Beneath the Stain - Part 4 Read Free Page B

straight,” she said. “Next time Trav can say it to him !”
    Trav’s face went hot. “I’m gonna go start dinner,” he muttered.
    “Don’t worry, Mr. Ford,” Shelia chimed in. “Astrid put stuff in a Crock-Pot for us tonight. I’ll put the buns in the oven in an hour. We’re good.”
    Trav sighed. “Then I’ve got work to do in my room.”
    Anything, anything, but think of three days and Mackey walking through the door, and what the hell they were going to do with themselves then.
     
     
    T RAV ’ S BROTHER , Heywood, had two kids. Trav remembered asking once, “What’s it like? You go to the hospital with your wife and come home with a whole other person?”
    Heywood, who grew his carrot-red hair to his shoulders and did the same wispy beard thing Blake did, smiled shyly. “It’s the weirdest thing—it’s like you spend months getting the place ready for the baby, right? Stacking the clothes, buying the dump truck of shit that goes with this little person, studying baby, taking baby classes, just preparing to change your life for the frickin’ baby. So we get the baby home, Nina goes into the bedroom to sleep, and it’s just him and me, right? He’s asleep. He’s gonna sleep for the next three hours. So there I am, a clean house, nothing to do but take care of the baby. Would you believe I watched football? Hadn’t caught a game in weeks, but I saw the whole damned thing before Ian woke up and needed to be fed. It’s not always like that—most of it’s not like that—but changing your life is really weird. Nothing’s the same with kids except us. We’re still the same people. It’s all you got.”
    That was Mackey’s first couple of days in the house.
    He arrived and looked around in appreciation. “All this?” he asked quietly. Blake was loud—he toured the outside with the swimming pool and the downstairs with the gym, whooping and hollering the whole time.
    Mackey just looked around with big gray eyes, and Trav wondered what was going on behind them.
    “Yeah, Mackey. I had control of your finances for a bit—you can look at the numbers, but with all of you here, you still have plenty to manage.”
    Mackey smiled faintly. “Would you believe I didn’t even think about that?” he asked, full of self-deprecation. “I’m just so damned excited we have a house.”
    Trav smiled back the same way, because Mackey was being damned quiet, and he didn’t want to scare him. “Would you like to see your room? I ended up ordering the furniture myself, but—”
    “Thank you,” Mackey said, tilting his head. “I’d love to see it.”
    Trav had taken pains with Mackey’s room. The biggest window faced the backyard, so when the drapes were open, you could see the pool and the fanciful flowered frieze that surrounded the backyard for privacy. Trav had picked the drapes, simple and bright blue against the white of the room. The furniture was a warm wood, and the bunk bed wasn’t the simple military cot style—no. The bottom bunk was a queen-sized bed, and the top bunk arched over the head of the bottom one. Both beds were made up, one with red and the other with green—bright, simple colors for Mackey. The desk set matched the bed set, and Trav had included a music stand, a full keyboard setup, and a rack on the wall for Mackey’s guitars.
    Mackey animated when he took in the music corner. “Hey-hey! That’s what I’m talking about.” He did a slow pan of the room, which included a stack of framed concert posters Trav had gathered for him but hadn’t put up. “You didn’t want to choose for me?” he asked.
    Trav shrugged. “I felt bad enough ordering the furniture without your input.”
    Mackey grimaced. “Sorry about that—I kept planning, but I sort of had my head up in my own ass—”
    “In other places,” Trav finished for him, and they both stopped awkwardly.
    Mackey laughed weakly and rubbed his mouth. “It’s like you know all my secrets, and I don’t even know