Work Text:
There’s something about tailor’s shops that brings out a facet of Tom’s personality that Greg has started referring to as is-he-aware-of-what-this-looks-like?
The answer to that question is no, Tom seems blissfully unaware of the way he acts around Greg in all situations, or if he does know, he doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge it in any formal capacity, regardless of what they’ve been through in the last year. Today is no different. They’re waiting for their appointment, Tom stretched out on the client couch, scotch and soda in one hand, pattern book in his lap. He’s giving Greg a once over as Greg flicks through fabric swatches on the chair opposite, the kind of look that implies that Greg can have some opinions but Tom’s say is final.
Greg rubs his thumb across a swatch of sage green cotton. The trick to this whole dynamic is knowing when to pick your battles. When to let go and concede to Tom’s will, and when to push to get what he really wants. He flicks between the swatch of sage green and the navy check behind it.
“So like is this suit for anything in particular?” Greg asks.
“Do you need an occasion for a tailored suit?” Tom responds, tilting his scotch in the glass. “Despite my best efforts, your wardrobe is still deeply lacking Gregory, who knows how long it’s going to take to get it into some sort of order. However, this one in particular, I think it would be best for you to wear it at Matsson’s Spring Gala. If I have to be seen with you then you’re going to at least look less like we plucked you out of a high school prom in Winnipeg.”
Greg nods, putting the swatches aside. He keeps the sage green, smoothes it out against his thigh. Tom sips his scotch.
“Are we sure that’s your color?” Tom asks, his tone implying that he does not think so. Greg scratches his nose, aligning the blocks of his argument in his head, trying to slot them together in such a way that the foundations are solid.
“Do you-it’s not black tie? Is there like a specific color scheme we’re adhering to?”
“Not as such, but you’re my little datie, so we should be somewhat aesthetically compatible. Mine is a royal blue three piece with a peak lapel, I’m not sure how sage green compliments that tableau.”
Greg smooths the swatch out again. “I wear a lot of navy for work, I think I’m interested in uh expanding the color palette into bolder choices.”
Tom snorts. “You consider sage green to be a bold choice?”
“I mean, for me, I’ve always adhered to, what could be considered dark masculine colors, the suit in Italy the notable exception, and I think, well like colors aren’t gendered, I mean they don’t have to be, but I think that, like this color is slightly more feminine and I’d like to explore that.”
Greg, as a native Canadian, has an indepth knowledge of how to test that the ice on the lake is thick enough to skate on safely. He knows that this is potentially a thin patch, the possibility of slipping into freezing water keeps him from expanding on why this might be important to him. But the thing about Tom is that however many times Greg has handed him an icepick, Tom has never once cracked the ice beneath Greg’s feet. Not in Hungary, not at the hearings, not even in the aftermath of Italy.
“You’ve lost me,” Tom says, setting aside the pattern book.
“Well like,” Greg says, looking at his lap as he speaks, “recently I’ve been doing some thinking, and gender is um a social construct Tom and I think I want to er, opt out of it I guess.”
“What do you mean you opt out?”
“I just like don't subscribe to the binary,” Greg says, looking up at Tom and tilting his hands in a placating way, “but I think it's cool that you're like a man.”
“You think it's cool I'm a man ?”
Greg grimaces. He’s already uncomfortable in the chair, it not being designed for his long limbs, so when he hunches in on himself further, he thinks he looks like a dead spider, curling up in his death throes.
“You think it's cool?” Tom repeats. Greg can see the gears in Tom’s mind whirring, a series of Rube Goldberg-esque machines going into motion to construct the next sentence to issue from his mouth. “Do you like that Greg? Does it turn you on?”
Tom is a hop, skip and a jump away from being divorced, what with the pre-nup, it all being down to who can twist the knife of pettiness the deepest, and as such, whatever the Tom/Greg relationship is has remained suitably hand-wavy and vague. There’s been a significant ratcheting up of tension, Tom feeling emboldened enough to abandon whatever subtlety he thought he had before, but it’s all words, no actions. Greg’s not entirely sure what will happen when the tension finally breaks.
“Your partner being happy is uh, pleasing? Like it's good? So it's I mean technically I suppose you could like, construe that as? A turn on?”
