Beneath the Stain - Part 4 (5 page)

“You worried that I was dropping your name, Mackey? Well, don’t.”

Mackey grunted. “Well, good.”

“I dropped Heath’s—got me right in.”

“You’re fucking hilarious. Are you ready?”

The car was idling, and the driver, who, to Mackey’s shame, Mackey didn’t even know, was standing out by the door, ready to let them in. Mackey started hustling toward it when Trav stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“What?” Mackey couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“You know why people date, Mackey?”

“To get laid?” Because
duh
!

Trav growled and moved in closer. His heat was breath-stopping. “To get to know each other when we’re at our best. You said you wanted me to see you not awful. This here’s your chance.”

Oh, fuck
him.
“Awesome,” Mackey muttered. “And now if I
am
awful when I’m not trying to be, I’m
screwed
.”

“Which is why there’s more than one date.”

Mackey eyed him dubiously. “God. This is exhausting. I’m starting to see why people marry their high school sweethearts. Who wants to audition their lead guitarists more than once or twice a year?”

Trav winked. “Well, just think. These dates could be the last audition you ever hold.”

“Yeah,” Mackey muttered. “Like I’ll ever do
this
again. If this fails, I’m gonna be jerking my own chain for the rest of my life.”

“Well, I hope I’m a better option than celibacy,” Trav muttered. “Get in the car, Mackey, we’ve got a date to endure.”

Not an auspicious beginning, no, but they managed to banter all the way to the movie. The movie was, thank God, something with lots of explosions and hot guys and someone with
magnificent
pecs wielding a bow and an arrow. Mackey could deal with a movie like that—some great scenes between the two leads, some poetry in the story, and a lot of adrenaline and cheering. And no real intimacy, and no chance to hold hands, especially because Mackey was downing the small bathtub of soda and giant popcorn that was half the reason to go to the movies when you could just wait for the whole thing to come out on DVD anyway.

But the other half was the giant picture and how that made you feel when you got to be immersed in the story, which meant Mackey couldn’t stop talking on the way out of the movie theater. “Okay, so you know the scene where the motorcycle is in the air, and you know it’s not going to make it, but the guy is the hero and you
know
he’s not going to go out in a fiery ball of death? See,
that’s
what a musical riff is like, the hard-core ones like ‘Ramble On’ or ‘Limelight,’ because they
shouldn’t
come back together—it’s all massive music destruction, a, whatyacallit, cacaw… no…
cacophony
,
right? But I
love
it when that happens, because then it just goes, like,
kablooey
”—he made big, vague gestures with his hands to indicate “kablooey”—“and then”—he laced his fingers together in a cohesive unit—“it meshes. The guy lands the motorcycle, the chord comes together to a perfect B-flat, and it’s like the universe
glows
.
Because in that moment, everything is frickin’ perfect, then the guy recovers the motorcycle, the song progresses to the finale, and that heartbeat, that moment where everything is perfect, has gotta be over.” He took a breath, because that was a lot to say, and looked up at Trav to see if he was following along.

“Anyway,” he finished. “That’s why I love action adventure movies.”

Trav’s lantern-jawed face was inscrutable for a minute, and then his lean mouth sort of went soft like he’d just been kissed, even though no one had touched him.

“That’s why I love, uhm, action adventure movies too,” he said, but he sounded humble and not at all military and shit, and Mackey squinted at him, suddenly embarrassed.

“What’d I do wrong?” he asked helplessly as they made their way to the curb. The car hadn’t arrived yet, but he knew Trav had texted for it as soon as the movie had ended.

“Nothing,” Trav said, looking at him with that soft mouth and shiny eyes. “You did everything right. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

The car pulled up and Trav opened the door and gestured for Mackey to proceed. Mackey slid into the back, still puzzled. “But Trav….”

Trav slid in and shut the door, leaned over, grasped Mackey’s chin, and pulled him into a short, sweet kiss—soft lips, the brush of tongue, the whuff of breath on each other’s face—and then he pulled back.

