Page 73 of Perfect

“I know, ballsy right? Talk about taunting the tiger, I’m surprised Connor didn’t spark him out there and then.”

Silence fell between us as we contemplated the horrible secrets which sat between us. The atmosphere in the car was heavy with the unpalatable revelation that was the darkness of Connor’s tortured past.

We sat there for a while, looking out of the windscreen, sharing a moment’s contemplation before Tom eventually put in. “Anyway, I thought you should know. And that’s only part of the abuse, as he got older and started to retaliate, it got a lot worse so I heard. Ella didn’t tell me everything. You probably haven’t even noticed his scars?”

My brow creased again. I’d seen quite a bit of Connor’s body and had never noticed any obvious marks or anything.

“Scars?” Could this shit get any worse?

Tom nodded. “That’s why he has all those tattoos, to cover the scars on his arm.”

I blew out a breath and unclipped my seatbelt.

Tom shot me a pained expression before saying. “They’re burns I think, on his arm with the tats. Scalds or something. You can see the skin is fucked if you look closely.”

I almost put my hands over my ears to muffle out what I was hearing.

That’swhy the skin on that arm was a lot rougher than the other. I’d noticed it in the barn that night.

My mind was a maze of thoughts and then Ella’s face swam in there.

That niggling feeling that Connor had confided in her about his past and saidnothingto me rose to the surface again.

It was all so messed up in my head, why couldn’t it have been more straightforward? Fair?

I exhaled sharply and shot Tom a bleak look. “Thanks for telling me. I appreciate it but maybe we should leave it there. He wouldn’t be happy if he knew we’d been talking about him.”

Tom looked relieved at my words and pushed his door open.

“I agree. I imagine you’re not in the mood for a quiz now but perhaps we should go in for a bit, take our minds off it. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

I too exited the vehicle, walking around the back to join him.

“I’m going to speak to my dad about it. He should have told me really.”

Tom fell in beside me as we made our way to the entrance of the pub. The car park was busy. “Yes, you should. But don’t tell him I told you though, Ella said no one is to know.”

“I won’t mention you when I speak to my dad.”

Tom started to pull the main door into the pub open but stopped when I threw him another question. “Where do you think his dad is now?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I think Rachel has some type of restraining order against him so that he’s not legally allowed anywhere near them.”

I pondered his reply, worrying my lip.

“Shit.” I blew out a breath suddenly feeling numb.

I pulled myself together quickly saying. “Anyway, quiz time. You’d better be good Wade, as with most things in life recently, I’museless.Especiallywhen it comes to getting the right answers it appears.”

Twelve

When inside, we took an information sheet about the quiz. It looked ridiculously hard and was blatantly aimed at fifty-year-old farmers. I’d be useless.

Tom and I managed to find an empty table in the back room which overlooked a beer garden. There were clusters of smokers out there, you could see the light from their cigarettes as they inhaled.

We cleared a couple of empty pint glasses from our table and Tom went to the bar to order. I’d opted for diet coke, not really in a drinking mood due to my anxieties about the whole Connor situation.

We didn’t get the opportunity to speak about Connor again, as ten minutes before the quiz started, Nathan came into the pub with another guy and Tom frantically waved them over. They joined us but didn’t look too happy about it.

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