Beneath the Stain - Part 2 (2 page)

That night he had his first panic attack, shivering under the comforter on the floor by the bed. Kell yelled at him to quit his fucking whimpering, and Gerry showed up with a magic pill and a glass of water. Mackey slept after that, but the next morning, he needed more than coffee to wake up.

Gerry gave him that too.

By the time they were done cutting the album, Gerry had a tour booked with a kickoff performance in a club in LA with over a thousand people. Mackey refused the Xanax for that. The crowd was his place, his safe haven, his harbor, and he rode their applause—screaming applause, because after six weeks in the studio, every song they performed was diamond-cut perfection—for the rest of the night.

But they had to be up to fly to Chicago at four the next morning. He needed a little pick-me-up to haul his ass out of bed. Gerry wasn’t there—it was the guys stumbling around on their own, trying to figure out how to pack five times the clothes in the same amount of luggage—and Blake pulled out the tiny vial they’d seen him use sometimes when coffee wasn’t good enough for him either.

“Here,” he whispered to Mackey in the bathroom, as Kell swore up and down the damned room. “Just a little snort—all it does is wake you up, I promise.”

God, anything. Mackey couldn’t function this fucking tired, could
he?

The powder burned the back of his nose and dripped into his throat.
Pfaugh
! World’s
nastiest
taste.
Never again
, Mackey vowed as he sat jittering on the plane, bouncing on his asscheeks alone, so high his heart rate had nowhere to go when the unfamiliar engine noise picked up, and he was lifted into the air for only the second time in his life.
Never fucking doing this again.

By the time they got to Europe, Gerry had gotten him his own prescription for Xanax, and he went through ninety tabs a month. Blake could find a dealer in an igloo in Alaska if he needed to—he’d been living on the streets of LA for three years, bussing tables and mopping floors before he’d landed the gig with Outbreak Monkey—and he kept Mackey supplied. A little bump to wake him up, some Xanax to stop the shaking hands, some alcohol to help him sleep at night.

Their first night in London, Tailpipe held a contest. Twenty lucky winners got to come in and party with Outbreak Monkey and the band they opened for, Tiger Bright. By the time Mackey was done with the set, he was ready for a shot of vodka to calm him down. As he was kicking back the shot glass, he noticed the fans, who had all grouped by the catering tray and were timidly pecking at the little canapés and shit as the band talked about the set and who fucked up and could Blake maybe try to keep up with Kell and did Jeff really need to wear his new sunglasses on the stage?

He kicked back another shot of vodka and smiled at them tiredly. “You all enjoy the show?” he asked, because he needed to hear it.

“Yeah, Mr. Sanders,” said the bravest boy. He was maybe Mackey’s age, with a long face and a few blemishes still, and hair shaved on the side and spiked orange.

“Call me Mackey.” He winked then, and the boy blushed.

And opened his mouth slightly, and licked his lips.

Mackey shuddered. God. He
knew
that look.

At that moment, Tiger Bright came in and the fans got hyperactive, screaming and chattering among themselves, but the kid with the orange hair looked at Mackey and then darted his eyes toward the hallway leading to the bathroom.

Mackey—well, his body was flooded with alcohol and Xanax and the cocaine from that morning, and still high from the set, and all he could think was how good it would be, how
great
it would be, to get off, to be touched, to be
fucked.

He grinned—fuck-off-and-love-me—and sauntered by the fans. “You’d better have a rubber,” he whispered to orange-haired gangly boy with spots, right next to his ear.

The kid looked at him with predatory eyes and nodded.

Mackey wandered down the hall until he heard footsteps, and then he dodged into one of the dressing rooms they’d used before the show.

The door hadn’t closed behind him when it was thrown open and shut again, and Mackey found himself pressed face-first against the mirror on the far wall.

The dark was reassuring. He couldn’t see his own face in the mirror, much less the guy behind him slobbering in his ear, fumbling with his pants, grasping his cock. At one point he heard the words “Such an honor to be jacking you off, Mackey Sanders,” and the
sincerity
almost crumpled his boner right there.

