Page 176 of Beneath the Stain

“Yeah?”

“You know when I wouldn’t tell anyone I was gay and it was eating me alive, and this thing with Grant was killing me, and all I could think about was my next hit?”

“Yeah.”

“That sucked.”

Trav’s bark of laughter echoed in the quiet room. “You think?”

“But it was worth everything—rehab and crying for months and all that bullshit—if you and me can walk away from this together.”

Trav groaned and swallowed him in a hug that was so tight he couldn’t breathe. That was okay. Breathing was optional. For the moment, he had Trav.

Wish You Were Here

BETWEENTRAVand the other guys, they beat the bag soft by the end of the next two weeks.

They went over to the big, oppressive dragon-house (as Mackey called it) every day after lunch. The guys took turns talking to Grant, playing with the little girl, or playing music. Grant picked up Mackey’s tiny, beat-up guitar and maneuvered it around the various tubes and wires in his arm that tracked the pain meds and the fluids that were sustaining him. They played rusty versions of the songs on the first CDs, but only one or two at a time. By the time they finished the second song, he was usually falling asleep, unwillingly, and they would kiss him on the forehead or the cheek, then kiss Katy on the cheek as she cuddled with her daddy, and file out.

That one golden day when Trav saw more than he wanted and less than he’d hoped for, when he’d carried the young man back to his sick bed, had been the last time Grant walked on his own.

He would never leave the bed in the perfectly pristine living room again.

A week after that day, Grant called Trav, Mackey, and Kell in for a conference. Reeves sat next to him, stoic and professional. Only the tight lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth betrayed the fact that Grant was more than a client and that he was mourning what could have been between them.

“I know,” Grant said, a tired smile on his face, “you all are tired of the damned manila folders. This one’s sort of the last one—” Suddenly he sat up like he’d forgotten something. “You signed the paperwork, right? I mean, that’s in. Sam signed off and—”

“It’s done, Grant,” Reeves said, touching his shoulder gently. “Everybody signed, it’s ironclad and airtight. The guys will have a right to be a part of your daughter’s life.”

Grant fell back against the pillow and sighed. “Okay. Good. I’m tired. I’m forgetting shit. I keep waking up and worrying that my dad’s gonna find my stash of weed, and then I remember it’s legal now.ThenI remember I can’t smoke it anymore—too hard.”

Mackey stroked his hand, and Trav focused on that motion. The skin was pale, dry, like paper, contrasted to Mackey’s vital, rough, brown, ink-stained left hand. Trav had seen Mackey walk away from writing at his desk with black smudges from his pinkie to his elbow, and even though he’d wrecked a couple of shirts and one misguided purchase of white jeans that way, Trav had never minded. It meant Mackey’s brain was engaged: he was happy when he was writing.

A dark smudge appeared on the back of Grant’s hand, and another. Trav found himself hoping they’d stay.

“What’d you need us for?” Mackey prompted. “It’s my turn to sing with you. Was looking forward to it.”

Grant breathed out. “Mr. Reeves here has my funeral requests. My folks are sort of pissed about them, but I can pay, so it’s all right. Reeves wants you to take a look and tell me if you agree to all of them.”

“Grant, you really suck, do you know that? Jesus! We couldn’t just show up in black suits and let some stranger say shit over you?”

Grant laughed, and it sounded like tattered pages fluttering. “Yeah, well, consider it payback for all the times I kept you from being beat up. You owe me this.”

“I don’t owe you shit,” Mackey said, but amicably, like they were competing over who got the last piece of pizza.

Grant suddenly focused his eyes hungrily on Mackey’s face. “You don’t,” he said seriously. “You owe me nothing. I owe you every good moment I’ve ever had. I can give you my daughter to help raise, but that’s an obligation. I know it. But do this for me, okay? I don’t want the black suits and the person I don’t know. I want you and the guys. And I don’t want to be buried here in the local cemetery in the family plot. I fuckinglivedhere. Reeves set up a trust for me—I want my ashes sprinkled in the ocean. I want to befree.”

Mackey looked up at Trav, helpless in the face of the paperwork in the folder.

“Of course.” Trav’s voice sounded a long way away, even from his own ears. “I can make this happen.”

“But Trav—”

Mackey’s shoulder shook under his hand, and Trav knew that this was the thing he could do, the way he could help his boys, the thing he was uniquely qualified to take care of.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s what I do. I manage.”

“Yeah, asshole,” Mackey said, keeping that tender stroking of Grant’s hand. “We’ll do it. In case you were wondering how much you meant to me, I’ll tell you right now how much I hate this.”