Page 17 of Beneath the Stain

“Mm. Yeah, but the prom was stupid and I was tired. I didn’t want to wait for the rest of that to go out.”

“Did you walk home?” she asked, propping herself up on her arm in her concern, and he shook his head, keeping his eyes on the TV.

“Grant brought me. He was going back after he dropped me off.”

“Nice of him,” she conceded. He’d heard her before, trying to discourage Kell from putting too much hope in Grant as a friend. Grant’s dad was a car salesman—owned the only two lots in Tyson. He kept some stock on the farm and owned horses to show, but mostly he just sold cars and got rich. Too much money for the Sanders kids—she’d said that on more than one occasion.

“He’s a good guy,” Mackey said loyally. Stupid. Why would his mom even care?

“I know, precious,” she said, smoothing his bangs off his forehead. “He’s a good guy. I don’t mind that you’re friends. It’s just… you know. That money thing. It don’t seem to make a difference now, but you don’t know when rich people are gonna get mean.”

He grunted. “Not mean. But he sure does think different’n me.”

That was the truth right there. If Mackey had wanted Tony, he would have danced with Tony, no matter what anyone said. But Tony hadn’t been worth the bullshit, so he hadn’t. But Grant—if Grant had asked Mackey to get on his knees and blow him in the school auditorium, well, Mackey would have done that.

As far as Mackey could see, the only thing holding Grant back was his mom and dad. It didn’t feel like a reason to Mackey. He wished he could see why it was one.

“How do you mean?” his mom asked now, and Mackey shrugged.

“I never woulda thought of that outfit,” he improvised. “But now, I can’t think of wearing anything else on stage.”

She laughed a little and ruffled his recently smoothed hair. The show came back on, so the conversation died then, but she pressed him for little details at the other breaks. What the girls were wearing, who Kell and Jeff danced with, if he’d gotten a chance to get kissed.

“Girls are a bother,” he grunted, perfectly truthful yet again. “Would rather hang with the guys any day.”

“Mm,” she responded.

His gaze darted up to her face and he saw nothing. She was still a pretty woman, with petite, elfin bone structure and gray eyes like Mackey’s, and those eyes were far away. Then she glanced at him and smiled reassuringly, and his attention wandered back to the television. He was pretty sure they were both falling asleep.

“Mackey,” she murmured, turning out the light.

“Mom?”

“Next time you feed me bullshit about girls and kissing, you need to cover your hickeys better.”

She was joking as she said it—he could hear it in her voice—but he lay, wide-eyed in the dark, watchingLaw & Orderlong after his mother had drifted off. He heard Kell and Jeff come in, and he closed his eyes then, figuring rightly that they’d shut off the television and not ask him any questions.

When their night noises stopped, he started to fall asleep, breathing deeply from the window open at his back.

He wondered when the air would stop smelling like Grant’s come.

With or Without You

SUMMER.

As the second-youngest brother, Mackey got to watch Cheever when his mom and the older boys worked. Grant’s dad had given the older boys jobs on his car lot. Kell worked on the cars, Jeff and Stevie did general work and moved them around and stuff, and Grant helped his dad in the office. On the one hand, Mackey felt left out that they all got to work together and he was stuck taking Cheever to the park with the fountain so the two of them could keep cool, but on the other hand, Mackey still worked at the music store on the weekends. He’d turned fifteen in June, so he actually got paid in money too, and not just in equipment, although the equipment was always nice.

And in the evenings, well, they still had to watch Cheever if Mom had a night shift at the restaurant, but since Stevie’s dad was on business trips all summer, they got to watch him at Stevie’s house, while they were rehearsing. The wind would pick up over the Sierras, and what might have been a melty, dry sort of day would suddenly smell like juniper, Joshua, and pine. Some of the red dust would settle, and Mackey could live the songs they were playing, pure as a pitch, and life held such promise. Hope was in every breath.

He and Grant were how they’d always been, most times. Grant took Mackey’s direction when they were playing and made good suggestions when they weren’t. Grant started looking for more gigs. They played about every two weeks, gigs ranging from steak houses to business picnics to, at one point, Grant’s dad’s friend’s wedding. The two original songs Mackey played at the prom were big hits, and he added more to their repertoire. By the end of July, they could play an hour set, and that made them professional and everything.

But school was coming in August, and Mackey could feel it pressing against his chest like a wet blanket on the tarmac in the sun.

Mackey had no idea how Grant got time off for lunch that summer, but the first time he knocked on the door, the second week of vacation, right after Cheever had gone down for a nap, he showed up with McDonald’s and a smile. “Thought you’d like some lunch you didn’t have to make—”

Mackey hadn’t even let him put the lunch offering on the table before pressing him against the wall and hauling his mouth down in a crushing kiss. Until that moment right there, Mackey had doubted everything, every moment they’d had in private, every touch, the feeling of Grant’s mouth on his own.

Mackey needed him so much. They spent most of that afternoon with their hands down each other’s jeans, and Cheever almost caught them when he wandered out into the living room after Mackey came, biting Grant’s shoulder to control the moan.