Mace (Untamed Sons MC: Birmingham Chapter #1)

2. Maylie

TWO

MAYLIE

PRESENT…

I glance at the clock on the wall, trying to keep my perfectly crafted smile in place before I reach for my phone again. I’ve sent Ivy three messages in the last half-hour asking where the hell she is, and so far, there’s been zero fucking response. She was meant to be home an hour ago, and I have ten minutes before I need to leave or I’m going to be late. As much as my boss loves me, Sam’s going to lose his mind if I keep shaving time off the start of every shift because of my sister.

“Face it, Maylie, she ain’t comin’.”

Toby is as sick of our sister’s shit as I am—at least that’s what his tone tells me—but I can’t bring myself to give Ivy a hard time. She’s trying to find her way in the world, and that’s not an easy task for a parentless teenager on the verge of adulthood.

“Of course, she’s coming. She promised.” I inject as much cheer into my words as I can, but even I hear the hollowness. Ivy’s promises don’t mean shit these days.

I glance at the clock again and jiggle my leg, trying to avoid the meltdown I feel brewing. This job took months to find, and it pays so much better than any other work I’m qualified to do. At a time when money is already tight, I can’t afford to get fired.

I also like it, which has not been the case with my other jobs. I’ve only worked at Temptation for six months, but it feels longer. I have friends, something I haven’t had since I failed high school, and I genuinely enjoy the people I’m around. The job itself is shitty and the clientele are sometimes awful, but I always have fun there, and that’s not something I experience a lot these days.

“She promises a lot of shit.”

“Don’t swear,” I chastise, even though he’s not wrong.

My little brother rolls his eyes, looking every inch the preteen boy he is. I miss the chubby, smiley kid he was only five minutes ago.

“I’m not wrong, am I?”

He’s not, and that makes it worse. Toby shouldn’t have to worry about Ivy’s mess. That’s my job, even if I’m so tired of making excuses for her behaviour. Ivy’s lies grow daily, leaving a trail of broken vows behind her, and she doesn’t seem to care about anything.

“Toby… come on.”

“Her lies have lies, May,” he mutters, hammering the controller clutched in his hands.

A cacophony of gunfire explodes on the television screen, which I ignore, giving him my full attention. As stressed as I am about being late, this needs addressing. I don’t want him feeling angry towards Ivy, even if she may deserve it.

“Our sister is… going through stuff.” It’s a lame excuse, and it’s no surprise Toby doesn’t buy it.

He snorts, giving the television his full attention. “Ivy only cares about Ivy. Let’s face it, Maylie, she doesn’t want to be here with us.”

I hate the thread of sadness in his words, and my heart squeezes. The three of us have always been close, and that intensified after we lost Mum. But Toby’s right—Ivy’s only focus is Ivy.

“Of course, she wants to be here.” Am I trying to convince him or myself? Because none of Ivy’s behaviour suggests anything but contempt for our broken family.

He eyeballs me as if I’m crazy. Maybe I am. For months now, our sister has been pulling away from us, and I no longer know how to bridge the gap she’s creating. She keeps so many secrets, and that scares me.

“No, she wants to be with Link.”

Ah, the boyfriend… who Ivy won’t allow me to meet, as if that doesn’t set off a million warning lights in my head. I’ve tried to find out anything I can about him, but Ivy is tight-lipped. I’m starting to think he either doesn’t exist or she knows I’m not going to approve.

I don’t want to offload my fears onto Toby, so I don’t let my concern bleed into my expression, though my insides are churning.

“Well, it’s all new and shiny. She’s in that honeymoon period, Toby. New relationships are exciting.” I say this with authority, even though I’ve never had a boyfriend or been kissed.

I was fifteen when Mum got sick. Ivy was ten, and Toby was five—both too little to deal with the torture of watching their parent slowly dying. For three years, I took care of Mum and my siblings while she valiantly fought the cancer that ravaged her body, but in the end, she couldn’t defeat it.

I should have spent months grieving the loss of my mother, but instead, I entered the fight of my life to keep the tattered remains of my family together. I was barely eighteen, had failed all my exams, and I was scrambling to prove to social services that I was responsible enough to take care of us all.

Those first few years after Mum passed were the hardest of my life. Her dying was only the beginning of the nightmare that followed, but despite everything, I don’t have a single regret about my decision to keep my brother and sister with me.

When Ivy’s being difficult, I think back to those nights I lay awake, watching my siblings sleep. I lived on coffee, so terrified that if I closed my eyes, they would be snatched away from me and taken somewhere I couldn’t reach them.

