Beneath the Stain - Part 7 (7 page)

At that moment, Kell trotted out of the barn toward them, and Trav nodded at Reeves in dismissal. He took off at a half jog and met Kell on his way.

“Grant’s in pain,” Kell said baldly. “Mackey and I were hoping you could do your big bad soldier thing and carry him back.”

Trav nodded and handed the folder of documents over. “Do me a favor and make sure these get put in the SUV in the pocket of my briefcase, okay? They’re important.”

The lines etched into Kell’s forehead eased up. “Are they about the baby?” he said hopefully. “Because me and Mackey want to.”

Trav nodded, smiling a little, because there was a really pure heart in this caveman, and he was glad he’d gotten a chance to see it. “Yeah. Yeah—get the other folder from Mr. Reeves too—but don’t go inside.” Trav shuddered. “And for God’s sake don’t talk to Grant’s parents. They’re not nice people.”

“I knew that,” Kell said, not surprised. “It’s weird, how you think that stuff is just normal when you’re a kid. But then you grow up and you realize it’s not normal at all. It’s wrong. And you wonder what else you took for granted and need to change your mind about.” He shrugged and turned toward the car. “Go get Grant. He’s in pain.”

Trav set off toward the barn.

He opened the side door just as Mackey was shotgunning his first breath of smoke. Trav paused, stunned, betrayed, paralyzed by the thought of Mackey close enough to kiss, breathing for the kid he’d just been feeling sorry for.

He should say something. He should open his mouth and roar, grab Mackey’s shoulder, scream,
You promised!
He’d promised. Promised he wouldn’t make a fool of Trav. Promised he’d take care of him.

He should turn around and walk away. Catch a cab to the hotel, never to see Mackey again. He’d done it. He’d done it with Terry, just turned around and walked away.

The thought felt like a shaft of glass through his testicles, ripping up through his stomach, tearing the muscles, skin, and flesh in jagged layers.

He had to grip the doorframe to keep from falling to his knees.

He couldn’t do that. Not with Mackey. He could no more walk out on Mackey than he could walk out on his heart if it lay at his feet, still beating.

I could go down and blow the guy, Trav, and it wouldn’t have a thing to do with you.

Mackey finished breathing, stopped touching his lips to Grant’s, and sat down, leaning back and closing his eyes. He was rubbing Grant’s legs now, familiarly but not… not sexily.

Trav was holding his breath, or he never would have heard Grant’s plea to be touched.

He took a breath and backed up, closing the door to the barn softly behind him. He leaned against it for a moment and dragged in a breath, feeling the fine particulate of grief and his own hypocrisy sand his lungs like metal scrap.

He’d wished Grant could have love again. Wished he could have kindness, could have touch. For a moment, for a hidden, stolen piece of time.

You always knew Mackey was on loan from his demons.

Well, this was the last debt Mackey had to pay. Trav had made this bargain without knowing it, the year before, when he’d let Mackey in his bed, made them public, when they’d become lovers. He’d known Mackey had to finish his business, but he’d been willing to take him on faith.

Now he had to have some.

This was not as simple as cheating with a kiss, cheating with a drug. Trav was a grown-up, and he knew that.

He hadn’t known that a year ago. A year ago, walking into a hotel room in Burbank, he’d thought everything was black and white, everything was cut-and-dried. A lover cheated, or he loved you. Those things could not coexist.

Mackey loved him.

He knew Mackey loved him.

He knew it in his vitals, deeper than his stomach, or his groin, or his heart. It was in his cells, in his
soul.
Mackey loved him.

What was happening in that barn had nothing to do with Trav. It had everything to do with a kid who would never have a chance to fall in love again, who would never leave the house that had trapped him, a fly in a jar, until his few hours on earth were up.

He thought of Terry again and looked around. Kell was dancing with the baby in the sunshine near the horse pen, crooning softly to her as the guys sang harmony. They were singing, of all things, Harry Nilsson, and he wondered where they’d heard that in their fractured childhood. It was a good song, about a tiny little boat kept afloat by faith.

Trav had to have faith.

He had some time, he figured, so he pulled out his phone and opened an e-mail.

