Beneath the Stain - Part 5 (8 page)

He finished the text and leaned against the window, breathing free air for what felt like the first time since they’d left the hotel in Oakland. His phone started to blow up almost immediately after that, and the first name he saw on the top was Trav.

Well, tough. Trav should be in the air in a few, and he didn’t have to worry about Mackey for the next two weeks. Mackey would be just fine.

A
N
HOUR
later, in the shower, he had to concede that no, he wouldn’t be just fine. The minute his foot had fallen in the empty house, he found himself wondering if Kell had something stashed in his bedroom that he wouldn’t use in front of Mackey and Blake. Probably not, because the only reason Kell used in the first place was to impress Blake, which was why sending Blake to rehab had worked so outstandingly well.

But Mackey leaned his head against the shower wall and rinsed off the stink of fear sweat, and tried to visualize himself turning on his phone and dialing Dr. Cambridge’s office. Spending Christmas in rehab as an outpatient wasn’t ideal, but it was better than the alternative.

Because he’d promised. He’d
promised
Trav he’d come through. Trav had let Mackey into his bed on the promise that he was an improving work in progress. Mackey couldn’t destroy all that because he was lonely.

Or he could, but he really hoped he was strong enough not to.

He got out of the shower and barely dried off. His phone. Cambridge’s number. Then the car service. He had it all in his head. He was going to do this, and he was going to do it by himself, because he couldn’t stand being the only heartbeat in this big house, and everything hurt, and—

“Trav?”

Was sitting on their bed, loafers kicked off, leaning against the headboard, auburn hair mussed from careless fingers, eyes closed, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes deepened by lack of sleep and worry. His carry-on sat next to the dresser, his jacket hung over his desk chair, and he held his phone loosely in his lap.

At Mackey’s voice, he opened his eyes and swallowed. “Do we have to call Dr. Cambridge?” he asked quietly.

Mackey felt tears starting at his eyes. “No,” he answered through a rough throat. “But it was a near thing.”

Trav swung his legs around the edge of the bed and held out his arms. Mackey, for all that he was dripping wet, stepped into the V between his legs and let him wrap his arms around Mackey’s waist and bury his face in his middle.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Trav whispered.

“Because you took me on faith.” Mackey ran his fingers through that awesome brown-red hair. It would curl if he let it grow longer, but as it was, it felt thick and healthy between Mackey’s fingers. “I asked you to take me, promising that someday I’d be fully functional, and you did. And… and I wanted to live up to that so bad.” His voice was breaking, and God, he hadn’t cried since rehab. He
so
didn’t want to do this shit again.

“Yeah,” Trav said, looking up at him. “I took you on faith. You haven’t betrayed it yet. You could have
told
me—”

“What?” Mackey asked, feeling bitter and angry, mostly at himself. “That I’m not ready? That the guy who broke me is still there and I’m not strong enough to see him right now? Not by myself, anyway,” Mackey admitted, “and that’s the only way it should be.”

“Why?” Trav demanded, and to Mackey’s horror, his eyes were getting shiny too. “Why would you think that? Why wouldn’t you ask—”

Oh, this was worse than Mackey had ever imagined.

“Because you didn’t ask for this,” he said, kissing Trav’s forehead gently, trying to give him something, anything, to make up for the two weeks with family he’d just given up, for the trouble, for the worry. “You signed on to manage a band, not to deal with me or my bullshit, and meeting Grant Adams should be the last fucking thing on your ros—”

“Stop,” Trav begged softly. “Yeah. I signed on for a rock band. And I got you and your brothers. And I got this big fucking glass monstrosity of a house that is starting to feel more like a home than I felt at Terry’s after two years. It’s different than I planned, but… God, Mackey, I think you’re worth it. Don’t you think you’re worth it?”

Mackey found he was shaking his head. “No,” he rasped. “No, I’m not. I’m not worth it, Trav, but I can’t make you go back. I’m gonna hold on as long as you’ll have me. And Jesus, I’m so, so glad you’re here….” He took a breath, but it was more of a sob, and then he just stopped talking and held on while Trav held him, shaking, trying so hard to get it together when both of them were flying apart.

