Beneath the Stain - Part 5 (2 page)

So on day two, after the still-functioning family run, he made some forays into malls, bought his mom some stuff for Christmas, and started buying for the other guys, but every trip to every store just built up that hunger. He didn’t understand shopping, didn’t understand prices, and was still so damned overwhelmed, sometimes, that they weren’t all wearing hand-me-downs and Walmart that buying high-end shit seemed like some sort of sacrilege.

By day three, he was climbing the fucking walls.

He tried to run, tried to practice, and was having serious thoughts about taking the car out and asking the driver to take him to a strip—anywhere he could find himself a score.

He had, in fact, put the guitar away and had stood up to grab the house phone to do
just that
when Trav texted.

How you doing?

Mackey closed his eyes. This was where he said he was fine, right? No big deal. Didn’t need Trav for recovery.

Jonesing.

He couldn’t believe he’d typed it.

Couldn’t believe it even more when the phone rang in his hands.

“Where are you?”

“At home. Don’t worry—no shit here.”

“Good. Did you try to get out?”

“Man, shopping makes me sick. I’m thinking I need to start heading up a charity or something—maybe get my degree. I’m losing my mind here without you.”

“Well, the degree sounds like a good idea. Maybe after the next tour. Or maybe computer classes. We’ll see. In the meantime, think about it, Mackey. What’s something you always wanted for yourself but you haven’t had time to do? You got time now—
your
time. What have you left out? Hang gliding? A boat trip? You just got to stay clean until we meet in Oakland, baby. That’s three days. What do you got?”

And Mackey had remembered wanting ink, and how the guys had gone and gotten some but he hadn’t thought of anything that he wanted to define him for permanent.

And then he realized what
did
define him, right here and now, and decided to go with that.

“I got an idea, Trav. Thanks.”

“Are you going to clue me in?”

Mackey closed his eyes and thought of Trav seeing the tat for the first time, touching it gently with his big, surprisingly smooth hands.

“No,” he said with an evil sprinkling of laughter. “Gonna let you see for yourself.”

And then he called his driver, ’cause those guys knew everything, and asked him for some recs.

The whole band wanted to go—everyone except Shelia, who stayed by the pool with a book and the sunshine, even in December.

Mackey brought their first CD, cover art and all, and the idea that the guys were going to follow him into this like they’d followed him into the band? After the whole rehab thing and the gay thing?

That made him really fucking proud.

And Blake’s reminder?

Even better. “Yeah,” he said, looking at Blake as the needle continued to ravage his skin. “Forty-five days sober. We’ll have to think of something
real
good for a year, right?”

Suddenly Blake’s chin started to quiver. “You think we’ll make it a year?” he asked.

Mackey let go of the rail over his head to grab Blake’s hand. “Man, I made it through today. I made it through today. I told someone I was hurting and I’m here doing this instead of out scoring a buy. I can make it through today, we can make it through a year.”

Blake grabbed his hand tighter, and Mackey caught his breath as the needle hit another hot spot.

“Thanks, Mackey,” Blake said quietly. “I’m gonna go talk to the next artist.”

Mackey squeezed his hand hard and then let him go, losing himself in the Zen of pain control once more.

Okay. Today was a tattoo. Tomorrow he and Blake would start looking at online classes.

The next day they’d pack their gear and their clothes.

The day after, they’d leave for Oakland and check out the venue. And then, finally, Mackey would be performing in front of a real audience again.

Today was a tattoo. The thought got him through.

Trav texted him that night, as he was lying in front of the television with the others, sort of limp and sweated out from the pain.

You made it through, right?

Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you.

Thank you for worrying me. I mean that. Asking for help is good, McKay.

Shut up.

Truth.

I hate asking for help.

My folks texted. Reminded me that I bought tickets months ago to go back east for Christmas. You told your mom you were going to Tyson. No Christmas together.

Mackey grunted. In a roundabout way he’d known this, but looking at it now, while his skin still ached from the tattoo and he remembered how close he’d been to running out of the house to score, it seemed like a bad fucking idea.

Fucking epic
, he texted back.

You could come with me?

Mackey closed his eyes and breathed.