Mackey gazed at him, lips parted, and tried to get a handle on what just happened. One minute there were motorcycles, and the next—

“Don’t worry about it,” Trav said gruffly. “It’s just that I’ve finally seen you not awful. You’re stunning. Don’t ever worry about it again.”

The moment stretched, and Trav extended his arm. Mackey tucked himself against his shoulder and relaxed. He could do this. This was just like watching television at home. He’d gotten used to that, used to the guys hanging out, talking bullshit nonsense, bitching about which clubs to go to and which movies they wanted to see. He and Blake had decided not to club for a while—not until the clean-and-sober thing was really locked in stone—because they could get into so much trouble at one of those places. But that didn’t mean Mackey didn’t miss the live music, and that was what occurred to him now.

“I bet we would dance real good,” he mused. “I mean, I’d love to go out dancing with you somewhere. Not to get high,” he hastened to add. “Just to… you know….”

“Music,” Trav said dryly.

“Yeah. Music. It’s what drives the fuckin’ world.”

Trav tightened his arm around his shoulder and nuzzled his temple. Normally the nuzzling thing didn’t turn Mackey’s key, but he suddenly found it hard to breathe, and his skin tightened everywhere. He turned his face to Trav’s and stole a quick kiss; then Trav stole another one, a little longer, a little wetter, but still slow.

Mackey closed his eyes, lost himself. Slow kisses, not going anywhere because Travis wasn’t going to bang him in the back of the town car and that was that, but sweet. Kind. Lingering. He was getting hard, and if they kissed a little deeper, it would be urgent, but for maybe the first time in his life, Mackey recognized that he didn’t
have
to. Trav had told him straight up, no sex on the table today. Just them, like a couple. Like in real life.

Mackey pulled away abruptly.

“What? Wait. I’m sorry,” Travis said dazedly. His eyes were glazed and his mouth was swollen and slick, and Mackey took a moment to gloat.
He’d
done that, and it felt
magnificent
.

“Relax, Chief,” Mackey said dryly, rubbing that swollen lower lip with his thumb.

Trav closed his eyes, grunting a little, and that was reassuring. It wasn’t just Mackey getting all hot and bothered. Good.

“Why’d we stop?” Trav asked, sounding put out.

“What’s a happy couple look like?” Mackey asked, totally intense. “We’re dating—that’s real. I mean, you saw me through
rehab
,
and we’re waiting, ’cause it’s important. What are we trying to
be
that’s so important?”

Travis tilted his head to the side, thinking, and some of that sleepy, gonna-have-me-some-long-slow-sex satisfaction slipped away. “Uhm, I don’t know,” Trav said, clearly buying time. “My parents, maybe? My brother and his wife? I want what they have.”

Mackey nodded, totally sober. “Awesome. What do they have?”

Trav considered him seriously, which Mackey appreciated. “Right after I got out of the service, during break from school, I got to see my brother’s wedding.”

“Nice,” Mackey said, wondering if Stevie, Jefferson, and Shelia ever wanted a ceremony. Or maybe Kell or Blake. “Was it one of those big church dos? Lots of flowers and fluffy dresses?”

“No.” Trav absently ran his hand down Mackey’s arm. “Small. Parents’ backyard. They’re both doctors—they were going to Uganda to work with Doctors Without Borders for two months after the wedding, and then they both had positions waiting for them when they were done.”

Mackey gaped. “That is just way too fucking altruistic for me,” he said, feeling flea-speck small. “I mean… holy
fuck
,
what is the fucking karma backlog on that? Can they just walk up to people on the street, smack them in the face, and say, ‘I am
still
a better person than you’?”

