Page 56 of Beneath the Stain

Mackey didn’t feel like answering any of that shit.

And the trust exercises made him roll his eyes.

“So lemme get this straight. You want me to fall into Blake’s arms and see if he catches me?”

“Yes—you can see everyone else is doing it.”

Mackey surveyed the room with deep suspicion. So far he’d met starlets, bankers, producers, and agents. Everyone was too pretty, too made-up, too rich, and too obsessed with being pretty and made-up and rich.

The girls were falling into men’s arms and getting all happy and clapping, and the men were heartily shaking their own hands for daring to trust their bodies to women who spent more time in the gym than Mackey probably spent sleeping.

“Yeah, Doc, it’s a laugh riot, but me and Blake don’t have to do that.”

“Why not?” Dr. Cambridge asked, looking at Blake to see what he had to say.

Blake shrugged and Mackey rolled his eyes. “’Cause he’s my lead guitar, that’s why! If I couldn’t trust him to catch me, I’d never cut the band loose for a bridge! Of course he’ll catch me, watch!”

And without preliminaries, Mackey spun himself around and fell backward onto Blake, who caught him and shoved him back to his feet none to gently.

“Now see? Blake, c’mon. My turn.”

Blake did the same thing, with a lot of insulting looks backward and an apparent expectation of being dropped on his ass.

Mackey caught him—even though Blake was a lot taller and weighed a lot more—and then used his shoulder to help him stand up. “See? This ain’t no big thing.”

Blake was looking at him with a quivering lower lip, though, and eyes that watered. “Not big?” he echoed. “Not big? That’s fuckinghuge, Mackey! Oh my God, you couldn’t fucking tell me you trusted me someplacenotin rehab?”

Mackey stared at him, one side of his mouth curled back. “How could you think I didn’t trust you, dumbass? You’re in the fucking band, aren’t you?”

“Oh yeah, right. I’m in the band with the almighty fucking wonderful Mackey Sanders, wunderkind and fucking musical genius. We all know I’m barely a backup musician, Mackey.”

Mackey threw up his hands in disgust. “Oh, bullshit. You’re Kell’s fuckin’ bestie. You’re in the fucking band. You’re in the band, you’re a brother—just get over yourself and deal with it. If you want to quit, fine, but don’t blame me if you don’t like it here!”

“I’m abrother?” Blake asked, his voice dripping in sarcasm—and, if Mackey had to admit it, hurt. “I’m abrother? Sincewhenhave you made me feel like a brother? When haveyouwelcomed me? Man, I did everything for you—I bought you coke—”

“You got me addicted to it!” Mackey snapped, not particularly mad. “I mean, yeah, I could have turned you down, but you’re all ‘I’ve got this great way to wake up!’ and I was just trying to get us off the fucking ground, you know that, right? I mean, you were fucking new, the rest of the guys were scared shitless—hell, we hadn’t even been on a plane before we came down to LA, and suddenly we were going to play in Europe? And you don’t even fuckin’ practice!”

“Why should we practice, Mackey? We’re on stage for two hours a night!”

“That’s different—dammit, Blake, you whine about not being good enough. Don’t you know what you have to do to be good enough? You have toworkfor that shit! You have to practice, and try and create. You think I just wake up and sprinkle some fucking cocaine like fairy dust and suddenly shit out songs? I’m up to fuckin’ three in the morning writing that shit, and I can’t get you to play it for me. Iknowyou can. We get up on stage and you pick up every cue. But off stage, all you want to do is couch with Kell and do blow!”

Blake stopped, his mouth open. Mackey hmphed in disgust. He looked around and realized that Blake was not the only one looking at him. The wholeroomwas looking at him.

Mackey bared his teeth at the world in general and glared at Doc Cambridge sourly. “So see,” he said, trying for dignity, “we trust each other.”

“On stage,” said the doc. “But that sounds like it’s a lot more of your day than his. Why is that?”

Mackey glared at him. “You don’t get it, do you? We bought our mom ahouse.Our little brother is inprivateschool. Kell, Jefferson, Stevie, me? We had to work our way through high school, but we’re sending Cheever to some sort of art school. Mom’s got a car, and she’s got friends, and she don’t have to work unless she wants. But I’m not stupid, Dr. Cambridge. I read our contract. If we don’t put out something that sells, theydropus. No nice house, no fancy cars, no super-nice hotel stay in rehab. Yeah, I did all the fuckin’ drugs, and I’m not saying I didn’t. But I did the pills to calm me down and the coke to wake me up and the booze because it made that other shit work better. I don’t got no patience for a guy who doesn’t work to pull his own weight.”

Blake sniffled a little and ran a hand under his eyes. “Man, all I wanted to do was play the damned guitar.”

Mackey sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, you do a good job of it when you’re not stoned. And Kell seems to like you just fine. I’m not planning on firing you, coke or no coke, so maybe just fucking relax.”

“But why don’tyoulike me?” Blake asked, sounding pathetic. “I swear, I was so excited to work with you—man, I’d been playing your single formonths, do you know that? I landed that audition and I was like, ‘No. Way. Outbreak Monkey wantsme!’ And then I met you all, and Kell and Jeff and Stevie, they liked me fine, but you—the guy with all the ideas—you only talk to me when we’re recording, and I’m stuck not knowing what I done. Man, I bought you the drugs so you’d fuckinglikeme, do you get that?”

Mackey made a puppy-dog sound and then sat down on the floor next to the coffee table and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Well, sorry,” he said frankly. “But you were Kell’s. Kell fuckin’ loved you, and there you go.”

Blake sank shakily into the chair behind him. “But why couldn’tyoulove me, Mackey? Man, what was so wrong with me that I had to be the brother you liked least?”