Page 5 of Beneath the Stain

I know you want another—I got that.

But you can’t hide away from screaming from the begging and the pleading

’Cause you know you coulda had me on my back.

A kiss is not a promise or a broken vow disguise

And the meaning of it’s lost if you get lost inside my eyes

So think hard about my eyes about my hands about my mouth

Think hard about my stomach and the mystery in the south

And I’ll scream to get you hard upon your back!

The lyrics were hard-driven, borderline filthy, and everything he’d wanted to say to Grant from that moment shotgunning pot smoke in the vacant field.

But you didn’t say that to another boy in Tyson, California, and that was okay. Mackey strutted in their little circle and kicked out with the mike stand and wiggled his hips, and not a girl on the planet wouldn’t think he wasn’t pining for her and her alone.

The first run-through was always rocky, and he finished the lyrics and let the band rattle and die to an end, then turned to them, seeing if they liked what he gave them.

Jeff and Stevie were nodding, and Kell scowled in that way he did when he was making a list of things to fix for the next set.

“Good?” Mackey asked, because this, here, this was the one place he needed approval. The band was the one place someone else’s opinion mattered, and the one thing he could put in his pocket during the day with the shit-for-brains kids who couldn’t just read the fucking books and stay out of his face, or with Cheever, who knew he could get any of the boys in trouble just by falling on his own toys and blaming the bruise on them.

But here, in this little circle, with his brothers looking at him, he could have something good.

“Yeah,” Kell said, frowning as he continued with his list in his head. “Yeah, Mackey. I like that one. It’s sorta dirty, but teachers won’t be able to stop it ’cause it’s clever. Whaddayou think, Grant?”

Grant was looking at him, hazel eyes like liquid, juicy lower lip worried by his teeth. “It was awesome,” he said, his voice throaty and quiet. “I especially liked the part about lost inside your eyes.”

Mackey couldn’t hold his gaze any longer. He looked down at his keyboard and made some notations in his notebook about where the bridge fell apart and how they needed to clean that up. “Yeah, well, girls seem to like that shit,” he muttered. He risked a glance at Grant then and was mortified when he realized Grant knew exactly what he meant by that. Those hazel eyes were devouring him, scolding him, and needing him, and Mackey couldn’t seem to make them stop.

“Mackey, start us over again,” Kell said. “Grant and I need to clean up the guitar parts or I’ll never get to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Mackey said, his throat dry. “I’ll conduct this time and work on the lyrics next time we practice.”

“You do that,” Grant said, his voice so growly Mackey might have been the only one to hear it.

Didn’t matter.

It was more than enough that Grant knew Mackey hurt. It was Mackey’s only weapon in the war they’d fight for the next five years.

PROM. HELL,it wasn’t evenMackey’sprom—he was still a freshman. In fact, although Grant was still seventeen and Kell had just turned eighteen, they didn’t even think of it astheirprom. Seniors got a ball, and since Kell couldn’t afford to go and wasn’t dating anybody, Grant had decided he wasn’t doing it either, girlfriend or no. Jeff and Stevie were juniors, but they hadn’t taken an interest in girls yet. Or, well,apartthey hadn’t taken an interest in girls. So far, their entire adolescence had been spent taking an interest in thesamegirl, one girl at a time. They didn’t compete, either. They just both looked at the same girl longingly and consoled each other when she didn’t look back.

The weirdest part was that nobody seemed to notice how weird it was. Mackey just accepted it for Jeff and Stevie, and that was okay, then, right?

But the fact that nobody in the band was actuallygoingto the prom didn’t stop everybody from getting dressed up. They assembled at the Sanders boys’ apartment a week before prom, bringing their best clothes, with the intention of making sure they didn’t look like shit when everyone else was going to be in tuxes.

But the Sanders boys had underestimated the bond of brothers—even ones who didn’t live in a two-bedroom apartment and swap clothes until they disintegrated. Grant’s and Stevie’s parents could afford suits—Mackey had already figured that. He didn’t expect Stevie to bring Jeff a barely worn sport coat to go over his best jeans and the collared shirt he wore to church on the rare occasions their mother still made them go. It was the same cut as Stevie’s best sport coat—the illusion of their shared parenthood was even greater, but Jeff didn’t acknowledge that. He smiled shyly at his best friend and stroked the arm of the nice wool. “Thanks,” he said softly and then held his arms in front of him, pretending he was holding his guitar in the suit to make sure he could move when he held one for real.

Grant was slimmer than Kell, so he didn’t have the pretext of lending an old piece of clothing, but that didn’t stop him. HeboughtKell a brand-new suit and lied, telling him it belonged to his dad. He’d forgotten to take the price tags off, but before Kell could look, Grant jumped in and jerked them off the sleeves without even an apology.

“I don’t take—” Kell started, and Grant scowled back.

“Shut up. Just shut up. Let’s see if Mackey’s stuff fits.” Because much to Mackey’s discomfort, Grant had boughthiman outfit too.

Mackey’s outfit wasn’t a suit like the other guys’.