Beneath the Stain - Part 3 (9 page)

Trav apparently believed
he
was meant to be perfect.

Not so serious
, Trav prompted.

Mackey cocked his head, smiling a little.
What in the hell does that mean?

It’s not a philosophical disagreement if I think what I did was wrong.

Mackey laughed. Okay. So they were going to debate—that was okay. A debate was good—it was bickering, bantering, whatever. Mackey could deal with that.

Do you MEAN to contradict yourself? Should there be a sarcasm font I can read?

I don’t want you to forgive guys that hit you, Mackey.

Trav, if I hadn’t been losing my fucking nut, do you think I wouldn’t have hit you back?

If you hadn’t been losing your fucking nut, I wouldn’t have hit you in the first place!

So think about it like a really hard bitchslap. I had it coming.

This whole conversation is making me violent.

That’s hilarious. It’s cracking me up.

Just promise me, okay?

What?

Nobody gets to hurt Mackey Sanders. Not even me.

Mackey looked at the words for a moment. Wow. A promise not to let himself get abused. Did that extend to mental abuse? Did it extend to not letting himself get dicked around by someone who said they loved him but didn’t follow through? Did it mean not letting himself get called a faggot, even by his stupid brother? Did it mean telling Trav when he got too tired or was spazzing out, and maybe have something happen besides another pill or a bump of coke? Did it mean not lying to his mother or the press or
his mother
,
goddammit
when they asked him about girls?

Did it mean letting someone close enough to love him?

One little goddamned sentence and Mackey’s whole world crashed to a halt.

Mackey?

He swallowed.

Believe it or not, that is really fucking profound.

There was another long pause, this time on Trav’s side.

It should be a simple truth.

Yeah, well, so should not getting high to get out of bed. Doesn’t mean it’s not new to me.

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 and
oh my God
, was he
blushing
?

“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 a
piss
didn’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 all
sorts
of 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 a
shrink
. 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 of
bowling balls
big. 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—”

Oh my God! His shrink’s lip really was wobbling. Mackey gaped at him.

“What?” Mackey asked again. “Seriously, what’s the big deal? This place is no faggots allowed? ’Cause I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got a couple of orderlies here who are giving it to each other in the supply closet, and them fuckers are
loud
! So only me? I’m no—”

“No,” Dr. Cambridge said, seemingly coming out of some sort of weird trance. “You’re fine, Mackey. Your secret is safe with me, which is good, because we’ll probably be talking about it a
lot
, but don’t worry. This is totally a safe place, and you don’t have to worry. Nobody in rehab will judge you—”

“Then what were the googly eyes and the drool all about?” Mackey demanded. He slid off the bed and started rooting under it to find his moccasins. They made you wear clothes and shit to dinner, but so far moccasins seemed to fall under “casual footwear,” and since they didn’t require socks and went with pajama bottoms, Mackey was a fan.

“I… I mean, I used to think I was good at my job,” Cambridge said. It didn’t really sound like he was talking to Mackey. “People would ask me, I’d say, look, there’s the degrees, I’m making some money, rich people pay me to unfuck their lives, and yeah, I’m decent….”

Mackey found a moccasin and slid his foot in. Ah, yes. Something about warm feet made even the jitters of not working and not fixing a little more tolerable.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” he demanded bluntly. “I’m lost. Am I, like, a mark on your record or something?”

Cambridge glared at him. “I’m supposed to
know
these things, Mackey. Being a closeted gay rock star has fucked up more lives than you can possibly count. It’s important information to share about yourself, do you understand?”

It sounded like he was enunciating carefully because Mackey was stupid.

“Nnoo.” Mackey enunciated just as clearly. “Why in the fuck would you care that I’m gay?”

Cambridge cleared his throat. Several times. “Mackey, you’ve sat in group therapy for three days. You’ve heard people talking about their children, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their mistresses, and the stranger they banged who gave them HIV, which is when they decided to go to rehab. Do you know what these people have in common?”

Mackey grimaced. He remembered the poor girl who had woken up with HIV and a hangover. “Their judgment is as shitty as mine and they need to wear rubbers?”

