Final Act

by A R Steele

  Twenty-Seven

  Standing in front of the club, Austin noticed that there seemed to be more women coming in than usual. Of course, he thought so just about every night lately. It seemed like there was growth from one shift to the next.

  Tonight, there were more women coming in by themselves than usual. They looked more excited than nervous, and they seemed to look at him more than the regular customers. Instead of their eyes glazing over him, they examined him closely. And they didn’t seem as scared of him as most others were, either.

  When Lev came outside halfway through the night, Austin immediately smiled. Something inside him melted at just the sight of that guy. Lev was so sweet, almost pure in a way – even when he was wearing nothing but ripped jeans and a studded black leather belt.

  Austin still felt horrible for not protecting him from his ex, and he didn’t know when he would be able to forgive himself. He should have known well enough to stop Lev from meeting him. Should have done something to keep Peyton away from Lev.

  The look on Lev’s face made Austin worry. “Hey,” Lev said.

  Austin wanted to take him under his arm and pull him in close. He wanted to have him next to him always. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I think we may have been found out,” Lev said. “I’m getting this weird vibe from the customers tonight.”

  “Really?”

  “They’ve been looking at me funny all night, and they were talking about whether Cooper and Owen are a couple.” Lev spoke softly, glancing around as if afraid someone from inside would hear him.

  “So my suspicions from last week were right,” Austin said. “We gave this place away.”

  Lev leaned against the wall, letting out a sigh. “Ironic, isn’t it? All the couples have been playing with fire with the partner dances, and they managed to keep things under wraps. After all that, it’s you and me who might have given away the secret.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Austin reminded him. His heart was beating faster, though. They might get in trouble. He didn’t care about himself, but he couldn’t let that happen to Lev. Why did he keep screwing up over and over when it came to this guy?

  “I don’t really know what’s going on,” Lev said. “They seem okay with it.”

  “You think so?”

  “Maybe. It’s too soon to say. I could be reading this all wrong.”

  They looked at each other, both of them afraid and nervous.

  “Be safe in there,” Austin said.

  “I will. I guess I couldn’t get a kiss, could I?” Lev asked. “I mean, if they’re catching on anyway, there’s no harm in it…”

  Austin twisted his lips. He wanted to kiss Lev more than anything else right now, but it did seem like a bad idea. He would make the right choice for once. Besides, a peck would only make him want more.

  “Let’s leave that for later tonight,” he said. But he couldn’t resist putting one hand on Lev’s back as he guided him back inside. The touch had his cock twitching, and he thought about what he wanted to do to Lev as he watched him walk inside. He’d definitely have some fun with the perky ass under those ripped jeans.

  A minute passed, and then another car pulled up. If things kept going like this, the parking lot would actually be full soon. There were so many women coming in, more than any other night Austin could remember, even the amateur night. Was it just the different acts and the partner dances, or had they figured out something more?

  He hooked the velvet rope in front of the door as two women came up. One had a beer bottle in her hand. “You can’t bring that in here,” he said.

  “Sorry, I’ll finish it here. Is that okay?”

  She shot him a glance before chugging it. It was the kind of glance that asked, do you find me sexy? Austin kept his face neutral and waited for her to finish it. “Gotta have your pre-drink, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, we were at another bar and then our friends texted us to come here.”

  The other one seemed drunk already. “You must be the gay bouncer. Is that you? I thought you would look different.”

  “God, Savannah, you can’t just ask someone if they’re gay.”

  Thrown off, Austin just blinked at them. There was enough space inside for a few more people. He unhooked the rope and let them inside. “Enjoy your night, ladies.”

  Another group came a few minutes later, and then another. Austin frowned as he counted how many people were inside. Was the club really at capacity? He double-checked his mental math and concluded that he’d gotten it right. This had never happened before.

  “You’ll have to wait for a while,” he told the next two women who showed up. “It’s full.”

  “That sucks,” she said with evident disappointment. “We were really looking forward to seeing this.”

  He squinted at her, wondering if he could read what was going on from her face. Of course, there were no answers either. He would have to ask straight out if he wanted to figure this out.

  They were going to be in line for a while, so he might as well play it off like he was making small talk with them. “What exactly did you hear about this place?”

  “Every girl in town is talking about the Tool Shed,” the woman said.

  “Saying what, though?”

  “That there’s hot guys and good drinks and great music,” she said.

  Austin nodded, keeping his expression from changing. “And that’s all?”

  “Well, no,” she said. She looked a little guilty, as if admitting to something that was just slightly wrong. “We also just love the guy-on-guy thing.”

  Twenty-Eight

  As Austin and Lev walked in the next night, Lev stuck closely to Austin’s side. After comparing notes on what they had noticed, they’d decided to make the owner and the manager aware of the situation.

  They walked through to Trenton and Brentley’s office. They had come a few minutes early in order to talk to them. Austin had tried to reach his brother earlier, but Trenton never picked up his phone lately.

  The office door was closed, which Lev found unusual. He looked up at Austin, who looked equally confused. “Knock, I guess,” Lev said.

