Pete met with Keegan Cunningham two and a half weeks later, in an upscale cocktail lounge not too far from Keegan’s place in Gramercy Park. Pete’s lip curled as soon as he walked in. Places like this weren’t for guys like him.

People who went to places like this paid a small fortune to watch guys like him on stage, but not a lot of that money ever trickled down to the corps de ballet. Even lead roles didn’t make enough money to pay sixteen bucks per cocktail. Not if the dancer in question wanted to do profligate things like eat food on the regular.

Maybe that had been part of what had attracted him to Dmitry. Well, maybe less the sixteen-dollar cocktails, and more the ability to choose the occasional fancy cocktail, or meal, or to live in a place that didn’t have five other guys fighting over a single bathroom. The archetype of the gladly starving artist got old after maybe five minutes.

“Starving” and “gladly” only went well together in hagiographies. Now Pete was older, and wiser. He could afford a couple of fancy cocktail nights here and there, and he knew to avoid guys like Dmitry.

He could be taught. He might have learned the lesson too late to be useful, but at least he’d learned.

Keegan was already here, looking like he fit in almost as well as Pete. His tailored white silk suit was printed with flamingoes. His dress shirt matched, in bright flamingo pink, and he’d gone so far as to wear a flamingo charm necklace around his neck in lieu of a tie.

Pete stared. He wasn’t the only one. Everyone who walked into the bar stared at Keegan.

He should run, Pete knew. Honestly, he was signing his own death warrant by being seen in public with this guy.

If Cooper, the marshal in charge of Pete’s case, saw Pete sitting with a guy wearing a damn charm necklace in place of a tie and a bright, flamingo-pink shirt, he’d blow a gasket. He might even shoot Keegan on security grounds.

The argument could be made, though, that no one would even think about looking at Pete. Everyone would be looking at Keegan, and his ghastly flamingo suit. Drab, boring Pete, even as tall as he was, wouldn’t even be a blip on their radar.

Pete wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he could see where the argument could be made.

He tried to quell the twisting in his gut, went up to Keegan, and sat down. They exchanged pleasantries and ordered drinks, and then Pete brought them around to business. He thought he could probably talk about empty nothings with Keegan all day, but it was best to focus on business.

“So,” Pete began, averting his eyes. “I’ve ordered everything you should need. Delivery of furniture should start on Thursday, and I’ll bring fixtures and decor by once the big stuff has been delivered.

Does that work for you? I can still re-arrange schedules if there are better days and times. I didn’t exactly know your schedule, so I can definitely be flexible.”

“Those times are perfect. And once that’s done, I won’t be crashing at my brother’s place anymore.”

Keegan’s smile lit up the purposely-dim lounge. It was odd, that a guy who went out of his way to look so outlandish would be so beautiful. Seriously, where did a guy get a flamingo charm necklace that fit around a big, strong neck like his?

Pete had to stop thinking about Keegan like that. It wasn’t appropriate. Keegan was a colleague. Pete was just feeling lonely.

“Are things getting tense there?” Pete bit his lip to stop himself from asking obnoxious and personal questions, like whether or not Keegan had a partner he could stay with, and was he into men.

He almost invited Keegan to come and stay with him until his furniture arrived, which would have been the second dumbest move he could have made, and would have made the marshal assigned to his case invent new languages to curse in. Still, the thought was there, full of all kinds of exciting possibilities. Pete reached for his drink, hoping it would cool him down.

“Yeah. It’s nice of Ty to let me crash and all that, but let’s be real. Ty is about as exciting as tapioca. He’s a good kid, and his heart’s about as untarnished as a lawyer’s heart can be, but oh my God he’s boring.

“He gets up. He goes to work. He comes home and feeds the cats. Lather, rinse, repeat.” He rolled those expressive eyes of his. “He’s got three cats, for crying out loud. That’s, like, all he does.”

“Not a fan of cats?” Pete’s mother had always said to avoid men who didn’t like animals. Pete should have listened. Pete wouldn’t let her lessons go unheeded a second time.

“Not a fan of his cats. They hate me. We’re talking deep hate, like neighboring states hatred. He’s got this one ornery evil thing, Sekhmet, who draws blood on every human she meets — except for him. He’s had her since he was a kid, rescued her from death row at boarding school.”

