Dare You To(5)

 

Obviously, he had Brian over. He knew they wouldn't show up at Wild Side. Had they gone out somewhere else and just gotten back? Did he have Austin backed against the door, grinding their dicks together while he devoured Austin's mouth, the way Dare would do if he went home with a man?

 

He should just go home, jerk off and go to bed. He should give them their privacy.

 

There wasn't a chance in hell he was doing that. The lure of giving Austin shit was too strong … or he just wanted to be a dickhead because he really didn't like Brian.

 

Dare raised his fist and knocked on the door … maybe a little too hard because he felt it in each of his knuckles. "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" Dare asked through the door. "I know it's late, but I'm baking cookies. You know how much I love anything sweet, and I really need some of your sugar." Dare rolled his eyes at his own lameness. Hopefully, Austin would get a kick out of it, though.

 

 

 

        

          

        

         

 

There was a pause, and then, "Come in, Dare," from inside. Only Austin's voice didn't sound breathless from kissing or pissed off from getting interrupted while fucking. He sounded … resigned … almost sad. Dare felt a strange twist in his gut as he opened the door and stepped inside. Austin sat on the couch, his red hair messy in ways it usually wasn't. Like it had been fisted, but he didn't think it was from Brian's hands as they fucked. Like maybe he sat there with his own hands in his hair, frustrated.

 

He had his feet up on the coffee table, his head dropped against the back of the couch and his eyes closed. They were a wild shade of green, bright around the edges and darker toward the center, and Dare wished Austin would look at him with them, shake his head and roll those eyes at Dare the way he so often did, just because that was the Austin he knew.

 

He only looked like this when there was a problem at the center, but somehow, Dare didn't think this was about that.

 

When he closed the door behind him, he stood there for a minute, a slow urge growing inside of him to think of the perfect thing to say. To make Austin laugh, to take away whatever had him upset. He didn't like to see his friend this way. He'd seen a whole lot of people hurting in his life, but it felt a little different seeing it in Austin. Made his chest feel hollowed out.

 

Without sitting up, Austin turned his head, opened his eyes and looked at him, and Dare felt the sudden urge to tear apart whomever and whatever it was that made Austin feel this way. He'd always treated Dare with nothing but respect. He'd been there for Dare for six years, watched and encouraged him as he struggled to get Wild Side off the ground. Accepted the fact that Dare didn't share much of himself. He put up with Dare's shit. He took care of the teens at the center like they were his own. He didn't deserve to hurt.

 

Without a word, he walked into the kitchen, opened a cabinet and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. Dare walked to the couch. It made a noise when he sat down. He handed the bottle to Austin, who opened it and took a swig.

 

Some things called for being drunk, and he thought maybe this was one of them.

 

Austin handed the bottle back, and Dare took a sip, though much smaller than the one Austin took. The liquid burned on its way down his throat, and he didn't figure it would take much of it for either of them to get toasted.

 

"Brian broke it off with me tonight. Jesus, I sound like I'm an eighteen-year-old kid crying over a broken heart."

 

Broken heart? Had Austin loved the guy? He'd told Dare it wasn't serious. "Want me to kill him? I'm a shitty liar so I probably couldn't cover for it well, but I'd do it. If you want me to, I'd do it. You just have to promise you'll visit me in prison."  

 

Austin drank down some more of the whiskey before chuckling quietly. "You'd risk jail time for me?"

 

"Hell yeah. No one fucks with my boo." Jesus, he just sounded like a fucking idiot. He'd never used the word boo in his whole life. Hell, he wasn't even sure if he'd just used it in the right context, but it made Austin laugh.

 

"Your boo, huh?" Austin asked before he took another drink, then another. Dare grabbed the bottle from his hand and swallowed more of the fire himself.

 

"Yep. You're my brother from another mother. My homeboy. My gay best friend. Ha! See, women aren't the only ones who want a gay best friend. Why do some women do that, by the way?"

 

"I don't know." Austin shrugged. "Sounds like you did it too. You only like me because I'm gay."

 

"No," Dare replied, his tone now serious. "I like you because you're a good man."