#theres an unseen epilogue here where tom has greg work for PGM

[ezlebe]

Umm, OP, idk if you're still taking tomgreg requests, but like "Greg meets Tom in Minnesota who famously had a fling with Shiv Roy, but that never went anywhere".

(Also, I'm really adoring your writing. Thank you for sharing those on here)

“Not to be a totally rude bastard, but what exactly are you doing there?” Tom, as he’s supposedly called, says while turning on Greg with a crooked smirk and a jerk of his head toward the hockey game on the screen above them. “Your head is hiding the game.”

“S-sorry,” Greg says, hunching back further, glancing up from and then back to his phone, currently a wall of grey words about how he had better do this one thing right. He doesn’t even remember why he came on this trip – the experience is… currently not worth it.

Tom snorts through his nose, mouth twisting into a weird smirk. “I’m just razzing, man, but you are kind of close,” he says, pointing down at the spare few inches of space between their seats, where Greg had sort of violated that unspoken social contract not to take the stool right next to a stranger when there were about ten other empties in the mostly vacant bar. “Are you… going for something here?”

“No, I – Uh.” Greg wets his lips. “Yeah, well. I, um… I’m kind of…” He swallows hard at Tom’s slowly raising brow, something about the unwavering attention suddenly making his face flush hot. He reaches up at tucks his hair behind a burning ear. “To be entirely honest, sir, I’m supposed to make sure you keep – uh, away? Like watch you?”

“Watch me - ? What?” Tom repeats, glancing around the bar, then back to Greg, raising a single brow high up his forehead. “For who? Who do you work for, some kind of – oh. Oh.” He scoffs hard, picking up his drink to take a small sip, then pointing his fingers around it. “When you see her again? Remind her that acting this way is just emphasizing that I won.”

Greg feels his nose curl. “I – uh, I probably won’t do that.”

Tom flattens his mouth slightly, glancing across the bar again, then his eyes pause and narrow toward the far end where Greg knows Shiv is with her… client, or whatever, potential candidate boss? “I can’t be the only reason she’s suddenly got such a big bodyguard, though – she in trouble?”

“Bodyguard?” Greg repeats, blinking rapidly, then hurriedly shakes his head while awkwardly rubbing his hands together. “Uh, no – I, I’m just her cousin.”

Tom offers a rolling shake of his head. “Wow.”

Greg reaches out and taps at the edge of his beer. “Sorry… again, uh. You weren’t like supposed to notice me.”

Tom offers a plainly bewildered look, eyes sweeping up and down Greg with a slow tilt of his head. “Uh-huh. What’s your name then, other than Roy?”

“It’s – uh, just Hirsch, actually?” Greg says, feeling his mouth twist and scratching at the side of his neck. “Greg Hirsch.”

“Greg, good to meet you,” Tom repeats, then sticks out a hand with his elbow thunking across the bar. “Tom Wambsgans.”

Greg hesitantly reaches out and takes it, officially meeting Tom with a solid shake. “You, too.”

“So what sweet things did Siobhan say about me?”

“Not like a lot – almost nothing?” Greg says, glancing over his shoulder and thankful to see her back to him; she had mostly just told him to come over here and make sure Tom doesn’t see her, or she’d send him home like a – a little kid, or something, back to Kendall. “I don’t even really know how you know her.”

Tom’s eyes roll hard. “We’re exes.”

“Oh…” Greg feels a little disappointed, dumbly, “So your, uh – the breakup was bad?”

“It wasn’t great, no,” Tom says, cocking a brow with a turn of his head that's probably to make some point of Greg sitting next to him. “I am insulted you don’t know about it, but the fact she thought you did is enough.”

Greg slowly drops his head. “Right…”

“Hey,” Tom says, turning on the stool to face solely toward Greg, rather than at all at the game above them. "Look it up."

“What?”

“The whole thing is on the Internet,” Tom says, spinning his fingers at Greg’s face-down phone on the bar. “Here – I’ll buy you another drink for the price of losing some respect for your cousin. What do you want – what is that?”

“Uh, well,” Greg glances down at his beer, then shrugs with a short bite inside his cheek - he should probably not be talking to Tom, but Shiv told him to keep him away and he is keeping him away? “Molson?”

Tom laughs in a loud bark. “Molson? Isn’t that a little cheap for a Roy?”

“Uh, maybe,” Greg says, furrowing his brow and glancing at the beer, then picking up his phone with a shrug. “I’m not really from that part of the family – my grandpa doesn’t believe in, like… materialism, sort of. Or something.”

Tom flags down the bartender with a point at Greg’s glass, mouth pinching with a tut. “Huh.”

Greg wets his lips and looks down at his screen, scrolling past any vaguely- Waystar links upon the search of Tom and Siobhan Roy, confirming that Tom’s last name is spelled only sort of like how it’s sounds, and tapping a random PGM article. He starts reading, mouth pinching and brows slowly going up, “Oh, uh. Wait, you weren’t like even here - like, in the US?”

“China,” Tom says, exhaling a huff and suddenly affecting a low, mocking tone. “We agreed on ‘long distance’.”