Terry,

I know, we’re done talking, and I don’t want to get back together. You don’t even need to reply to this, but I needed to say it. I was wrong. I don’t think we should have been together—but I was wrong to just walk away. You tried to tell me what you were doing with that boy had nothing to do with me and everything to do with something inside of you. I was not the person who would listen to you then. I hear you now.

I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I hope you’re happy.

I am.

Trav.

He’d just hit Send when Samantha stalked outside, heading straight for him. He made sure to block the door.

“I thought you were bringing Grant in,” she said, her voice plainly unfriendly.

“Grant’s busy right now,” he said flatly. “I’ll go get him when they’re ready.”

He’d never really thought about heaven or hell—had always assumed demons were figurative, like Mackey’s. But the way her face twisted, her forehead furrowed, her lip curled up in a sneer—the way this pretty girl, still in her twenties, could suddenly turn ugly—abruptly made Trav believe in hell.

“You’re not even man enough to keep them from doing it in the barn, are you?” she snarled.

Trav’s laugh sounded flat and humorless, even to his own ears. “Exactly what do you think they’re doing?” he asked. “What do you think he can do? He can barely walk; he’s not getting it up in there. They’re not having swinging-from-the-rafters monkey sex. They’re having a moment.”

“Well, I’m going to put an end to that right—”

“No,” Trav said implacably. “No, Samantha, you’re not.”

“You gonna stop me, big man?” she sneered, and he nodded.

“I am. I am, and you’re going to let me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll make Grant do the math, and then he’ll take Katy away from you for good.” He doubted Grant could actually do that, but it was a stall, and he figured that was all Grant and Mackey needed anyway. Besides, somebody needed to say it. Somebody needed to make her see that she’d done wrong.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered. Her eyes cut to the left when she said it, and she took a step back. She was possibly the worst liar he’d ever seen.

“Yeah, you do. You said they were carrying on in school. There was only a little time when Mackey and Grant were in school together—I did
that
math myself. You knew. From the very beginning, you knew about the two of them. And Grant started to get excited, the band was coming along, they had a rep from a record company, and you decided to pull the trump card.”

“I really thought—”

“Bullshit!” He was angry—so angry. And she was just a kid. But he had to take it out on someone.
She’s just a kid. Just like the boys. God, it’s not like they all didn’t fuck up.
But that didn’t stop him from carrying this through. “You knew. And the one thing—the
one thing—
Grant taught Mackey about the big, bad world was to always wear a condom if it wasn’t him and Grant. He always wore a rubber, didn’t he, Sam? Always. Until….”

She was openly crying now, and he thought his mother would be ashamed of him. He couldn’t fix this in himself. He couldn’t. He
was
this man, this angry, bitter man, who saw the waste of Grant Adams and wanted someone to pay.

“Until he thought I was already pregnant,” she finished, almost like she was afraid of stopping too. “He wasn’t going to marry me,” she said apologetically. “He would have gone off with them, would have gone and… done
whatever
with Mackey Sanders, and I’d be stuck here in my house without anything to look forward to but watching my dad get drunk and fuck his secretary. He was supposed to be
mine
!”

“How’s that feel, Sam?” Trav asked nastily. “How’s that feel, now that he’s yours? He’s in there with the only person he’s ever loved, and it’s not you. You’re going to walk away from this a very rich woman, and you’re going to marry again and probably have more children. And Grant is going to die, and he never got to do a damned thing he wanted. And you did that. I’m sure you’re very proud.”

“I loved him,” she whimpered. “I loved him so much.”

And finally,
finally
, Trav could feel some softness in him. “Then don’t stand in the way of his last wish,” he said, his voice gentling. “God—you took away all his hopes in life. Give him something in death.”

She was sobbing too hard to say anything. She just wiped her eyes with her palms again and again, and finally turned away and walked back to the house. Her shoulders were hunched, and she seemed curled in on herself, a smaller, different person in one revelation. She’d just gotten to the porch when Trav heard Mackey’s voice.

“Trav? You out there? He’s in a lot of pain, man. It’s time we get him back into bed.”

Neither of them looked undressed when he got there. Mackey turned up an anxious face, looking a little stoned but innocent. He wasn’t afraid of Trav leaving him, wasn’t afraid what he’d done was wrong.

