As Kyle tapped his pen on the page, he furrowed his brow. He hated working in the space that was technically his office, one of the few side-rooms off the main space of the charity office. Every time he did, he missed the contact and the casual back-and-forth he had with the other paid employees and volunteers there.

He preferred the desk he kept out in the main office, next to Denver’s. Luckily, there was room here for both of them to keep two workspaces. If the charity kept growing, there wouldn’t be, but that would be a great problem to have.

Argh. There went his train of thought again. There was no question he needed to focus. The paperwork in front of him was one of the aspects of the job he liked less. He had to prepare a review for the board about the efficacy of their educational programming.

It was dry language, but the content was critically important. It was Kyle’s job to show what was working and what wasn’t, which would help guide which programs were allocated more funding, where they’d direct their fundraising efforts, how much they consequently received from donors and grants… basically everything.

The exact time and date of his presentation wasn’t scheduled yet, because the board meeting wasn’t. But as soon as they nailed down the date of that next board meeting—a few important board members’ schedules were hard to resolve—he’d have a deadline. He hated deadlines looming over his head, making it impossible to focus on anything else.

Kyle spun in his chair and sighed, casting his mind back over that year’s university outreach programming. It felt like he was getting more effective every year, but it never seemed enough for the board.

And this was a milestone year for several of their educational programs. The PrEP outreach was starting to take hold, and there was backlash to deal with, too. They had to be absolutely sure they weren’t having negative effects on the community health, as some put it.

Kyle would fight tooth and nail for access to prophylactic antiretrovirals for anyone who felt he needed it, but there was only so much they could do up against the big pharmaceutical companies. The right of access was a huge bone of contention. They’d had to fight more than one battle with insurance companies on their clients’ behalf last year. Luckily, many had come around to seeing the financial benefits.

It all came down to money.

There was a knock on the door, and Kyle stopped spinning and turned toward it. “Yeah?”

Denver poked his head in. “Hey. Your monk-style retreat helping?”

“Not really,” Kyle admitted. “I want to bounce these numbers off other people. There’s low uptake on two measurable results of the PrEP program, and I don’t want the board to think…”

“Right,” Denver nodded. He knew and shared Kyle’s passion for that particular program. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“Oh, dear. Of course.” Kyle folded his hands on his chest and gazed up at Denver as Denver closed the door.

“Do you have the dates you agreed on with Nic for the progress on the database… software… stuff? And any progress reports?”

Kyle winced. “Um. Let me check. Why?” Denver hadn’t seemed deadline-motivated about that particular ball he was trying to keep in the air before now.

“One of the board members…”

“It’s that…” Kyle searched his memory. “Cal Whitesmith dude, isn’t it?”

Denver rolled his eyes in silent acknowledgment. “He’s breathing down my neck.”

“Oh, God. Doesn’t he have anything better to do with his time?” Kyle wadded up his scratch paper and tossed it in the trash, then searched through his stack of papers for that particular section of stuff. “Must be on my desk out there. I wanna move out there anyway.”

He grabbed his laptop and tucked it under his arm, then followed Denver out. The thought of the mortification that Nic had quickly tried to hide when he mentioned dropping the laptop made him grin as he led the way out to the main room.

“Do you need anything else for your report?”

Kyle groaned. “How about you write my report, I write yours?”

“Somehow, that seems… ineffective. Can’t think how,” Denver chuckled.

“What?” Kyle winked. “But then, it’s not like real work we do here.” An allusion to a comment Cal had made a few board meetings ago.

A full-body shiver of annoyance rippled through Denver. He was hard to get worked up so fast. Kyle was momentarily proud of himself. “Hey. Don’t remind me,” Denver laughed

Kyle dropped his voice and stage-whispered, “And it’s all for our own benefit, so we may as well be volunteering.”

“What gets me,” Denver huffed, dropping into his chair, “is how he thinks it’s right to assume anyone’s HIV status just because they’re working—or volunteering—here.”

“I’m not going to tell him I’m negative. I’d rather he thinks I’m one of those guys if it means he doesn’t treat me like a golden boy… savior… saint, something,” Kyle snorted. He didn’t want the guy acting like he was doing Denver and the other poz guys here some kind of massive favor by working to advocate for them.

Besides, he’d rather be thought of as a man like Denver than one like Cal any day.

Denver clapped his shoulder. “I know. Those dates?”

“Oh. Right.” Kyle had gotten so worked up he’d momentarily forgotten what he was here for. “Here.” He yanked out his notes and handed them over, then flopped down at his desk to keep working on the impact report.

It didn’t take him long before he was smiling again, though. If he let every little twerp get under his skin, he’d be much less happy. He’d once had nothing else in life but his sunny persona, and he wasn’t ever going to let someone blot that out.