It didn’t matter. The condom was lubed, and all Mackey had to do was bend over. Bend over and close his eyes and spread his ass and hope the kid could get him off, make him come, because maybe when his vision went white and his body shot into the stratosphere, maybe everything but the crowd, the music, the song—maybe everything else could go the fuck away.

Y
EAH
, T
RAVIS
Ford was
sitting
in Heath Fowler’s fancy LA office for Tailpipe Productions, but for once, he couldn’t focus on business.

“You’re home early,” Terry said, looking appalled as he opened the door to their little apartment in West Hollywood.

“You said we needed to talk.” Trav had served in the military for eight years. He didn’t believe in bullshit, and he didn’t believe in the coy beating-around-the-bush looks Terry was giving him.

“I said we needed to talk last week!” Terry protested, looking at him in disbelief. “Last week, when I was
crying
over the phone, I was so lonely!”

“I was on a trip, Terry! There’s not much I could have done about it.” Trav shoved his way inside the apartment, seeing the pizza on the coffee table and frowning. “Did you eat in the living room? I thought we agreed—”

“Well, yeah,” Terry said, half laughing. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his curly brown hair and brown stubble looked unkempt in a way that had always turned Trav off, and he was wearing little more than a white tank top and basketball shorts. Trav could tell by the way he was swinging around in the shorts that he didn’t have anything on underneath. “Yeah, we agreed not to eat in the living room,” Terry said bitterly as Trav tried to concentrate on what was going on around him. “But we also agreed that you’d cut down on trips, and we also agreed to listen to each other when we were talking!”

“I heard you!” Trav protested. “I’m back three days early, aren’t
I?”

The shower in the bedroom was on, he realized dimly. The shower in the bedroom was on, Terry was half dressed, and Trav had walked into the classic scenario. “And none of that is an excuse for cheating!”

Terry’s lower lip quivered. “If you’d even said you were coming home,” he said softly. “But you just kept telling me to get over it. I’m not a robot like you, Trav. I don’t start relationships so I can be home alone.”

Robot? He didn’t feel like a robot. He felt hurt and betrayed. But he ignored that part. “So you went out and found someone, for spite?”

Terry shook his head and rubbed his stupid stubbled face with a shaking hand. “For spite? You would think that. I was crying in the damned bookstore, looking for one more book on how to fucking communicate, when a goddamned kid comes up and tells me I look lonely. A stranger, Travis. Walks up and says I look sad. I’ve been telling you that for
months
, even
before
you left for Vancouver, and you couldn’t see it, but this kid walks up and just… nails it. I started to cry—again—right there in the fucking bookstore. Do you get that?”

“I get that you took him home and fucked him,” Trav snarled, and to his surprise, Terry slapped him. Terry, the gentle artist who apparently couldn’t hear a daffodil drop without crying, actually
slapped
him.

“You don’t get to talk ugly about him,” Terry snarled, no longer gentle. “You say what you want about me. Tell me I’m weak—I get that. I can’t change it—”

“You don’t
want
to!”

“I
can’t!
Tell me I’m weak, tell me I’m a cheating fucker, but don’t say anything ugly about that kid who gave me a hug when I fucking needed it, do you hear me?”

Trav stared at him, rubbing his cheek. “I came home early,” he said, feeling helpless. He wanted to howl and be angry and hit him back—but eight years in the military, six of those years in the MPs. Six years of being stoic and thinking fast and not ever once letting his temper get the better of him, because he had a big fucking gun and a lot of fucking power and people depending on him to think. Six years after that, business school, cutthroat competition, becoming a consultant in personnel relations and how to keep your company from being ripped off—Trav knew nothing if he didn’t know discipline. He
couldn’t
hit Terry back. He couldn’t.

“I came home early,” he said again, closing his eyes. “You sounded sad.”

“You couldn’t call me up and tell me that?”

Trav breathed hard through his nose. “I came home early.”

Terry touched him on the shoulder, gently. “And I let you down.”

Trav had dropped his suitcases—expensive gray leather luggage with the smooth rollers—at the front door. He turned around mechanically and retrieved them.

“Take my name off the lease,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Box my stuff up and put it in the storage unit downstairs. I’ll get it when I have a place to stay.”

