“How did you wind up in the club?” Alec asked, bringing his hand up for a lingering knuckle kiss. Keyes eyed the entire movement, all the way until Alec lowered their joined hands to his lap.
“Family. My old man was in the club my whole life. I grew up there.” Keyes trusted Alec, which was weird. Yet doubt lingered, keeping him from exposing too much about the club and its members. Besides, talking club business was never an option. He’d taken an oath to protect his brothers.
One of the only communication skills Keyes had learned to keep himself from having to say too much was to ask questions himself. “How’d you learn to eat with those chopsticks?”
“I spent time in Thailand. Blaine’s family—the guy I was with when I met you—had a place at Railay Beach. When I got older, I traveled more of Thailand. The humidity was a killer, but I loved learning the culture,” Alec said, lifting his head, his hand moving behind Keyes’s head to toy with his hair. “The food’s amazing there. It’s where I learned my love of all things Thai.”
“You’ve known that Blaine a long time?” Keyes asked.
“We met in boarding school. We’ve slowly grown apart over the last maybe two years. He went back home to the New England area today. Does your club know you’re gay? Gay, right?” Alec’s genuine curiosity was the wrinkle in Keyes’s diversionary questioning strategy. Most people loved to talk about themselves, but not Alec. He never let the subject linger too long on himself before shifting back to Keyes with a candid honesty of wanting to know more about him. Yep, the anxiety returned.
He had to clear his throat of the unwanted insecurity before he could speak. “They know.” Before he had a chance to ask his next question, Alec shot off another.
“You have lots of tattoos, but I can’t find any discerning pattern or theme. What do they mean?”
Keyes looked down at his chest, rubbing his fingertips over the largest one on his pec. “This one’s for my mom.” He’d chosen a fallen angel to represent her life. “I have a friend like your Blaine. He chose this one.” It was a skull that Dev had done for him when he’d first started doing tattoos. The guy had always been a talented artist, but, man, that had been a serious risk. They hadn’t been more than fourteen, way before his growth spurt. Dev had needed to touch it up a couple of times since then. “This one’s for my father.” He looked down at the evil-looking devil tattoo on the other side of his mother’s angel. They were high on his chest to always remind him how fucked up life could become if you let it.
“It’s malevolent,” Alec said.
“That’s him,” Keyes replied with absolutely no emotion. He’d even gotten past the point of hating his old man. There was just nothing there. Lifting his other arm, he turned it over where there were a series of tattoos. “These are all club-related.”
“What’s the number mean?” Alec asked, moving those massaging fingers from his hair to the large number on his upper arm, close to his shoulder. He fingered the design.
“It’s the number that coordinates with the first letter of the club name.” He could go on and on about the tattoos. They were on his chest and back, down both arms, on his hip and leg. He’d gone through a strong fuck-you stage. He’d resented his life and most all the images were reflections of that time. He’d also been a human canvas for Dev as he’d gotten his ink licenses.
Keyes shifted closer to Alec. “So, you said you’d had a bad day, why’s that?”
“No, we’re not finished. You didn’t explain this one on your arm,” Alec said, touching the only happy-looking one on his body—if two roses counted as happy.
“My best friend.” Keyes touched Dev’s tattoo as a reminder. “He has some kids. Two girls. One for each one. I got them the nights they were born. We were young. It didn’t occur to me until much later in life that he should’ve been at the hospital with his old lady instead of out with me.”
“So it’s mostly people who are the meanings behind your tattoos?”
“Yeah, pretty much, I guess. I was shot here,” Keyes said, lowering his waistband to a puckered scar with a small pistol inked over it.
“You were shot?” Those blond brows rose as Alec leaned forward to get a better look at that tattoo. Keyes just laughed at the horror on Alec’s face. “Was this doing club business?”
“No. Everyone thinks we’re so bad. It makes me laugh. We lived in a rough neighborhood when I was a kid. It was a drive-by. Dev, my friend, did all the ink.”
“He’s excellent then,” Alec said, his fingers trailing up over Keyes’s stomach, touching each tattoo.