"Hello?" he answered.
"Hey!"
"I can't hear you, Dare. I need to go anyway. Brian's on his way!" he yelled through the line.
"Wait!" Dare rushed out, not sure why he needed to talk to Austin right now. He made his way toward the locked door, nodded at the security guard and then unlocked it and slipped inside. Once he was in the hallway that led to his soundproofed office, he spoke again. "What are you guys doing tonight? You should take a walk on the wild side and come to the bar." Not that he thought Brian would. He wasn't sure Wild Side was Brian's kind of place. It wasn't technically Austin's either but he'd come from time to time.
"Did you really just say we should take a walk on the wild side? That's corny, even for you."
"I thought it was cute," Dare countered, and Austin chuckled. "The place is on fire tonight. Come down, check it out. Tell Brian drinks are on the house." They were probably doing something like having a late dinner and a quiet glass of wine somewhere, because Dare had no doubt that Austin had probably worked late tonight. He was fiercely loyal to the LGBT center and the people there. Dare respected the hell out of him for it. He gave Austin shit but it was probably one of his favorite things about his friend.
"I'll see if he's interested, but I doubt it," Austin told him, and Dare rolled his eyes. That was a no.
"You suck."
"I swallow too," Austin countered, to Dare's surprise. He chuckled. Austin was in a good mood tonight. Dare could hear it in the playfulness of his voice. He must really like this Brian guy, which Dare had to admit, he didn't get. Not just because he didn't think Brian was good enough for Austin, but Dare didn't understand the need for monogamy and love and all that shit. He just wasn't wired that way.
Austin was, though, and while Dare should be happy that his friend was in a relationship that could eventually be serious, he wasn't. It just didn't feel right. Sure, on paper Brian seemed like the kind of man that Austin would want, but his gut twisted when he thought about Austin with him. He didn't trust Brian. He hadn't been lying when he said he didn't think Brian liked him, and he'd be damned if he'd lose his friendship with Austin over something stupid like an asshole in a suit.
Which was what he was being right now. Stupid. And kind of an asshole. Why in the hell was he thinking about all this shit? "Fine, go out, drink wine and eat steak and suck dick while I'm working. I see how you are." Though he wasn't averse to taking someone back to his office if he found a man who wanted to suck dick too.
"Thanks for the permission, and I'm sure you've sucked cock while I was working more often than the other way around."
"Yeah, but-"
"Brian's here," Austin cut him off. "Have a good one," he told Dare before the phone went dead. Dare stared at it in disbelief. Austin had never hung up on him before.
Okay, he was being really fucking strange, and he didn't know why. Dare shoved the phone back into his pocket and turned around to go back the way he'd come.
He had a busy bar out there, full of all sorts of fun and trouble. Even though he owned Wild Side and didn't have to be on the floor, he loved being out there in the middle of things, serving drinks and talking to people right along with his staff.
He'd go out there and find his own fun like he always did.
CHAPTER TWO
"You should have seen the teens while we were making plans for the Rainbow Prom. A few of them have been around for a while, so they've been before. We have just as many who are new, so this is the first time they've participated in something like this. It was like we'd given them the world. This thing that is just for them. We have mostly low-income, or homeless teens so for them, this is something they never thought they'd be able to do." Austin watched Brian the whole time he'd spoken to him, and Brian hardly looked away from his phone once.
He was a dentist. He enjoyed reading the same way Austin did, and he took his work seriously the same as Austin as well. They were both responsible, had grown up in similar upper-middle-class families who supported each other and got together regularly for family dinners. They often laughed while sharing stories of their siblings and their upbringings, but tonight something was off with Brian. Maybe it was because, "I'm sorry I've been talking about work all night. I'm just really excited about it. When I told Ethan, he's one of the boys who-"