“I mean, do you give them to yourself?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I’m not that insane. My business partner has done all of them.”
“Sounds like artistic capabilities run in the family,” I said.
There was a moment where he locked up, where he got lost in his memories. I watched him dive back, probably into memories of his brother. I wanted to know more about their relationship and more about them. I wanted to share in the joys he had with his brother.
I wanted to hear more of his memories like the one he told at the bar that night.
“What do they all mean?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Your tattoos. What sparked them?” I asked.
“Well, this spiral one here was a random design I did when Drew and I were first beginning the company. It was sort of this morbid joke, like our lives were about to spiral into this endless abyss. We had no idea what we were doing, and we had no idea where we were going, and the design sort of flowed from that idea of jumping in with your eyes closed.”
“That’s incredible,” I said.
“And the geometric one is actually something I messed around with for a while. As an architect, I’ve always been captivated by the idea of hollow geometric shapes holding the weight they do. That load-bearing objects didn’t have to be these ugly, opaque eyesores. That tattoo was born out of that idea.”
I smiled at him as he continued to talk, completely entranced by the intensity of this man. Everything was so thought out and based on some sort of principle that meant something to him at the time. His tattoos painted the perfect picture of who he was as a man and what he prized more than anything else.
I wanted to run my fingertips across them just to feel his intensity seep into my bones.
“The rose with the piano petals is interesting, actually. It’s a way to commemorate the beauty of my parents, back when we had a better relationship.”
“How so?” I asked.
“My father has this tradition with my mother. Whenever she’s sick, he brings her tulips to fill her room. Whenever she’s upset, he brings her an orchid to make her smile. But when she’s sad, or depressed, or hurting somehow ...”
“He brings her roses,” I said.
“Nope. A rose. One single rose. He gives it to her, and he holds her while she picks the petals off it. Then, he gathers all the petals up and throws them into a bath.”
“He makes her a rose bath,” I said.
“He does. It’s the single most romantic thing I’ve ever seen him do for her, and he did it every single time she was upset, hurting, or down in the dumps.”
“What are the piano petals for, then?” she asked.
“My mother used to be an expert pianist until carpal tunnel did her in. She’d fill the house with beautiful music. It’s how they met.”
“Your parents.”
“Yep. They met at one of her concerts when she was in her twenties,” he said.
“That’s a hell of a story behind that tattoo,” I said.
“These aren’t all of them, though. I have a Phoenix on my chest whose wings stretch the width of it. Just a basic symbol of how I rose from the ashes of—”
He faltered, and I knew why. I wanted him to say it. I needed him to say it. I needed a way to open this discussion about his brother.
Maybe then it would be easier to tell him everything.
“Of what?” I asked.
“How I rose up from the ashes after I lost my brother,” he said.