Page 187 of Beautiful Scars

Chapter 18

CILLIAN

“Right, sweetheart, what do you want?” I crane my neck and peer into the back of the car. Maddie has her feet up on the leather seat but I can’t bring myself to tell her off for it.

It took longer than I expected to get going because we didn’t have a car seat. Luckily, one of Sarah’s neighbors did. Then Maddie needed breakfast, and since Sarah is never home these days, her fridge was empty.

So we’re sat holding up the entire McDonald’s Drive-Through while a four-year-old chooses what she wants to eat.

“Umm… chips and ’mato sauce.”

I shake my head. “It’s only breakfast things at this time.”

“Okay. Okay. Krabby patty.”

Is she…is she speaking a foreign language or something?

I glance over at Sarah, who says, “It’s from SpongeBob. She means a burger.”

“Huh.” As I turn back to Maddie, the driver in the car behind us flashes his full beams at me. “They’ve got pancakes…or porridge?”

Her finger goes to her lip while she thinks dramatically.

“Pancakes. But no sugar-sauce.”

“Where’s your manners?” I ask her, turning around and putting the car into gear.

“Pleeeeease,” Maddie adds as Sarah whispers, “Syrup.”

“Aye. I gathered.”

We order two coffees and pancakes sans-syrup, and I’m glad for that because while denying Maddie—and I guess Meisie—anything feels wrong, I have a hard limit. My leather seats. I can take sock fluff, but not sticky fingers.

Fucking hell.

Why does every single thing I think about circle back to Meisie?

We drive the rest of the way to Richbrae’s in near silence and I don’t even try to stop thinking about her anymore.

I kinda started to think this could be my life. Sounds mundane, maybe even boring, to most people. But I’ve never had mundane and boring.

And nothing can be mundane or boring, not with Meisie.

“Alright that’s us,” I tell them as I pull the handbrake up across the road. “Did you miss Annie?”

“Yeah,” she says. “But I had fun.”

I smile at her. “You make sure you tell Annie that, kiddo.” Before Anne-Marie strangles me.

I’m about to get out when I spot the car. The same black Jaguar that pulled up outside my club that night.

Helen.

“Fu—dge.” I manage to catch myself before the F-bomb drops and stop Sarah taking her seatbelt off with a raised hand.

“What?”

I point over to the car. “Meisie’s mum.”