Page 25 of Beneath the Stain

“Hits me where I live,” Grant replied, something dark and meaningful in his voice.

Mackey glanced at him quickly, because the end of the song was about leaving the river when the sun hit the shadows, and maybe never going back. Grant couldn’t mean that, could he? He couldn’t be thinking about making that song come true.

“Yeah,” Kell said, completely oblivious to the undercurrents. “That’s the one. We’ll have that one as the… what’s that word you use, Mackey? The one before the finale?”

“Penultimate,” Mackey supplied, taking a better look at Kell because it was rare that Kell ever questioned words.

Kell had put on some weight in the last five years. He’d taken to working out, so his neck had nearly disappeared, and his guns were probably the width of Mackey’s head. He still kept his brown hair buzz cut, and his Neanderthal brow had gotten, if anything, more prominent. But he’d been eating dirt for six years working for Grant’s dad, and no one knew it more than Grant. Once, after what was supposed to be a frenzied moment having sex in the back of the van had turned into ten minutes of just kissing, long and slow and deep, Grant said something that stuck. He told Mackey that watching his old man peck the spirit out of his best friend was one of the things that drove him to hunt down gigs.

“My own future’s cut-and-dried,” he’d said, rubbing cheeks with Mackey in the sweaty closeness of the equipment and the metal siding. “That’s bad enough. Watching him suck the life outta your brother…. Mackey, just don’t ever stop writing songs for him, okay?”

I don’t write songs for him. I write them for you.

“Sh, Grant. Look at the river shadows. Ain’t it weird? In this light, this time of year, they look sort of purple.”

“Yeah, Mackey. It’s real pretty. Peaceful. Makes me want to just lie here all day.”

“With me, right?”

“Not with anyone else.”

So Mackey could hear the yearning in Kell, that need not to ever have to work in the garage for old man Adams again and hear him talk about Kell’s thick red neck and ham hands. Kell could play old Eddie Van Halen riffs from back when Eddie was hot, and he didn’t miss a note. If Kell was clumsy, it was because hatred made him that way, and Kell was angry enough as it was.

Jefferson didn’t get angry—not the way Kell did. But every day, Mackey watched him sit quietly and drink beer until Stevie got home too. Suddenly he’d stop drinking beer and start talking, and the sound of his mumbling voice was like he’d forgotten how to use real words.

If Mackey really was the thing that would sell the band, he’d have to sell it tonight.

He looked at Grant and grinned. “Hey, what do you want to do if we get a big contract? Where doyouwant to go?”

Grant’s brow puckered then, and his lower lip wobbled. Mackey almost panicked, because he’d never seen Grant cry in public. He didn’t think he could stand there watching Kell be stupid and awkward with Grant when Mackey knew how he liked his back rubbed and how he needed to turn his head so Mackey couldn’t see his face when he came apart.If the old man calls me a fucking nancy boy behind the office door one more time, I swear, Mackey, you and me, we’ll fucking run away….

But Mackey couldn’t run away. Grant knew that. His mom needed the help with the rent and with Cheever, who was less of a terror now that he’d been identified as frickin’ brilliant. Tyson didn’t have a good program for frickin’ brilliant kids, so part of Mackey’s gig money went to pay for Cheever’s room and board at the school for the gifted in Hepzibah. And, of course, to bring Cheever reluctantly home to the shitty little apartment on the weekends so that their mom’s heart didn’t get broken without her youngest.

No. Mackey had only one way to get out, and that was up, and Grant… well, Grant probably could have gotten out five years ago, but he’d stayed for Mackey.

And told his family he stayed for Sam.

Sam was talking marriage.

Mackey knew. The first time she’d brought it up, Grant had nailed Mackey in the back room of the music store as Mackey was closing down. It was risky—risky and unnecessary. They didn’t take those kinds of chances. But when they were done, Grant had collapsed against Mackey’s back, soundless tears soaking the long hair by Mackey’s ear, clenching Mackey to him like a child clutching a blanket.

He didn’t tell Mackey what it was about then. He helped him clean up and kissed him tenderly and then took him out for what looked like a perfectly platonic steak dinner at the local tavern. Two days later, Kell made an offhand remark as they were warming up in Stevie’s parents’ garage.

“Sam says she gave you an ultimatum, partner. What’s the scoop?”

Grant answered. “Yeah, she says next year at the latest, or she’s breaking up with me.”

Kell shrugged. “She’s a nice girl. You could do worse.”

Grant rolled his eyes—and then glanced at Mackey from under his brows. “No, I couldn’t,” he said darkly.

Mackey had to make the first fifteen minutes instrumental practice. His throat was too tight to sing.

But an agent? Mackey couldn’t think of the money or the places they’d go or even the chance to go to school and study literature or languages or even music history or theory, all of which he could read about forever.

But Mackey could think about a chance to get out of Tyson, California, and to take Grant with him. Nobody really knew what touring was like. They’d heard rumors, of course. Everyone heard the term “party like a rock star.” Maybe nobody would think anything of the two of them sleeping in the same hotel room, being together. Maybe they’d write it off like they did all those other guys doing drugs and wrecking hotel rooms. Maybe being a rock star meant you got a free pass, right? Nobody would give a shit what they thought Mackey and Grant were doing as long as the music was fucking awesome, right?

So Grant worked to get them gigs and to make sure they got paid, and Mackey worked for the vague hope that someday, somehow, he and Grant could be together, free and clear, and nobody would give a shit.