Page 102 of Beneath the Stain

Okay, fine. Fucking PT. That was their fucking cure-all, wasn’t it? Go running, beat up the fucking bag downstairs, maybe lift some fucking weights—go running.

Mackey laced up his running shoes, ignoring the open cuts on his fingers. Trav had bought him some nice running clothes, but his red microfiber shirt and white shorts were crusted with salt from that morning. He threw them on and wiped his bleeding fingers on them anyway before he blew past Trav again.

“You’rerunningfor Xanax?” Trav asked, sounding a little panicked. He was pounding down the stairs behind Mackey, but Mackey couldn’t focus on him right now. Not getting high—thatwas a priority, right?Thatwas what Mackey was supposed to focus on.

“That would be a dumb fucking way to buy drugs,” Mackey muttered, jamming a Mickey Mouse baseball hat over his bright hair. “Running for drugs—new fucking sport.”

And with that he sprinted for the back door like Satan was on his heels with a mirror full of coke and a Xanax-vodka chaser.

Running On Empty

THIS,TRAVthought, watching Mackey bounce off the hallway walls on his way down the stairs,this is why addicts are hard to live with.You never knew what was going to set an addict off—hadn’t Cambridge warned him of that? That veiled, subtle disapproval literally dripping off his tongue? Youneverknew what was going to set an addict off. You never knew whether being a lover instead of a friend made it better or worse. So many things could go wrong if you were too close to someone.

He’s going out the door without you!

That thought galvanized Trav—he stopped debating whether Mackey’s shrink was right and hauled ass up the stairs for his own running clothes. And the other things Mackey had forgotten—a cell phone and a wallet—because God knew where they were going to end up.

The group of big, high-priced homes in this neighborhood shared a trail that ran between fences for a good two blocks before finding its way to the parkland on the edge of the canyon. From there it rambled, sometimes intersecting city streets in good neighborhoods, sometimes in crappy ones, mostly just sticking to the edge of the canyon, sometimes venturing down a little in twisty paths, but not often.

As he ran out the door, it occurred to Trav that the canyon was a little bit dangerous to a guy who was wiping blood on his pants.

The thought spurred him on, and he caught up with Mackey in the first mile.

“How’d you—” Pant. “—elude the press?” Trav asked, cursing because dammit, he’d been all cooled down and relaxed right up until he’d heard the glass crash off the counter.

“I look homeless,” Mackey muttered. “Nobody knew it was me.”

Trav grunted and tried to catch his breath, because it was probably true. The crowd had thinned in the past week, and although the band usually needed a limo and a security guard to block the path for their group run, this had taken everybody by surprise—including Trav and probably Mackey.

Who wasn’t even running like he usually did. God, Mackey was usually a pain in the ass on a run—he slowed, stopped, talked until he got a stitch in the side, rambled all over the path—but not today. Today he narrowed his eyes, hitched his shoulders, and settled into a ground-eating gait that could probably win marathons if he ever settled down to do this shit for real.

Trav took a deep breath and tried to forget that he’d been up early that morning, pounding the hell out of the bag so he didn’t have to remember the feel of Mackey’s body against his, didn’t have to remember he’d made promises to support Mackey’s rehab by not just taking him to bed and keeping him there.

Didn’t have to fight the disappointment that a date with him seemed to have triggered Mackey right back into relapse.

Pound, pound, pound. Mackey’s rhythm was impeccable. One mile. Two.

“Jesus, Mackey,” Trav asked, his wind back by now. “What crawled up your ass and taught you how to run?”

“Tony,” Mackey muttered.

“Who in the fuck is Tony?” Jesus. Grant? Tony? Just what Trav needed. Another fucking ghost from Mackey’s past.

“Friend,” Mackey grunted and then increased his pace, tried to pull ahead, probably so he didn’t have to answer.

Trav had longer legs and more stamina. He drew even and left off the questions. Down the dusty path to the canyon overlook, up the dusty path to the side of the road, listening to Mackey grunt in exertion as their steps got shorter, harder, more powerful. Even Trav was out of breath for the next two miles, but then, straightaway, they were even, maybe ten miles out, and Trav was glad he’d brought his cell phone.

“You thinking about maybe turning around?” he asked, because usually they did three miles and Mackey called it quits.

“No,” Mackey replied shortly. He was clenching his bottle of water, probably until it hurt, but he hadn’t drunk yet.

“How long?”

“Till I’m done!” Mackey snarled, and put on another burst of speed.

Trav pulled even with him and took a look. Mackey was blowing hard, his face pale, sweat pouring down in the middle on a mild seventy-degree day. They were up over the canyon by now, running on the shoulder of an overlook, and Trav thought maybe it was time to call bullshit.

“When you gonna be done?” he asked, still running. “When’s it gonna be enough?”