Beneath the Stain - Part 3 (16 page)

Heather stopped scrambling for the phone. “He’s my baby,” she said, her voice cracking. “He’s my
baby
.”

“He’s
gay
!” Forrest shrilled, like she hadn’t seen that in the first place. Well, of course he was. All those fucking hickeys….

Oooh… Grant Adams, you little pervert, what were you doing to my baby! For five years. Oh fuck, Mackey, did you get married and divorced and nobody noticed?

“He’s gay,” Heather said, snapping out of it. “He’s gay. And he’s gorgeous.
All
my kids are beautiful. And if you don’t believe that, then you can get your fat judgmental ass out of my fucking kitchen!”

“Heather!” Oh, he sounded shocked. “But… you and me—we’re a—
”

“You know, I have slept with some real scumbags,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “but you—oh boy.
You
are one mistake I don’t have to make.”

And with that, she grabbed him by the ear just like she’d grabbed Enos Cheever, and hauled his scrawny ass out of her kitchen.

“
Forget you know my name
!” she screamed, slamming the door.

Then she found her phone again and called Kell. God. Good God almighty—this whole year her boys had needed her, and she hadn’t known. The realization that they still needed her, that all that love, all of that effort she’d put into her boys, they still needed it, and it hadn’t been in vain in the first place….

She was worried and sad and angry at them for holding things back from their mama, but deep down, where she was just a little ashamed of it, she found she couldn’t remember when she’d last felt such sweet relief.

Part Four

Mackey’s fragile recovery from his bout with self-destruction is
complicated even further by his feelings for Trav—and Trav’s feelings back. Trav is older, and he should know better, but now that Mackey is drug-free and conquering his demons, all he can see is the stunning, brilliant man who existed under the stain of pain and excess. 

Trav and Mackey struggle to find a balance between Mackey’s recovery and their growing attraction. Trav decides to make a rare leap of faith—but can Mackey find enough faith in himself to make it through life in the spotlight and a visit to the past that almost destroyed him?

A
MY
L
ANE
is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.

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