Greg glances up as the bartender begins to pour another can into his glass on the bar. “Oh.”

“But then she wanted to sleep with anyone she wanted to, too – ethical-non-monogamy, to quote – but I didn’t… feel good about the lifestyle,” Tom continues, almost perfectly in sync with where Greg is in the article. “We broke up. The actual problem came when she got me fired; I sued, obviously, then she tried to counter-sue me for harassment and leaked some of the texts, as you’re reading, but then she had to drop it when I released all of our history to the court and to PGM. I did - do regret a lot of that, considering how her dad must have reacted to some of it, but it is what it is."

“That does sound like – like very her,” Greg muses, scratching at the side of his nose with his thumb, then clicking back, then onto another article, only to blink at an edited mention of Tom’s new, and presumably present, position. “PGM hired you?”

Tom hums low, picking up his glass to finish the dregs with a clink of ice. “Much later. Unrelated.”

Greg pauses at a few beats, then scrolls, only to pause with his thumb lingering over Shiv’s three-year-old text Tom that she could cut out men, and he could do the same but with women, as if that makes it any less of a bid for non-monogamy. He wets his lips, taking a long sip of his beer, then clears his throat by while looking over at Tom. “You, uh – you enjoy the company of other men?”

Tom is quiet for a few beats, then leans over his empty drink to set his chin into a hand. “Is that a problem, Mr. just-Hirsch?”

Greg wets his lips, feeling his ears burn at the marked drop in Tom’s voice. He swallows another gulp of his beer. “Uh, no. Nope.”

“Nope?” Tom says, voice lowering further, as something noticeably shifts in the way he’s looking over at Greg, more similar to when he first started talking to him. “That’s interesting.”

Greg hums a pitchy pair of notes, dropping his eyes back down and staring to, but not reading, the screen. He rubs under his nose with his knuckles, pretending to scroll with his other hand, and peeks back up for a split second to Tom, only to immediately look back down. He doesn’t think Shiv would like approve of this… potential direction of development, but it’s been years and – and Tom is like sort of a fox? He’s got to be allowed.

And what could she even do, if he isn’t – un-cousin him?

“What do you do, then?” Tom asks, while reaching up to scratch against the side of his jaw, then drop his hand back to the bar. “Aside for play privacy barrier for your family.”

“Oh, I - I kind of work as mostly Jess’ assistant – ” Greg shakes his head with a wince. “Like, I’m my cousin Kendall’s assistant’s… assistant. But, right now, I guess I’m sort of being Shiv’s assistant?”

Tom narrows his eyes, then hums lowly, “Do you enjoy that work?”

“Uh…” Greg shrugs, offering a laugh that sounds forced even to him. “I enjoy, like – the paycheck.”

“Right… right,” Tom says, then reaches out and yanks on the tail of Greg’s tie. He glances over Greg's shoulder, then back to his face, quirking a brow. “Are you on any sort of leash?”

Greg bites at the inside of his lip and feels his cheeks warm, looking down at Tom’s fingers, as he folds the tie around his knuckles. “Uh, um – what do you mean?”

“Could you go somewhere else…” Tom tilts his head with some significance. “That isn’t this hotel bar where your cousin and my ex is watching?”

“Oh, you… I – yes,” Greg says, weakly, clearing his throat and reaching out to take another gulp of his beer, because he’ll feel guilty wasting so much. “For sure.”

Tom clicks his tongue and pays Greg’s tab, all of it, before he can stop him. He then ushers him out of the bar, though not upstairs, as Greg had somewhat shamefully hoped, but out onto the street. It’s a little sunny for Greg’s current black ensemble, but he – He knows that he looks pretty good in this suit, at least, or that he does according to a Men’s Warehouse salesperson.

“Shiv’s miasma is fucking sticky, huh,” Tom says, acting out a shudder down to his fingertips that makes Greg look down with a low laugh at the sidewalk. “Got to admit, I haven’t been down here in years, though, but I think – Yeah. I’ve heard good things. You in St Paul, often?”

“Uh, nope. Never,” Greg says, shrugging and looking around at the buildings hugging either side of them. “It’s nice? Lots of… brick?”

“I’ll alert the press – St Paul gains stamped approval by Roy cousin,” Tom says, sweeping a hand out in front of them with a twisting turn and a bright smile. “Minneapolis quakes with jealousy.”

Greg huffs and wonders if Tom like literally could put that on the PGM ticker. “I’ve never been there – I-I guess the airport.”

“As usual, we won’t report bias – Hey, I’ve seen this place,” Tom says, as he touches softly at Greg’s elbow to stop him in front of a restaurant. It’s thick with draping flower boxes and occupied tables, a low rumble of activity, as dinner starts to pick up with passing time. “It even looks as clean as it did in the article.”

“Are you sure — ?”

Tom comes up short, all but actually freezing a step in front of Greg.

“It looks expensive?”

“Oh,” Tom scoffs, lifting a hand and curling a finger to insist Greg follow him inside. “Don’t you worry about that.”

The mâitre d leads them to one small, round booth of many lit by a dim bulb hanging low from the ceiling. It’s cozy, way cozier than the last bar, and Greg somehow feels closer to Tom on the shared booth, even if he actually might be a little further away.