Keegan made a face. “There was a damn good reason she was on death row, too. She’s a killer, I’m telling you. But with him, she’s as gentle as you please.”

He grimaced and took a gulp from his drink, like it could fortify him against the ordeal to come. “It’s like she’s his guardian demon, and the other two are her imps. They sit there waiting for some poor unsuspecting soul to walk into the apartment, and bam! They pounce, like little devils with fur.”

Pete made himself relax. “My ex hated cats, too.” Talking about Dmitry would help push his growing attraction to Keegan down, right? That was how these things were supposed to work, anyway.

Keegan was handsome, and charismatic, and everything Pete might want, but Pete couldn’t go there. Not with anyone, and certainly not with a guy who screamed out for attention like Keegan. The guy was like a giant Murder Me sign with flashing neon and shrill whistles.

“I don’t have strong opinions about them either way,” he went on, “but my condo association isn’t a big fan of pets, so they’re not an issue.”

“That’s a good thing. And I don’t hate cats. My brother’s cats hate me,” Keegan reiterated. “There’s a difference.” He scrawled a note down on his napkin, in some kind of chicken scratch Pete couldn’t read.

“Is that even in English?” Pete squinted at the characters on the napkin. It wasn’t Russian either. Maybe Greek? He felt like he should be able to make the words out, but he couldn’t quite do it.

“Of course it is.” Keegan waved a hand and assumed a lofty expression. “My ideas flow too quickly for me to worry about petty things like legibility.

“No, I just wanted to make sure I don’t put pet restrictions into the leases for the renovated units over at Barton Gardens. I want the tenants to be able to live their own lives.

“They don’t have much money, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to have a whole stack of restrictions and regulations bearing down on them. Everyone deserves to have a decent life, and they shouldn’t be punished just because they have lower incomes than some other people.”

Damn it, why did Keegan have to be like this? Why couldn’t he have a personality to match his terrible clothes? He was handsome. He was charming. He was witty.

All of that, and not only did he renovate dilapidated housing projects, but he did so with the residents’ comfort in mind. Why couldn’t Pete have met him ten years ago? “I guess. It’s your complex.”

Keegan grinned and rubbed his hands together with glee. “You know what? It is. After all this time, it finally is.

“Anyway, I know you design interiors for apartments and condos and stuff. I’ve seen your portfolio, and I’ve seen your work in person.

“How do you feel about designing common spaces for those types of buildings? You know, like the community room, the rental office, the hallways and the elevator areas, and all that.” He gazed into Pete’s eyes, expectant and almost eager.

Pete blinked and looked away. Keegan had the attention span of a gnat on a sugar high. It was almost impossible to keep up with him, but it was fun to try. Looking into his eyes, though, could make a guy forget how to breathe.

“Um, I’ve done a few public areas. It’s not the type of space I usually design, but I’m certainly capable of it. I can send you a couple of recent references, if you’d like.”

“Please do. I trust you — like I said, I’ve seen what you can do in living spaces, so I’m more than sure you can handle what I have in mind. You already know I bought Barton Gardens. The buildings are pretty much a wreck.

“I think someone must have been bribing the building inspector, because they should have been condemned twenty years ago. Renovating them without completely disrupting the families living there is going to be a challenge, but it’s worth it.

“Anyway, as part of that renovation, I’m going to have to redo all of the public spaces in these buildings. I want them to be safe, and I want them to look nice.

“They don’t have to be the Ritz or anything; I’m not talking marble and gold. That would be tacky. I do want my tenants to feel comfortable going into these places, and not like they’re about to be shot.”

Pete’s mind raced. Was Keegan offering him another job, just off the bat like this? Shouldn’t there be more to it?

He shouldn’t question the process. Someone who wasn’t in witness protection, someone who didn’t have the guaranteed income from the Agency, wouldn’t even dream of questioning a windfall like that. He tried to think of an intelligent comment, anything that would show he had some idea about public housing and the issues faced there.

The only thing he could come up with was a recent case in which police had shot an innocent man in an unlit stairwell. “What about the stairwells and lighting?”