So, I worked my ass off, proving to their social worker that I was a good guardian for them. I worked all the hours I could around their needs. We’d gotten to a good place—or so I thought. Ivy is nearly an adult, ready to be out in the world on her own, and Toby will be thirteen in a few months. I was keeping all the balls in the air without dropping any, but now… I’m not so sure I’m doing a great job of raising them.

Ivy’s spiralling, and I don’t know why or how to fix things. Her behaviour lately is so out of character, it scares me to death. I know she wants her freedom, so I’m trying to step back and give her that, but her disrespect towards me and Toby is a hard pill to swallow.

I want my sister to find her way in the world. I want her to travel and see everything. I want her to get an education if she wants to. I want her to have her own place and find love.

I want her to have everything I haven’t.

I’ve accepted that I’ll be twenty-eight when Toby’s eighteen, and probably still a virgin. It’s not like I have time to meet anyone—I work all the hours I can, and when I’m not working, I’m taking care of the flat, or stocking the fridge, or helping Toby with homework.

I’m completely undatable, and my future will be surrounded by cats.

“What’s a honeymoon period?” Toby asks, breaking through my morose thoughts.

Are the cats necessary? I’m more of a dog person.

“I’ll tell you when you’re eighteen.” I lean over to ruffle his hair, not wanting him to see my internal conflict. I never want him or Ivy to feel like I’ve regretted a single moment, because I haven’t.

It earns me a scowl as he pulls away, trying to flatten his hair back down.

Toby’s reaching that age where he’s starting to care about his appearance and how he looks to his friends. I have a feeling I’m no longer going to be his cool big sister, and I’m already prepared for him to enter his demonic teen phase.

“Is this honeymoon period why she’s being such a bitch lately?”

My mouth drops open. Maybe he’s already in it. “Don’t call her that !” I snap, upset that he would use such a foul word to describe Ivy. He didn’t learn that from me. I’m careful about the language I use around him.

Heat spreads through Toby’s cheeks and a dawning realisation that he might have overstepped crosses his face. But he has the stubborn Fernsby personality, so naturally, he defends himself. “Like you don’t agree.”

His assessment isn’t wrong, but I don’t want to encourage that thinking either. It’s not nice.

“Even if I do agree, which I’m not saying I do,” I add quickly when he smirks, “we don’t call women ‘bitches’, Toby, especially not our sister. Do you understand?”

He suddenly becomes transfixed on the television screen and mashing the controller to avoid answering me. Because I know him so well, I can tell he’s feeling a little ashamed of himself, but I’m not ready to let him off the hook yet.

“Toby?” I press when he doesn’t respond.

I’m two seconds from tearing the controller out of his hand and turning the console off when he speaks. “I understand.” The contrition on his face is not feigned. “I’m sorry.”

My irritation seeps out of me. “I know you are,” I say softly, my gaze moving to the TV. “And I know things are weird right now, but?—”

I flinch as the screen flickers, showing one of the characters taking a bullet to the head. Blood sprays in an arc, covering the screen. Gross—and definitely not something I would have bought for him if I’d known how violent it is.

“What is this?” I demand, picking up the game case off the coffee table.

He tries to snatch it from me, but I hold it out of his reach, reading the title and seeing the eighteen and over rating on the front.

“May-leeeeee!” He drags out my name, sounding like that little boy I miss so much. “Give it back.”

“This doesn’t seem suitable for little boys to play,” I say, skimming over the description on the box.

“It’s fine. I borrowed it from Damien. It only came out a month ago, but he’s already played it like three times, so he doesn’t mind me having it. He’s the goat,” he says, whatever that means.

I can’t keep up with all this lingo my brother spouts on the daily. It’s like a whole other language. I did at least get him to stop calling me ‘bruv’, though he slips it into conversation now and again.

“He’s the ‘goat’?” I raise my brow. “Why not the sheep or the cow? Are we building a farm? What do goats have to do with anything?” I ramble. It’s a habit I’ve never grown out of, and another thing that makes me a terrible choice of partner.

He pauses the game to stare at me as if I’m the lunatic, even though he’s the one talking about farmyard animals.

“It ain’t literal.” He shakes his head at me, and I feel his disappointment that I don’t speak preteen boy. “It means the greatest of all time. You need to keep up with current internet speak, May. Open social media once in a while. You sound like a grandma.”

Way to make me feel like the lamest person on the planet. I don’t point out to him that I’m only twenty-two and hardly ready to start drawing my pension yet. I also don’t mention that I don’t have any social media. I don’t have any friends who aren’t strippers or don’t work with strippers .

