Page 107 of Beneath the Stain

“Mackey?” he said uncertainly.

“I’m trying to do it all right, Trav,” Mackey begged, meeting Trav’s eyes bleakly in the dark. “I’m trying to follow all the steps and check all the boxes. But my heart hurts and my skin aches, and God, I just want to be touched. I’m sorry I can’t raise the plant and then the dog and wait a year and… I just…. Can you touch me and then look at me tomorrow, and it will be okay?”

Trav was all awake now. “Mackey,” he said gruffly, reaching out to cup Mackey’s cheek. Right up until he felt the stubble rasping on his palm, he was going to say no. “We’re not hiding,” he said instead. “You can’t sneak back into your room and pretend we didn’t do this.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“You could,” Trav said, his chest aching. “But it would….” He hated to admit this. “Secrecy would hurt me, Mackey. I gave up too much to be a dirty little secret. You will sleep in this room, and you’ll mention your boyfriend at press conferences, and we’ll be a thing. And then if we break up, we can still be manager and band guy, because everyone will know. Do you understand?”

Mackey shook his head. “No—I mean yes. Not all of it, but some. I get that this is real. That it’s not just an after-rehab thing, or convenient ’cause we’re in the same house. I get that you want to tell people like my mom or your parents. That it’s not dirty and it’s not anybody’s business but our own but it’s not secret either. We’re not a reality show—the fuckers outside the house don’t get to film us. We got enough bullshit to deal with besides them. Is that what you mean?”

Throughout the long speech, Mackey kept his cheek against Trav’s hand, laced Trav’s fingers with his own, trapping them there, in this still moment in the dark.

“I didn’t leave the military so I could be just a rock song, Mackey,” Trav said, feeling the ache, the hole in his chest, that the thought caused.

“It’s real,” Mackey said, leaning close enough that Trav could feel his body heat through the comforter. “You want us to be a real thing. Not a one-time comfort thing. Not a thing after rehab thing. I get it, Trav. If you can help me when I screw up, I can try not to.”

Trav felt Mackey’s breath on his face and closed his eyes in the dark. How much honesty could Mackey take? How much could Trav stand not to give?

“I love you, McKay. I love you so much it would kill me not to try.”

Mackey’s breath caught, and his gray eyes lit up the darkness. “That’s a big magic word,” he said softly. Hurt resonated from every syllable.

“Someday maybe you’ll say it to me.”

Those careful months with Terry were forgotten, the responsible adult plan for Mackey cast out the window. Trav’s hands shook on Mackey’s cheeks, and he slid them back through Mackey’s hair. The clean strands caught at his fingers, and he did it again, clenching his hands, holding Mackey still, lightning in a bottle, before he crushed Mackey’s mouth to his for a kiss.

Blood rushed his skin in a torrent, a conflagration of need leveling him. He groaned softly, pressed Mackey back into the mattress, and took over. Soft, warm, wet, urgent—Mackey opened his mouth and let Trav in again and again, fingers squeezing, digging into Trav’s biceps, the muscles in his back, his sides.

Trav was shaking, every kiss harder to pull away from, every touch on Mackey’s small body harder and more insistent.

“More skin,” Mackey gasped, shoving at Trav’s T-shirt and sweats.

“Pushy little shit,” Trav muttered, stripping as fast as he could.

“You know me.” Mackey kicked off his own sweats and skinned out of his own shirt. “You know me. You know I’m pushy and selfish and mean.”

He paused, naked in the ambient light from Trav’s window, and Trav stood up, naked himself.

Mackey stretched out on Trav’s sheets almost defiantly, one knee drawn up, his cock larger than Trav had expected now that it was hard and extended up over his thigh.

“You’re a good person,” Trav whispered reverently. He put one knee on the bed and bent to kiss the inside of Mackey’s leg. “You’re brilliant and hardworking and kind. You have the best intentions in the world.” He took a mouthful of the soft skin of Mackey’s thigh, and Mackey pressed himself into the bed, arching his hips up, hoping for more.

“Intentions don’t mean shit,” Mackey muttered. “I meant to do it all right, to wait for the plant and the dog and the… ah….”

Trav moved around his swollen cock and balls, going for a nibbling kiss on his lower belly instead. “You’re an artist,” Trav murmured against his abdomen. “Reality is fluid.”

Mackey’s giggle had a strained, painful sound to it, and Trav moved up to the delicate pink nipple against his fair skin. He outlined it with a pointed tongue, and Mackey’s little cry told him the teasing was doing its job.

“You’re fulla shit,” he breathed. “But God, you touch me nice.”

Trav glided his hand down Mackey’s ribs, rubbing softly on his tender stomach, tracing the outline of his cock as it rested on his thigh.

Mackey grunted some more and Trav took pity on him, grasping him, erect and urgent, and stroking, hard and slow.

“Ah….” Mackey arched up into his palm and then sighed, sounding lost and a little frightened. Trav took his mouth again and Mackey devoured him, thrust his tongue inside, swept Trav’s palate, tasted, possessed. Trav let him.Damn, Trav wanted this, had barely dared dream of it, yearned for the time Mackey Sanders would be old enough, whole enough,wellenough, to possess like this, like a man, an equal, a partner.

Mackey had all but admitted he was claiming some of that adulthood on faith, but after the months of rehab, of rebuilding, of clinging to hope, Trav needed that faith.