Greg is saved from whatever Tom might say in response to that by the arrival of the tailor. Tom gets to his feet, snatching the swatch from Greg’s lap as he starts to explain the minutiae of his aesthetic vision for Greg’s suit, which in reality is his long term plans for Greg’s aesthetic in general. Still, it seems the sage green is on the table, so Greg is counting that as a win.
//
“So,” Tom says later at dinner, “pet name wise, no baby boy? Or baby girl?”
Greg, who has a mouthful of maki roll, furrows his brow, confused as to how they got here from the previous discussion about whether Stewy Hosseini’s grey streak is real or manufactured.
“I’ve never really thought about it. I mean, just, like, baby is, fine? Good, perhaps? I can be calling you? Baby girl if that is something you yourself is, uh, into?”
“What? Greg, no, that’s ludicrous.”
“I mean, sometimes, you have a habit of referring to yourself in, um a feminine way.”
Tom refills Greg’s sake. Greg senses that Tom is trying to build up to something. He chews a piece of salmon sashimi thoughtfully, waiting for Tom to get to the crux.
“I just,” Tom continues, gesturing in Greg’s direction, “want to understand it all. You, specifically. I want to understand you.”
Greg chews another piece of sashimi, wondering what path to take here. It’s a complicated knot to untangle, only ever referring to yourself as a man out of obligation and politeness. He’s not had much cause to question it, has only ever considered gender in an abstract way, and now finds himself rather ambivalent about the whole thing. Gender: No? Gender: He/Him in the same way you refer to most dogs as a good boy? At this point in his life, gender: businessperson, but in previous iterations, gender: stoner?
“Just like you know the me of it all, I guess my gender would be uh sugar baby, if we are assigning labels and such.”
Tom snorts, raising an eyebrow. “Sugar baby, how incredibly crass of you.”
“Is that uh not what we're doing here?”
“Is that what you think we’re doing here?”
Greg can feel his mouth getting wobbly, the way it usually does when Tom asks a question that Greg isn’t sure of the right answer to.
“You, uh, literally just bought me a suit, even though I am at a place salary wise where I could afford it. Not that I’m like complaining, I wouldn’t have-like it’s a joke, kind of, but I would say, in the grand scheme of things, we do have a specific relationship that could be described in terms such as sugar baby, or I guess patronage? Benefactor?”
Tom has furrowed his brow, as is often the case when Greg gets caught up in gears of his own explanations. Greg grabs a tempura shrimp with his chopsticks, adding it to his plate as a way of resetting himself before trying again.
“I’m just like, not convinced that man is the right term for me. I don’t, masculinity is not the issue per say, I’m just unconcerned with a particular term. I’m not a woman, I’m not a man, I just sort of am. I read um, an article in Teen Vogue about what it means to identify as agender, and I think that’s probably the best descriptor, but like I wouldn’t blanch at the term nonbinary.”
Greg dips the shrimp in soy sauce before popping it in his mouth. That’s as deep as he can get without this whole thing turning into a full lecture on gender as a spectrum and Greg’s not really interested in providing a four-page bibliography.
“It makes sense that you would read Teen Vogue,” Tom sneers, “what else did you pick up from there? What eyeshadow best matches your star sign? Which backpack to wear in the fall to indicate that you should be valedictorian?”
This Greg is comfortable with. The jockish razzing, the rhetorical questions designed to be jabs, but in turn reveal Tom’s slightly soft underbelly. Tom and Greg both have a habit of filling silences with words in an almost recreational sense. Anything not to feel the weight of their own insignificance, or perhaps the weight of their own desires; the way everything hangs just out of reach, the way that they both cling to language as a way to muddle through.
“My horoscope said that today a fixed attitude will most likely run into a great deal of opposition, if a certain someone gets uptight,” Greg says, reaching for his sake.
“Oh fuck you Greg, I’m not uptight.”
“You’re not that relaxed either.”
“Just for that, sugar baby , you’re paying for this one, and possibly lunch for the next week.”
Greg acquiesces, but he doubts very much that that will happen.
//
Greg is scrolling through the options on Shudder when Tom brings it up again.
“So, he, him, that’s still ok for you?”
Tom is at the other end of the couch, a leave room for Jesus amount away. It’s strange, given how often Tom touches Greg in public; knocking shoulders in the elevator, fingers brushing when handing each other coffee and files, congratulatory slaps on the back, and Tom’s repeated need to fuss over Greg’s clothing. Greg only ever flinches now if he doesn’t hear Tom coming. Now, in the privacy of their own apartment, Tom is suddenly shy.
