𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 • 𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜

14 • Honey, I'm Home

"Marco?" Millie Mae threw a rag over her shoulder, completely stunned at the sight of her old friend marching straight into her works garage. "What are you doing here?"

Marco had not been doing well since Luigi's shut down, but then again, no one was doing particularly well at all during this time. The war had taken its toll on everyone, but the hospitality industry was hit incredibly hard. Millie lost her waitressing job, but the Bianchi's lost their entire business, their livelihood. They lost everything they worked so hard to build.

"Millie Mae, I-I..." His face was swollen and his eyes were red, like he had been crying. It wasn't long before fresh tears started to fall and Marco's voice became hoarse. "I enlisted."

Of all the things Millie expected to hear today, Marco enlisting was not one of them. He hadn't had a single care for the war, often calling it nothing but a game of chess and civilians were the pawns.

"What?" Millie gaped her mouth wide. "Marco, why?"

"They said anybody who enlists will have extra rations for their family. I-I had to, Millie, Uncle Jimmy is just too old."

Millie wiped the grease from my hands on her coveralls and wrapped Marco in a huge hug, letting the towering man nearly collapse in her arms.

Mr Bianchi and Millie had spoken last year when Luigi's officially closed. It was an emotional time for everyone, but despite what was happening to Mr Bianchi and his entire family, the guilt that overcame him was the worst part. He felt like he failed as a boss, a guardian, and a caretaker to everyone employed by him.

Marco talked about enlisting that very second, but Mr and Mrs Bianchi weren't hearing a single bar of it. It wasn't until Millie stepped into Mr Bianchi's office to collect her final pay that he told her he'd never allow for Marco to go to war. He said that Marco had too gentle of a soul, and the people in war would eat him alive for who he was.

At the time, Millie didn't understand what Mr Bianchi meant by that, but a few weeks later she stopped by their apartment to bring them some of her mothers homemade apple pie, and what she was met with was a surprise to say the least.

...

"Hello?" Millie called out into the old apartment, letting herself in like the Bianchi's always told her she could do. "Anybody home?"

Millie heard faint voices coming from Marco's bedroom down the hall, and noticed that the door was left slightly open. She stepped over bunched up rugs on her way to his room, and then shirts, and then jeans, and then...

"Millie!" Marco's terrified voice cried and Millie looked up to see Marco under the covers of his bed...with another man. "Fuck! It's not what it looks like."

Homosexuality was a criminal offence in New York, and the fear in the two young mens eyes was unmatched to anything Millie had ever seen.

"I-uh..." Millie stumbled backwards, nearly tripping on the clothes sprawled out onto the floor. "I didn't meant to...I mean, I was told I could just-"

"Millie, please!" Marco jumped from his bed and wrapped a sheet around him, chasing Millie out into the rest of the apartment. "Please, don't tell anyone! Only my aunt and uncle know."

His bottom lip was quivering, and tears had welled up in his eyes. The poor man wasn't just scared, he looked like his world was crashing down around him.

Millie sat the apple pie on the small table in the hallway and spun to place her hands on Marcos bare shoulders. "Marco, You don't have to worry."

"I-I don't?"

"No, Marco. I'm not going to tell anybody, it's not my business." The man who was in Marco's bed had gotten dressed in a pair of boxers and awkwardly came out of the room. "There's nothing wrong with what you're doing."