Page 172 of Beneath the Stain

He screamed the last part, screamed it hard, the melody conforming to the words as he sang. He wanted percussionhere,and he wanted guitars, both of them,here, and he wanted them real, in his ears—

I need the water off my body,

Let it cleanse my fuckingmind!

He stood naked in the shower, panting, barely aware that Trav reached inside and turned off the tap. The shower curtain whisked back, and Mackey realized he was naked, literally, in body and spirit.

Trav handed him a towel and gave him a hand out of the tub. He needed the hand; his knees were shaking.

“What’re you doing?” Mackey muttered as Trav wrapped another towel around his shoulders and started drying him off.

Trav closed his eyes and pressed his temple against Mackey’s. “This shit in your head, it’s here to stay,” he said softly. “Give me some time, but don’t worry. It’s not anything I can’t live with.”

Mackey closed his eyes, felt Trav’s warmth against his face, felt his heartbeat even out a little, and some of the fight drained out of him. “That is so fucking good to know,” he said, at ease for the first time since they’d left for Grant’s that morning. “Are the guys set up?”

“I told them to give it twenty minutes. Write the song down. I dug out your notebook and everything.”

Mackey smiled a little and pulled away. “It’ll make a good single before we go on hiatus.”

Trav grunted. “It’s fucking brilliant, McKay. It’s going to make you all a lot of money—but that’s not going to make up for what it’s going to cost to sing it.”

Mackey sighed and shrugged. “Isn’t that art?”

Trav grimaced. “Thanks. I’ll never envy you again. Now come on out. I dug out some old sweats and stuff. Get dressed.”

For over a year, they’d shared a room. Once they had to get dressed in a minute and a half because the hotel had forgotten the wake-up call and their plane left in an hour. Even then Trav had touched his bare bottom in passing.

“Trav?” he asked, grabbing his clothes with one hand and toweling his hair with the other.

“Yeah?”

“If you’re not mad at me, could you, you know, do me a favor and rub my ass? Or my back? Or my shoulders? Or—” His voice shook. He remembered Grant’s plea.

“What’s wrong?” Trav at his back, sliding his hand across his stomach, was enough to make him shake.

“Grant hadn’t been touched in two weeks. Nobody hugged him. I don’t think he got any before that either. Two weeks, Trav. I shake just—oolf!”

Trav engulfed him, warmth from top to bottom, those big anaconda arms around his shoulders, the hard line of Trav’s body along his back, even Trav’s chin resting on top of his head.

“Thank you,” Mackey sighed, leaning his head on that cannon-size bicep.

Trav’s breath whispered in his ear. “Welcome. You can have more after you practice. You need it.”

“Yeah. Move, Goliath—time for me to write.”

STEVIEDIDN’Thave the drum set there, but Briony had brought two drum pads and a keyboard, and then, in a stroke of genius, she scrounged up a couple of pots and boxes, as well as some wooden spoons. Stevie cackled when he saw it, and by the time the guys had tuned their acoustic guitars, he was playing with all the toys, as gleeful as a kid playing rock band.

For all their experience, for all their fame, Mackey had a moment to realize theywerekids playing rock band.

And that thought made him really fucking proud.

They riffed for a minute, the garage door open so they’d have more room. Mackey kept his guitar slung around his neck, because some of the songs they’d picked had guitar solos, and he missed doing that work. When he wasn’t doing the worm on stage, he loved getting a chance to play.

“Stevie, you ready?” Mackey asked, grinning.

In response, Stevie started pounding out the drum riff from “When They Come For Me” on the top of three plastic cat litter boxes. “Try to catch up, motherfucker!” he crowed, and everybody howled.

By the time they reached “Stairway to Heaven,” the band was hoarse and swimming in sweat. Mackey would need another shower before he slept, but he didn’t care. His body ached because he’d thrown himself around on his mother’s driveway just like he would have on stage, and he had the scrapes on his elbows and knees to prove it. He didn’t care. None of them cared. Kell, Blake, and Jefferson had done knee drops, and Stevie had sliced his hand open banging on the side of the garage for “Come Out and Play,” but none of them were stopping.