“Yeah, I mean, the pronouns aspect is not necessarily that important to me so much as being thought of as not a man. I guess uh, I’d be interested in trialling they, them in sort of a he-slash-they situation.”
Tom swirls his white wine around the glass. Like most of the household items, the glasses were bought by Tom. When it became apparent that divorce was on the horizon, and Kendall actually remembered that he owned Greg’s apartment and Greg was living there scot-free, alternative accommodations needed to be found, and in the scramble, they’d ended up as roommates, because that seemed the obvious solution at the time.
Tom is the one who brought all of the useful items like cutlery and glasses and saucepans. Nearly all the kitchen items are Tom’s, save for Greg’s one crockpot and a ATN:We Hear For You mug that neither of them lays claim to. Greg provides things like various media subscriptions and oat milk and is the only one of them that remembers to pick up toilet paper.
Greg clicks on the listing for The Hitcher (1986). Tom wrinkles his nose, not one for horror in any capacity, even ones where there isn’t that much blood on screen.
“It’s more a thriller than a straight horror,” Greg offers, leaning forward to grab a handful of popcorn from the weird golden decorative bowl on the coffee table. Greg’s not sure that it’s meant for popcorn, but Tom chose to serve it that way.
“Why do you subject me to this Greg? Is this payback for some perceived slight? Is this because we almost went to prison and you were faced with the prospect that you might have to join a gang to survive?”
Greg laughs. “I mean if anything, it would be punishment for the water bottle shaped bruises I was covered in after the panic room.”
Tom makes the face he does whenever Greg brings up that incident. It’s somewhere in the cross-section between a crumpled piece of paper and Mondale when he gets caught eating something he shouldn’t.
"Greg it's unbecoming to hold onto grievances for this long."
Greg grabs another handful of popcorn and starts the movie. When Jim Halsey spots the titular Hitcher flagging him down in the pouring rain, Greg shifts his body closer to Tom but keeps his eyes on the screen.
"Hey, um, it would be cool if you like didn't bring this up at work, the nonbinary thing I mean, because as much as I appreciate Matsson's whole ' we should start doing Pride month ' thing, I don't really want to end up as the face of that campaign, you know. Like surprise, the person you saw lying to Congress is uh, not the gender you thought he was, yay diversity."
Tom reaches across to give Greg’s knee a reassuring squeeze. He then pats Greg’s knee a few times.
“Of course not buddy. There’s not a poster board big enough to encompass your lanky frame.”
Greg rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because that was like my primary concern.”
Tom retracts his hand and they watch the movie in silence for a while. Greg rearranges himself to get comfortable, arm stretching out along the back of the couch. If he wanted he could touch the back of Tom’s neck. Tom clears his throat, a guteral, bear-like sound.
“You know I would never share any personal particulars with our colleagues that you didn’t want me to,” Tom says, voice low and soft.
“Yeah,” Greg replies, pitching his voice to match Tom’s, “I know, like, you’ve definitely proved trustworthy in terms of information I impart to you. It’s why I told you in the first place.”
Greg is in two minds about brushing his fingers against Tom’s nape, unsure of whether it would be welcome. He knows, on some level, that he is extremely touchstarved, that maybe Tom is a little bit too. Greg can’t help the fact he’s a hugger, even though people have pushed him away time and time again, his first instinct is still to reach out. So far Tom is the only one who’s been interested in reaching back.
Tom puts his empty wine glass on the coffee table. When he leans back, he moves closer to Greg, letting his head drop onto Greg’s shoulder.
“Is this ok?” Tom murmurs.
Greg brings his arm down to settle around Tom’s shoulder.
“Of course.”
//
The Spring Gala takes place at an exclusive rooftop bar. Greg leans on the railing in the smoking area, flicking his ash onto New York sprawling below him. It still feels surreal to be this high above everything, in a literal sense as much as a metaphorical one. Greg sometimes feels like there’s areas of his skin that he hasn’t quite shed yet, the way that he gravitates to where the food is in any given room as if he expects this meal to be his last, the way that he blunders through conversations with other members of the tax bracket he now sits within because he forgets to pretend he’s been apart of it all along.
The suit looks good. It’s amazing how different he looks when wearing clothes tailored to his frame. He’s never thought of himself as willowy before, but the sage green does that to him. He’s a weeping willow, leafy tendrils swaying in the wind. Greg stubs his cigarette butt out on the railing, making a contentious effort to drop it in a nearby crystal ashtray rather than fling it over the side and add to New York’s general grimy atmosphere.