“They’re
human
, Mackey. The people you fall in love with are part of what makes you
human
. They’re also the same people who might send you screaming for Percocet and whiskey, so
yes
, who you love is really important to the rehabilitation process!”

Mackey rolled his eyes—and fought off a coldness in his chest. It was exactly what he’d thought when he’d left. He was eventually going to have to talk about Grant.
But Trav knows, and he said he’s pulling for me.

And he’d given Mackey a hug there, at the end. A real hug.

“Okay, then. So I’m gay. Now you know. And nobody else does. And there we are.”

Something funny happened to Doc Cambridge’s face: his eye started to twitch, for one thing, and Mackey laughed and pointed.

“You’re thinking about it again,” Mackey said slyly. “Tell the truth. You’re thinking that there’s a boxing ring in the gym and you’re gonna put my last publicity shot on the big bag and beat that fucker to dust, right?”

Cambridge took a deep breath, but he didn’t deny it. “Mackey, we’re going to talk about this more later—I swear, we really are. But right now, I want to ask you something that you don’t have to respond to right away. Just think about it, okay?”

Mackey nodded and toed on his other moccasin. “Shoot, Doc, but hurry. We’re running out of time for me to go push my vegetables around.”

“Why’s it so important that you piss people off? Why do you work so hard at it? Why?”

The doc’s voice cracked a little, and Mackey sighed. Yeah, sure, he
said
Mackey didn’t have to answer him right away, but Mackey thought he’d pushed the guy enough, and it was only right.

“’Cause when they’re pissed at me, at least they know I’m there,” Mackey said. “You spend enough time with a town that wants you to disappear, you realize that you can’t do that when someone wants to slug you.”

With that he turned and sauntered to the dining room. They were having some sort of lettuce with protein today—God knew he didn’t want to miss it.

How was dinner?
Trav asked, right before lights-out.

Lonely. Blake’s got friends, and I piss people off.

Yeah? Who’d you piss off today?

Mackey laughed a little. Well, Trav knew him and didn’t hate him for it.
Blake, for one. The shrink.

He took a breath. This one hurt. He hadn’t meant to do it. In fact, for once in his miserable life, he thought he was helping.

Who else?

He sighed. Why not?

Some girl. Bitching about her father not being there. I told her the one time we got our wish for a dad to stick around, turns out, he liked to hit. Maybe she should fix her own life and not worry about who was watching.

There was another break, and he winced. He’d said it
nice
, though. He’d been trying to give her something, some wisdom, one of the few things he thought he really knew.

Sounds like good advice.

He closed his eyes. God.
Someone
got it.

I think I sounded like an asshole. Made her cry. For once, I wasn’t even trying.

The silence between them stretched long, and for a moment, Mackey almost put the phone down and started packing. God. He couldn’t cut it here. He’d been a total wash in school, and he couldn’t even
remember
how he’d functioned for the past year. Social skills—he sucked at them. If he could piss people off or toss away one-liners at a press conference, he could manage. If his relationships consisted of a cock in the dark, he was great. But talking to real live people—or, hell, texting them for that matter—was just….

You were trying, Mackey. You were trying to be a good guy. Don’t worry about it. I bet a lot of people cry in rehab.

Mackey couldn’t decide whether to laugh or, there in the semidarkness, let the burn in his eyes take over.

You’re not shitting around about that. Whole fucking world cries. BLAKE cried—something about his dad calling him a fuckup.

But not you.

I cried on you. Jesus, what do you people want from me?

We want you to live to thirty—and maybe even longer!

Mackey chuckled, the sting in his eyes receding.

Good luck with that
, he texted.
I don’t know if anyone expected me to live THIS long.

Please don’t.

Mackey frowned.

Please don’t what?

Please don’t joke about that, Mackey.

Sorry—that would be one hell of a mess, wouldn’t it?

It would leave a fucking big hole, asshole.

Are you kidding? I’d be immortalized. I’d be a GOD!

Suddenly the phone buzzed—not with a text but with an actual phone call.

“Jesus, Trav—you’re calling me? Who does that?”

“It’s why phones were invented, genius. Take it back.” Trav’s voice was uncompromising—and God, but it sent a shiver of joy and want down Mackey’s spine, where it detonated in the pit of his stomach.