Read Beneath the Stain - Part 3 for Free Online Page A

Blake got on Mackey’s nerves, Kell seemed to like him, and God, wouldn’t it be a pain in the ass to have to train up another lead guitarist. Mackey fought a shudder. No. No more new lead guitarists. Trav was right. He’d have to make his peace with Blake and make it stick, and this was the place to do it.
    Mackey was reaching in to grab the suitcases when his phone buzzed. He set the cases down and leaned against the limo to answer while the driver got a porter from the rehab place.
    The press says you got hurt. Kell says you’re going to rehab. I’m sorry.
    Grant. Oh God. Mackey had gotten the phone the day after they’d signed, and sometime in the past year, Kell had passed Mackey’s number on. For the most part, Grant left him alone. In fact, this made three texts total.
    Wish me well, McKay—I’m married had been the first one. He’d gotten it the morning before his first one-night stand.
    Her name is Katy, after McKay. Don’t hate me—I had to have a memory of you had been the second, accompanied by a picture of his baby girl. Mackey had saved the picture, but he hadn’t replied.
    But this one—this one he had to answer.
    Don’t be. You’re not the dumbass with the pills.
    Don’t let me off the hook that easy, McKay. I thought I was doing you a favor.
    Oh God. Oh, Grant—don’t do this.
    God save me from dumbasses doing me favors. I gotta go.
    He pulled Trav’s sunglasses over his eyes and pushed off of the car with a grunt.
    “Was that your mom?” Trav asked, squinting at him perceptively in the California smog glare.
    Mackey grunted again and shook his head. “She called this morning—saw the press release.” Mackey had calmed her down—as, apparently, Kell had been unable to. “I told her I was going to a… whatstheword?” God, his brain had seized up, a rictus of remembered pain, as soon as he’d seen Grant’s text. “Retreat. Yeah. I’m going on a ‘restorative retreat.’ Some bullshit. Fuckin’ LA—it’s like shrink city here, you know that, right? The shrinks have shrinks who have shrinks who have kids who buy our records and tell us they’re just as fucked-up as me and my brothers are. It’s insane.”
    He rambled—he knew that. He did it on purpose, because letting his brain just spew forth with whatthefuckever was an easy way to dodge the hard shit.
    Apparently cutting through whatthefuckever was Trav’s best talent. “So if that wasn’t your mom, who the hell was it?”
    Mackey glared at him through the glasses. Nosy fucker. “The ghost of Shannon Hoon. Whatsit to ya?”
    Trav narrowed his eyes, and Mackey took perverse pleasure in the thought that Trav was squinting against the sun because Mackey was wearing his sunglasses.
    “Whoever it was made you look like you wanted a fucking Xanax, Mackey. Tell me who it was so I can block the call, or I’m taking your goddamned phone. I’m not shoving you into rehab so you can get cozy with your dealers all over again.”
    Mackey’s throat shriveled up. “You’ve met my dealers,” he said, shoving the phone at Trav and grabbing his suitcase. “One of them is dead and the other’s going to rehab with me. Happy now?”
    “No,” Trav said shortly. He took two steps forward and shoved Mackey’s phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “Here. Keep your damned phone. Text me if you need anything. And whoever that was who texted you—man, stay away from them. That look on your face just now—that was a bad thing.”
    Mackey stayed still as Trav pulled his hands away from his hips. For a moment under the orange sky, everything stopped—the wind, the birds, the whirr of the engine. Mackey cursed the suitcases in his hands—he wanted to lift his sunglasses and look Trav square in the eyes. Trav had nice eyes. That redhead’s brown definitely suited him.
    Trav took a deep breath and slowly raised the sunglasses, then set them on top of Mackey’s head. Mackey took a deep breath and smelled… Trav. It had gotten so