Tom is somewhere in his periphery, glad-handing rich donors and applying his particular brand of Midwest charm. Greg supposes that toadying is a more accurate term for how Tom conducts himself in these sort of settings. Still, rich old women like the cut of Tom’s jib, they find all sorts of excuses to touch him, especially now he’s about to be an eligible bachelor again. Greg thought it was funny earlier, when a tiny, bird-like woman in an antique fur stole demanded that Tom escort her to her seat at the sit-down dinner, cooing when she squeezed his upper arm through his suit.
Greg isn’t worried about Tom running off with some Westchester widow. Not when they keep catching the way Tom looks at them, barely repressed lust and something softer, almost tender. It makes Greg feel like muddled mint in a mojito, all swirled around and fizzing. He doesn’t quite know how to bridge the gap, to get to the place where Tom will let himself have this. Greg worries that Tom wants but feels like he cannot have, but he can, Greg wants him to have, wants to reach out and have Tom hold on.
This suit makes Greg want to go dancing. They danced together a little at Tom’s wedding, both of them in a somewhat stilted white guy way. Not that Greg really considers themself a guy anymore. They’ve been slowly switching pronouns, testing the waters of they and finding it enjoyable. Besides Tom, they’re not quite sure whether they’ll tell anyone else for a little while. Greg wants more time to play in the space, uncover what this could all mean for them. Everything has been a hypothetical up until this point, a strange exercise in survival.
There’s absolutely no way Greg would have considered any of it, had his cousins not been ousted and Logan finally taking retirement to sit on his many millions and cause more emotional damage to his children. Kendall, in some sort of perfomativly woke way, would have made a big deal about it, had any of his plans to gut Logan gone his way. Greg tastes acidic sourness at the back of their throat at the thought, pictures himself as a Waystar Equality and Diversity Campaign figurehead, picture perfect rainbow capitalism at work.
It’s not that Greg considers himself a good person, by any stretch of the imagination. He shredded those papers, then lied about it to the government. They are benefitting from the capitalist system and will likely continue to do so. That doesn’t mean that they can’t observe the double standards when they apply to him.
Tom approaches, two pisco sours in his hands. Greg accepts his, deliberately brushing his fingers against Tom’s. The first sip is tart, a little silky.
“If one more handsy dowager tries to cop a feel,” Tom says through gritted teeth, “I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
“I feel like maybe,uh,” Greg replies, tilting his body towards Tom’s in a somewhat conspiratorial manner, “you’ve only recently resurrected your reputation from the ashes, so it would be inadvisable to be caught throwing an old lady over the side of a building, from like an optics point of view.”
“Old people break their hips all the time,” Tom grumbles, “I’d obviously make it look like an accident. Half of these old biddies are held together with metal pins and scotch tape as it is.”
Greg hums, taking another sip. More sour this time, bitter in a good way.
“I want to go dancing,” Greg announces.
“Right now?”
Greg shrugs. “Whenever you want to take me.”
“I see, on my dime is it?”
Greg runs a hand through their hair. It’s grown out a little, probably requires a cut to give it some body.
“We could do it in the living room for all I care,” Greg says, the pisco sour having loosened his tongue. “So long as it was you and me.”
They’re not sure if it’s exacerbated by the alcohol, but the flush on Tom’s cheeks increases tenfold. Greg allows himself to feel privately smug. It must show on his face because Tom swats at his shoulder.
“You can’t just say those things Gregory, this isn’t a Nora Ephron movie. You can put curlers in your hair, but it won’t make you Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally .”
“Do you think I should curl my hair? I’ve never done much with it except cut it.”
“You potentially getting a perm is not the point I was trying to make.”
“Well like I wouldn’t get a perm Tom, that would, be like an intense frying of my hair, but I could get, uh, I don’t know, hot rollers?”
Tom screws his face up in frowning derision. “Is fifties housewife your gender now? You going to put cold cream on before bed and walk around the apartment in a quilted housecoat?”
“Why, are you into that?” Greg says, finishing off his drink.
“No,” Tom says flatly, “I like to think my tastes are not quite so vintage and domestic.”
Greg hums, seriously doubting that domesticity isn’t something that Tom desperately craves. “Was the backless turtleneck situation a, uh, Shiv preferance or, like did you buy that?”