“I’ll add it to my to-do list. Right behind the gazillion other things I have to do daily, including giving you a hard time and going to work.”

Which I’m definitely going to be late for.

Come on, Ivy. Please don’t do this to me again.

I plaster a smile on my face so Toby doesn’t see my stress, but I’m pretty sure I’m failing. I am stressed. I need this job, and Friday nights are out of this world for tips. If Sam won’t let me work because I’m late, I won’t have the money for our rent, which I’m already behind on, and that opens a whole new shitstorm that I don’t want to be in. Getting evicted will definitely put us back on the radar of social services.

But Toby doesn’t need to hear my concerns about money. I never put my problems on either of them because I want them to stay innocent for as long as possible. When I first took guardianship of them, I promised myself I would never let anything bad touch them again. All I want is for them to feel safe and loved, something I hope I’ve achieved over the past four years, though I’m starting to question if somewhere along the way I’ve fucked that up.

Toby goes back to playing his game as my thoughts unravel.

“And that’s why you’ll never be the goat,” he mutters. “Goats don’t conform to things like going to work.”

“Gee, thanks, but being a goat doesn’t put food on the table.” I pause. “Unless it’s a literal goat.”

He tosses his head back, groaning. I ignore him, studying the clock again. My irritation is morphing into something far worse.

Fear .

Ivy’s usually late but never this close to the wire. Where the hell is she?

Suddenly, my brain is conjuring a thousand scenarios, each worse than the last.

Did she have an accident?

Has she been abducted?

Has she fallen into another dimension without a watch?

I don’t mind leaving Toby if I know Ivy is on her way, but I don’t want to go if she’s not coming. Toby is twelve, but he’s not like Ivy and I were at his age. We babied him after our mum died, so he’s not independent enough for me to leave him without supervision. If there was an emergency, I honestly don’t think Toby could figure out what to do, and that’s why I want Ivy with him.

“Did she say where she was going today?” I question, even though I doubt she will have confided that in Toby.

Her secretiveness bugs me more than I want to admit. I’m not strict with either of them, and I know I put a lot on my sister’s shoulders when it comes to family responsibilities, but I don’t have a choice. I have to work, and someone has to take care of Toby while I do that—at least for another year or so until he’s a little more mature.

My brother’s jaw tightens like it always does when he’s upset. “Why would she tell me? I’m just a baby.”

Now, my own jaw flexes. “Did she say that to you?” He shifts his shoulders, caught between his obvious upset and his desire not to snitch. I try to keep my face impassive. “You’re not a baby.”

He becomes focused on the game, and I let it slide—for now—as I bounce my gaze back to the clock. If she doesn’t arrive in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to have to leave .

“You know, his real name ain’t Link.” Toby twists the controller in his hands as he lets off a barrage of gunfire.

“Of course not.” I pause before I ask, “So, what’s his real name?”

He shakes his head. “You wanna know, you gotta pay the price.”

Little extortionist.

“The price?” I raise a brow at him. “It’s not enough that I feed you, clothe you, and keep you safe? And how do you know his name?”

“Ivy let it slip once.”

She didn’t tell him intentionally. Again with the secrets. “So, what is it?” A computer-generated man’s head explodes on the screen, turning my stomach. “I’m not sure you should be playing this.”

“It’s fine,” he assures me. “All my friends have played it.”

“Oh, and I suppose if all your friends jumped off a cliff, you’d do it too?”

Yikes. Now, I sound like our mother. When the hell did that happen?

Probably around the same time you were left to raise two children on your own.

“You did not just say that.” The dismay in his tone makes me feel about two inches tall.

I shift my shoulders, adopting a lofty demeanour. “I did, and I wish I could take it back, but it’s out there now. You act like I’m ancient and know nothing. I was a kid not that long ago, you know?”

It’s like word vomit. There is no stopping it, and I clamp my teeth together to shut myself up before I really have to admit I sound like our mother .

“You ain’t ancient, but you are older than me,” he says smugly.

I can’t argue with that logic. “Which means I know a lot more than you do. That makes me a goat, right?”

I get a slight lift of his lips that could be a smile, and it makes everything worthwhile. I love the little dork, but I’m going to hide that game when I get home.

The key scraping in the lock has my head snapping up as the front door pushes open. Ivy steps inside, and I scan her from head to toe. Her dark blonde hair is curled beautifully and her makeup is a little heavy, but she’s not bleeding, nor has she lost a limb. My shoulders unknot, the tension oozing out of me replaced with frustration and anger.

As much as I want to talk to her about this, I don’t have time. I have to haul it.

“Do they not have clocks wherever you were?” I ask as I move like a whirlwind to grab my trainers.