“Trav?” He sounded so surprised. “That’s it? You’re just going?”

Trav didn’t even look over his shoulder. “Why should I stay?”

“Because we love each other?”
Terry’s voice cracked, and in the background, the shower went off.

Trav turned back around and grimaced. “Maybe, but I’m not ever gonna let this go. Better I leave now, and then we can both move on with our lives.”

Terry started screaming at him, his voice half-hysterical, his words—well, it was probably best Trav just forget what he was trying to say.

It wouldn’t change anything, would it?

“Trav? Trav, are you paying attention?”

Heath Fowler was one of Trav’s oldest friends. They’d survived boot camp together, and MP school two years later, and six years in the MPs together in the Middle East. Heath had opted out of the military first, because he had a friend in the music industry and he wanted to take advantage of that, but the minute Trav had cleared college, Heath had offered him a job.

Trav had taken it, actually—his first two years out of business school, he’d managed Pineapple Express and had loved it.

“I’m always paying attention,” he said, and he meant it. “Poor Gerry Padgett dropped dead while Outbreak Monkey was getting ready to record their new album, and now
you
need a Management Monkey, and hello, you know I’m between gigs!”

Heath shook his head and scowled, and Trav sat up a little straighter. “Be nice,” he snapped. “Gerry was a friend—”

“Gerry was a pill-popping disaster—”

“Yeah, but he was a nice guy. I sent him to Outbreak Monkey on purpose, do you get that? Man, one look at those kids on stage—three of them are brothers, right? No dad—not even the same sperm donor, and they’ve got the ripped jeans and the hungry eyes and the fucking attitude, and I’m thinking, ‘Heath, if these guys make it, this business is going to ruin their lives.’ So I send them Gerry, thinking that he’s going to be good ol’ Uncle Gerry, and he’ll sort of take care of them, right?”

“Wait—you say kids. How old are they?”

Heath grimaced. “Let’s see—I’ve had them for fourteen months, and Mackey—that’s the youngest—he turned nineteen just before he signed, so, he’s twenty, Jefferson and Stevie are twenty-one, and Blake and Kell are twenty-three.”

Trav rolled his eyes. “That’s hardly children in a salt mine,” he muttered.

Heath scowled again. “You liking the corporate apartment, Trav? The one I gave you with an hour’s notice because Terry fucking left you like he should have done years ago? So you’re an adult—you’re thirty-fucking-five years old, and you need a hand up. These guys are kids, and they’ve never had money in their lives, and now they’ve got it and they don’t know what to do with it. I mean, some of it they’re shoving up their noses, but most of it just sort of sits there. Gerry had to make them buy clothes, and he kept them on tour, so I don’t even think they’ve got a place to fucking sleep that’s not a hotel room. They’re here in LA for the next three months with one goal—”

“Put out the fucking album. I’m not stupid.”

Heath grunted. “Not businesswise, no. But sometimes I think the reason you became an MP was because you knew people would hate you anyway, and that way you had a patch on your arm that gave you permission to be an asshole.”

Trav must have made a sound then, some sort of pain grunt, because Heath sighed and looked him in the eyes.

“Trav, I’m sorry. Man, I don’t want to be
your
asshole. But these kids need more than a manager, okay? I thought Gerry could do it, but he was in a lot of pain himself, and I didn’t see it. He died—I had to get the kids to the funeral, do you know that? They had no idea what to even wear. I mean, Gerry didn’t have a family—there I was, two days before the graveside, and I’m taking five stoned kids to buy black suits because the only thing they had close was from their first gig as high school students and none of that shit fit.” Heath looked away. “And Mackey’s shit was too goddamned big because I think he’s been living off of Jack and Coke for the last year.” Heath shuddered and looked at Trav with naked pleading in his eyes.

“We sign them up and then work their asses off to make money for us, Trav. This industry—man, it chews the kids up and spits them out, and we both know it. And these kids… I mean, Mackey’s got more talent than any kid I’ve ever dealt with. You know how Bruce and Bono and Madonna are like,
old
now, but they keep making damned good music?”