Trav laughed, his chest shaking under Mackey’s head. “Uhm, no. I think part of the rules of karmic backlog is that you don’t get to gloat over how good you are. But yeah. They’re nice people. And they don’t gloat. They just like their life simple. So they had a small wedding in my parents’ backyard. Heywood’s wife’s family paid for the catering and a housekeeping service so my mom and dad didn’t have to do anything, and they had someone officiate, and they made up their own vows on the spot.”

Mackey felt a supreme mental dislocation at that. “They just… I mean, they didn’t have a blueprint?”

Trav grimaced, but he did it gently. “What are you asking, Mackey?”

“How do they know how to make it work? You go to rehab, they give you tools, visualization, asking for help, meditation, physical activity, all this shit, and it’s… it’s
rules
. What rules do you follow to make this work?”

Trav narrowed his eyes, again, thinking, but slightly exasperated. “I think we start by not getting heavy on the first date, but since we just blew that to hell….” He sighed, and some of the exasperation slipped away. “We don’t lie to each other. We respect each other’s feelings. We do what we can to make each other happy. We spend time with each other. We keep our own opinions and trust that the other person can deal. We—”

Mackey held up his hand. “No, no, those are good. I can deal with those. Those are rules—I can follow those.”

Trav looked at him disbelievingly, and Mackey scowled.

“No! I
can
follow rules!” he protested. “Swear! I just have to know there’s a good reason for ’em. Or, you know”—he smirked—“something’s got to be in it for me.”

“So what’s in it for you, that you follow these rules?” Trav asked, still dubious.

Mackey snorted. Honest to God snorted. “God, you’re stupid. Flat-out stupid.
You
are! Jesus!”

Trav’s mouth fell open, and the car arrived at the restaurant at that moment.

Mackey was overjoyed. “Look! Steak! Awesome, Trav
—
you pick the best shit!”

“Yeah,” Trav said, but he sounded a little stunned. “I’m a genius. Okay, let the driver get the door.”

Mackey turned to him with a curled lip. “What’s the hell’s the matter with you?”

“That’s about the most romantic thing
anybody
has ever said to me, do you know that?”

Mackey rolled his eyes, mostly to hide how very pleased he was, and slid out of the car, Trav hard on his heels. “
You
haven’t hung out with enough rock stars. We pull
that
shit out of our—”

Trav stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t make it small,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “It was important. Like a gift.”

Mackey was going to shoot off at the mouth again, but then he remembered that he’d meant it: he’d follow the rules because there was something in it for him.

He looked at Trav sideways. “
You
talk poetry. That’s
damned
impressive.”

To his surprise, Trav’s face grew a little ruddier as they neared the restaurant entrance. “Yeah, well, artists are a weakness of mine,” he confessed.

Which was a good and bad segue, because it meant they spent most of their meal talking about his ex-boyfriends. That could have been horrible, except Mackey, who hadn’t really been able to fathom what Trav saw in him in the first place, suddenly understood.

Trav really liked guys with poetry. The boy on the sidewalk, Terry the pretty guy Trav had made cry, a computer animator, a voice actor—all of them were artists in one way or another.

Mackey was fascinated.

“Why?” he asked, his chin in his palm as he watched Trav devour most of a T-bone steak. Mackey himself had ordered the London broil, like he’d had with Doc Cambridge, because it was smaller and he liked
the sauce. “You got all that big-dick hard-ass bullshit from the
military—why you got a thing for artists?”

Trav smiled—and it wasn’t an expression Mackey had seen on his face before. For one thing, he looked a little embarrassed and more than a little bit shy.

“It’s something I can’t do,” Trav confessed after chewing thoughtfully and swallowing. “It’s… I mean, it’s beautiful. Painting, poetry, acting, music—it
moves
people, emotionally. And I’ve never been that sentimental, you know? I never kept souvenirs from the places I’ve been, from the guys I’ve dated. But when I’m with someone with all that in his heart… it feels like it rubs off a little. Like they give me some of that power, some of that emotion.” He looked away, his shyness intensifying, which delighted Mackey no end.