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Tom was heading back down from a big-cheese session up in Logan’s office when Greg’s wheedly voice wafted out of the office storage room Tom had moved him into. “Tom? Hey, Tom? Could you just—”
Tom leaned against Greg’s doorway, surveyed the desk space he’d carved out for himself in his rat den. “You’ve certainly got some cojones, Gregory, ordering me around from your garbage throne. You’re like that sanitation guy who made a museum out of East Harlem shit in that trash truck garage.”
Greg frowned, pouty. “I thought you said this was a normal, like, office-space redistricting thing.”
“Sure, Greg. But routine doesn’t necessarily mean equivalent.”
Greg took a deep breath then, as if gearing himself up for a power move. He unfolded himself from his plyboard desk and came around to lean on the front of it, waved Tom further inside. “Okay, well. Well, I was just wondering, if we could put in a word, you know, with the facilities folks? To make a little more space in here? I’ve stubbed like four of my toes and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a hairline fracture in my elbow.”
“Sure, Greg,” Tom said, and in surveying Greg’s bony joints for signs of actual damage he noticed the watch slung around the skinny dinosaur-fossil wrist protruding from his sleeve. “Oh, wow—is this the watch?” Tom asked, grasping Greg’s wrist between two ginger fingers to pull the watch out under the fluorescent lights. “The watch, worth a whole half-dynastic soul and a sad little dicky?”
Tom shook Greg’s wrist so that his hand flopped around, as loose and bony as his pretense at morals. The time on the watchface wasn’t even right. Tom brought the watch, with Greg’s wrist in it, up to his ear, heard only the ticking of his own impatience.
“Greg. Does this watch even fucking work?” He threw Greg’s wrist down like a gauntlet. “Is this a fucking joke?”
“No, Tom, it did—it does—it’s just that—”
“How much skrill did Kendall put up for this? Fucking watch that doesn’t even work.”
“No, I know. And, like, too much, actually? Like I’m hurting a little bit right now, I’m not going to lie.”
Tom made a pouty face. “Oh, is the great weight of betrayal making baby’s arms tired?” He said this in the baby-talk voice he reserved for cooing at Mondale and mocking Greg. Switched to his regular voice to say, “Shut the fuck up, Greg.”
“No, like, it’s just—it was like 40k, dude.”
“Greg. I didn’t even spend 40k for Logan’s birthday,” Tom said, arms crossed tight over his chest, his own lesser watch tucked subtly under his bicep. “Kendall put up 40k for you?” When Tom had offered to buy Greg a watch the other day, he had not anticipated that forty thousand dollars was the level of competition he’d be working with.
“That’s the thing,” Greg said, wiggling his baby chin. “He didn’t even buy it. Like, I thought he was going to because he said he’d ‘hook me up’? But it seems now that that doesn’t mean precisely the same thing to me as it does to Kendall? So I’m out like 40k right now, dude.”
Tom preened at this news, vindicated. “Well, Mr. Nouveau Riche, perhaps it would behoove you to remember who actually looks out for you around here. Huh?” He reached up to pat Greg rough on the shoulder as he turned to leave, smiling, said, “I’ll make sure the janitorial staff leave a fresh supply of doggy bags out in the breakroom.”
Greg mumbled something inaudible, but Tom was suddenly struck with a thought, and didn’t even think to accuse him of insubordinate grousing.
“Oh, and Greg?” Tom turned back around, found that Greg had shadowed him to the door, was standing too close. Perfect for sharing a confidence, though, Tom told himself, and didn’t back away. He plucked up Greg’s wrist again and rubbed his thumbs into Greg’s palm, like he did to Shiv to soothe her, to distract himself, when he wanted to ask her something difficult.
He looked up into Greg’s face with intent, said quietly, “I have, out of the goodness of my heart, offered myself up as the next blood sacrifice. A truly loyal blood sacrifice. Since those are so hard to come by, apparently, among the family proper. Hmm?” Greg looked away, and Tom swerved his head to catch his eye again. Greg frowned, and Tom realized he was being too gentle with his little palm massage, so he tugged on Greg’s fingers instead, pairing up the pinky and the thumb, index and ring finger, middle finger alone, listening to the bony knuckles pop.
He cleared his throat and went on: “And I just want you to know. If I end up behind bars? And if I die there, god forbid? And I find out that any action on your part served as any contribution to either of those eventualities—as I can only imagine, you know, that I will—I will learn how to dematerialize once I pass into the shadow realm, Gregory. And I will haunt your cheap little tighty-whities, like the worst case of crabs you’ve ever even heard of, for the rest of your days.”
Tom clasped Greg’s overlong hand between his broader ones, patted it with a raised eyebrow, said, “Got it, slugger?”