Appreciate it
, he texted.
But you don’t need to be bringing a junkie home to mom and dad. Gimme a year. If I’m clean in a year, I’ll meet the fam.

The phone rang, and he grunted and pushed himself off the couch to have this conversation in the next room. “You know, I don’t know why you even bother texting if you’re going to do this every time.”

“That’s stupid.”

“You’re the one who keeps calling.”

“The year thing. That’s stupid. That’s like… like hoping you’ll fail.”

“I thought it was my reward if I succeed.”

Trav’s frustrated grunt carried loud and clear. “Do you know what time it is here?”

“Four a.m.,” Mackey said promptly. “What in the hell are you doing on the phone to me at fucking ass-crack-o-dawn?”

“I miss you.”

Mackey sucked in a hard breath. “Yeah, well, I miss you too! That doesn’t explain four—”

“I knew this was when you’d be watching television, so I set my alarm to talk. I’ll go back to sleep in a few.” And that was when Mackey heard the sort of smoky undertones of a man who’d just woken up and was talking in the dark.

“So you woke up early just to talk to me? That’s sort of swe—”

“I’m not like this,” Trav snapped. Oh yes, there was a man without coffee.

“Not like what? Fucking grumpy? ’Cause I beg to dif—”

“I’m not this thoughtful, dumbshit. Terry and I broke up because he was begging me to be there, and I kept telling him to grow up and be a man.”

Mackey’s bowels froze a little. Yeah, he knew that Trav. That was the Trav who’d yelled at him until he went to rehab. It wasn’t the Trav who’d been his texting buddy when he was there. It certainly wasn’t the guy he’d been living with for the past month. But it was the Trav he’d first met.

“Well, I’m not always a nice guy either,” Mackey said truthfully, trying to keep that level of freeze from creeping up to his lungs. “I pretty much bitched Blake into addiction—”

“He was heading that way anyway—”

“And I deserted Tony—”

“You offered. You can’t save every—”

“And I think the tech crew is gonna fuckin’ kill me, but I might rip out their throats first.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what the hell to tell you about that.”

“How hard is it to set the amps where we put the line in Sharpie and coil the mic wires so they don’t get tangled when I run around the fucking stage? I mean, where in the hell do they get these people? Flunkies-R-Us?”

“Not anymore, Mackey. Flunkies-R-Us quit on your scrawny ass. Heath had to negotiate with another labor union to get you guys covered in Oakland. But you’re missing the point. The point is, I’m not a nice guy. I’m not a supporter. Or I wasn’t, until….”

Suddenly Trav’s voice sank, grew uncomfortable, and Mackey cocked his head, liking the way the silence was as expressive as the words.

“Until what?” he prompted, hungry for the end of that sentence.

“Until you. In rehab. That third time.” Mackey heard the long exhale of something painful. “I just… I couldn’t think of you alone in there, Mackey. I… couldn’t think of you alone, period. It was like, suddenly I got what Terry had been trying to tell me, about how being with someone keeps the scary monsters away. I’d never seen the monsters, honestly. But you were alone in rehab, and I just… all I could do was imagine them around you. And I needed to keep them away.”

Mackey closed his eyes, let the image wash over him. Mackey huddled in the dark, Trav standing in front of him with a knight’s sword, keeping the scary monsters away.

“You do a good job of that,” Mackey said, feeling better than he had all day. Maybe that would be his next tattoo—a child huddling in a corner, surrounded by monsters.

Or maybe Trav in shiny armor.

“Not so much when I’m not there,” Trav sighed. “Maybe, maybe if we’re going to do this, you need to come with me on some of these.”

Mackey smiled a little. “Maybe that’s a good idea,” he said, thinking about the wonder of that. Just going with Trav because they didn’t like being apart. Did people do that? Well, they were on the phone together—people must.

“But not for Christmas.”

“Trav, do you really want them meeting me now? I mean… I’m a fucking mess. I’m… I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, you get me? It’s bad enough you’re hoping for me, and I don’t want to let you down. And Mom thinks it’s all better. I went to rehab, so it’s obviously just going to all be okay. But… but you know it’s not always. You know it’s one frickin’ day at a time. But you and Blake—you’re like the only ones who get it.” He remembered Blake’s clammy hand in his. “Blake’s coming with us to Tyson, by the way. And Shelia too. ’Cause I know you like making our travel arrangements too.” Mackey hadn’t actually
asked
Blake to go to Tyson with them, but he just now had decided it had to happen. He’d tell Blake when he let Trav go back to bed.

