Beneath the Stain - Part 4

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?

T
RAV
’
S
TEXT
was appropriately sympathetic.
Forty-five minutes?

Did I just say?

Well that’s special. That’s what you get for treating the guy like shit for over a year.

You’re a peach, you know that?

Hey, it’s not my fault you BROKE your lead guitarist.

He stared at the text for a minute, and stared and stared, thinking about it, the words resonating around in his head like a song.

He started texting like mad, hitting the End key at the end of every line, texting a lyric for the first time in his life.

If I break you can I fix you

Using bandages and tape

Kleenex and soft words

Is that all that it will take?

If I fix you is it worth it to

Touch the ragged ends

Of your shattered expectations

Of a man who’s not your friend?

If I break you will I miss you,

Should your pieces disappear?

After all I have been with you

For a shitty, painful year.

Can I break you into fragments

That I paste and glue again

Or will you gather your arrangements

Cause breaking’s too much pain?

Does it help to say “I’m sorry”?

That I didn’t mean to make you cry?

Does it help if I am truthful

And tell you truly why?

So if I break you, should I fix you,

Will that be a bitter end?

Or maybe just not break you

Just shake hands with my good friend.

Mackey finished, breathless, and looked at what he’d written. Trav had tried, here and there, to get a text in edgewise, but finally he’d just stopped in the middle and said
Tell me when you’re done.

He read the texts again and again, hearing the music curling up from his stomach, and even though it wasn’t about lost love, and even though he didn’t hear any screaming in the middle like with his other songs from rehab….

He liked it.

That’s good
, Trav texted.
I like that a lot.

Well, should I call it “Apology to Blake”?

Either that or “Grant You Bastard.”

Mackey narrowed his eyes and thought. Well, yeah. Maybe the song
could
be written from Grant to him—but he wasn’t writing songs about or for Grant anymore. That was part of his rehab, he’d decided.

How about “The I’m Sorry Song.”

The pause told him Trav was probably thinking about it.

Yeah, fine.

Your enthusiasm will end me. I can feel it. It’s destroying my psyche with daisies, rainbows, and bunny burps.

Yes, Mackey, it’s a WONDERFUL song. I’m mad at you for not being madder at Grant.

Mackey stared at the text, surprised.

It’s nice to know I’m not the only spoiled child in this relationship
, he texted, feeling a little bit superior.

Silence, silence, silence….

He broke you.

You fixed me. Doesn’t that mean you win?

I didn’t fix you. YOU fixed you. I just kept booting you in the ass until you made that work.

Or clocking me in the jaw.
He laughed. God, that had been awesome.

Go to bed, Mackey.

After I write the song down.

Yeah, fine. Do that. It’s a good one.

Wait until you hear the riff.

S
O
ALL
in all, Mackey was doing pretty good. Even the meeting with his mother didn’t suck too badly.

For one thing, she was dressed pretty. Shelia must have taken her around to the fancy boutique shops, because she was wearing a little column skirt that went right to her knees and a matching tank top/jacket thing. Her hair was done up nice, in one of those chignon doo-dads, and she had earrings that matched her outfit.

Just seeing her made him smile.

“You look real nice,” he said, grinning, as she and the others walked uncertainly into the big visiting room.

She ran up to him and hugged him, wrapping her tiny arms around his waist like wire. She was the one person besides Shelia who was shorter than he was—but not by much.

“You look tired,” she said, and he smiled gamely.

“Tired, but I’m not in tears. Hey, Trav’ll tell you that’s an
improvement.”

Heather Sanders looked over her shoulder at the guy Mackey was starting to dream about. “He’s the one who told Shelia and the boys to take me shopping.” She grinned, suddenly twenty years old, and held her arms over her head as she pirouetted.

Kell was at her side in a minute, wrapping his big arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. “You look good, Mom. Shelia and the twins did you up nice.”

Mom looked over at Shelia and smiled tentatively, and was greeted by a real stunner from Shelia. Mackey figured that maybe the little threesome would do just fine.

And that was it. The lot of them looked at each other awkwardly for a minute, and for the life of him, Mackey couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.

Until Blake walked by, looking wistfully into the visiting room.

“
Blake
!” Mackey called desperately, grabbing the guy practically by his collar. “Man, come here and meet our mom. Give her an hour and she’ll be your mom too.”

Trav sidled over to him while Blake and Kell were doing the back-pounding hug thing and murmured, “I saw that,” looking at Mackey grimly.

“What am I supposed to say?” Mackey grumped. “Hi, Mom, I’m a fuckup, love me anyway?”

Trav pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Start with that.”