Tom tenses. Greg moves his arm along the railing behind them, creating a deliberate sense of intimacy.
“I only like ask,” Greg continues, “cause I’m curious if that kind of thing comes in my size?”
Greg watches the bob of Tom’s adams apple as Tom audibly swallows.
“If you were,” Tom says slowly, “to invest in some more risque clothing, I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that. But perhaps items that don’t remind us of my soon to be ex-wife, who I don’t need to remind you, is your cousin.”
Greg nods, conceding the point. “That’s uh, fair. But yes to the backless numbers.”
“Christ alive Greg,” Tom mutters, the flush on his cheeks having spread across most of his face. “Did your cavorting with two women in Italy bring out these slutty tendencies, or have you been hiding this particular light under the bushel of wide-eyed faux incompetence?”
Greg smirks. “I mean, like you offered the deal with the devil? It’s you, uh, I went home with, so to speak.”
“If I’d known you were going to be this provocative,” Tom says. He chugs the last of his drink before continuing. “I-the signature is not yet on the dotted line. We’re still negotiating the nasty particulars of this unfortunate split.”
“You don’t wear your ring anymore,” Greg points out.
“Is this some other woman fantasy you’re eager to play out?”
Greg shrugs. “I would argue that like emotionally I was the other woman. You did say you would uh, marry me, although that proposal was kind of unpleasant. Also that forehead kiss could have been described, if there had been onlookers, as um tender.”
“Greg, if you continue to list moments where my judgment was less than stellar then there is a significant chance I will cause property damage before we leave tonight.”
“I liked the forehead kiss,” Greg protests, “the castration reference I could have done without.”
Tom closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “The direction of this conversion is filling me with several regrets, which is probably the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.”
Greg, hoping to salvage the mood, brings their arm around Tom’s waist, putting their hand on Tom’s hip. “It was romantic, in uh, a slightly insane way, but it turns out I’m kind of into that. And like, I wouldn’t really have known you were interested otherwise. So like, you know, don’t get in your own way with this. I’m like, very much a sure thing at this point.”
Greg gives Tom’s hip a reassuring squeeze.
“Alright you devious seducer,” Tom says, tilting his chin up to give Greg a somewhat defiant look. “If I don’t look available to the ageing population of old money New York, how else are we going to raise money for impoverished orphans or whatever the fuck this fundraiser is supposed to be for?”
“I guess you could contribute by getting me another drink,” Greg suggests.
Tom rolls his eyes but does what he’s told.
//
The divorce papers get signed and the first thing Tom does when he gets home is stride across the apartment to where Greg is lounging on the couch and kiss them straight on the mouth. Greg makes a confused, although enthusiastic noise, tilting his head so the kiss gets deeper. Their hand comes up to grip the back of Tom’s neck.
“Do you know,” Tom growls, “how long I’ve wanted to do that?”
“I have like a vague idea.”
Tom plunders Greg’s mouth again, a desperate, needy kiss that has Greg surging up, kind of wanting to yank Tom over the back of the couch, despite that probably being a terrible idea. Greg doesn’t want to imagine what Tom might be like if he ends up with a sex injury before they’ve even had sex.
“What do you, uh, we can go slow, we don’t have to do everything immediately,” Greg says, “I don’t uh, want to assume your experience level with uh, this sort of equipment.”
“I’m sure it’s not that complicated Greg,” Tom says, laying the condescension on thick, “I have been known to self abuse and unless you’re secretly some sort of wild animal with a corkscrew dick, I think I can get to grips with the mechanics of this whole thing.”
The next kiss is a little softer, Tom holding Greg’s face in his hands, as if he has cottoned on to the fact that Greg isn’t going to skedaddle anytime soon. Greg swipes their tongue along Tom’s bottom lip, getting a trace of salt.
“You should like, come over here, like we should kiss on the couch, not over it.”
Greg doesn’t recognise their own voice. It’s deeper, a little huskier, like the whiskey Tom pours if they’re both still awake after midnight.
In a blink Greg has a lapful of Tom Wambsgans. It’s a comforting weight and Greg likes that it positions Tom above him. Greg is always looking down, even if Tom’s physical presence makes him feel like he’s looking up. Greg puts their hands on Tom’s waist, thumbs rubbing circles.
