Beneath the Stain - Part 7 (5 page)

“More’n Mackey deserves,” Kell grunted. “I swear, that man saved Mackey’s life.”

Grant halted again, this time in surprise. “What do you mean?” He searched Mackey’s eyes, and Mackey realized that “rehab” had just been a word to him. A sorrow. Not the hard and true reality of “get clean or die.”

“I was….” Mackey grimaced. “God. Grant, I was so fucked-up after you left me. And then our first manager died and….” He shook his head. It was like the only words he could find for that time were in songs. “Trav had to carry me to the ambulance to detox, you know that? My first memory of Trav is when he was giving me a shower ’cause he couldn’t stand my smell anymore. And after all that—he stayed. I mean… when someone sees you at your worst and stays, you want to show them your best. And… and I think he’s seen that. And it was good enough. So, yeah. Trav. Saved my life. Go figure.”

They walked in silence for a moment, and Kell said unexpectedly, “It’s true. Trav sorta saved us all.”

Grant stopped, and they stopped with him, and he stood for a moment and watched as Jefferson and Stevie took turns giving Katy runs on top of their shoulders. She was squealing, and they could hear her screams of “Giddyap!” from across the yard.

“I wish I’d been there to be saved,” he said. “Because really? What saved me was dying.”

Mackey swallowed hard. He had no answer to that.

“You
will
explain that,” Kell demanded.

Grant let out a breath. “So, see, I was going to do this all by lawyer, guys,” he said, and he sounded apologetic. “I didn’t… I mean, I wanted to see you before I died, but… if you were still pissed at me? I didn’t want to know it.” He caught his breath, and Mackey saw what looked like a spasm cross his face.

Then he realized—Grant’s eyes didn’t tear up anymore. This was his voice giving in to tears.

“I couldn’t stand it, Kell, if you didn’t want to be my brother anymore. Mackey, I didn’t think anyone could forgive what I did. So I thought I’d die with the way we used to be, all fixed up in my brain, and then you guys would have to deal with the fallout.” The look he gave Mackey was bitter with self-hatred. “You should recognize my methods by now.”

Mackey swallowed. “I was pissed,” he rasped, “but I didn’t even blame you. You got no idea what it took for me to tell the fucking world. And I was pretty sure my mother loved me.”

Grant laughed humorlessly. “Mine doesn’t. Not anymore. She’s said so. But that’s okay. See, your mom came in and told me you all were coming, and I realized for once, I didn’t have to take the coward’s way out. For once I could do things aboveboard, like a man. So I came out to my family—about all of it. About you, about Tony—”

“Tony?” Mackey said, so stunned he didn’t even have a chance to be sick.

“We were friends,” Grant said quickly. “That’s all. But we were friends because we knew about each other—and I should have known. I’m sorry, Mackey. I should have fucking known, but I kept thinking if I could do it, so could he. I used to think he was real brave, remember?”

“We both did,” Mackey said numbly, although they’d never talked about it. It had been there in the way Grant had kept Tony off of Kell’s radar, in the way he’d been kind.

“I guess nobody’s that brave when they think they’re gonna be alone forever,” Grant said, his voice so bleak that Mackey turned his head and dropped a kiss on his blade of a shoulder, poking the fabric of his sweatshirt up in a tent.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “You got that right.”

Grant kissed his forehead, and Kell cleared his throat.

“You guys, uhm….”

“Let’s get to the barn,” Grant said. “I’ll rest there, and I need to get this out.”

“Like a swing,” Mackey said, looking at Kell. Kell nodded, and hell, Trav had them working out enough. They linked arms behind Grant and, very carefully, picked him up in the cradle of their clasped hands.

They didn’t talk much, because even wasted away like he was, he was still a grown man and Mackey was still short, but they got him into the barn without too much huffing and puffing, and that was a relief.

They set him on a little throne of hay bales and then sat next to him, one on either side.

He grabbed Mackey’s hand, free and clear, and Mackey let him and stroked the skeletal back of Grant’s hand softly with his thumb. It was something he’d gotten used to with Trav in the past year, just casually touching someone he loved in public. It was something Grant would never have. Kell looped an arm over Grant’s shoulder.

“Lean on me, brother,” he said softly. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Grant tilted his head so it was on his brother’s shoulder, and they sat there for a few moments, the darkness and animal warmth inside the barn sort of a welcome relief from the autumn chill and the hard, bright sun.