“Those will be harder to do, and we’ll have to make some structural changes there. But I’m pretty sure if I can get windows into the stairwell, we can make them a hell of a lot safer for everyone.” Keegan didn’t hesitate. “That’s a good point, and we’ll have to make sure that’s covered. I don’t want any accidents.”

Why, why couldn’t Pete have met Keegan earlier? He’d already forgotten about the ghastly wardrobe.

“Show me your proposal and your budget,” he said, “and I’ll tell you what I can pull off for that kind of money. It won’t be gold plated or anything, but it’ll be a space your tenants can enjoy.” Pete ducked his head and blushed. “It’s nice you have so much confidence in my abilities when I haven’t finished your place yet.”

Keegan chuckled and toyed with the stem of his glass. “I’ve seen your design. I’ve seen the receipts. Unless you somehow substitute some horrendous thing my brother would wear for the things you actually ordered, it should all be good.”

Pete raised his eyebrows. “Maybe I secretly ordered a flamingo-print couch.” It would serve Keegan right, he thought. Making him look at the same kind of horror he perpetrated on unsuspecting eyeballs every day.

Keegan winced and pulled back a little. Then he looked down at his own clothes. “Oooh, I hope you didn’t do that. I like the birdies for a day or so, but I have to change it up. I’ve got to be free, man. I’ve got to express myself, unfurl my wings a bit.”

“I can see that.” Pete toyed with his drink. He tried not to drink much these days, as a general rule. The Agency said he was as safe as safe could be, but that didn’t make getting blitzed a great idea.

Otherwise, he might say too much. He could well reach out and touch, too, and Keegan was a client. That would just be unprofessional.

Knowing it would be inappropriate and convincing himself to not want it were two very different things.

“We can head over to the Gardens, maybe tomorrow, if you’re free. I’ll show you my plans and the space as it exists now. We’ll see where it leads us.” Keegan lifted his glass. “To the beginnings of a beautiful partnership.”

Pete couldn’t very well turn away from that. It would probably be best for everyone involved if he ran as far and as fast as he could, but Keegan’s words seduced him. “To us,” he said, and smiled.

They finished their drinks, and Pete headed home. He would be content with a professional partnership. It was all he could afford.

In another time and another place, he might think about more, but for now, he’d have to leave that firmly in the realm of fantasy.

Keegan knew a lot of people thought he was pretty stupid. He might have even taken steps to reinforce that assumption. He wouldn’t confirm or deny it, but he didn’t go out of his way to correct people’s impressions, either.

He hadn’t started choosing his clothes with a view toward making people think he’d replaced part of his brain with tater tots. But when he saw how much he got away with as a result, he knew he had a good thing going. Plus, it embarrassed his parents, who refused to be seen in public with him, so it killed two birds with one stone.

The drinking was another part of his ruse. Keegan’s tolerance was obscene, the stuff of legends. He could out-drink most other alphas, but even the people who’d known him for years didn’t fully understand it.

They watched him down drink after drink and wrote him off. They told him all kinds of things, figuring he wouldn’t remember any of it.

Then he blew them out of the water come morning. They never saw it coming.

Convincing people he was stupid, or a party hound, gave Keegan plenty of time to sit back and observe them. He understood them pretty well, and he knew the signals they gave off.

As his working relationship with Pete grew, Keegan put those observational powers to work. He was ninety percent sure Pete was into him, but he wasn’t acting on it.

Pete got that pretty blush of arousal in his cheeks when he looked at Keegan, and he always smiled, even when Keegan was at his corniest. His stunning blue eyes lit up whenever he saw Keegan, too, and that counted for a lot.

But Pete never said anything. He didn’t so much as reach out and put a hand on Keegan’s arm. It frustrated Keegan beyond words, especially since all Keegan wanted was a go-ahead signal.

Pete probably had his reasons, though. Maybe he had a boyfriend. Maybe he had a girlfriend — just because a guy was (probably) an omega didn’t necessarily mean he was gay.

Maybe he was already married — he didn’t have a ring, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Plenty of guys just didn’t like jewelry, or preferred to keep their personal lives separate from their professional ones.

Maybe he just had a lot of baggage, and didn’t want to be bothered with the whole dating thing. If anyone could understand that, it was Keegan.

Keegan was curious about Pete, sure. He’d love to know exactly what was going on in that gorgeous head of his. But he refused to obsess over it.