  There was no answer, although they could hear movement inside. Lev grabbed the door handle.

  Austin moved to stop him. “You can’t just barge in – ”

  “It’s okay,” Lev said, already turning the knob.

  Brentley sat on the desk with his back to the door. Trenton stood just behind him, his arms locked around Brentley’s back. Lev couldn’t tell who the soft groan belonged to, but it was definitely Brentley who pulled away first and said, “Honey?” Trenton stepped back and stared at Austin and Lev, disheveled and surprised.

  “You two…” Austin started, then trailed off, shaking his head.

  “Hey,” Trenton said, looking as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “We, um…”

  Brentley quickly stepped in. “We didn’t know you were here.”

  Lev shook his head. He’d kind of seen this coming. Trenton and Brentley were always together, and they did complement each other pretty well. Maybe getting laid was the reason Trenton had loosened up so much lately.

  “We don’t care about you two being together,” he said. “We came to talk to you about something important.”

  Trenton’s face was still beet-red as he arranged his hands on the desk. Lev had never seen him like this before. He was more in the habit of intimidating people – he and his brother had that in common.

  “What is it?” Trenton asked, looking suddenly concerned.

  “It seems like the customers are catching on,” Austin said quietly. He didn’t bother to explain what.

  “It is a risk we’ve been taking,” Trenton said, his expression suddenly serious. “We know we’ve been a little more obvious lately.”

  “No kidding,” Lev said. “Couples are practically humping each other on the stage.”

  “But it’s not having a negative effect,” Aus
tin put in. “There are so many more customers than before. They tell each other about us, and their friends are showing up. We’ve never had so many people here.”

  “You’re right,” Trenton said. He looked at Brentley, who nodded. “We should all talk about this. Let’s go out and grab everyone.” The two of them stood up, and Lev noticed that they exchanged another loving glance before opening the door.

  For once, that surge of jealousy didn’t go through him. He had someone to exchange loving gazes with, too.

  They gathered in the main room as the different strippers trickled in. Once everyone was there, Brentley announced the reason for this meeting. “Everyone, you may be aware that the customers are realizing that some of you are in relationships,” Brentley said. “We have decided not to conceal this anymore.”

  “That’s not to say that you can be blatant with your partners,” Trenton said. “But you don’t have to worry or hide who you are or who you love.”

  “What?” Jesse said, moving forward. “I can touch my man in public?”

  “Go for it,” Trenton said.

  “But what about keeping the customers happy?” Cooper said. “As much as I want to tell the world how much I love Owen, shout it from the rafters, I don’t know if they’d like it.”

  “So far, all evidence points to them liking it,” Trenton said. “Maybe not everyone will be happy with it, but we are who we are. Whoever doesn’t like it can leave. They’re not our target audience anyway. We have to be authentic to ourselves. Some people do like what we have to offer – a lot of people, actually. We don’t need to pander to those who don’t. We have to be who we are. We’ve been hiding it for too long.”

  The guys nodded.

  “It’s time,” Trenton said. “Everyone, go get ready.”

  The talk in the change room was excited and disbelieving as the strippers got ready for the night. Lev checked the schedule. He had his sex slave performance halfway through the night, and then a dance with Lucas after that.

  The first three partner dances were each of the couples. Lev went on to the side stage as Ace and Gabriel took the stage. As he danced, he saw them look at each other every few seconds, smiling at each other with evident adoration.

  They were in perfect sync with the rhythm, and their smiles when they looked at each other got bigger and bigger. By the end, Lev wouldn’t have been surprised if they had actually kissed before leaving the stage. The audience clapped wildly for them.

  A few individual performances came before the next couple. Lev went through his sex slave routine, then went back to the change room. As he emerged, he saw Jesse and Shade on the stage. They had this way of both working the pole at once, and they were doing that like usual – but this time, every now and then, they would stroke each other’s arms.

  There could be no ambiguity in their relationship. Their chemistry made it completely obvious that they were fucking. When they finished their routine, women in the crowd were on their feet.

  “We have a tough act to follow, but we’re going to kick ass anyway,” Lev told Lucas when he found him later.

  “I wish Elijah was here,” Lucas admitted.

  “Yeah, well, I could wish a lot of things. Still just you and me, buddy.”

  As Lev walked onto the stage, he did wish there was some way that he could share this with Austin. He had to envy those other couples for being able to do this with their partners. Somehow he couldn’t see Austin taking off his clothes on the stage. Austin took off his clothes on his own terms and nobody else’s. Lev had definitely learned that at this point.

  The partner dance went well enough, even if there was no chemistry between Lev and Lucas. The clapping was a little quiet compared to other nights. He would have been disappointed, but he understood why the audience might want to see something else. He was disappointed he didn’t get to dance with Austin, too.

  Owen and Cooper hit the stage together, pulling off some crazy dance moves to the sound of blaring hip-hop music. Lev was with the large group at that point, and he overheard as again they whispered about whether those two were a couple. Lev almost laughed because to him it was so obvious. They joined hands at the end of the song, and didn’t let go as the song faded into the next one. The applause was even louder.