“Trav’s inside with my lawyer,” Grant said. “Mackey, I do hope he loves you, because I’m asking something huge from all of you.”

“Like what?” Mackey asked, afraid of the answer.

“I want you to look after Katy—
not
,” he added quickly, probably responding to the panic and outrage on Mackey’s face, “full-time. Or even most time. But the lawyer is making sure you can take her for up to a month a year. And any time you drop by, my family
has
to let you see her. Officially, you and Kell are her godfathers, but really….” He pulled in a breath and let it out, and the pause was so long Mackey wondered if he was going to finish. “You’re her salvation,” he said after a moment.

“I don’t know anything about kids,” Mackey muttered, meeting Kell’s eyes. Kell looked as panicked as he felt, which was reassuring. “God, Grant, I can barely keep a ficus alive, and that’s because I pay someone to help me!”

“Don’t look at me,” Kell muttered. “Blake kept killing off the damned fish. I was having Astrid buy them on her way into work so we could swap them out before he saw.”

Like a rubber band, Mackey was back into the world he and Kell had left, the normal they had worked hard for—the normal he’d craved as the tour drew to a close.

“Fuckin’ really?” he asked, trying not to cackle. “Man, that’s hilarious. Does Trav know?”

Kell grunted. “It was Trav’s idea. But see!” he said, obviously calling their attention back to Grant. “We’re hardly qualified—”

“She’ll die here,” Grant said soberly, cutting through all their denial bullshit with simple, quiet sincerity. “Like I did. This house will swallow her, and she’ll never get out. Just like me.” His face crumpled again. “God, I wish I could cry. Fucking radiation—can’t even cry anymore, and it would feel so good. But you guys gotta promise me. You’ll come visit. You’ll have her over for summer. You’ll bring toys. You’ll listen to her want to be an astronaut or a cowboy or a poet and you’ll let her. Tell her she can go to college or travel to England or play the xylophone or….”

He broke then. Tears or not, his frail body convulsed with sobs, and Mackey and Kell couldn’t do anything but hold him, unashamed and unafraid, and shed the tears their brother couldn’t.

He couldn’t cry for long—it took strength his body didn’t have. The sobs eased, and Kell rested his face against Grant’s head, rubbing his cheek on the bandana to take some of the wet.

Grant caught his breath and muttered, “Aw, fuck, that hurt.”

“Do you want to straighten up?” Kell asked worriedly.

“No.” Grant shook his head. “I don’t think I can—you may need to prop me up and go get someone who can
really
carry me.”

“Get Trav,” Mackey said, and Kell nodded. Trav was bigger, and his biceps were cannon-size. He could do it. “You got pain meds? Codeine? A joint?”

Grant let out a shallow breath. “The pot’s good, but sometimes it’s hard on the lungs, and I left the damned vaporizer inside. Just let me rest. Go get Trav in a sec, but first, Kell?”

Kell propped him up and took off his own sweatshirt. “Here, Mackey. If we shift him to this side, he can lean against the hay bale and I can prop up his neck.”

They moved him so he was reclined and more comfortable, but Grant wasn’t going to let it go. “Mackey, Kell—please?”

Mackey’s brother’s eyes were brown. His face was made with heavier lines than Mackey’s, the lines of a metalworker or a ditch digger, with thick lips and large ears.

But those brown eyes, plain as mud, were suddenly soft, warm, and kind. In that moment, Mackey saw that all the hero worship he’d given Kell when they were younger had been well placed.

“Mackey?” Kell asked softly.

“Yeah,” Mackey agreed. “I’m scared shitless, you know. But if it’s all of us—Jeff and Stevie, Shelia, Trav, you, Blake, me—”

“Briony,” Kell said quickly, “’cause she’s not going anywhere.”

“Yeah.” Mackey allowed a corner of his mouth to quirk up for hope that Kell and Briony could be family together too. “Yeah. We can give her something, Grant. I promise.
We
promise. We’ll give her wings and a sky and a tree if she needs it. Is that what you wanted?”

Grant closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Kell, could you go get Mr. Ford now?”

Kell stood up and pressed his forehead against Grant’s, palming his head gently. That was all. No words. And then he slid out of the barn.

“You got your pot in your pocket?” Mackey asked.

Grant grinned a little. “Yup. Lifetime supply—for me, anyway.”

