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“Can we have some more wine, please?” Tom asks, clicking his fingers at the waiter, winking at Greg like a secret. The restaurant’s ambience clatters around them, forks on plates, chairs scraping, soft music in the background.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Tom?” Greg asks with playful faux-innocence.
“Yes, I am,” grins Tom. “Yes, I am, Greg.”
Greg tucks his hair behind his ear. He’s not sure if it’s a joking gesture or an instinctive one. Either way, Tom catches it and his eyes sparkle.
Tom goes ahead and asks for the ortolan.
“I gotta level with you,” Greg says a few minutes later, belly full of bird, “If I eat any more songbirds, I’m gonna hurl. My grampa already bought me dinner tonight.”
Tom brushes him off to talk about company politics. Greg is distracted throughout the entire conversation, although it sounds important. Everything Tom says sounds significant in some way or another. He has gravitas. Greg envies him desperately.
“I mean– let us eat cake!” Tom says excitedly, wheeze-laughing, wild-eyed.
Greg is excited to be privy to this conversation, even if he doesn’t quite understand the specifics with Grampa Ewan and the vote and Tom possibly soon being the third most important guy in the company, but it sounds major and cool and Greg feels special. He always feels special when Tom tells him secrets.
More wine. More, more, more. The bottle costs $1000. It tastes like oak and tannins. The two of them tip back glass after glass.
The ortolan (and the entirety of the tasting menu) sits unhappily in Greg’s stomach with all the booze. Very unhappily indeed.
Not long later, Greg finds himself hunched over the toilet, clutching the porcelain bowl, heaving. “I can feel it,” he says urgently. “Tom, I can feel it coming up.”
“Relax,” Tom says, standing behind him in the open cubicle, nudging the back of Greg’s shoe consolingly with his foot. “Hazard of indulgence. The Romans did this on purpose. Count yourself lucky that it’s come to you naturally.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” Greg says, retching. “This is so embarrassing, I’m so sorry. Don’t, like, think less of me, please.”
“Come on,” Tom laughs, “This is networking! This is the high life. Wine and dine and hurl. Nothing new to me.”
“This is normal? This is how you get a better palate, one that likes songbirds and oaky wine?” Greg asks, babbling to distract himself from his nausea. Nothing’s come up yet but he’s sure it will soon. There are tears in his eyes. He hates getting sick.
“You’ll get there eventually,” says Tom, and claps Greg on the back with his hand.
Greg throws up.
~
“There. All good,” says Tom, dusting off Greg’s shoulders at the bathroom sinks a few minutes later. “Good as new. My protégé.”
“I don’t know what that means,” says Greg. His hairline is still damp from splashing water on his face. This restaurant is so fancy they have actual towels and an attendant in the bathroom. He clutches his personal towel like a safety blanket. He hopes the attendant didn’t hear him puke.
“You don’t need to know what it means. It’s you, you little bastard.” Tom ruffles Greg’s long hair. “You emetic fucking scoundrel.”
“I’m so drunk,” says Greg.
Tom squeezes his shoulders. “We’re not done yet.”
“We’re not?” Greg says with equal fear and anticipation.
~
The club is loud. Much louder than the restaurant. The music blares, the lights flash. It’s a little like being at a fairground. Greg’s been to clubs before, but not many times, and certainly not ones as fancy as this. Tom pays a couple thou to get them into the spacious VIP area, where they dance alone, badly and drunkenly, while they watch the lower ranks of the club below them, grinding and crashing into each other. Greg laughs so hard he gets hiccups. When he looks over at Tom, Tom’s eyes are sparkling again.
“Yeah? See?” Tom coaxes. “It’s the good life.”
“I see it,” Greg nods, being the guy he imagines Tom wants him to be.
They down shots with gold leaf floating in them. Greg has to swallow several times to get the crinkly leaf down his throat. Then Tom cajoles him into sharing another bottle of red. This one tastes fruity. It perks him up. Makes his palms tingle, makes his head fuzzy. Makes his stomach turn.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters, “Shit, Tom?”
Tom is busy dancing alone like a crazy person. His weird moves are at odds with his polished appearance, his nice hair, his classy cologne. He seems to be ignoring Greg.
“Tom,” Greg urges into Tom’s ear, grabbing his arm for dear life. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been here before. Quit breathing down my neck, you leech.”
“I’m going to throw up again.”
“You’re not.”
“I am!” Greg says. He glances around frantically. The wine sits in a bucket of ice. That will do. “I’m going to throw up in this ice bucket.”
“Is that a threat?” Tom is still dancing.
“Oh, fuck this,” Greg says and darts away.
He finds the bathroom, luckily, and though he trips on his way to the toilet, he manages to protect his face when he lands, then finds himself conveniently on his knees, where he hurls his guts out. More traces of songbird come up, along with a fuckload of red wine, and a little gold leaf. Quite the mix.
“Sorry, Gregster,” Tom says from behind him.
“You should be,” Greg gasps between retches. “You, uh, you fuck.”
“I didn’t believe you,” Tom explains loftily. He’s rubbing Greg’s back again. “You’ll get through it, buddy. You can do anything. You’re a star.”
“I’m a star,” Greg mutters. He shuts his eyes. “I’m a star.”
~
Greg awakes upstairs in Tom’s apartment, fully clothed but in tremendous disarray, stinking of alcohol and vomit and Tom’s cologne. He remembers collapsing onto Tom in the cab, telling him all sorts of stupid things, like how he just wants Tom to like him. He feels embarrassed.
He comes downstairs to find Shiv and Tom arguing about the Waystar vote. Shiv marches out. Slams the door. Tom just sits there, hand resting on his brow.
“My tummy hurts,” Greg says to break the silence, but also because it’s true.
“You’re not going to throw up again, are you?” Tom asks. He sounds cold all of a sudden. Unkind. Like he’s taking his anger at the company car crash out on Greg. He does this. He thinks Greg doesn’t notice, but he does. Something out of Greg’s control will upset Tom, and then Tom will shout at Greg and call him a perfidious cunt or something to that effect, and Greg will take it, because he takes whatever Tom gives him, because Tom is so fucking cool that he feels lucky just to be around him, let alone to be his Fabergé, or protégé, or whatever it was. “You’re kidding me,” Tom sighs.
“I’m like, not kidding,” Greg says. “Where’s your bathroom?”
~
Greg expects to barf alone this time, judging by the deep-set frown on Tom’s face and his deadly still posture when Greg leaves him. But just like the last two times, Greg is mid-sick on his knees in the bathroom when he feels Tom’s foot nudging his shoe. He left the bathroom door open, he realises. As if he hoped Tom would come.
“Is that you?” he asks stupidly.
“Yeah, it’s me, buddy,” says Tom. He kicks Greg lightly, and Greg takes it as gladly as he’d take a hug. “I’m here.”