Her blue eyes lock onto mine, and I see the defiance in them. It’s been growing within her for a while now, but she’s never been so openly hostile. “I didn’t realise the time, but I don’t see why I have to be here anyway. Toby isn’t my responsibility.”

Give me strength…

“Sorry for being a burden,” Toby mutters, and I hear the hurt in his words.

Toby’s right—Ivy is a bitch.

I turn to our brother. “You are not a burden, and Ivy knows that, right ?” I snap back at her, trying to keep calm in the face of the anger bubbling inside me.

My sister loosens her jaw, and I glare at her so hard, she eventually averts her gaze. No matter how much I want to give her space to have this teen crisis, I’m not allowing her to make Toby feel bad while she’s doing it.

“Of course not. I’m just hormonal,” she says. “Sorry.”

I stand, shuffling my feet into my trainers to settle them more comfortably, counting backwards from ten in my mind.

I’m a beacon of tranquillity…

“But…” Ivy glances back to me, and I hold my breath, wondering what shit is about to spew out of her mouth. “He’s twelve, Maylie. He’s hardly a child, and I don’t see why I need to be here to look after him.”

I don’t want to fight with my sister before I leave. I’m a big believer in never parting on an argument because you don’t know what might happen. I don’t want my last words to her to be angry, but she is testing my patience right now.

I give her a smile that is anything but warm, and it makes her flinch. It’s not like me to be openly disapproving or as equally hostile as she is.

Clearly, I’ve coddled her too much over the years.

“You have to be here with him because I say so. I don’t want him to burn down the building trying to make toast.”

“I’m sitting right here, and I can cook,” he complains.

He can’t, and we all know it. “If that’s the case, Toby, then why am I making you dinner every night?” I stand, grabbing my rucksack. “Speaking of which, there’s pasta in the fridge for you both. You just need to warm it up.”

I lean down, despite my tight timeframe, and kiss the top of my brother’s head. He pulls away, whining about how it’s ‘gross’, but I don’t care. I relish these small moments .

“Don’t stay up late.” I walk to the door, grabbing my jacket off one of the hooks along the wall.

Ivy steps over to me when I gesture to her. The sullen set of her mouth both irritates and upsets me. We don’t have the luxury of being selfish, not with the life we have. Is it unfair? Hell yeah. It fucking sucks that we’ve all had to sacrifice things over the years, her included, but the alternative is Toby is taken from us.

I grab her arm in a firm grasp, pulling her to the other side of the room, and in a low voice demand, “Where were you?”

Toby said she was with Link, but I want her to tell me. I don’t like the secrets building between us.

“I was out, and I’m almost eighteen. I don’t have to answer to you.”

Wow . Okay, that attitude isn’t new, but it’s never been as bad as this before. I don’t like it because it forces me to be someone I’m not. I don’t enjoy conflict.

“Really? You want to play the adult card while throwing a tantrum?”

“You chose this life, Maylie. I didn’t. I want to be able to spend evenings with my friends or my boyfriend. Instead, all my time is spent taking care of Toby, who doesn’t need me to babysit him. I was watching him at a year older than he is now.”

I understand why she’s annoyed and frustrated. I did choose to take this on, and Ivy hadn’t been given that same choice, but life sucks and sometimes we all have to do things we don’t like.

“I know it’s shit—believe me, Ivy, I know that—but I need your help. I can’t do this without you. Toby isn’t ready to be left alone. ”

Her eyes roll, and her jaw is so tight, it pulls her mouth into an irritated line. “I’m not staying here forever,” she says pointedly. “What the hell are you going to do with Toby then?”

I flinch, hurt battering down my anger even though it’s a fair point, but one I don’t have time to get into with her right now. I still manage to rasp out, “Have I made things so unbearable for you that you can’t wait to leave as soon as you turn eighteen?”

There’s a flicker of something over her face that could be guilt, but it’s gone so fast, I’m not sure I didn’t imagine it. “Just because you put your life on hold doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

Ouch. It would have hurt less if she’d eviscerated me.

Don’t take it personal… she’s a teenager, and you’re an adult.

“I have to go,” I say, my voice tight. I try to keep my hurt shuttered away, but I know I don’t succeed when Ivy rolls her eyes, though with less bravado as before. “If you need me, message. I can pick them up on my break. If it’s urgent, call Sam.”

I want to press a kiss to her hair, like I did when she was younger, but Ivy is no longer that little girl. I force a smile instead and sling my bag on my shoulder before grabbing my keys. As soon as I’m out the door, I put my game face on and head to work.