Mackey reached gently into the front pocket and pulled out a joint and a lighter. “I was serious,” he said, looking at the joint. “About not hating you. Man, I was always afraid this house, it was gonna swallow you up. I mean, we were kids, but we knew. We knew about your folks same way we knew about Stevie’s dad—”

“You seen him?” Grant asked, opening his eyes curiously.

“No,” Mackey said grimly. “Stevie and Jefferson ain’t told Stevie’s folks they’re here. They don’t want Shelia to ever meet them.”

“So much,” Grant sighed. “So much we all knew but we never talked about. Stevie’s dad. My folks. You and me.”

“I loved you like my life was your next breath,” Mackey said boldly. It wasn’t something he’d said, even when he and Grant were stealing the moments that defined them.

Grant opened his eyes and swallowed. “I still love you that way,” he said, a corner of his mouth lifting in apology. “That’s why Sam hates you so badly. ’Cause when I came out to my family and told them what I was fixing to do with custody, I told them every fucking thing. You, me, being in love.”

Mackey made a hurt sound. “I can’t…. Trav,” he managed. God, not even for this moment could he tell that lie.

Grant shook his head. “You’re here,” he said. “And I might have gotten over you eventually, but there’s no time now. It’s okay. You’re here, and I love you. And even if you can’t say it back, I can finally say it, and that’s good too.”

Mackey looked at the joint in his hand and sighed. He didn’t want it. He didn’t crave it. There was a chance he could do this and his enemy might not master him, just this once.

God, Trav, please understand.
He stood and held the joint to his lips, flicking the lighter and inhaling with his mouth like with a cigar, trying not to hold any more smoke in his lungs than he had to. It tasted sweet, herbal, like medicine. God, it made him queasy.

“What are you doing?” Grant asked.

Mackey leaned over, bracing his hands on the hay bale behind Grant’s head, and fitted his mouth to Grant’s, exhaling slowly, letting the smoke slip into Grant’s body, hoping that this once, the secondhand smoke would do something.

Grant held the smoke, and Mackey took another hit. God, he wasn’t sure if he was lightheaded from the weed or from holding his breath, but Grant opened his mouth and let the last breath slip out, and Mackey breathed for him again.

And again.

And again.

When the joint was done, down to the roach, Mackey ground it out carefully on the sole of his shoe and slipped it back in Grant’s pocket.

He was buzzing hard from the crown of his head to the soles of his shoes, and thinking rather desperately that he didn’t miss this feeling, didn’t miss it at all. Not really.

“Feel better?” he asked Grant, his voice far away. He wobbled for a minute and sat down hard at Grant’s feet. He rested his hand on Grant’s knee and stroked, wanting the high to be over, wanting to be over it so he would know he could be fine without it.

“Yes,” Grant said, his voice dreamy. “It’s funny. My dad voted against medical marijuana his entire life, but I got sick, and suddenly he couldn’t buy it fast enough.”

“Yeah?” Mackey said, laughing gently. Yeah, everything was funnier with weed. “How’s he feel about faggots?”

“He still hates us,” Grant said, but he didn’t sound like he particularly cared. “But now that he’s bought me all this awesome weed? I don’t give a shit.”

Mackey laughed some more and slid his hand down Grant’s thigh. He was just touching, familiar, and Grant sighed.

“God, Mackey. It just feels so good to be touched. My family ain’t hugged me since I came out.”

Mackey kept stroking, not trying to arouse, just to touch. He leaned his head back against the hay and closed his eyes. “Well, your real family is here now,” he mumbled, sliding his hand to Grant’s other thigh. “You’ll get all the touch you can stand.”

T
RAV
MISSED
his parents with a terrible, sudden ferocity.

He remembered coming out. He’d been so nervous—seriously, who liked to talk to their parents? And he’d already told them about joining the military, and they were so very, very opposed. Liberal to the bone, both of them, they had disliked everything the military stood for.

But they’d ultimately been proud of their son.

He’d come down the stairs of their little Quaker-style house wearing cargo shorts, a polo shirt, and loafers, feeling so very grown-up because he was going to take the car into town and find himself a summer job at a local tourist trap, and because he’d graduated from high school two days before and his little brother still looked at him like he was a god. After pouring himself a cup of coffee, he sat down, thinking he was going to have a little adult talk with Tom and Linda (as he had never called them since), and they… well, listened gravely at first.