Page 92 of Beneath the Stain

Trav had taken pains with Mackey’s room. The biggest window faced the backyard, so when the drapes were open, you could see the pool and the fanciful flowered frieze that surrounded the backyard for privacy. Trav had picked the drapes, simple and bright blue against the white of the room. The furniture was a warm wood, and the bunk bed wasn’t the simple military cot style—no. The bottom bunk was a queen-sized bed, and the top bunk arched over the head of the bottom one. Both beds were made up, one with red and the other with green—bright, simple colors for Mackey. The desk set matched the bed set, and Trav had included a music stand, a full keyboard setup, and a rack on the wall for Mackey’s guitars.

Mackey animated when he took in the music corner. “Hey-hey!That’swhat I’m talking about.” He did a slow pan of the room, which included a stack of framed concert posters Trav had gathered for him but hadn’t put up. “You didn’t want to choose for me?” he asked.

Trav shrugged. “I felt bad enough ordering the furniture without your input.”

Mackey grimaced. “Sorry about that—I kept planning, but I sort of had my head up in my own ass—”

“In other places,” Trav finished for him, and they both stopped awkwardly.

Mackey laughed weakly and rubbed his mouth. “It’s like you know all my secrets, and I don’t even know my own room,” he said after a long, pregnant pause.

Trav nodded, figuring. He’d dreamed about seeing Mackey jumping up and down in excitement like a puppy, because Trav had seen glimpses of the playful Mackey even under his worst moments. But Mackey lived up enough to other people’s fantasies when he was on stage. It was Trav’s job to let him be himself.

“Trav?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have, like, a fucking hug or something? I really just want to take a nap and hear the quiet, but I’m feeling so lo—”

Trav didn’t let him finish.

Ah, God, how good he felt, how real, in the circle of Trav’s arms. Trav crushed that slight, sturdy body against his own, and when Mackey went pliant against him, Trav had a sudden, disturbing impression of what making love would be like. All of Mackey’s lightning in a velvet bottle. Trav shivered for a minute and tried to keep his prurient interests to himself.

But it was no use. Mackey knew his secrets too.

“Are you as fucking horny as I am?” Mackey asked, muffled against Trav’s chest.

“God, yes.”

“It was like jerking off was an art form in rehab, you know that, right?”

Trav’s skin sang with Mackey so close. He shivered, clenched Mackey tighter. “We can’t,” he muttered. “Not when you just got out—”

“I know,” Mackey said, surprising him. “Not… I gotta not be addicted to you too.”

Trav groaned. “God, Mackey, I’ll move out if you—”

“No!” Mackey looked up at him. “No. ’Cause someday, I’ll be okay in my own skin, okay? ’Cause we got to go record this album and start this tour, and you and me are gonna be together, and I gotta think that you and me are gonna be together. Just not….” He rested his cheek against Trav’s chest.

“Not just this moment,” Trav finished, and Mackey made sort of a purring sound in his chest.

“No.”

But soon. Trav could feel it. Either he’d have to leave, let this thing between them die, or it was going to happen soon. Trav, famed for his self-control, was hard and aching from a simple hug, and the touch of Mackey’s skin against his, the warmth of his body, made Trav shake.

Soon.

MACKEYSETTLEDin a day at a time. That first day, he spent a lot of his time in his room, knocking around, hanging posters, putting his ass print on the bed (Mackey’s words), and getting on the phone and ordering three big ficus trees to put in the sunny spot under his window.

“I really want a dog,” he told Trav, “but we’re going on tour, what? Right after Christmas? I may have to settle for a ferret or something. Those things can travel with you.”

Trav wasn’t surprised. It was a standard rehab technique: the guy who got high because he didn’t give a crap about himself would possibly stay sober if he had to feed a fish or a cat or a dog—or a ferret.

Or a ficus.

(Blake’s choice was fish—Trav sort of liked the fish tank. It was peaceful, it was decorative, and guppies didn’t have the mortality rate that ficus trees did. Trav privately asked Astrid to double check the ficus trees when she could to make sure Mackey wasn’t watering them to death. He also started researching purse dogs, because dogs he knew, but ferrets were right out of his ken.)

So Mackey slept a lot in the first few days, and within a week, they were back in the studio.