This story is a sequel to My First Year in College and My First Year in Prison.
Tyler is finally ready to commit to a serious relationship when he moves in with his former College crush, Austin. After years of entertaining the idea, it is time for those two to figure it out: is their relationship meant to last?
This story is entirely fictional and all characters featured are above 18.
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MY FIRST YEAR WITH AUSTIN
Chapter 22: Vegas, Baby!
The engagement ring was hidden in one of my socks in the bottom drawer and it felt like I was carrying a huge secret. It was not a burden on my shoulders, - I was very excited about it -, yet, it had me feeling anxious and paranoid of ruining the surprise.
I was sure of my decision, but for the life of me, I could not decide where and when I should propose to Austin. Also, I had no guarantee that he was going to say yes.
You know me, I started to get all in my head about it.
He had just divorced his wife, I had been engaged before as well, what if he just did not want to go through a marriage again?
We were doing so great; I did not want to do anything to mess that up.
Without being too obvious, - well, I hoped I was not being obvious -, I started to give hints about a potential commitment.
"Gary just called me to know how I was doing." I told him one morning during breakfast.
I was a bit distracted, Austin had droplets of milk all around his lips. A few droplets had also fallen on his chest. He looked very cute and sexy at the same time.
"Oh yes, he did send a text while you were at the hospital. I replied to him when you started feeling better to give him some good news."
"His wedding company with Steve is taking off. Tons of gay people are getting married next summer apparently! Season of love!"
"That's great!" Austin said enthusiastically.
I had a little hope but then, he added:
"It's so hard to get a new company running and making actual profits. Good for them."
"Yeah, exactly..."
Austin did not take any of the baits on marriage I offered him in the following days. On the other hand, he was acting very romantic towards me and we were doing better than ever before.
Deep in my heart, I knew that Austin wanted to spend his life with me. He must have been... Right? We were too good together.
I had this dumb romantic idea made-up in my mind anyway, where I wanted it to be a big surprise. Hopefully, it would be a very nice one for the both of us...
I stopped giving hints and I just waited for the perfect opportunity to arise.
During the same period, I was working hard on the development of Ralph's career and I had finally gotten a positive response from a well-known gay club in Las Vegas.
The owner was a big fan of the "Nine Inches King" (who would not be?), and after I had sent the videos from Ralph performing at the Man Cave, the boss was convinced to give him a shot and I only had to negotiate the best rate for my talent.
Trust me, I did a great job on that one. If the job were to be confirmed, Ralph would be making a shit ton of money for a residency at one of the hottest (and raunchiest) places in Vegas.
Ralph was very excited about the idea of performing live, as lately, he had been losing interest in the social media aspect of his work. He hugged me when I gave him the news.
By hugging, I should have said that he practically threw me around in the air.
"Sorry, bro! Can't measure my own strength sometimes! Been super motivated to the gym recently."
He flexed to prove his point. He did not have anything to prove though. Ralph did look bigger every time I was seeing him, especially his biceps... And his arms were already quite big when I first met him!
"Dude, easy, I'm still in rehabilitation!" I complained with a smile.
If Sergio clearly had the hang of social media and loved following the stats, -- I was merely helping him implementing some of the strategies which had worked with Ralph -, on the other hand, Ralph was not so keen on spending his time on his computer or his phone, but he did love showing himself off in front of a real audience.
Given how he had handled the management, choreography, and overall performance of the strip male revue "the Magic Seven" inside a prison facility, there was little to no doubt that the "Nine Inches King" was made for the live-shows.
All and all, we found ourselves planning a trip to Las Vegas the week-end before Austin and I were supposed to move back to the East-Coast so Ralph could make his debut at the "RATED R -- MALE STRIP CLUB".
Since Austin and I had originally planned to have a dinner party with Janice, Sergio, and Allison before we left, the move-away party turned into a Vegas trip with the little gang.
I was not very sure Janice would want to tag along since the main goal of this week-end was to go see Ralph and Sergio perform in the strip club (I had managed to get Sergio performing alongside Ralph), but she eventually agreed to come.
Blond Janice was way more adventurous than brunette Janice.
Although, the old Janice did run away from her own wedding ceremony in her white dress and got into a plane to fly across the ocean still wearing it. So eh, maybe I should stop being surprised by my best friend's boldness!
Austin wanted to make this trip special and with the bonus he had gotten from work at the end of his one-year contract, he upgraded everyone's rooms.
He got the two of us in the most luxurious one, on the very top floor.
From the ridiculously tiny hospital bed, to the king size of a five stars hotel, my life had certainly taken a turn in just a few weeks!
