Beneath the Stain - Part 7 Read Online Free Page A

questions if you like.”
    “That would be great, Mr. Ford. My dad’s gonna try to wiggle out of things—be ready for it. I was sort of counting on you helping me do right by Mackey and the guys.”
    “Yeah, Grant. I’ll be ready.”
    Grant’s relief was palpable, even over the phone in a conversation with all of them, huddled around Mackey’s mom’s kitchen table. “Thank you, Mr. Ford. It’s good to know you’ll be there.”
    The last thing Grant did before they signed off was ask Mackey to bring his guitar.
    Mackey was so happy he almost started to dance right there. God, music. It had tied them together for most of their lives.
    He needed to give Grant music.
     
     
    T HEY SPENT the next day at the music store. Mackey’s old bosses were probably the only people in the town thrilled to have him, and Trav had brought a hundred free CDs to give away. The band signed free CDs and posters and smiled at high school students for two hours.
    Mackey sort of loved it.
    “Do you play?” He asked the same question to every kid who gave him something to sign, and he loved hearing the answers.
    The answer that particularly tickled him came from the angular kid with dyed black hair and all the piercings, who said, “The steel guitar or the trombone?”
    Mackey looked the kid over and saw him arching his spiked eyebrows suggestively.
    Mackey laughed. “Well, I meant the guitar, but you know, that other thing is fun too!”
    The kid laughed, blushing, and then shuffled uncomfortably, not meeting Mackey’s eyes. “It meant a lot,” he mumbled. “That you came out. Thank you.”
    Mackey scrabbled for something to say, but the kid had already snatched his free poster and run away. Mackey stared after him for a minute, a smile twitching at his lips.
    “I wasn’t the first one,” he said softly. He turned to the person next to him humming “Holiday” in the back of his throat.
     
     
    B RIONY SPENT that night in the bunk bed above them, which was fine—Mackey was too keyed up, wound tight by a cranked string from his groin to his throat.
    “What’s wrong with you?” Trav asked for the fifteenth time when Mackey tried to lodge himself between the perpendicular bottom bunk and the stairs to the top.
    “I don’t know,” Mackey said shortly. “It’s like… not like a date exactly, but like… like something big’s going to happen, like Christmas or something, except bad. You know—you’re the one who said he doesn’t have long. It’s like, no matter how I feel about him—love, hate, friendship, brotherhood, whatever—it’s like… bigger. It’s louder in my head!”
    Trav let loose a sound between a sigh and a grunt. Then he rolled over, smashing Mackey between the railing and his big body, and draped his arm over Mackey, completely engulfing him in his heat, and his smell, and his pressure.
    Mackey felt so much relief he had to check to make sure he hadn’t wet his pants. “Ah, God, thanks, Trav,” he murmured. “That’s so much better.”
    “Can you even breathe?” Trav asked over his head.
    “It’s not air if it doesn’t smell like you.”
    “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Briony muttered from above them. “Are you two done? I’ll take my chances with Cheever—”
    “No!” they both said in tandem, because Cheever had been lying low, but they didn’t want to tempt fate.
    “Briony?” Mackey said, his voice muffled from Trav’s armpit. “Why aren’t you sleeping with my brother yet?”
    Briony’s response was a long, wet cough. When she recovered, she said, “Because my inner sex goddess has not yet descended.”
    Mackey giggled and Briony did too—and Trav groaned.
    “Children, I realize I’m getting no sex tonight, but do I have to separate you?”
    “No,” Briony begged, her voice piteous in the dark. “Please, Trav?”
    Mackey tapped Trav on the shoulder, and Trav sighed. Trav wouldn’t deny Briony anything, especially when she was sick and away from home.
    “You wanted