Page 100 of Beneath the Stain

He looked vulnerable and honest, and Mackey realized with a sort of twist in his stomach that this was real for Trav too.

“No,” Mackey said, petting his hand as it sat on the table. There were lots of people in the restaurant, most of them het, but some of them two boys or two girls. For a moment he reveled in the power of not being a dirty secret, but he had other things to do. “No, man. It’s not stupid. We write songs so ten or a hundred or a thousand people can say, ‘Yeah! I know exactly how that feels.’ The person who can do that for you… that’s some serious magic. I mean, to me, it’s just….” He closed his eyes and found his words. “Thisthinginside me, and I need to let it out or it will just keep screaming. It’s all in my head, and it doesn’t feel public until I stand up on the stage and give it to people. But to the people, it feels like I said those thingsjust for them. And maybe it’s not that you’re sentimental. Maybe it’s just that you don’t have the words or the music or the pictures that you can share with people—but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to connect. It just means you need an artist who can make it happen.”

He opened his eyes to check Trav’s expression and make sure what he said made sense. Trav’s eyes were wide and shiny and luminous, and his smile was half-formed and wistful. “You know people pretty well, McKay, you know that?”

Mackey grimaced.

“What?”

“People do that,” he said, shrugging. “It’s like my real name is a secret spell to the real me. Weird.”

Trav laughed, and Mackey didn’t blame him for sounding bitter. “Yeah, well, if I’d known it was a magic spell, I would have used it a lot earlier.”

“Travis,” Mackey said. “Travis Ford. Like the truck but not.”

He watched in satisfaction as Trav closed his eyes and let his full name wash over him like a touch.

“See?” Mackey challenged. “It’s not so much fun when someone can do it to you.”

“Have you ever thought that it’s not the name but who’s saying it?”

Mackey twisted his mouth and looked at his empty plate. “Dessert?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

Dessert it was, and then the promised walk on the beach. Mackey was about talked out by then, so he held Trav’s hand and just walked, smelling salt and sun, even though the sun was long gone.

And then they made the two-hour drive back to North Hollywood, Mackey dozing a little in Trav’s arms.

“No sex?” Mackey confirmed as they pulled into the driveway.

“Not this time,” Trav rumbled in his ear.

“’S’okay. It was a real good date. What’re we gonna do for the next one?”

“You tell me,” Trav laughed. “It’s a two-way street.”

“You got more practice,” Mackey said earnestly. “You pick the next one, I’ll figure out something good for the third.”

“Yeah, baby. It’s a deal.”

It sounded like a good idea. Mackey should have known by now that ideas didn’t always come out like you hoped.

NOTALLdays off could be dates. Mackey and Trav both had administrative work the next day, but Mackey finished his shit early—most of it was sign this and agree to that, and since Trav told him to do it, Mackey trusted it. Trav had told Mackey about his breakup, and even when Trav was breaking up with someone like an asshole, he was still straight.

Hell, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been crooked. Mackey had signed everything Gerry had given him too. He was just lucky that even when poor Gerry was as fucked-up as Mackey, he’d had the band’s best interest at heart.

So Mackey was done. He’d gone running in the morning with the herd, and he’d snacked on salty shit and played video games and he’d even settled down with a book. Everyone else was out and about—Blake and Kell were checking out a new arcade, and normally Mackey would have eaten that shit up, but not today.

Of all things, he wanted totalktoday, to someonenotTrav, so he could talkaboutTrav. And he couldn’t talk to his brothers, because his brothers might have been totally behind him, and not spazzing out with the press, and a big happy family unit, but Mackey wasn’t going to test that by talking about his big gay crush. That would just be pushing his luck, right?

He needed a friend.

Hell, Mackey’s entire life, friends had been thin on the ground.

The only friend he could ever remember having was Tony, and Tony had declined to come with them and roadie when they first moved to LA. His mom was half-sick and half-crazy, and Tony had passed up on college to stay home and take care of her. His mother’s health had been one of the things that made him stick with Outbreak Monkey after graduation—they had been his one escape.

Of course, shortly after the move, Mackey had disappeared down the rabbit hole, and Mackey had sort of lost touch—not that he’d confided a lot in Tony anyway. It had just been nice at the time to know someone who didn’t hate him for being gay, that was all.