Read Beneath the Stain - Part 1 for Free Online Page B

Everything. He gave them everything.
    And they reached with greedy hands and shrieked for more.
    By the time they were done with “Freebird,” sweat sopped Mackey’s new jacket and ran from his hair into his eyes. He flipped his head and tossed it out, and finished the goddamned song.
    They screamed for more.
    Mackey met Kell’s eyes as they were bowing in the middle of the noise volcano, and Kell shrugged and looked at Grant.
    Grant reached for Mackey’s guitar, which sat on the side of the stage and brought it to him, bowing a little as he handed it over.
    “Yeah?” Mackey asked, his voice below the mike.
    Grant smiled faintly, his mouth moist and parted because he left sweat on the stage too. “Let them see you,” he said, so quietly Mackey had to cock his head to hear. “Let them get lost like I do.”
    Mackey shivered and turned toward the crowd, fixing the strap of the guitar over his head and plugging it into the amp during the sudden burst of applause. The rest of the band faded back, and Tony must have done something with the lights, because suddenly Mackey stood alone in the spot, staring thoughtfully out into the sudden black hush.
    His fingers started moving on the strings all by themselves. The rush of blood in his veins, the rasp of his breath, the chill of sweat, all of the symphony of Mackey Sanders wove liquid emotion through the air.
    He was music, everybody’s music, every soul’s note, played on the splintered stage of Graham Winters High School auditorium.
    “ Will you see me crying or would you rather see me high? ”
    The song ended with a question, destruction or sadness, and the startled silence that followed his last guitar chord simply echoed their shared pain: Mackey and the audience, bound by sweat and blood as long as the music played.
    The silence lasted a heartbeat, two, and then exploded, fireworks of sound. For a moment, Mackey was terrified, threatened by that neediness, alone, a child surrounded by demons, all of them screaming for his blood.
    The moment passed, and he curled his lips at the frenzied students, then bowed. “Y’all can listen to my music anytime,” he said.
    They were still screaming his name as he walked off the stage.
    He found himself whirled away, hustled off the stage and out of the auditorium while the DJ got back behind his setup and attempted to restore order. Mackey was giddy, high as a kite on adrenaline and—suddenly, uncomfortably—aware of how tight his pants were.
    But he wasn’t going to tell his brothers that, especially as he was engulfed again and again in their press of bodies, in the hugs and congratulations and general whooping and hollering, because, dammit, it was a win , and Mackey’s brothers knew enough about life to know that didn’t happen nearly enough.
    “Mackey,” Grant said, his voice low and throaty. “God, Mackey, you were amazing!”
    “Hear hear!” Stevie said, and he and Jeff did a high five/down low like they rehearsed it.
    “That was awesome ,” Mackey said, his voice shuddering in his chest. And then he was shuddering, because it was cool outside and he was sopping with sweat.
    Everyone else seemed to agree, and by consensus they all wandered back inside to get some punch, because besides everything else they were dying of thirst.
    Inside was the last place Mackey wanted to be.
    It was loud, it was dark, it was hot. People who hadn’t given him the time of day that morning suddenly wanted his attention, and he didn’t want to talk to those people. Why would he?
    So he found himself by the snack table, munching on a brownie and drinking some punch with way too much sugar in it, having stilted conversation with Tony Rodriguez.
    “Are they really both dancing with Carly Padgett?” Tony asked, and that made Mackey smile. Sure enough, Carly had her arms around Steve’s waist and was laying her head on his chest while Jeff whuffled in her ear from behind, making her laugh.
    “I don’t know if the world’s