Page 116 of Beneath the Stain

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.”

Mackey shrugged. “We gotta make it work with each other,” he said, thinking about Trav. “I could always stand to be nicer.”

Kell ruffled his hair in acknowledgment and left Mackey to watch his show in peace.

TRAV’SFLIGHTgot held up, and Mackey wasnotin a good mood as he did the sound check in the stadium. In his head he knew Trav would be there in time for the performance, and Debra had overseen the equipment and getting them all on the damned plane, but in his heart he knew that he was going to perform for the first time since Gerry’d been there, and that he was used to his Xanax and pot before the performance and his vodka afterward.

He’d been counting on Trav instead.

Oh, and his tattoo itched like a motherfucker.

Blake had seen him trying hard not to scratch the still raw ink when they were on the plane, and offered him a little tube of painkilling ointment to go on it.

Mackey hadn’t even bothered to go to the bathroom to put it on, just lifted his shirt and greased that shit up right there in his seat, blessing Blake’s name the whole time.

“Looks sort of cool,” he said, liking the glossiness. “I should do this before I go up on stage. We can all show them off.”

Stevie and Jefferson had gotten theirs on opposite biceps (which were getting bigger on both of them with the gym in the downstairs and all), and Kell had gotten his on his stomach. Shelia had offered to get hers on her ass, which was really sweet, but Mackey told her that was up to her. Maybe she wanted to get something with just Stevie and Jefferson, right? She’d looked sad, and said she felt like she was little sister to the whole band, and Mackey felt like shit.

“Okay, then, darlin’—but maybe more a tramp stamp than an ass pass, okay? That way everyone can see it. Your ass is sort of members-only, right?”

She grinned and kissed his cheek, and he felt a little better. Okay. Only an asshole sometimes. Maybe he could make it through Oakland without Trav after all.

So even Shelia had a tattoo she could grease up. That would be cool—not subtle, really, but then, The Red Hot Chili Peppers wearing tube socks on their penises hadn’t been subtle.Memorable, yes, but subtle? Not so much.

So the family tattoo thing was nice, and so was Blake’s offer of ointment, but even with the numbing on his stomach, Mackey was still a raging red-hot bitch monster when they arrived at the stadium, and the sound check was getting on one snarled nerve at a time.

“Okay, y’all,” he snapped at the roadie getting under his feet and trying to coil the microphone cord, “I get that the equipment should be different. You keep telling me I shouldn’t have cords on my mics. But that’s not the equipment we got right now, and we gotta make do with what’s here. Anybody got any idea how I’m supposed to deal with you guys running under my feet like monkeys for the whole fucking set?”

“How about you move right and we move to your left?” said a rather timid voice.

Mackey glared over the heads at all the borrowed trouble Tailpipe Productions had apparently hired for this gig.

It was a girl. Aprettygirl, not that she was trying to be. She had a strawberry-brown braid down to her waist, with lots of curls frizzing out of it and little sweaty ringlets around a heart-shaped face. Unlike Shelia, she wasn’t twig thin—no. She wasn’t fat either, just not willowy. Sturdy and soft, round in the right places. In a way, sort of a girl version of Trav, right down to the redheaded brown of her eyes.

She was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt like the other roadies, but they were all looking at her like she’d sprouted breasts.

Probably because she was the only girl.

“I move right and you all move to my left,” he said, at first ready to rip her a new one. And then it hit him. “That’s fuckin’genius, darlin’—no fuckin’ lie. You all hear that? If I’m going left, I willexpectyou on my right. If I’m going right, I willexpectyou on my left. None of this dodging around the back or ducking under the front bullshit. I willexpectyou there and leave you the fuck alone to do your jobs. Now I’ll bitch at Trav to get us some new equipment, but right now, this is a fair solution. You all with me?”

He saw some numb nods and some resentful looks at the girl, but Mackey was satisfied. Emergency choreography at its best, right up until he tripped on the tall skinny guy with the blond hair for the six thousandth time.

With a snarl, he hurled hisbrokenmicrophone stand off the stage. “What in the actualfuckare you doing here?” he hollered, the clatter of the mic stand punctuating the ring of his voice. “Where’s the girl? She knows what she’s doing, get her the fuck up here!”

“She’s not certified—” the guy whined.

Mackey almost smacked his subservient little face. “I could give adamnif she’s certified. Give her a fucking field promotion, but get her ass up here before Ikickyour ass down! Oh! And I will write an actual check and double it for the first person who can get me a mic stand thatactually fucking stands!”

“Well if you’d quit throwing them off the stage, they wouldn’t break,” said the girl, clambering up on the stage with more nerves than grace.