Mackey didn’t look away from him. Short auburn hair, sepia eyes, lantern jaw, chiseled chin, broken nose—and lean lips that would look better swollen with kissing, and cheeks that would probably leave stubble burn on Mackey’s neck. “It’s like when we’re texting, I think of you and I
think
I know what you look like, but I
see
you, and you’re even better. How does that happen?”

Trav’s mouth quirked up at the corners. “Same way I think you look good with your hair grown out so it’s almost all brown and big shadows under your eyes. It’s that whole tenderness thing kicking in—happens when people like each other.”

Mackey grunted. “That’s lame,” he said, not really meaning it but not having anything else to add. “It’s
just
like coke. You use it so you want it so you don’t have the feeling of it going away. I see you so I want to see you so I don’t have the feeling of you….”

Trav slid his hand, warm and comforting, to the back of his neck. “Not going away,” Trav murmured near his ear. “Can’t promise we’re going to be lovers, but I’m not going away.”

Mackey turned his head and looked longingly at Trav’s straight-up brown eyes. “That’s mean,” he said after a minute. “Not being lovers. That’s not the good way for this to end. Just being friends is—”

“Is probably what you need right now,” Trav said patiently, and Mackey was going to get mad at him, but damn. He just looked so good.

Narrowing his eyes in resolution, Mackey turned so they were facing each other instead of side by side. While everyone else was engaged, he took a step into Trav’s personal space, liking the heat of his broad chest and way his cheeks and chin were absolutely clean of strawberry-colored stubble.

Very deliberately he reached out his calloused index finger and traced the curve of Trav’s upper lip, and then his lower lip. He was in midcurve when Trav’s whole lower lip plumped up, grew softer, and Mackey stroked it carefully and grinned with extreme impudence.

“If we were touching below the waist, would I feel your ‘friendship’?” Mackey asked, not giving an inch.

Trav scowled and took a step back. “If you grope me in the waiting room, you’re going to feel the same friendship that got you here,” he growled.

Mackey took a step right into his space. “You’re still wearing the cast, smarty-pants. You feel so bad about that whole thing, there’s no way you’d hit me again.”

“Mackey,” his mom said, looking over at the two of them meaningfully, “the boys are taking Shelia to the dining room. They’re going to get some ice cream—what flavor do you want them to bring back?”

Mackey grinned. “Chocolate/strawberry,” he said, because the machine swirled them both together. “What flavor do you want, Trav?”

Trav looked suitably grim for ice cream. “I’ll go get you an extra helping,” he said meaningfully.

Mackey sighed, resigning himself to a conversation with his mother.

Feeling vaguely haunted by all those times he’d gotten in trouble at school, Mackey walked his mom to one of the tables in a corner of the room, in the sun.

“He seems nice,” his mom said as they sat down and the others disappeared around the corner.

“He’s a hardass,” Mackey said, meaning it, “but in a good way. Keeps us from losing our shit, you know?”

“Yeah, well, he was stressing about a press conference right before we left—had a couple of nasty arguments about it yesterday. You may want to get him to let his ugly bugs out of his panties and tell you what all the fighting’s about.”

Mackey hmmed. “Yeah, he texted me yesterday. Wants to know when Blake and I are ready for this. I told him Blake’s a pro, same as me. We can do one from rehab, get the brouhaha all over with before we leave.”

“What brouhaha?” his mom asked, and for a disconcerting moment, he felt older than she was.

“It’s a big deal when public people go to rehab,” he said, echoing something Gerry had said a long time ago. “So we’re going to have to talk, and I’ll probably do the big ‘Yeah, I’m gay, so what’ thing. It’ll be fun! Like the fucking ballet, right?” Gerry had made them go to one of those when they’d played New York—something about a swan. Mackey remembered doing blow off of some guy’s dick in the bathroom and, really? Not much else.

Mackey’s mom searched his face and then covered his hand with her own. “Mackey?”

“Yeah?”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit what?”

“Bullshit that’s what I’m here to talk about. I’ve seen your press releases. I even collect all your magazine articles. I’ve kept the card from every bouquet of flowers you boys have sent me. But I haven’t had a real conversation with you in over a year, and now you’re in rehab, and you look like hell. Tell me something real, baby.” Her mouth pinched tight, and her eyes grew overbig. He remembered that expression from the times she’d come to pick him up for fighting, from the times he’d gotten in trouble for cutting school. She hadn’t known he was getting bullied at school, and she sure hadn’t known he was sneaking off to see Grant, but she’d known
something
.

Mackey blinked slowly and lowered his head to the table, pressing her hand to his cheek. “It’s okay, right?” he said helplessly.

“Is what okay?” she asked, lowering her chin to balance on her free hand. For a moment he could close his eyes and pretend they were on the bed, watching television, and he was fourteen and confused and frightened, but everything was all right.