Trav kissed his stomach then, and Mackey sucked in a breath. The next kiss landed on his ribs, and then under his belly button, and then Trav worked his way up along Mackey’s sternum. It wasn’t just the pressure or the softness of his lips that undid Mackey, it was that his face was wet, and his hands were shaking, and when he reached up to palm the back of Mackey’s head, Mackey saw everything he’d ever wanted from a lover written right there in Trav’s eyes.

“I’ll meet you halfway,” Trav said softly. “I know this isn’t over. I know someday this thing with Grant is going to be faced. But I’ll take you on the hope that someday all of you will be mine, home-free, if you promise me you’ll be honest with me right up until the reckoning, do you understand?”

Mackey nodded, searching for words. “Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes. “Someday, I swear I’ll be strong enough, Trav. Someday, for you and me, it won’t even be a thing.”

“I told you before, Mackey. I’ll take you on faith.”

His sepia brown eyes were fathomless, wide, trusting. Mackey didn’t think he’d ever felt faith without pressure, hope without need.

“Deal,” Mackey whispered.

The kiss wasn’t hard or greedy. It went long and soft, gentle, shaking hands, delicate breaths. Trav pulled Mackey on top of him and then rolled, and spent a year mapping Mackey’s face with trembling lips. A decade working his way down Mackey’s vulnerable, exposed throat. A century placing delicate caresses down his shoulders and his chest.

Mackey had nothing, no return strategy for him, just the need to feel Trav’s hands on his skin, his lips, his kisses, and to bask in the massive heat he put off—protective heat, the gorgeous, glorifying heat of safe haven.

Trav’s clothes came off and he covered Mackey with his body, bulkier, a little hairier, but solid, substantial. Trav was something Mackey could cling to when he was needy, could batter with his hands when he was overwhelmed, could wrap his limbs around and merge with and know Trav could take it. Trav could take anything Mackey could give.

Trav greased and at Mackey’s entrance felt like part of that, and he needed Trav inside him, like breath. They became one, and Mackey could breathe. Trav was a part of him, and Mackey had strength. Trav moved, and Mackey’s body became light and Trav’s body became sound and together they were the thing Mackey worshipped most.

Music.

Every thrust was a crash of cymbals and the thud of bass. Trav’s hand on his cock was the lead guitar. Trav’s voice in his ear, urging him on, saying filthy, pornographic things, was the lyrics, throbbing in rhythm, throbbing in time with Mackey’s cock.

Climax was a roaring, gentle thing from the pit of his stomach. Trav’s body in his arms should have grounded him, but instead they flew, flew together, and Trav’s groan against Mackey’s shoulder, the hot spurt of his come in Mackey’s ass, that was the crescendo, the soaring of the heavens against his face, the ocean roaring of the wind in his ears.

They floated to earth, feathers, light and hollowed out, drifting together, chilled and sweating on their bed.

The first thing Mackey said when they were people again and not sound and light took even him by surprise.

“I’m sorry you didn’t see your family, Trav.”

Trav rolled to his side and nuzzled Mackey’s ear. “Next time, tell me you can’t do it. We can make plans for staying in town.”

Ah God. That was his Trav. Practical to the bone. Mackey wouldn’t have loved him so much if he wasn’t.

T
HEY
STAYED
in and ordered takeout, and Trav called up Astrid and asked her if she could find a replacement to come over for the next two weeks.

Chinese food on the couch hadn’t been quite what Mackey had in mind for his Christmas break, but Trav was there, and they got all of the foil-wrapped chicken to themselves when Kell and Blake usually hogged it, so Mackey called it a win.

Trav called his mother and told her not to meet the plane. Mackey sat in the room for that, since he was partially responsible. She didn’t sound mad, Mackey thought, sort of relieved. Good. Trav didn’t have that to worry about.

Mackey texted Kell about whether or not he should call. Kell texted don’t bother, they’d talk in the morning, but next time to just fricking tell everybody before he freaked them out at the airport like that.

Mackey called him. Just called him.

“What in the fuck?”

Mackey sort of liked how puzzled he sounded. Good strategy, Trav!

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “Man, too many bad memories. I wasn’t gonna make it, not and stay clean. Maybe next year.”

