed, I set the plunger down, opened the door, and walked into the bedroom. Pete wasn’t in there. I kept walking into the living room and saw him seated on the armchair, facing away from me, one ankle crossed over the other knee. He heard me approaching and twisted around to watch as I came and sat on the couch to his right.

 

“I’m sorry to have scared you like that,” he said.

 

I laughed. He really did look embarrassed. If I had to be honest, it was kind of cute. A blushing biker; I never thought I’d see the day. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just glad you didn’t make me use my weapon on you.”

 

He looked at me with round eyes. “God forbid.”

 

I settled back and relaxed for the first time since he’d walked in. He seemed nice, and I liked how composed he was. Of the few of my father’s comrades I’d actually met, they all seemed like loose cannons, liable to explode at any minute. Like Milo, Pete was different. He was clearly in control of himself. It made me feel safer to be around him.

 

“How are you settling in?” he asked.

 

I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “I’m not yet. But I’ll get there, I guess.”

 

He nodded. “I’m sure it’s a hard change for you.”

 

I wondered how much he knew of the circumstances that had led to this whole situation. There was no telling; he kept everything so close to the chest. I decided to play it cool. He seemed trustworthy, but I couldn’t see any advantage in rocking the boat. Better to go with the flow until I figured out the lay of the land here. “It is what it is,” I said. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I cringed.

 

Pete noticed and his eyes narrowed. “Something wrong?” he asked.

 

“No, it’s just, uh. Nothing, never mind.” I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I’d sounded just like Milo had. It is what it is. He was inside my head already.

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yeah, I’m sure. Just a weird memory.”

 

“Gotcha.” He leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. “Well, anyway, the reason I’m here is that Milo sent me to see what you needed. You’re going to be here for a while, and he said I should take you out to get things—clothes, furniture, makeup. Whatever it is you’d like to have around here.”

 

I took a look around the empty room. “Oh, boy,” I said. Then I frowned. “But I don’t have any money.”

 

Pete chuckled. “You don’t need to worry about money, Francesca. Not ever again.” He stood.

 

I was still processing his words when he stood.

 

“If you’re ready, we can go,” he invited, extending a hand to help me up from the couch.

 

I took it and rose to my feet. Noticing something, though, I looked down. “I don’t have any shoes,” I said.

 

He looked down and saw I was barefoot. “Well, first stop is the shoe store, then, I guess.”

 

# # #

 

“How long have you known Milo?” I asked.

 

Pete was sitting in a chair on the other side of the door to the dressing room stall I was in. I could see him crossing and uncrossing his feet over and over again. It made me chuckle. Who knew that the way to make a biker uncomfortable was to bring him into a women’s clothing shop? He’d looked downright terrified at every place we’d gone so far, though the more places we went, the more bags he had to struggle with. He’d given me carte blanche to get literally anything I wanted, and I took his recommendation to heart. I stopped bothering with price tags after the first few shops, and he didn’t even ask the totals when we were checking out. He just reached into his jacket and peeled crisp hundred dollar bills from the rubber-banded roll he kept in some hidden pocket. It seemed endless.

 

“A very long time,” he said. “Since we were kids.”

 

“You grew up together?”

 

“Yeah. His mom and mine were cousins. Or at least that’s what they told us. I never actually found out if it was true or not. It didn’t really matter. They were family, whether or not we shared blood.”

 

“That’s cute.”

 

He shifted in his seat again and grumbled something below my hearing.

 

I emerged from the dressing room in a pair of jeans and a flowing white top. “Whatcha think?” I said. I surprised myself with how carefree I felt. I knew it was stupid, but something as innocuous as a shopping spree was just the right thing to counterbalance the doom and gloom of the last few months. I was determined to focus on the moment and not get lost in what had happened before or what was going to happen next. The past was over and done with and the future was unknowable, I reminded myself. Just enjoy right now, and worry about later when that time came. For the time being, I managed to convince myself to do just that.

 

“You, erm, look…great,” he finished clumsily.

 

I laughed and walked over to the mirror to check out the clothes I’d tried on. “I’m just teasing you, Pete,” I said. “You’re being a good sport about it, though.”

 

“Anything for the boss’s wife,” he mumbled.

 

I decided I liked the clothes enough to wear them out. I tossed Milo’s old shirt into one of the many bags we’d accumulated throughout the day, slipped on my shoes, and headed up towards the register to finalize the purchases. Pete stood up and followed me out.

 

“So Milo’s your boss?” I asked as the cashier folded and bagged the other things I’d bought.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What’s that like?”

 

“It is what it is,” he said with a straight face.

 

I gave him a sideways look just in time to see him crack a broad smile. “Was that a joke?” I asked in astonishment. “Were you making fun of me? Oh, wow, I thought you were going to be deadly serious all day.”

 

“I’m full of mysteries.”

 

“Really, though,” I prodded. We were on our way out of the story and back towards the car to load up. “I’m curious. What’s Milo like as a boss?”

 

“Oof,” he grunted, dropping the armful of clothes onto the ground and popping open the trunk.

 

“Pete,” I insisted. “Pete.”

 

He stopped loading the clothes and gave me a strange look. The twinkling smile from before had disappeared. He looked at me with a somber expression, and when he spoke, his words were slow and serious. “Milo is the best man I know,” he said. “I’d follow him to the grave.”

 

I didn’t know what to say to that. He resumed putting the bags into the trunk as I stood still in silence, chewing on what I’d just heard. The best man I know. I didn’t know much about Pete, but something about the way he carried himself told me he wasn’t the kind of guy who said things like that lightly. Especially not given the way he’d looked when he said it. It almost made me shiver, despite the summer heat broiling around us.

 

He shut the trunk. “Ready?” he asked.

 

I nodded numbly and climbed in the passenger’s seat. He swung himself into the other side and started up the engine, then pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road that led back towards the apartment.

 

A question occurred to me. I’d been dying to ask for a long time, but I didn’t know who to consult or when the right time would be. Pete seemed like a good enough guy, and since I couldn’t say for sure if or when I’d ever see him again, I figured I had to give it a shot.

 

“Pete, why does my father hate Milo?” I asked quietly.

 

I saw Pete’s fists tighten on the steering wheel, but he didn’t say anything for a long time. It wasn’t until we arrived at the apartment that he finally spoke. “I can’t talk about that,” he said. “You’ll have to ask Milo yourself.”

 

I tried to get him to tell me something, but he wouldn’t budge an inch. He carried the packages of new clothes up to the apartment and deposited them in a neat pile on the coffee table. Just before he left, I grabbed his arm. “Pete, please,” I said. “I have to know why I’m in this mess. There’s more to it than just my father’s anger. There’s history; there has to be.”

 

He shook his head sadly. “There’s bad blood between them,” he said. “That’s all I can tell you. You’ll have to ask Milo to explain.” He walked out without another word.