Punctured, Bruised, and Barely Tattooed(43)
“Stone should be done in the next half hour,” he said when Kory walked in.
“Cool.” She approached the counter. “Mind if I check out your jewelry?”
“Not at all. Anything in particular you’d like to see?”
“Hmm.” She’d just wanted something to pass the time, but she supposed she could do more than just window shop. “Surprise me.”
He raised his eyebrows, grinning. “I think I could probably grab any tray under here and find something for you.” He opened the glass and slid out a black tray filled with tiny silver and other assorted piercings. She recognized that they were for eyebrows.
“Anything you’d recommend?”
Before Russell could answer, the front door swung open and a loud, tall, beefy blonde guy walked in. “Six-pack, my man!” He didn’t even notice Kory…or didn’t care, because he kept talking. “Mal around?”
Russell tilted his head toward the back of the studio. “Doing a tat right now.”
The guy started walking toward the glass door. “I just gotta ask him a question.”
“I said he’s busy, man.” The guy just kept walking as though he hadn’t heard a thing, opening the door to the back and walking over to Stone’s station. Russell muttered, “Fuckin’ numb nuts.”
Kory looked up from the jewelry again. Yeah, the guy was talking to Stone. She looked at Russell. “What did he call him?”
He shrugged. “Mal.”
“Mal?”
Russell raised his eyebrows, giving Kory a look like she’d gone stupid. “Yeah. Malevolent.”
She shook her head. “Malevolent?” Clearly, Russell was losing his mind. Why the fuck would anyone call Stone malevolent?
Something tickled at the back of her brain…
Russell was exasperated by that point. “Malevolent Disorder.”
Kory started to suck down a breath and then paused.
No. No way. Her brain grabbed onto something.
No fucking way.
She blinked twice and then looked in the back toward Stone. Maybe?
Russell said, “Oh, shit. You didn’t know?”
No, but the puzzle pieces fit together. Malevolent Disorder was a guy. Yeah, she’d known back then that it was a stage name, but…holy shit. She looked back at Stone again. Yeah. The guy who’d been known as Mal back in the day had been a little skinnier and had worn a shitload of black makeup on his face. His hair had been longer too, but he’d had the neck tats and partial sleeves.
Holy shit. Her boyfriend wasn’t just any tattoo artist. He was a guy who used to play in a famous band, and she wondered why the hell he wasn’t anymore.
She had to sit down. This was some crazy shit.
Chapter Eighteen
IT WASN’T UNTIL they were more than halfway to his house that Kory found the words to say. “I, uh…I know your secret.”
Stone was silent for a few moments until he said, “You do?”
“Yeah. That guy who went in the back to see you at the shop—you know, the tall blonde guy who acted like his brain had seen better days? He called you Mal.”
“Oh.”
“Russell told me you used to be Malevolent Disorder.”
He glanced over at her. “And you know who that was, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
He shook his head. “Oh, man.” Kory couldn’t find any words to say what was in her heart. She was still grappling with the knowledge that her boyfriend had been, at one time, pretty famous. He turned the truck into the sloping driveway and said, “You okay with that?”
Kory tried not to smile. “Of course.” She found it amusing that he was so stressed about her reaction. But he had a worried look on his face, and when they got inside, he gave Lady a little love before asking Kory to have a seat.
He sat at a diagonal from her at the table and said, “I suppose you want to know the story.”
“Only if you’re ready to tell it.” She’d found it funny at first, but now his distress was making her feel bad.
He shook his head. “You already know, so I might as well tell you everything.” He looked down at his hand, making Kory’s eyes focus there too. His hands, like most of his body, were covered in ink, and they were beautiful—some black shaded his skin, but there was also a lot of red and some green and blue. She loved how he’d adorned himself in art without shame, and he’d felt so passionate about it that he did it for others. Now, though, she wondered why he’d given up a life of fame—and possible fortune—for that job. Did he love tattooing that much?
He took a deep breath and said, “I already told you that my dad was a real bastard. He was a mean, vicious son of a bitch, and I guess I was always a disappointment to him.