“Okay, Mackey. I got it. And I get that you’re a little afraid of my parents—”

“That’s not what I said!” Mackey shot back, feeling surly.

“It’s the truth,” Trav said shortly.

Mackey’s turn to sigh. Of course it was. That was why he was being surly. “See?” he said, feeling weak and sad. “That’s why I’m a mess. You can’t take me home to Mom and Dad right now, and your sister the teacher and that saintly brother/doctor/husband/kid thing. God. His wife probably glows and talks to angels. And in the middle of that you’re gonna bring
me
? I can’t even guarantee I won’t act out just so I don’t have to live up to that shit, you feel me?”

He was babbling, almost tearful, but suddenly the thought of meeting Trav’s parents made him feel small. He’d had to practically rip off his skin to stay sober today—he was nobody to take home to Mommy.

“Sh… I get it, Mackey,” Trav soothed. “I get it. Don’t worry. I’m not taking it personally.” Of course he was, but Mackey was too ragged to interrupt. “And I get that you need me. I swear, I may not have gotten it before—I made the arrangements, booked the ticket, and didn’t even ask you. It didn’t occur to me until you drove away that I probably just ripped apart your world, you know?”

Mackey leaned against the smooth painted wall of the hallway. He saw a flaw in the paint, a tiny one, and started to pick at it with a thumbnail.

“This conversation hurts,” he acknowledged. “Maybe we should keep bantering on text from now on.”

Trav grunted. “Tempting. You have no idea. But maybe we have the painful conversations until they don’t hurt anymore.” He sounded tired.

“Go back to sleep, Trav. You did your good deed. You called me for real, heard my voice. I’m hurting a little, but I’m okay. I love you.” It got easier to say.

“I love you too. Text me before you go to bed.”

“’Kay. I’ll say something dirty.” Mackey laughed softly, thinking about sexting in the middle of the night with his fist on his cock. “Real dirty. Dirty enough to—”

“I’ll use my imagination,” Trav interrupted dryly.

“You do that.” It was probably better that way. Mackey was actually not great at dirty talk. When he and Trav were alone and naked, they didn’t need words and their bodies made the music. “I’ll just think of you.”

“Night.”

“Night.”

Mackey hung up and, for a minute, thought about going up the darkened hallway to his room. But he wasn’t tired, and he didn’t want to be alone.

He wandered back into the living room instead. The twins and Shelia were on the floor-pillows, Kell was taking up the whole love seat, and Blake was in Mackey’s spot on the couch. Mackey—careful of the tattoo Blake had on the upper quadrant of his chest—sat down on him, chuckling a little at his startled “oolf” as he set his feet up on the coffee table.

“Dammit, Mackey!” Blake struggled to sit up, and Mackey let himself be rolled to the other end of the couch, laughing in relief. He could play. God, when was the last time he played?

“Serves you right,” he said smugly. “Next time don’t take my spot.” He sat down on the far end of the couch this time and waved Blake to the opposite end. “Here. You and me can share.”

Blake grunted and laughed too, sitting down like Mackey indicated. They were watching
Sleepy Hollow
, one of Mackey’s favorite shows—thank God not into reruns yet.

“Blake, you’re coming upstate with us during Christmas, right?” Mackey said it casually, not even looking at him. Blake liked to follow. If Mackey didn’t make a big deal out of it, Blake just might follow them there.

“Yeah, uhm, I guess.”

“Good. Trav’ll make the arrangements. I sorta like us all together—we don’t need to be scattering to the four winds just yet.”

“Hey!”

Mackey looked up and was embarrassed by the naked gratitude in Blake’s eyes.

“Thanks, Mackey.”

Mackey shrugged and turned his attention back to the screen. “No worries—can we back it up a little? I got no idea what that thing on the screen really is.”

Blake aimed the remote at the television, and Kell squatted down by Mackey, leaning over the end of the couch.

“Thanks, little brother,” he said quietly. “I think he really needed that.”