  Just before stopping off the stage, Cooper and Owen paused, looking at each other. Owen leaned in and gave his boyfriend a peck on the lips.

  A woman sitting in front of Lev gasped, outrage clear on her face. “How disgusting,” she said to the people she was with. “I didn’t come here to see things like that. Let’s get out of here.”

  Two of her friends stood up along with her. The fourth stayed where she was, her eyes on the stage. “I think I want to see, actually.”

  The first woman huffed as she headed for the door. None of those three glanced back at what they were leaving. Lev looked around, though, and everyone else in the place seemed entranced by what was happening.

  Like Trenton had said, those who didn’t like it could leave – and as it turned out, those people didn’t even make a dent in the number of people who loved what the Tool Shed had to offer.

  In fact, the crowd was going wild.

  Twenty-Nine

  The door swung open, and Austin’s mom raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t I feel special! Both of my sons actually show up to dinner.”

  Austin slid off his shoes. “Trenton’s here?”

  “Yes, he called out of the blue earlier.” Mom put an arm around him and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s so good to have both of you here!”

  Indeed, Trenton was already sitting at their mom’s kitchen table. Austin nodded to him. He’d probably made the effort to come because of the whole online dating thing. Austin suspected they were thinking along the same lines – they had to put a stop to that.

  “So, how are things?” he asked as he dropped into a chair.

  “Good, good,” Mom said, flitting around the kitchen. She put a glass of water beside each of their plates. “Nothing terribly exciting happening for me, of course.”

  “No hot dates coming up?” Austin asked.

  “You two are far too concerned about who I’m seeing.”

  Austin and Trenton glanced at each other. Austin flicked his tongue over both his lip piercings, even knowing the sight always made his mother crazy. “Have you met any men? Or are you planning to?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She set a bowl of stew on each placemat and dug into her own. “I’ve been talking to so many men, I can’t even keep track of which is which long enough to get attached.”

  “How many men?” Trenton demanded.

  Her lips pressed together, but the corners quirked up. “A few. Does it matter?”

  “It does,” Austin growled. “How are we supposed to protect you if we don’t know what’s going on?”

  Putting her spoon down, Mom got up and put her arm around Austin’s shoulder. “Austin, Trenton, I’m just having a little fun. That’s all.”

  Austin frowned up at her. “What’s so fun about it? You could get scammed again.”

  “I’ve changed the way I look at things,” she said. “I’m not looking for love anymore, and I’m certainly not going to give anyone my hard-earned cash. They can take their sob stories and shove ‘em. I’m just going to chat with a few people around the world – and if they all happen to be eligible bachelors, so be it.”

  She gave Austin a smile, but he wasn’t sure if he was convinced. He looked at Trenton again, trying to send him a psychic message. Could they really believe her?

  “I’m telling you boys, you don’t have to worry about me.” Mom took her seat again. “You can try to help a person all you want, but at some point, you have to let it go. They need to stand on their own two feet. Austin, that point is now. And I suspect that goes for that boy you were telling me about, too.”

  Although Austin still frowned, he slowly nodded. Trenton looked similarly hesitant, yet accepting. This was their mother they were ta
lking about. They had to trust her to make the right decisions for herself.

  They finished dinner with pleasant conversation, and then Trenton and Austin took their separate cars to work. A stream of customers poured in all night, which meant the time flew by. Austin was stuck outside the whole time and only got quick glimpses of Lev when he went in to do head counts.

  Three-thirty came sooner than Austin expected. He opened the club door just as Trenton was about to come out of it. “I was just looking for you,” Trenton said. “Quick meeting. It won’t take long.”

  “It’s mandatory? I have places to be.”

  “Very mandatory,” Trenton said. “Get in here.”

  Austin followed, although he was complaining in his head. He wanted to be alone with Lev. It was time for them to go back to Austin’s place, and he wanted to wrap his arms around him and hold him tightly in his bed. Hopefully this would be as quick as Trenton suggested.

  At the moment, Trenton was walking up to the front of the room, standing just in front of the stage beside Brentley.

  “So, you all saw how things went tonight,” Brentley said, clasping a clipboard in his hands.

  The guys nodded, seeming excited. “We killed it!” Lev yelled out.

  “We sure did,” Trenton said. “It seems that after all the things we tried, what the customers respond to the most is the actual truth. They like knowing that the strippers they’re lusting after are in love.”

  “It does make sense,” Shade said, looking thoughtful. “People want what they can’t have. Knowing that we’re off limits may just add to our aura of mystery.”

  “I don’t have an easy answer for why this is working,” Brentley said. “All we can say for sure is that it is.”

  “So the two of us have decided that we should come out officially,” Trenton said. “Let the world know that we are all into guys here. We can make it part of the appeal – we’re not just a male strip club, but a gay male strip club. Come to the Tool Shed to see the guys you can’t have.”