Page 30 of Beneath the Stain

The door hadn’t closed behind him when it was thrown open and shut again, and Mackey found himself pressed face-first against the mirror on the far wall.

The dark was reassuring. He couldn’t see his own face in the mirror, much less the guy behind him slobbering in his ear, fumbling with his pants, grasping his cock. At one point he heard the words “Such an honor to be jacking you off, Mackey Sanders,” and thesincerityalmost crumpled his boner right there.

It didn’t matter. The condom was lubed, and all Mackey had to do was bend over. Bend over and close his eyes and spread his ass and hope the kid could get him off, make him come, because maybe when his vision went white and his body shot into the stratosphere, maybe everything but the crowd, the music, the song—maybe everything else could go the fuck away.

Your Own Worst Enemy Has Come to Town

YEAH, TRAVISFord wassittingin Heath Fowler’s fancy LA office for Tailpipe Productions, but for once, he couldn’t focus on business.

“You’re home early,” Terry said, looking appalled as he opened the door to their little apartment in West Hollywood.

“You said we needed to talk.” Trav had served in the military for eight years. He didn’t believe in bullshit, and he didn’t believe in the coy beating-around-the-bush looks Terry was giving him.

“I said we needed to talk last week!” Terry protested, looking at him in disbelief. “Last week, when I wascryingover the phone, I was so lonely!”

“I was on a trip, Terry! There’s not much I could have done about it.” Trav shoved his way inside the apartment, seeing the pizza on the coffee table and frowning. “Did you eat in the living room? I thought we agreed—”

“Well, yeah,” Terry said, half laughing. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his curly brown hair and brown stubble looked unkempt in a way that had always turned Trav off, and he was wearing little more than a white tank top and basketball shorts. Trav could tell by the way he was swinging around in the shorts that he didn’t have anything on underneath. “Yeah, we agreed not to eat in the living room,” Terry said bitterly as Trav tried to concentrate on what was going on around him. “But we also agreed that you’d cut down on trips, and we also agreed to listen to each other when we were talking!”

“I heard you!” Trav protested. “I’m back three days early, aren’tI?”

The shower in the bedroom was on, he realized dimly. The shower in the bedroom was on, Terry was half dressed, and Trav had walked into the classic scenario. “And none of that is an excuse for cheating!”

Terry’s lower lip quivered. “If you’d even said you were coming home,” he said softly. “But you just kept telling me to get over it. I’m not a robot like you, Trav. I don’t start relationships so I can be home alone.”

Robot? He didn’t feel like a robot. He felt hurt and betrayed. But he ignored that part. “So you went out and found someone, for spite?”

Terry shook his head and rubbed his stupid stubbled face with a shaking hand. “For spite? You would think that. I was crying in the damned bookstore, looking for one more book on how to fucking communicate, when a goddamned kid comes up and tells me I look lonely. A stranger, Travis. Walks up and says I look sad. I’ve been telling you that formonths, evenbeforeyou left for Vancouver, and you couldn’t see it, but this kid walks up and just… nails it. I started to cry—again—right there in the fucking bookstore. Do you get that?”

“I get that you took him home and fucked him,” Trav snarled, and to his surprise, Terry slapped him. Terry, the gentle artist who apparently couldn’t hear a daffodil drop without crying, actuallyslappedhim.

“You don’t get to talk ugly about him,” Terry snarled, no longer gentle. “You say what you want about me. Tell me I’m weak—I get that. I can’t change it—”

“You don’twantto!”

“Ican’t!Tell me I’m weak, tell me I’m a cheating fucker, but don’t say anything ugly about that kid who gave me a hug when I fucking needed it, do you hear me?”

Trav stared at him, rubbing his cheek. “I came home early,” he said, feeling helpless. He wanted to howl and be angry and hit him back—but eight years in the military, six of those years in the MPs. Six years of being stoic and thinking fast and not ever once letting his temper get the better of him, because he had a big fucking gun and a lot of fucking power and people depending on him to think. Six years after that, business school, cutthroat competition, becoming a consultant in personnel relations and how to keep your company from being ripped off—Trav knew nothing if he didn’t know discipline. Hecouldn’thit Terry back. He couldn’t.

“I came home early,” he said again, closing his eyes. “You sounded sad.”

“You couldn’t call me up and tell me that?”

Trav breathed hard through his nose. “I came home early.”

Terry touched him on the shoulder, gently. “And I let you down.”

Trav had dropped his suitcases—expensive gray leather luggage with the smooth rollers—at the front door. He turned around mechanically and retrieved them.

“Take my name off the lease,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Box my stuff up and put it in the storage unit downstairs. I’ll get it when I have a place to stay.”

“Trav?” He sounded so surprised. “That’s it? You’re just going?”

Trav didn’t even look over his shoulder. “Why should I stay?”

“Because we love each other?”Terry’s voice cracked, and in the background, the shower went off.

Trav turned back around and grimaced. “Maybe, but I’m not ever gonna let this go. Better I leave now, and then we can both move on with our lives.”