What could have happened with Maya?
I made sure to watch her until she got into her taxi last night, so surely she got home safe. I can feel myself going into overdrive, this overbearing need to protect her taking over me. Just like I always have. There’s this innocence about her I have always wanted to keep safe. So, growing up, I made sure I was the one she could count on, because God knows she had no one like that at home.
I can hear a man yelling from inside the house, which is strange considering only Maya and her mum live here. Maybe her mum has brought another fella home? But why would he be yelling so loudly?
I rush to the door and try to barge inside, but it's locked.
Fuck.
Panicking, I look through the window and see a man towering over Maya, yelling in her face with his arm lifted high. As if he is ready to slap her. She is shrinking away from him, visibly scared of what he might do. Has he touched her before? I bang on the window, and he turns in surprise, dropping his arms quickly. I might only be 19, but I’m not somescrawny kid. Years of football and weight training will do that to you, and standing at 6ft 4, I certainly don’t look 19.
Maya catches my eye and sprints to the door. Once she manages to get out of the house, she runs into my arms.
“Tommy, can you take me away from here?” She begs, tears dripping onto my sweater.
“Come on, Maymay. I got you,” I reply, dragging her along to my car.
Thinking back on last night, I had found it odd when Fallon stood abruptly and left. I put it down to having too much to drink and knowing it’s time to get home. I’m desperate to call her and demand to know what’s going on, but something inside of me is telling me not to. There is a reason Maya has always kept her distance.
It's about time I find out what that reason is.
Just before four o’clock, Max and I pull into our parents’ house. The little shit would not leave, so I’ve been stuck with him all day, and all he has done is whine about how ill he is.
That’s what happens when you start downing shots of Jägermeister.
Although I moan about how overbearing my parents are, it feels so good to be home. They live in a farmhouse with a fair bit of land, basically in the middle of nowhere. It’s not a working farm,but they do keep bees and chickens. Whenever they have spare eggs and honey, they put up a sign at the front gate to sell them off to locals who pass by.
This house holds so many memories. As kids, we were really lucky to have been brought up in a place like this, allowing us all the freedom and excitement of a childhood lived in the outdoors.
Max bounds up to the door and barges straight inside, hollering his hellos. Lucy, our youngest sister, is the first one to greet us. Her face was beaming with happiness at the sight of us.
“Ah, I’ve missed you both!” she exclaims, giving us both a tight hug.
“We’ve missed you, too, Luce,” Max tells her whilst squeezing her even tighter.
She slaps him away and laughs.
“It feels like forever since I have seen you both. Mum is ordering a takeaway, so you need to be quick and put your orders in before she picks for you,” She tells us as we follow her into the living room. “Everyone, the boys are here.”
Everyone? Who else is here? Walking into the room, I stop dead in my tracks when I notice who else is here, sitting next to Fallon, Maya.
I can’t control the smile that spreads across my face at seeing her. Even clearly hungover as hell, she is still beautiful. She seems to shift uncomfortably in her seat under my gaze, but she doesn’t so much as glance in my direction. Why is she avoiding eye contact with me?
“Oh my boys, I am so happy you both made it.” My mum clasps her hands together, like an excited child.
“Mum, of course we’re here. You are making out like we never see you,” I tell her. She is so theatrical.
“It bloody feels like I never see you, that’s why. You had to move to the other side of the UK to get away from me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Liz. They only live one hour away,” Our dad pipes up, light-heartedly.
Technically, James isn’t our father, nor is Lucy our sister. James met my mum around sixteen years ago, he and Lucy moved in, and he married my mum all in the space of a year. Lucy’s mum passed away from breast cancer when she was too young to remember, and our father was more like a sperm donor, running at the first opportunity he got with no excuse other than he couldn’t be arsed.
We all gelled together as a blended family pretty quickly, though. It all just worked. Lucy, being the youngest, struggled with it the most. So to make it easier on her, she started to call our mum mum, and we call James dad.
“I am not dramatic!” Mum complains, which results in us all bursting out laughing, Maya included. My Mother being dramatic is what you would call an understatement. “I’ve just missed having all my babies home.”
“Okay, love,” Dad says, patting her leg. “Right,we need to get this food ordered, I’m wasting away here, Liz,” he announces before getting to work, taking our orders and phoning it in.