That right there was enough for Trav to start to let it go.

“Here,” he said, finding some of the gentleness he wished he could have found with Samantha. “I’m going to lift you up, okay? Lean your head on my shoulder—that’s my boy. I’ve got you.”

Grant’s eyes were closed, his face screwed up like everything inside hurt, but once Trav hefted him into his arms, some of that pain eased up. Grant opened his eyes and looked tiredly up at Trav.

“Hope you don’t mind if Mackey did a little weed with me, Mr. Ford,” he said, sounding truly apologetic. “It was hard on my lungs, and he was sort of paying me back a favor.”

“A favor?” Trav asked, that shaft of agony receding, a remembered wound, aching in the rain. “Yeah?”

“From when we were kids,” Grant said softly. “It was sort of our first kiss.”

“I get it,” Trav said, actually getting it.

“You do?” Mackey said hopefully, sounding lost. Well, he hadn’t been high in a long time. The comedown was probably a bitch.

“Yeah,” Trav said, meeting Mackey’s eyes over Grant. “I really do.” Big and luminous, and a little bloodshot, Mackey’s eyes searched Trav’s face hungrily. Mackey loved him. Whatever it had been, it hadn’t been betrayal.

“Good,” Grant murmured, cuddling almost like a kitten into Trav’s chest. “You feel really good, Mr. Ford. Mackey’s lucky. I bet you hold him every day.”

“As tight as I can,” Trav said, resting his chin on top of Grant’s head for a moment. God. Twenty-five. This kid had once had so much more living in him. Babies. All of them, babies. “Tight enough to keep him out of trouble.”

“Mackey needs that,” Grant said, and it sounded like he was falling asleep. His weight in Trav’s arms felt heavier, not like he had that much weight to begin with.

“He really does,” Trav said. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to tuck Grant Adams in and hold Mackey tight, so tight, like a tourniquet, so none of this could hurt him, none of this could
touch
him, because if he hurt anywhere near as bad as Trav, it was too damned much.

Nobody got in their way. Hell, the only person in the living room as Trav and Mackey put Grant to bed was the in-house nurse. The guys came in with Katy, who was sleeping soundly on Kell’s shoulder, exhausted by the new people and the horses and the pretty day.

The nurse, an older woman who probably did this as a second job, took the baby from Kell and settled her into the crook of Grant’s shoulder, making sure the bedrail was up so she couldn’t roll out. “He likes it when we do that,” she said, smiling softly at them all. “I think that baby’s the only reason he’s held on so long.”

“Say good-bye, guys,” Trav said softly. “We’ll be back tomorrow, but it’s always good to say bye.”

They filed by one at a time—a kiss on the bandana, a touch on the hand. Blake, surprisingly enough, bent and whispered something in Grant’s ear. Mackey kissed his cheek. And then they left.

The SUV was so quiet on the way back that Debra kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure they were okay.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Mackey said as they drove through the little strip of town that was Tyson, “but I need a fucking hot fudge sundae after that.”

“God, the frostie guy’s a mean old bastard,” Kell said. “Maybe we can stop and get shit on the way?”

Which was how they ended up eating monster ice cream bowls filled with fudge and nuts and bananas and cookie crumbles at two o’clock in the afternoon, while the smell of ham and potatoes filled the air.

Nobody at the house—not Briony, not Shelia, not Heather Sanders—said a damned word against it either.

“W
HAT
NOW
?”
Kell asked as Mackey licked the bottom of Trav’s bowl. God. Pot munchies. It
had
been a long time.

God willing, it would be a helluva lot longer before it happened again.

“Now?” Mackey muttered, smelling the afternoon of sickness and weed and sadness on his clothes. “Now, I take a shower. And then? Jesus, you fuckin’ slackers—we ain’t practiced in four goddamned days. How you feelin’, Briony?”

Briony looked up over the rim of her ice cream bowl. When she pulled it away, she had white streaks all around her mouth. She sucked the last bit of sundae off her tongue and said, “Better—but then, I slept all morning.”

“Sorry your mom couldn’t come,” he said, feeling bad about it. He and Trav had tried.