If Pete wanted him to know, Pete would open his mouth and use his words, like an adult. In the meantime, Keegan had things to do.

He had a brother to watch over; Lord knew no one else was going to help the poor kid out. The Hellion Club’s finances weren’t going to sort themselves out either, and Keegan could probably spend the next thirty years trying to untangle that mess and never see the end of it. He was going to drag that club kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, even if it killed every last one of them.

He headed over to the club after finishing up at Barton Gardens on Tuesday afternoon, and let himself into the Club’s elegantly-appointed management office. Not too many people here knew he had a key.

Most members knew, at least peripherally, that Keegan was on the Finance Committee. Most of them had probably voted for him as a joke. It had backfired on them when he made it in unanimously, but even then, no one took it seriously.

The finance committee met in the bar and had a two-drink minimum. Only other committee members knew he was the chair. It was their secret, and one they’d take to the grave with them.

Keegan knew none of them would admit to having voted him in, even though that vote had been unanimous, too. He’d be offended, if that wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it.

He sat down, booted up his laptop, and dug into the Hellion Club accounts. They had a bookkeeper, a professional, to take care of the day-to-day operations. They had a CPA firm to deal with taxes and audits, too. Keegan’s job, or part of it, was to make sure both processes ran smoothly, and that they happened at all.

The Hellions weren’t a publicly-traded business, but their members had invested a lot of money into the organization. They had a right to understand where that money went.

When Keegan took over, the Club’s finances had been a mess. They hadn’t had a bookkeeper or a CPA firm. They’d had a ninety-seven year old Hellion, who alternated between thinking they were still fighting WWII and wanting to bury all of their assets in a backyard that had long since been eminent-domained for the interstate.

For all the wealth in their membership, and the opulence of their decor, the Hellion Club had been about to lose its lease. Keegan’s predecessor simply hadn’t been paying the bills.

Keegan had worked hard and done a lot of very fast talking. He’d brought the club to a much more stable place, but he wanted to avoid getting complacent. He checked the accounts every day, watching them like a hawk for any sign of trouble.

Today they seemed to have blue skies, so Keegan could rest easy. He closed out of the accounting program, shut down his laptop, and headed to the main bar to see who and what he could see.

He stretched and smiled as he made his way into familiar territory. The Hellion Club had members of all ages, from their mid-twenties up through the triple digits. They rarely convened at one time, though. They showed up in waves.

Members showed up at different times of the day, depending on where they were in their lives. At this time of day, most of the members present were older, retirees with no jobs to keep them away. The younger folks would get here later.

The omega servers and dancers made their rounds all the same, though. The older folks still tipped, although not as well, and they weren’t quite as aggressive with their attentions.

Keegan walked up to order a martini at the bar. The bartender, Oliver, did a double take. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked. “Usually you order challenging cocktails.”

He was a pretty young guy, with curly dark hair and abs Keegan could scrub clothes on. Despite his question, he was already mixing the cocktail - large, strong hands moving deftly and without hesitation. Oliver was a consummate professional. He had another bartending job, a part-time gig, but it didn’t pay as well as the Hellion Club.

Keegan huffed out a laugh. He’d been distracted and just ordered the first drink that came to mind. “Yeah, I guess I’m in the mood today for a beverage that’s a little more restrained.”

He grimaced. “Maybe I am coming down with something.” The something he was coming down with was almost certainly Pete DeAngelis, but no one needed to know about that.

“Put all your effort into the wardrobe, maybe?” Oliver winked and set Keegan’s martini in front of him. “Not that it’s a bad look, mind you. Not everyone can rock disco sequins, but you manage.”

Keegan laughed and leaned against the bar. “Subtle. I like it. Keep throwing that subtle shade, and you’ll go far in life, my friend. No, I was just thinking of someone.”

The someone in question would never be allowed here, of course. Still, Keegan supposed he could be excused if he allowed himself a little fantasy about long hair, a tall, slim body, and the marble top of the bar. He was a healthy alpha man after all.

Oliver wisely didn’t say comment. He just moved on to the next customer, parting with a smile and a wink.

Keegan didn’t have time for witty repartee, anyway, or for fantasy. He’d barely had time to sip his cocktail when the peaceful evening was interrupted. One of the younger members showed up not long after Keegan got his martini, and he hadn’t come to party.

