Page 106 of Beneath the Stain

Trav held up both hands and blew out a breath. “God. Okay. God. Man, just a word to the wise, Kellogg, but if your brother is ever too damned high to tell him someone’sdead, maybe you grab him by thehairand haul him to rehab, you think?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Kell said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He looked like he was going to cry, and Trav tried hard to remember that the reason he was doing this was that he was supposedly more mature than Mackey.

“I’m sorry,” Trav said on a breath. “Mackey didn’t take it well. If you guys want to be especially nice to him, say something nice about Tony—anddon’ttell him you didn’t tell him back in Japan.”

“How?” Stevie and Jefferson asked. They were holding hands, not like lovers but like little kids, and Trav wondered for the fifty-eleventh time if Mackey was pulling attention that these two desperately needed.

“He killed himself,” Kell said, saving Trav from the hard words. They all looked at him and he shrugged, looking away. “I’m only a little stupid, guys. Mackey was walking a fine line—even I could see it. Grant texted me and I told him not to tell Mackey. I just…. Tony was a sweet kid. I wasn’t always nice to him, but he was a sweet guy, and he didn’t deserve to be all alone. But I’ll be honest. If we hadn’t gotten the hell out of Tyson, I might have done it first. I don’t even have his baggage, or Mackey’s, or—” Kell looked at his brothers holding hands like kids, and looked away. “I’m glad that if one of us was gonna stay, it was Grant. He’s got a life there. He’ll be okay.”

Trav looked away and by sheer accident met Jefferson’s red-rimmed eyes. They were both thinking the same thing, it was clear: Grant was probably not as okay as Kell thought.

As far as Trav knew, it was the first time he’d had a nice thought about Grant Adams, and it left him with a sort of queasy feeling in his stomach. Abruptly he decided that taking care of the band was probably going to have to be where his circle of sympathy ended.

“Whether he is or not, maybe if we could go a little easy on your brother tonight—let him pick the damned show, fetch him orange juice like it is your goddamned mission in life, whatever, I would be supremely grateful. Are we all on that train?”

“Choo-choo!” Stevie and Jefferson said. Their hands were still clasped, but they both pulled the imaginary steam-release valve with their free hands.

Trav decided that those creepy kids fromThe Shininghadnothingon Stevie and Jefferson when they decided to be the same goddamned person.

But in a way, that helped things go better too. Shelia served the Thai food, and Mackey came down to a full plate of Thai, some orange juice, and a new episode ofReal Detectivespulled up from HBO Go. Outbreak Monkey, band of lost boys, spent the night in, and by the end of the night, with Mackey limp and melted against him, Trav had cause to be grateful.

Look what they had become.

Kell had even gone and made milkshakes for everyone—Mackey got extra chocolate ice cream—and Mackey’s shy smile at his older brother let them all know he wasn’t fooled.

But he wasn’t a dick about it either.

Still, he went to bed early, and Trav was tired enough from the run and the emotion to follow him. Downstairs he heard the others settling down for what sounded like another hour of television, and that was fine too. Sometimes it was harder to fall asleep when you thought yours was the only waking heartbeat in the big, lonely house.

But that didn’t mean Trav didn’t spend a few sleepless moments wondering how Mackey would sleep this night or wishing they were in a place where Mackey could just stay with him, sleep in his arms, be comforted.

The thought of Mackey in his arms made him hard, and he fell asleep aching and wanting and not comforted at all.

“TRAV?” MACKEY’Svoice shook, and the soft glow of the hall light outlined his slight, wiry body in the doorway of Trav’s room.

“Mwha?” Trav yanked himself out of a pleasant half sleep where he’d been imagining Mackey warm in his arms.

“I…. God. I know the stuff about rehab. How you’re supposed to wait.”

“Mackey?” Trav couldn’t focus—his entire body was caught between the waking and the dream.

“That’s why we’re not together right now, isn’t it?” Mackey whispered.

Trav grunted, sitting up. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I can’t be your new drug—that’s what it’s about.”

“Youwould be the world’s shittiest Valium,” Mackey grumbled. “Man, I can’t fall asleep thinking about you right here. Can’t we just skip this part?”

“The abstinence part?” Ugh! Trav wanted to say no, they couldn’t just skip this part, because it was important. But he ached to hold Mackey, to show him what sex could be like clean and sober and cared for and….

Could he even say it?

“I’m not saying I’ll go out and use if you say no,” Mackey said hastily. “I wouldn’t do that to you, because that’s not what it’s about.”

Trav sat up straighter. “Mackey, come in. Sit down.” He yawned and tried to take stock of Mackey’s mental state in the faint light from the hallway. “Tell me what itisall about.”

Mackey turned and shut the door, which didn’t help at all, but by the time Travis felt his weight depress the bed, he had a pretty good bead on Mackey’s expression:

Longing.