“You got a problem with saying that, little brother?”

Mackey swallowed and closed his eyes. “You don’t like weakness,” he said, and as he said it, his throat swelled and he knew how much it was true, what Kell thought of him.

“I don’t like shit hurting my family,” Kell said firmly. “If it’s going to hurt, tell me about it, okay? Man, we were gonna fucking lose you, do you know that? I didn’t know that until… God. Fucking everything. But I look at it now and I see how close we were to not having you. And how much we need you. So… so just tell us, okay?”

Mackey smiled a little, finding it easier to breathe. “Next time. I promise. Thanks, Kell.”

Kell hung up, probably before he could say something “gay” like “I love you,” but Mackey didn’t care. His brothers loved him. He knew that now. He shouldn’t forget it again.

He and Trav fell asleep early, exhausted emotionally, and it wasn’t until Mackey heard the rhythm of Trav’s breathing next to his ear that he realized he hadn’t picked up his guitar all day.

But that he could, and it would be all right.

It was something of a revelation, that, and it helped him understand the nature of his addictions in a whole new way, but for that moment, he could only be grateful. Trav wasn’t going anywhere. The music wasn’t going anywhere. Mackey could breathe in that rhythm, and he could sleep.

They were still in their underwear the next morning, stumbling around the kitchen making coffee and oatmeal, when the door burst open and Mackey’s family rushed in, his mom in the front and his little brother bringing up the reluctant rear.

In the midst of exclamations and hugs and Mackey’s complete bewilderment, he caught Trav’s eyes.

Rhythm, music, and home. He wasn’t in the perfect place yet, but he had the things in his heart to make it that way. Mackey could keep breathing. It was going to be okay.

L
ATER
,
AFTER
the band had left for the tour and survived, Trav would be more than grateful for Mackey’s family on Christmas morning. Of course at that particular moment, he was a little disappointed. He’d thought he’d have Mackey to himself for a couple of stress-free weeks. That desire fizzled and died after one look at Mackey’s face. The stunned knowledge that his family hadn’t left him, they were
right there
, and that this new life he and Trav were forging wasn’t ephemeral, practically lit him up inside. Trav and Mackey were real and their house would be full of people without the ever-present strain of poverty and barely hidden taint of despair.

The two weeks weren’t perfect. Mackey’s little brother was a complete punk-ass dick, for one. He said “fag” four times in the first five minutes after walking into their kitchen. Trav, after one look at Heather Sanders’s miserable, helpless frustration, took the little asshole by the collar, threw him outside, and slammed the door behind him. He was standing in their driveway in his boxers, but he didn’t give a shit.

“Cheever, how old are you?”

“Thirteen, fagg—”

Trav grabbed him by the throat, which might have worried him if it had been Mackey, but it wasn’t, so his control was perfectly, icily in place. “I am thirty-five. I defended my country, put myself through college, and built a career in a land of sharks. What you say about me does not mean a spot of seagull shit, do you understand me?”

Cheever nodded, his brown eyes huge in his pale, freckled face. He had a reddish mane of curly hair that tumbled over his vulpine features, and he probably got a lot of attention at school as a good-looking kid.

Trav had known him for a nanosecond and wished his mother had put him up for adoption.

“But when you use that word around your brother, when you talk to the press, when you throw that small-town bullshit around like you own being a bigoted asshole, you remember something for me, will you?”

Again, that terrified nod.

“Your other brothers? They just drove all night to be with Mackey because he
means
something to them. His talent and drive got the record contract and bought your nice pretty house and your school fees and the car you think you’re going to get and those kick-ass shoes on your feet. And he didn’t have any of that shit growing up, so it doesn’t mean anything to him. But you’re enough of a squirrel shit that it means something to
you
, and I love your brother. You piss me off too much, and I’ll make sure that money he’s just forking over to you and your mom doesn’t find its way into your pockets ever. Do you hear me?”

Cheever squeaked—and now he looked like he wanted to cry. Great. Trav had bullied a middle school student. He was so proud he could puke.

“You keep that ugly word and your ugly bullshit to yourself, little man. If I hear you using it around your brother, I’m going to ship you home via Greyhound bus, and that is the truth.”