“What do you want to do?” Greg asks, willing to let Tom set the pace here. The moment suddenly feels heavy, all the expectations and waiting and unresolved tension having built up to this exact second. Since the baseball field, they’ve been meandering their way here, no one else to count on except each other, and for all their sins, Greg doesn’t really regret any of it.
Tom looks overwhelmed, as if the gravity of the situation has only just dawned on him. It’s one thing to want, it’s another to have. Greg coaxes Tom into a kiss, careful and sweet.
“We can just make out for a bit,” Greg suggests, “like I said, we don’t have to tick all the things off on your sex bucket list.”
“I don’t have a sex bucket list,” Tom replies, far too quickly for it not to be a tiny bit of a lie.
Greg laughs. “You can relax Tom, I’m not going anywhere. S’like, I very much want to be here. It doesn’t-it can just be good, you know.”
“I don’t know what to do with my hands,” Tom admits.
Greg takes Tom’s hands, situates them on his shoulders. Their own hands go back to Tom’s waist, anchoring him. Tom lets out a shuddering breath, right hand coming to Greg’s neck to play with the hair at the nape. Arousal is flickering around in Greg’s gut, but like all good things, Greg knows how to wait. How to let it build.
They go back to making out, slow and languid. It’s maple syrup sweet, but fizzes like champagne. Greg lets themself touch Tom, gets a hand under Tom’s shirt to touch the muscles of Tom’s stomach. Tom twitches at the caress, opens his mouth to protest but Greg guides him back into the kiss, slips him a little tongue.
When Greg cups Tom through his slacks, Tom grunts like a wounded bear, hips grinding forward. Greg grins into the curve of Tom’s jaw, making short work of the belt and zipper to get their hand beneath.
“Christ,” Tom gasps, as Greg slides their hand down his shaft, “can’t believe I’m getting this fucking worked up over a handie.”
“Don’t say handie,” Greg says, thumbing over the head of Tom’s cock. Tom whimpers, hiding his face in Greg’s shoulder. He’s so wet that the slide is easy.
Greg murmurs soft encouragement as they settle into a rhythm, Tom panting against Greg’s neck. It doesn’t take long for Tom to come.
Greg wipes his hand on Tom’s slacks, figuring the whole suit needs dry cleaning anyway. Tom doesn’t even call them on it, just leans back with pupils blown wide.
“Was it uh good for you?” Greg asks.
Tom doesn’t reply, his face taking on a look of fierce determination. He shuffles back on Greg’s thighs, hand going to the waistband of Greg’s sweatpants and yanking it down a little. Greg helps, wiggling so that the sweatpants can get moved out of the way, their cock slapping against their belly when revealed.
“I want to use the right language,” Tom says, “tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”
“It’s still like my dick,” Greg replies, “don’t get in your head about it. Just uh, stay away from honey as a term of endearment and you should be good.”
“Ok,” Tom says, licking his lip. He looks like he’s psyching himself up. “Ok baby, I can do that. I’m going to get you off now.”
“In your own time,” Greg says, the words devolving into a low moan as Tom wraps his hand around Greg’s cock and gives them a stroke. “Uh, ah, a little tighter, yeah fuck ok, like so good Tom, just, ah, it’s good.”
“Yeah, you like that? It’s good for you, huh?”
Greg nods, fucking into Tom’s hand, orgasm building at the base of their spine. They want to kiss Tom so they do, a sloppy meeting of mouths.
“Come on,” Tom growls, “come for me. Want to see it, want to see you come over yourself like the little slut you are.”
Greg lets out a whine as they come over Tom’s hand, hips shuddering as the orgasm unspools inside them.
Tom rests his forehead against Greg’s and they breathe together for a moment.
“Ugh, I can’t believe you wiped cum on my jacket,” Tom says, “do you know how much this cost?”
“Oh like you can’t afford to just get a new suit,” Greg protests, feeling giddy and sex high.
Tom smears Greg’s cum on Greg’s t-shirt in retaliation.
//
They’re in San Francisco for a Tech Media Conference, walking around the city sans Tom, when Greg sees a pleated ankle skirt in the window of a vintage store that they instantly fall in love with. It’s a dark forest green, with a thin black belt around the waist. Greg can imagine themself in it, the way it would swoosh out as they walked, the feel of the fabric on their legs. They snap a photo to send to Tom.
Tom texts back immediately. Put it on my card.
Greg grins and heads into the store.