Page 76 of Beneath the Stain

Apparently that idea was pretty close to the bone too.

“Mackey, you done there?” Trav asked quietly.

Mackey nodded. “Yeah. Blake, man, you can have the rest.” He smiled quietly, his shadowed gray eyes lightening up for a minute. “Trav, that was damned good. Where’d you get that from?”

That whole text message about just being friends sat uncomfortably in Trav’s lap.

“I, uhm, ordered it special,” he said, because he’d started punching it into his computer the minute Mackey asked.

“Special?” Kell snorted, rolling his eyes. “It was delivered to the housethis morning, and I swear the delivery guy looked like he was from the secret service. I don’t think diamonds or rubies got as much red-carpet treatment as your chocolate cake, Mackey.”

Mackey looked up at his brother and smiled, and for no reason Trav could think of. Then, without warning, as he was looking at Kell, Mackey’s eyes got really red-rimmed and shiny and he blinked.

Trav decided he’d had enough. “Hey, Blake,” he said kindly, “do you want to show everyone the facilities? I was going to show Mackey the catalogs for his furniture, okay?”

Blake nodded and scooped the last of the cake in his mouth. Trav noted with satisfaction that they had demolished it. Blake had shaved since he’d gotten to the facility, and even put on five or so pounds in the past week. He looked a little tired, but it was clear whatever his addiction issues were, they weren’t as tough as Mackey’s.

Mackey watched them all go with a haunted smile on his face. “They look good,” he said, smiling quietly at Trav.

Trav nodded and slid into the spot next to Mackey at the picnic table, pulling out his briefcase with the furniture catalogs. His cast bumped the table, and he grimaced. God, that thing had been awkward this past week, and, yeah, a little painful. He refused to complain, though. He’d wanted this to be a happy thing—he really had—and he’d marked all of the bunk beds and the pages with the bedding, just to make it less of a pain in the ass.

“They look great,” Trav said brightly. “I’ve got them running in the morning—we’re almost like a little track team—and Shelia is cooking for everyone.”

“That’s not right!” Mackey said, suddenly passionate—Trav thought that was a plus in his favor.

“Yeah, I know. I hired a cook-slash-housekeeper to help her out. Astrid does the shopping and helps with the clean-up. She doesn’t speak much English—”

Mackey squinted. “We’re not… uhm, you know. Exploiting her or anything, are we?”

He seemed so concerned, and Trav reminded himself that Mackey’s mom had worked service jobs for most of Mackey’s life. “No, Mackey—we’re paying her top wage and providing her with transport as well.”

Mackey’s tension eased a little, and Trav felt him relaxing slowly against his body.

Trav needed to give him strength. He just seemed so weak, so quiet.

So not the Mackey who had fought Trav for nearly two months.

Trav wrapped his arm around Mackey’s shoulders, a little alarmed when Mackey leaned against him, sort of like a three-pound disaster of a stray cat.

“Mackey, how you doing?”

“Tired,” Mackey muttered. “The cake was really good, but… I’m talking a lot to the shrink and it’s wiping me out.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that. Do you want to look at beds now?”

Mackey shook his head. “I want to just sit here like this,” he said, and Trav tightened his arm. “I can’t, though. I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

Mackey reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a notebook that had been rolled up inside. “I wrote these letters—the doc said I could communicate with my family this way. I need you to read them for me… you know, proofread them?”

“But aren’t those… private?”

Mackey straightened just enough to look at him. “You get what I’m trying to say and when I don’t want to piss people off. I need that here. I don’t want to piss people off accidentally. Can you make sure I don’t?”

Trav nodded. “Yeah, Mackey. No problem. Right now?”

Mackey leaned his head against Trav’s shoulder again. “Yeah. I was supposed to write one to you, but I wrote a song instead. It’s like, I don’t have the same secrets with you that I have with anyone else. And, well….” Trav felt Mackey shrug.