Read Online Milosz by Cordelia Strube - Free Book Online

with you, Milo,’ Vera says.
    â€˜Okay, tell her I’ll be right out.’
    Pablo winks at him. ‘Don’t be afraid to show your true feelings.’
    â€˜What true feelings?’ Wallace asks.
    â€˜About the fence,’ Milo says, kicking Pablo.
    Vera picks up Tanis’s underpants. ‘Hel-lo, somebody forgot their knickers.’
    All eyes fix on the underpants.
    â€˜They’re Maria’s,’ Pablo blurts.
    â€˜Patched things up, have you?’
    â€˜Not totally,’ Pablo says. ‘I still have to stay here a couple of nights, if that’s okay.’
    â€˜No way are you rutting on my couch,’ Wallace says.
    â€˜It’s my couch,’ Milo intervenes.
    Tanis appears with her hair sprung loose and takes her panties from Vera. ‘Those are mine, thank you. Milo, can we speak privately for a moment?’
    He sits on one of Gus’s peeling Muskoka chairs, wishing Tanis would sit on the other one, but she remains standing with arms crossed, the panties scrunched into her fist.
    â€˜Remember,’ she says, ‘Robertson had a Halloween party a couple of years ago and nobody came but you?’
    â€˜Christopher’s assistant came as Dorothy.’
    â€˜You came as Spider-Man.’
    â€˜Did I? Hunh. I’d forgotten. I wonder what happened to that costume.’
    â€˜Billy Kinney was assaulted by a man wearing a Spider-Man mask.’
    â€˜Billy who?’ Milo knows exactly who Billy is.
    â€˜He woke up this morning with a headache but it got worse after the assault so his mother took him to emerg. Did you knock him down?’ She stares unwaveringly into Milo’s soul, leaving energy impressions.
    â€˜Of course not.’ He did not knock him down. The boy collapsed before him. He can’t say this, can’t admit he was there and fled.
    â€˜Where were you this morning?’
    â€˜What? Here.’
    â€˜Vera says you left early.’
    There’s no question he’s going to have to snuff the old crow. ‘That’s right. I had an audition. That was an experience and a half. I had to run around with my shirt off.’
    â€˜You had an audition at eight-fifteen this morning?’
    â€˜Correcto, you going to arrest me?’ He tries to sit back casually, crossing one leg over the other. He tries to smile bemusedly or innocently – he’s not sure which. His mouth freezes in the confusion. ‘I’m sorry about the underpants,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how I walked away with them.’
    â€˜I know you care deeply about Robertson. But this won’t help him. Please don’t do it again.’ She walks out of his yard into her own, spared the knowledge that her husband is in the trauma centre fighting for his legs and maybe his life. Milo feels so ill suddenly he can’t get off the chair.
    â€˜Are you asleep?’ Robertson asks, squatting by the other Muskoka chair and picking at the paint.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜You looked like you were sleeping.’
    â€˜I was just thinking.’
    â€˜About what?’
    â€˜Oh, ice cream. Do you want some?’
    â€˜What flavour?’
    â€˜Death by Chocolate.’
    â€˜Sweet.’
    â€˜I’ll be right back.’ He is afraid that Robertson will grill him as Tanis did and he will act equally badly.
    Pablo, Wallace and Vera are watching a reality show featuring a born-again aging bombshell who insists she saves marriages by selling vibrators, fruit-flavoured condoms and lubricants. ‘What about the whips and chains, ducky?’ Vera demands.
    â€˜I can’t believe we’re watching this,’ Wallace says but it is Vera who controls the remote.
    â€˜Shut up, Wally, you might learn something.’
    Milo scoops massive amounts of ice cream into the bowls, hoping to console Robertson.
    â€˜Mum would never let me have that much,’ he says.
    â€˜Is that right? Well, you’re in my yard