Page 130 of Beneath the Stain

Cheever nodded, his brown eyes huge in his pale, freckled face. He had a reddish mane of curly hair that tumbled over his vulpine features, and he probably got a lot of attention at school as a good-looking kid.

Trav had known him for a nanosecond and wished his mother had put him up for adoption.

“But when you use that word around your brother, when you talk to the press, when you throw that small-town bullshit around like you own being a bigoted asshole, you remember something for me, will you?”

Again, that terrified nod.

“Your other brothers? They just drove all night to be with Mackey because hemeanssomething to them. His talent and drive got the record contract and bought your nice pretty house and your school fees and the car you think you’re going to get and those kick-ass shoes on your feet. And he didn’t have any of that shit growing up, so it doesn’t mean anything to him. But you’re enough of a squirrel shit that it means something toyou, and I love your brother. You piss me off too much, and I’ll make sure that money he’s just forking over to you and your mom doesn’t find its way into your pockets ever. Do you hear me?”

Cheever squeaked—and now he looked like he wanted to cry. Great. Trav had bullied a middle school student. He was so proud he could puke.

“You keep that ugly word and your ugly bullshit to yourself, little man. If I hear you using it around your brother, I’m going to ship you home via Greyhound bus, and that is the truth.”

He removed his hand from Cheever’s neck and glared until Cheever looked away. “Are we clear, Cheever Sanders?”

“Yessir,” Cheever mumbled.

It didn’t feel like enough. The thought of Mackey, ragged from drugs and grief, killing himself to support his family, rose like bile in Trav’s throat. “Did Mackey ever do anything for you?”

“Used to take me to the library and the park when he watched me,” Cheever said promptly. And then hereallylooked like he wanted to cry.

“Yeah, dumbass, it’s the same guy. You ratted that same guy out to the press, and you just walked into his house and tried to destroy the happiest I’ve seen him in months. Don’t talk to me. You started off on the wrong foot and I don’t have another one to spare for you. But if you talk to your brother, you’d better fucking respect him, do you hear me?”

Cheever’s lower lip wobbled. “Yessir. The guys at school say—”

“Did you hear me say I don’t care? Tell one of your brothers—but until you show me you can be kind to the one I love most, don’t fucking tell me.”

It was sixty-five degrees outside, and Trav was getting chilly in his underwear. He walked into the house and slammed the door in Cheever’s face.

Cheever came back inside eventually—after having himself a good poor-is-me cry. When the brothers took him to Disneyland and Six Flags and Legoland and the San Diego Zoo, he mellowed out and rode the roller coasters with Mackey and ate junk food until he threw up in the bushes. (Trav hadn’t seen the appeal of that, even when hewasthirteen, but the kids from Tyson seemed to think it was high fucking comedy. God. Kids. Trav was pretty sure he and Mackey weren’t the adopting kind, and he was so damned grateful his mother would be ashamed.)

Mackey and his mother never asked Trav what he said to Cheever, but the night before Heather and Cheever were set to drive home, Mackey gave Trav a watery smile and an especially amazing blowjob. Trav figured that dealing with Cheever was as close to being a good father as he’d ever come, and that Mackey was grateful and happy for what he could manage.

He could live with that.

And, of course, after Christmas, he had to live with the chaos of getting ready to go on the road. The band started putting in twelve-hour days working on the light show, the choreography, the sound mixing. Trav watched Mackey and Blake carefully—if there was ever a time they’d want to use stimulants, this was it.

But they went tirelessly, it seemed, fueled by high-protein vitamin-B-supplemented milkshakes and Chicken in a Biskit crackers, and Trav stopped searching the boys for red eyes, red noses, and dilated pupils. He gave himself permission to relax and figured that he knew them well enough by now—at ease or under pressure—to know when the bad shit came out.

Mackey and Briony were apparently an insta-love couple, and Trav could only be grateful. On Mackey’s restless days, when the band was practiced out and Trav was busy trying not to fuck up like he had in Oakland, Mackey would grab Briony by the back of the collar and haul her to the movies or a concert or a celebrity appearance or even to a miniature golf course, and they would snark at each other and laugh at stupid kid jokes that left Trav feeling helplessly old.

At first Trav thought he’d be jealous, but one afternoon he came down from his office to refill his water bottle and heard them talking. They were sitting on the couch in the living room, playingHalo, their chatter punctuated by comments on the game.

“He still working?” Briony asked, like Mackey would know who “he” was.

“Yeah. Doesn’t want Oakland to happen again—die, motherfucker, die!”

“Yanno, until I worked with Artie, I—get him, Mackey! Jesus, you’re slow. Reboot. I’m killing this round. The game’s no fun.”

“Until you worked with Artie what? Okay, are we the same guys again? My character sucked ass.”

“You have to build him up. You don’t build him up, he’s going to fail. I tell you that all the time, and you just—”

“Do we have a point? Here—reboot. Are you happy?”

“Yes. I’m happy. And see, when I started hauling equipment, it was for this little midlevel band right out of San Diego. My friend Janelle needed help, and she was the only girl, and she was tired of guys grabbing her tits—”

“Gross—”