Page 99 of Beneath the Stain

“Nice,” Mackey said, wondering if Stevie, Jefferson, and Shelia ever wanted a ceremony. Or maybe Kell or Blake. “Was it one of those big church dos? Lots of flowers and fluffy dresses?”

“No.” Trav absently ran his hand down Mackey’s arm. “Small. Parents’ backyard. They’re both doctors—they were going to Uganda to work with Doctors Without Borders for two months after the wedding, and then they both had positions waiting for them when they were done.”

Mackey gaped. “That is just way too fucking altruistic for me,” he said, feeling flea-speck small. “I mean… holyfuck, what is the fucking karma backlog on that? Can they just walk up to people on the street, smack them in the face, and say, ‘I amstilla better person than you’?”

Trav laughed, his chest shaking under Mackey’s head. “Uhm, no. I think part of the rules of karmic backlog is that you don’t get to gloat over how good you are. But yeah. They’re nice people. And they don’t gloat. They just like their life simple. So they had a small wedding in my parents’ backyard. Heywood’s wife’s family paid for the catering and a housekeeping service so my mom and dad didn’t have to do anything, and they had someone officiate, and they made up their own vows on the spot.”

Mackey felt a supreme mental dislocation at that. “They just… I mean, they didn’t have a blueprint?”

Trav grimaced, but he did it gently. “What are you asking, Mackey?”

“How do they know how to make it work? You go to rehab, they give you tools, visualization, asking for help, meditation, physical activity, all this shit, and it’s… it’srules. What rules do you follow to make this work?”

Trav narrowed his eyes, again, thinking, but slightly exasperated. “I think we start by not getting heavy on the first date, but since we just blew that to hell….” He sighed, and some of the exasperation slipped away. “We don’t lie to each other. We respect each other’s feelings. We do what we can to make each other happy. We spend time with each other. We keep our own opinions and trust that the other person can deal. We—”

Mackey held up his hand. “No, no, those are good. I can deal with those. Those are rules—I can follow those.”

Trav looked at him disbelievingly, and Mackey scowled.

“No! Icanfollow rules!” he protested. “Swear! I just have to know there’s a good reason for ’em. Or, you know”—he smirked—“something’s got to be in it for me.”

“So what’s in it for you, that you follow these rules?” Trav asked, still dubious.

Mackey snorted. Honest to God snorted. “God, you’re stupid. Flat-out stupid.Youare! Jesus!”

Trav’s mouth fell open, and the car arrived at the restaurant at that moment.

Mackey was overjoyed. “Look! Steak! Awesome, Trav—you pick the best shit!”

“Yeah,” Trav said, but he sounded a little stunned. “I’m a genius. Okay, let the driver get the door.”

Mackey turned to him with a curled lip. “What’s the hell’s the matter with you?”

“That’s about the most romantic thinganybodyhas ever said to me, do you know that?”

Mackey rolled his eyes, mostly to hide how very pleased he was, and slid out of the car, Trav hard on his heels. “Youhaven’t hung out with enough rock stars. We pullthatshit out of our—”

Trav stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t make it small,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “It was important. Like a gift.”

Mackey was going to shoot off at the mouth again, but then he remembered that he’d meant it: he’d follow the rules because there was something in it for him.

He looked at Trav sideways. “Youtalk poetry. That’sdamnedimpressive.”

To his surprise, Trav’s face grew a little ruddier as they neared the restaurant entrance. “Yeah, well, artists are a weakness of mine,” he confessed.

Which was a good and bad segue, because it meant they spent most of their meal talking about his ex-boyfriends. That could have been horrible, except Mackey, who hadn’t really been able to fathom what Trav saw in him in the first place, suddenly understood.

Trav really liked guys with poetry. The boy on the sidewalk, Terry the pretty guy Trav had made cry, a computer animator, a voice actor—all of them were artists in one way or another.

Mackey was fascinated.

“Why?” he asked, his chin in his palm as he watched Trav devour most of a T-bone steak. Mackey himself had ordered the London broil, like he’d had with Doc Cambridge, because it was smaller and he liked the sauce. “You got all that big-dick hard-ass bullshit from the military—why you got a thing for artists?”

Trav smiled—and it wasn’t an expression Mackey had seen on his face before. For one thing, he looked a little embarrassed and more than a little bit shy.

“It’s something I can’t do,” Trav confessed after chewing thoughtfully and swallowing. “It’s… I mean, it’s beautiful. Painting, poetry, acting, music—itmovespeople, emotionally. And I’ve never been that sentimental, you know? I never kept souvenirs from the places I’ve been, from the guys I’ve dated. But when I’m with someone with all that in his heart… it feels like it rubs off a little. Like they give me some of that power, some of that emotion.” He looked away, his shyness intensifying, which delighted Mackey no end.

“Stupid, right?” he said, and the face he turned to Mackey wasn’t the hardass or even the sincere friend.