Beneath the Stain - Part 1 (12 page)

“Who’ll believe you, Jefferson
Sanders
?” Mr. Harris sneered.

Then that core of crazy must have split up and gotten inside Stevie early, because Stevie?

He stood up and kicked his dad in the balls.

“
I’ll
believe him, you sick fuck!” Stevie snarled, and Jeff moved the knife right quick before the old bastard could crumple and slit his own throat. Mr. Harris fell to the ground. Stevie
really
must have put his heart into that kick, because for the next ten minutes, while they packed like mad dogs, all he did was lie on the floor and gasp.

CDs, books, clothes—all of it went into duffels and trash bags, then into Stevie’s car. Mr. Harris tried to get to his knees a couple times, but one of them would come by and catch him in the ribs with a quick jab, or the jaw once (Stevie), and he’d go down again, moaning.

They were running back to the car with their last load when Stevie came to his senses. “Holy shit, Jeff—my
drum set
!”

“
Fuck!
”

Jefferson pulled out his phone and dialed Kell. He and Grant had been at work, but by God, they made record time with the van. They had the equipment loaded before Stevie’s dad could even walk.

A week later, Stevie’s favorite cereal—the cinnamon toast kind—showed up in the bulk bag in the cupboard at the Sanders apartment. Jefferson’s mom wouldn’t let him pay for it, which was too bad. Stevie was grateful and wanted a way to show it. He told Jefferson that sleeping on the floor of that cramped apartment was the safest he’d felt in his entire life.

Later, when they’d found the girl of their dreams and they were happy, Jefferson would remember that. He’d given his friend safety. He reckoned it was the one time in his life he’d ever get to be a hero. He wondered if that was how Kell felt when he was keeping his brothers safe. As bossy as Kell was most times, Jeff could actually understand him now.

Which was good, because when Mackey’s shit hit the fan, that understanding made it
so
much easier to forgive the bossy fucker for what he almost let happen to their little brother.

Part Two

Trav Ford doesn’t like strings and he doesn’t like messes. Coming off of a messy breakup, Trav is grimly determined to keep his life absolutely pristine. When Trav is asked to take over the management of Outbreak Monkey, his first order of business is to clean up their act—and that includes shipping the youngest, most troubled member off to detox and rehab before Mackey Sanders’s life choices kill him.

But Mackey didn’t become an addict overnight, and it’s going to take
more than one trip to rehab to fix him up. When an act of violence destroys
Mackey’s struggling equilibrium, Trav is going to find that messy isn’t so hard to escape—not when it’s wrapping its mess around Trav’s heart.

A
MY
L
ANE
is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.

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