Beneath the Stain - Part 5 (12 page)

God, how he wanted her to fly.

Grant had been going to go upstairs to change, but he decided that was too much trouble. He’d go out and hold her now, while he was feeling good, before he could fall asleep on the couch when he hadn’t even had a chance to give her a bath.

He opened the sliding glass door and forced a smile on his face. “How’s my girls!” he asked brightly, and Katy whooped as she zoomed down the slide with her mom’s help.

“Da!”

“She’s been sassy,” Sam said grimly, offering her cheek to kiss. She hadn’t offered her mouth in a while, and he hadn’t tried for it. In fact, since Mackey’s text about rehab, he hadn’t been up to much more than a hug before he went to bed.

Too bad Sam wasn’t much of a hugger.

“You been sassy, Katy darling?” Grant asked fondly.

In response Katy lifted her arms so Grant could pick her up. She couldn’t quite walk yet, but she was a champion crawler. Grant swooped her up and tossed her in the air, fighting dizziness. He only did that once, but he blew a bubble on her neck to make up for it. Her hair was growing in blonde/brown, but her eyes were the same gold as Grant’s. She looked like she would have his unusually straight-bridged nose and a little bee-sting mouth, and he was just so
hopeful
thinking of a piece of himself living on in her. It was like Mackey’s love song for them—some part of him, even a small part, would get out of this flea-speck town.

“You just keep being sassy, sweetheart,” he said, nuzzling. “I know, I know, it gives your mama fits, but someday you’re gonna be queen of the sky, and you need to know how to keep the other birds in line.”

She giggled, and Grant just kept swinging her around. His head gave a sudden throb and he pulled in a big breath, steadying himself with one hand on the play structure.

“Well, sweetheart, that’s about as much sassiness as daddy can take.” He put her at the bottom of the slide, which she took as a challenge and started to crawl up. “How about if you show me how good you can climb.”

“Climbing’s not ladylike,” Sam said primly, and Grant felt a sudden surge of temper. All those years with Mackey and his sharp tongue, and Grant hadn’t gotten angry, but these days all it took was Sam trying to keep their daughter down one more time.

“I don’t care if she’s a lady,” Grant said, trying to keep his voice playful. “I want her to be strong. I want her to be as strong and free and happy as God can make her!”

“And not trapped like her daddy,” Sam snarled savagely. “I get it, Grant. Skywrite it, why don’t you, that I trapped you here with your baby—”

“My baby’s not a trap,” Grant said softly, standing between Sam and the slide where Katy was still trying to get up. “You’re my pride,” he whispered to her. “Go climb, Katy—make Daddy proud.”

She squealed and put a little muscle into that crawl. He was all for it.

“Sam,” he said, keeping his voice quiet, “When have I
ever
said anything to you about being trapped? When have I
ever
blamed you? Ever?”

“You don’t have to!” she hissed. “You, getting all excited about those kids coming home. ‘I might go out with them, Sam’—like I don’t
know
you’re dreaming about what it would have been like to tour with them, getting high and banging everything that moves! Playing with that trashy Mackey Sanders and—”

“You shut up about Mackey,” Grant said, feeling shitty and dangerous at the same time. “Mackey Sanders is the reason you’ve got your new car and your hair and nail appointments, and day care for Katy even though you don’t have a job. He and the band went out of their way to be nice to us, to give us a cut from the songs, when I ditched them for you. So you go get your toes done and stop telling your daughter she can’t climb and can’t fly.”

Sam glared at him, her lower lip coming out and her eyes going shiny. God, he remembered high school, when
she’d
been sassy, and funny, and could banter with him and the guys. That had been the reason he’d chosen her; if he had to go out with a girl, he might as well go out with a girl who could be his friend. When had she forgotten how to be that person? They weren’t that old. Twenty-five was too young to be bitter, right?

“Fine,” she sniffled. “If you’re going to be mean about it.”

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I’m not trying to be mean,” he said, feeling defeated. “I’m just saying—that money is going to put Katy through college, and they didn’t have to give it to us. You need to be nicer to them.”

“College isn’t the answer to life,” Sam snapped.

Grant shrugged, too tired to get mad about it. “Well, it would be nice if one of us could find out.”

He turned then and saw that Katy had gotten to the top of the slide and had pulled herself up to stand on the little plastic bench at the top. “Da! Da! Da!”

He laughed and took two steps so he could sweep her off before she fell. “You’re amazing, Katy darlin’! Amazing!”

She blew a bubble at him and he smiled, even as he grabbed the edge of the play structure again. God, she was so smart, and he really
should
start eating more at lunch.

His phone went off in his pocket, and for a minute his heart soared.
Mackey. Kell. The band.
Maybe they’d landed in Sacramento. Maybe they were in town already?

It took him a moment, upon reading the text, to figure out what it said.

Mackey ditched us at the airport. He couldn’t face going back home. Mom says we’re driving down to L.A. tonight. She doesn’t want him alone.

Oh.

Well.

He wasn’t going to see them. They weren’t coming. Mackey couldn’t make himself come home.

And part of Grant thought he should apologize. This was his fault. He’d done this to Mackey, made going home so hard he couldn’t do it.

And part of him thought he should grab Katy and just take her down to Los Angeles and just
be
there with Mackey. Yeah, sure, he had a boyfriend, but him and Mackey—God, even him and Kell—they had
history.
He could be free with them, even if he couldn’t ever hold Mackey close aga….

“Grant? Grant, are you bleeding?”

Grant couldn’t focus, couldn’t stand—the world spun and his legs couldn’t hold steady on the face of it.

“Take the baby,” he mumbled. “Take her. Gotta… gotta sit….”

He felt Katy leave his arms, and that gave him permission to let his legs crumble, let his body fall, weightless, used up, the heart and substance sucked out of him with the jet wash of the plane that took the band away from him the first time.

“Band’s not coming,” he mumbled, but Sam didn’t hear him. She was yelling at him to get up when the earth just felt like the best bed ever. No wonder Tony had committed suicide if this was what he had to look forward to. Peaceful, so peaceful, no heartache, no lies.

But he knew it wasn’t permanent. Such a shame—tomorrow he’d have to wake up.

Part Six

For as long as Trav Ford has known the Sanders boys, one name has haunted the entire band. Their first lead guitarist and Mackey’s first lover has left a stamp on the kids he’s known as family, and now Grant has one last chance to hurt the people Trav cares for the most.

Except Grant isn’t the monster Trav made him out to be, and coming home is harder on the band—and Trav
—
than he ever could have anticipated. When Trav is confronted with the reality of what Mackey and his brothers left behind—and with what they’re about to lose—he has to seriously reconsider if he’s strong enough to deal with everything that Mackey and Outbreak Monkey have come to represent.  Fortunately for Trav, Mackey’s learned a lot in the past year, and one of his best lessons is how to hold on to the people he loves.

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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