Read Beneath the Stain - Part 3 for Free Online

in the fuck is he doing here?” Mackey snarled. Blake flipped him off from the other end of the car. His suitcases were next to him, along with Mackey’s, and suddenly Mackey laughed. “Heh, heh—did your last blow, huh, Blake?”
    “I don’t even want to fucking talk about it. Do you know I’ve got a sobriety clause in my contract?”
    Mackey blinked and stared at Trav, who was waiting for him to get in.
    “I don’t got one of those,” he said, sliding next to him. My, that man looked mighty fine in his suit. Of course, Mackey was starting to think Trav looked mighty fine in anything. He’d looked mighty fine in khakis and a polo shirt the last time Mackey had seen him, and that was usually the least attractive getup in the history of anybody, as far as Mackey was concerned. Mackey moved restively, grateful for the stupid donut pillow, and sighed inwardly. The last thing Trav needed was a fuckup like Mackey hanging on his pockets.
    “Nope,” Trav said in response to his question. He looked up from his laptop and gave Mackey a grin that was all teeth. “We assumed you’d be a good boy, McKay, and go on your own.”
    “Which one of my stinking brothers told you McKay was my name? I want to kick him in the ’nads.”
    “How come I didn’t know that?” Blake asked, surprised. “Man, I lived with you people for a fucking year. I bought your coke, I ate your shit—”
    “You got on the party bus and you and my brother did everybody’s drugs,” Mackey snapped, unsettled again. “Man, why you gotta get mad at me? You and Kell hung out for a year. You had a grand ol’ time. Now we both gotta clean up our shit or that goes away. It’s a job like anything else, Blake. You don’t pull your weight, you get fired.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t see anyone threatening to fire you. Poor little Mackey Sanders—”
    “He writes the songs, moron,” Trav said from behind his computer screen. He looked up. “And I think maybe whatever you two have against each other needs to get worked out in rehab. That’s why you’re going together.”
    Mackey pouted and crossed his arms. “Did you bring my sunglasses?” he whined, obnoxious and not particularly caring. “My head feels like a giant split it like a melon with a mace!”
    Trav laughed a little, because he got that shit, and Blake rolled his eyes.
    “You couldn’t just say ‘headache,’ could you, Mackey?” Blake snapped, but it was an empty sally, and everyone in the limo knew it.
    Trav handed him sunglasses—obviously Trav’s sunglasses—and Mackey sighed.
    “Naw, Trav, I won’t take your shit from you so I can be a diva. Just—”
    “Take them, Mackey. I’ll get more. Now before we get there, I need you guys to touch the screen here, and here, and here—”
    They spent the next twenty minutes signing paperwork. Mackey was honestly surprised when the limo pulled up in front of the now familiar beautiful garden grounds with the giant flower bushes and the fountains and the building that looked like a retirement home for active seniors.
    The limo stopped there, idling, and Mackey stared moodily outside while waiting for the driver to let him out.
    “You’ll make it happen this time,” Trav said, but he sounded more hopeful than sure.
    Mackey grimaced. “I only need to make it stick once, right?” he asked, trying to sound insouciant and breezy.
    Trav’s gentle hand on his shoulder made him want to cry. “That’s right, Mackey. Only once.”
    “Speak for yourself,” Blake said. “I plan to get my blood replaced like Keith Richards until I’m too old to go on stage.”
    Mackey would have bitten his head off, but he sounded nervous too—and besides, it was funny.
    “Yeah, just remember that having the blood of an eighteen-year-old girl in you isn’t the same thing as being inside an eighteen-year-old girl,” Mackey returned, and he could tell by Blake’s reluctant snicker that it was the right thing to say. Well, good. As much as