Page 152 of Beneath the Stain

“Well, take him back,” Mackey snapped, disgruntled. “Make him room with you. Make him play video games. Do his hair—forGod’ssake do his fuckin’ hair—but dammit. He’s a nightmare. Don’t let him slip away. Man, you thought visiting me in rehab sucked, think about visiting him injail.”

His mom started to laugh. It was choked and bitter, but still laughter—and Mackey realized what he’d just said.

“Yeah, yeah,” he conceded. “But you never had to visit us there, not even before we had the boss with the bankroll.”

“No,” she agreed. “No. You’ve got good advice for a guy who claims he can’t function without someone else.”

Mackey grunted. “I can function—I always could. I’m just not happy without him. And you know what?”

“You deserve to be happy,” his mom said, and a sort of warm, sunshiny caramel feeling filled his stomach then.

His mom pulled into the hotel parking lot, and he paused in the act of grabbing his beach bag and hopping out. “I love you, Mom,” he said softly. “I’m sorry we’re all so much trouble.”

His mom wiped under her eyes like a man—using the palm of her hand. “I love you, Mackey. I’m sort of glad of the trouble sometimes, you know that? I missed you when you were all on tour. You called every week, and texted and e-mailed all those pictures—it was sweet, and I sort of lived for it, but….”

He heard her. The days they used to puppy pile on her bed to watch TV—a rare occurrence, but one he’d particularly loved—were a long way away.

“Maybe you and Cheever can come to LA after this,” he said. “Get a house nearby. Leave this place in our rearview completely.” He smiled a little. “Watch Kell and Briony make each other crazy.”

His mom smiled brilliantly. “Oh, I like her, Mackey. It was real nice of you to go get a girl for your brother—he’s going to owe you in Christmas gifts for the rest of your life.”

Mackey grimaced. “Yeah, well, he tried to get me a guy instead, but it didn’t work out. I gotta go get my own.”

She grabbed his head and pushed a hard kiss intohischeek, and let him go.

He could not remember the last time he’d been so afraid of knocking on a door.

You Really Got Me

HEATHSTAYEDuntil six in the morning, pouring scotch and talking about their days in the military and how easy it had been. There were good guys and bad guys, and he and Trav had been on the side of the angels. Now there were sharks in suits and desperate, drugged-out kids who killed brain cells faster than they could spend money.

Trav listened and agreed, and tried to keep his scotch intake reasonable and failed. Sometime before dawn, Heath regarded him steadily through a pause in the conversation and said, “What now?”

“You mean, with the band?” Trav said, just addled enough with alcohol to think that was what Heath meant.

“No, idiot. What now for you and Mackey?”

Trav frowned. He knew the panic he’d felt when he realized that he, Travis William Ford, had actually beenincarceratedfor losing his temper, but Heath’s implication was that this moment, this separation was somehow permanent. That he was at a crossroads or something.

“Mackey needs me,” he said, knowing it wasn’t true. Mackey had his shit together now. Mackey was facing down one hell of a demon, and he knew the shape of this hell, and he was navigating it just fine.

“Well, there’s needing and needing,” Heath said, thinking about it. “My last girlfriend said she needed me. She needed my money and my connections so she could sleep with the right director. How do you want Mackey to need you?”

Like “need” was a magic movie word, the question looped two memories of Mackey behind his eyes. The first was the sobbing kid in the emergency room, strung out, one hit away from being a desperate junkie, so afraid of every thought, every real feeling inside, that he’d rather bait Trav into hitting him than actually say an honest truth.

The second memory was Greece, as Mackey rambled endlessly, spouting poetry and fairy tales and silly stories about his brothers.

“Mackey, God,” Trav had finally chuckled sleepily. “It’s a good moment. Why not let it sit in quiet?”

“’Cause I’m afraid you’ll fall asleep on me,” Mackey confessed, looking up from his childlike crouch in the water at Trav’s feet. “And the sun’s coming up, and I need you here with me when it does.”

Trav wrapped his arms around Mackey’s shoulders. “Look,” he whispered. “See? You can see it getting pink in the east?”

Mackey turned to nuzzle his cheek. “Yeah. Wait’ll it gets gold.”

Trav jerked awake and looked at Heath muzzily. “The second way,” he said, wanting the moment back. If he’d gone with Mackey, he could have held him right now. They could have gone outside this bleak little hotel room and watched the sun come up.

“What’s the second way, brother?” Heath asked gently, and Trav started again.