Page 65 of Beneath the Stain

Yeah. I get that.

Okay, how’s this. How ’bout you promise not to abuse me and we both go from there. Sort of like I’m promising not to do drugs anymore.

A few seconds ticked by and Mackey realized his brows were knit and his eyes burned. Suddenly this answer really mattered to him.

That’s a deal. We can shake on it on Sunday.

Sunday would be his first visiting day, which meant his stint in rehab had gone an entire week. Go Mackey—only three more to go. Well, he hadn’t walked out yet. That was something.

Deal, he texted, and then Doc Cambridge walked into his room, so he signed off.

“Sorry,” Dr. Cambridge said, looking at Mackey with some anxiety. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. That looked personal.”

Mackey felt the oddest thing. His face got hot and his hands went clammy andoh my God, was heblushing?

“Well, I didn’t think so,” he said, distressed, “but now I’m starting to think it was!”

Cambridge opened his eyes really wide like he was trying to figure out what to say next. “Well, who were you talking to?”

“Trav,” Mackey said, turning off the phone.

Cambridge frowned. Mackey had mentioned “a fight” with Trav, and, well, he had a shiner and a bruise on his face—it wasn’t rocket science. “Is he putting pressure on you to—”

“To never let anybody hurt me? Yup. He’s damned insistent.” Mackey raised his eyebrows a couple of times and watched as Cambridge readjusted his thinking.

“Was he the one who hit you?”

“Doc, how many times have you wanted to hit me this week?”

The day before, he’d been playing his guitar in his room, and Blake had come by with his own. They’d sat and played for about a half an hour, Mackey giving Blake pointers and Blake, for once, listening. It had been a decent moment, but then, as Blake stood up to take his guitar back to his room, Mackey’s inner demon reared his ugly head.

“You think that’s all, don’t you?”

“It’s almost dinner, Mackey! They don’t let us stay up and eat like in the hotel room!”

Mackey glared at him and shook his head. Food didn’t matter. Hell, taking apissdidn’t matter, not when you were on a run like that one.

Blake stomped away, and Cambridge came back ten minutes later. After a heated discussion, Mackey outlined his philosophy for rehearsal times and basic human maintenance, and Cambridge threatened to take his guitar away if he didn’t—Cambridge’s words—get his scrawny ass into the goddamned dining room and eat some fricking food.

Mackey glared and rolled his eyes and thought of allsortsof awful things to say, but he stomped off and kept them all to himself, because he was trying not to be too bad of an asshole in general and not just to Trav in particular.

But there was no doubt about it. Cambridge had wanted to rip himself a piece of Mackey Sanders, same as anyone else who had to deal with him on a regular basis.

Dr. Cambridge narrowed his eyes now—he had a really impressive set of white eyebrows. Mackey almost wanted to pull on them like a kid to see if they’d stay on.

But he nodded sagely instead. “See? You’re counting the times, aren’t you? And you’re ashrink. Trav’s a manager—he’s like, a permanent member of the sphincter police. You think I didn’t light his fuse, you ain’t been paying attention.”

There was a heavy sigh from the doctor’s direction. “For now, I’ll let it go,” he muttered, apparently not convinced that Trav got a get-out-of-jail-free card because Mackey was a complete dick. “So what are you two texting about?”

Mackey shrugged. “Gay rock stars.” Because seriously—not a big deal.

“Why is that a thing?”

Mackey sighed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Because he’s trying to convince me that coming out wouldn’t be the end of the world—wait. You have to keep it quiet in case I decide not to, right?”

Dr. Cambridge’s eyes had gotten big. Like, the size ofbowling ballsbig. And his mouth was slightly parted. And he looked like he was going to cry.

“What?” Mackey asked, unnerved. “I mean, you’re a shrink, right? Being gay can’t possibly be the worst thing you’ve ever heard, right? It’s just the whole press thing, and it’s gonna be a big fucking hassle, and Blake doesn’t even know, and—”