At this point, I had not talked about my project to propose to Austin to anyone but I still went with the ring, just in case.
Las Vegas might not be the most romantic city... Well, it very might be the least romantic city on Earth actually, but I thought there could be an occasion there to pop up the question and as I was holding to the damn ring for three weeks, I was getting eager to propose!
Every day, Austin was giving me a new reason to want to marry him. The way he was smiling at me, holding my hand tenderly, scratching the back of my neck slowly, leaving cute post-it notes on the bathroom's mirror before he left for work...
I tried to give back to him as much as I was receiving. I took interest, or at least attempted to, in football competitions (it did not last very long), I worked on the decoration of our future apartment to surprise him, and yes, I did plan this romantic proposal despite never talking seriously about marriage with Austin.
You have to take some chances in life!
We took two cars to drive to Las Vegas, I was in a car with Austin and Janice, while Sergio, Allison and Ralph were sharing a ride.
Janice and I listened to early 2000's and 2010's pop songs and Austin had to suffer through our karaoke versions of Katy Perry and Shakira's biggest hits until we arrived.
If I had converted Austin to Drag Race, I still hoped he would get to the point of understanding the importance of "It's Britney, Bitch" in our culture.
He got the opportunity to have more exposure to trashy pop music at the first club we went to that night. It was a "night off" for all of us and things got pretty wild.
I had not been to a bar or a club since the attack so I was nervous about it at first, but a couple tequila shots got me right back in the mood to dance.
Plus, I was finally allowed to drink some alcohol so I got very drunk, very quickly!
We danced our ass off, sang over the tunes, laughed at Ralph's shenanigans stripping on the bar -- he always needed to be the centre of attention and he had to take his shirt off two minutes after getting in -- and we went to bed at 5 AM after a (not so sober) tour of the casinos.
Janice and Allison shared a passionate French kiss when they made 1.000$ playing blackjack. I thought Ralph's eyes were about to pop out of their sockets when that happened. It did not do much for me...
They did spend and lose the 1K about ten minutes later.
Vegas, baby!
Although we were exhausted, Austin fucked me in the bathtub afterwards, the thing was bigger than a hot-tub so he was even able to pound my ass doggystyle in the water.
All and all, it was one of the best nights (and fucks!) of my life.
I looked at the sun rising as we went to bed and I thought about the ring carefully hidden in my bag.
Maybe it was indeed a great place to propose to someone. From the balcony we had up there, the view was beautiful. The sight of Austin lying stark naked in our bed, snoring a little, was not too bad either.
Fuck... I so wanted to do it. I decided it was time to put the plan in motion!
The next day, I woke up around 1PM, hungover as fuck, and I found Janice and Ralph who were hanging by themselves near the pool.
I thought they were an odd pairing as I was rarely seeing just the two of them together.
Ralph's oiled-up muscular body, tanning under the Nevada sun was stunning. All the old ladies addicted to gambling were eying him out, his super skinny speedos who were working more like a thong than anything else were not helping bringing the attention down.
I recognized it was a pair owned by Sergio. It was the typical flashy colour he was wearing, bright yellow this time.
I thought it was a good opportunity to let them both in on the plan as I would require their help to execute it.
"Hey guys, how is it going?"
Janice looked at me through her sunglasses. She had the face of her bad days.
"Don't wanna talk about it..."
"Blondie here is hungover as shit. She can't handler her booze!" Ralph chuckled.
"You, on the other hand, seem fine." I noted, fist-bumping Ralph.
"Always! Just need to work my tan for tonight's show. Too bad this place would not allow me go full nude, I'm gonna have some lines. That's a buzz kill."
Needless to say, Ralph's strip performance was bound to end up with him grinding his naked bodybuilder body. To be fair, there was a good chance that there would not be any actual strip tease and he would start the show in his birthday suit.
"Believe me, he did try to go all the way." Janice commented with a little smile on her face.
"That stupid nerd scolded me like I was a child." Ralph pointed to a lifeguard nearby.
I laughed. The dude with the typical red shorts seemed really annoyed and over Ralph's antics.
"Get a grip on your exhibitionist tendencies, man, we don't need to get kicked out of this hotel. Besides, if everything goes according to plans tonight, you'll have a gig to get naked in public five nights a week! And you'll be freaking well-paid for it!"
"Don't worry about that, manager, I'm not going to disappoint. I'm fucking ready for this."
I bet he was.
"Talking about plans for tonight... And being ready..."
My transitions skills were not ideal but it got the point across. Janice lowered her sunglasses to look over at me. She had a hyper-sense to understand that I was about to say something important.
Ralph did not have the same listening skills...