Gavin Kellogg, the drummer for the band Riot Dogs, stormed into the club room and made a beeline for his manager, who was sitting halfway down the bar from Keegan and speaking to Alden Delaney. Keegan personally thought that was already two strikes against the manager because Alden Delaney was an ass.

Kellogg grabbed his manager by the lapels and hauled him to his feet, ignoring the conversation with Delaney. “I told you to keep your filthy paws off of him!” Kellogg roared, as the manager’s feet dangled over the floor.

Delaney’s lip curled in disdain and disgust. “What is this?” he sniffed and sipped from his cocktail. “Were you raised in a barn, Kellogg?”

Keegan slid off his barstool and ambled over to the scene, even as the rest of the late-afternoon crowd gaped. When the Hellion Club had first been established, this kind of thing had been commonplace. Alphas launched themselves at one another all the time.

Now, it was as much cause for alarm as it would have been among the general population. No one would know how to intervene anymore, not without making a bigger mess.

Keegan put his hand on Kellogg’s back. He could feel the younger alpha’s muscles quivering with rage and strain. The manager wasn’t a small man.

The manager, whose name Keegan never could remember, had gone pale, but he scowled up at Keegan and his assailant. “Simon is mine,” he spat, proving that this was no petty misunderstanding.

“He signed the contract just like all of you. Simon belongs to me as payment for my services, and you’re lucky to get them so cheaply.”

Ah, geez. Unfortunately, Club rules established exactly two criteria for membership. Men had to be alphas, and they had to be filthy stinking rich. They didn’t have to be good people.

“Look,” Keegan said, speaking softly into Kellogg’s ear. He had to hope he got through to Kellogg because most normal guys would have ripped the other guy’s arm off by now.

“You can’t beat the snot out of him in the club. If you do, then you’re the one who gets kicked out, and you’ve got no recourse. Plus, you wind up in jail, which is a sucky place to be. Do you want to wind up in jail because of a creep like him?”

Kellogg curled his lip. “He’s forcing himself on my lead singer.” His voice was barely above a growl.

Keegan grinned. He hated that attitude in alphas, the proprietary attitude where an alpha “owned” an omega, but at least this guy was standing up for someone. “Not just your lead singer if I’m reading this right. There’s a band involved here too, right?

“But hey, who’s keeping track? Maybe you guys haven’t actually gone there. And it’s none of my business, but dude, it’s the twenty-first century, and we don’t own omegas anymore.”

He craned his neck, so he could give the manager a glower. “Or sign contracts like that.” Reaching out, he carefully disengaged Kellogg’s hands from the manager’s clothes.

“If you’re going to fight about it, take it to the Ring. Otherwise, talk to the guy with the pipes, like normal people.” He aimed another glare at the manager. “Both of you.”

The manager fell to the ground, twisting his ankle, while Kellogg stood over him. “Get in the Ring, you son of a bitch. You have ten minutes.”

“I’m not fighting you.” The manager used a chair to haul himself to his feet. “I have a contract! Even if you win in the Ring, I’ve still got a contract. And sweet Simon, along with Simon’s sweet ass, is mine.”

Even Alden Delaney recoiled at that. The Ring was sacred to the Hellions. If a dispute was solved in the Ring, the combatants dropped any legal action they might have had pending, and that was the end of it. There was no court of appeal.

Keegan didn’t show his disgust, though. He had a singer to rescue. “I’m guessing you’ll find your contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if it requires sexual services. We can double check with a lawyer, though.”

He let his grin go wolfish. “What do you say, boys? Anyone want to go to bat for this guy, or do I call someone in?”

Everyone knew who he’d call. Ty hadn’t been a member of the bar for long, but he worked for a firm of famously nasty bastards, and he was making a big name for himself in his own right. Even though they were alphas, and Ty was an omega, none of them would cross him willingly.

“Go get your boy,” Keegan told the drummer, slipping one of Ty’s business cards into Kellogg’s pocket. “Call my brother. Ty will take it from there.” He patted Kellogg on the back and went back to his martini.

It was going to be a long day, but thinking of Ty’s look of irritation when he heard about Keegan giving out his business card would make it all worthwhile.