“Now… I’m not trying to kill any chances or sound scary, but, Greg,” Tom says, after he’s folded his jacket against the seat of the booth, picking up a menu from the center and waving it with a small waft of air in Greg’s direction. “Never go to a second location with a stranger.”

“Like…” Greg looks down at the table, spreading his hands against the shiny lacquered wood, then back to Tom with a small huff. “I read about you on the Internet. You seem pretty okay.”

Tom cracks a laugh, rolling his eyes down to the menu with a twice-over click of his tongue. “So you seem like a cheeseboard kind of guy, but what are… your feelings on wine?”

“I don’t really like sparkling rosé?” Greg says, as he offers a single-shouldered shrug, though that may have been just the vintage? He hasn’t tried a lot of them. “But I-I’ll drink it? I’ll try it.”

Tom lifts his eyes with a dubious look, then snorts, switching out for the other menu. “You’re lucky we’re in the Twin Cities, because it’s the only reason I’m stooping to it – ” He wags the second menu, too. “Do you just want another beer?”

“…Yes,” Greg says, leaning in a bit, while folding and unfolding his hands over the table.

“Okay, bud,” Tom says, mouth twisting while raising a brow up his forehead, clearly studying the menu with a critical eye. “But it’s going to be of far higher calibre than that Molson.”

“I like Molson,” Greg says, shrugging and glancing over toward the bar, which is almost nothing but tap handles. “It’s, you know, familiar. But, also I like – I prefer the dark kind. Of beer. If you're asking.”

“See, progress,” Tom says, unceremoniously rolling his sleeves up with a wag of a pointed finger. “Always better with a like, than a doesn’t like, Greg.”

“Right,” Greg agrees, swallowing slightly, glancing to and away from the gentle flex of Tom’s arm. He looks up, as the server approaches, and realizes he’s still awkwardly in his own jacket; he hastily takes it off, hitting his elbow on the table with a wince. “S-sorry.”

“That’s alright, bud. We’ll both get a Tan Van stout,” Tom says, peeking briefly up to the server, then back at the menu with another drop of his lashes. “And a… meatier or fruitier, Greg?”

“Uh…” Greg shrugs, keeping his eyes on Tom, rather than looking at the server, and wonders if he may have just actually, somehow stumbled into a real date. “Fruit?”

“The Riverside, it is,” Tom says, looking up and back at Greg, a smirk curving at his mouth while he blindly tilts the menu for the server to take.

Greg worries briefly that this is some elaborate play to get dirt on Shiv, or slip back into her circle, but Tom doesn’t even ask about her, and he barely asks about the Roys in general. It could be that he’s really good at misleading, and considering his position at PGM, he probably is, but it doesn’t seem like that, even after the board is nearly empty. Greg ends up talking more about himself or his mom’s dogs over the years, than anything else; apparently, Tom has his own dog, a mutt called Mondale with a permanently grey muzzle, which Tom swears is just to manipulate people for sympathy.

“It’s a - a weird texture,” Greg insists, putting his hand up at a threat to have the boar pâté a second time. “It’s meat butter. Like, uh… cat food for people?”

Tom snorts and continues to slather a cracker. “Alright, I’m just going to ask the awkward question: you’re based in New York, yeah, if you work for Waystar? Not DC?”

Greg nods and looks down, straightening the napkin under his empty beer. He knows Tom lives in New York, too, but doesn’t want to get his hopes up – he might just be trying to open for a comment about the – the uh, summertime scaffolding epidemic. Or finally be about to ask after Shiv.

“Good. It has been a lot of fun, Gregory, watching you make that cute gross-out face at every other thing on this board,” Tom says, waving at the board with a pâté-covered cracker, as he picks up a fig to garnish on top. “I could really do this again.”

Greg wets his lips while heat blooms against his cheeks. “You could?”

“Yes,” Tom says, picking up his beer to take a sip, then gesturing with the dwindling glass. “I’d love to see you go at a molecular gastronomy tasting menu – you’d hate it.”

“That’s like, not very nice?” Greg says, trying to sound less excited and finding himself outright biting at his lip to keep down a smile. “What about, like Five Guys? Something that I – I know I like?”

Tom raises his brows and smirks while setting his glass, then leans forward, almost conspiratorially, against the table. “Now, bud, you’ve uncovered the diabolical core of those sorts of menus – by the end, you are so hungry and drunk that you have to get a meal like that.”

“Oh,” Greg huffs, worrying at his lip now, then offering a slightly affected shrug of his shoulders that settles him just a bit closer to Tom. “So it’s like a – uh, a two part thing?”

Tom hums a slow, meandering few notes, hand sliding against the table and shifting closer in the booth. His eyes drop markedly to Greg’s mouth, then back up, head tilting in an evident readiness. “More than, if the night goes well.”

Greg takes a sharp breath when Tom leans over in the booth, thighs pressing together, and quietly kisses him. He lifts a hand to hesitantly touch at the side of his face, humming eagerly when Tom deepens the kiss, and lets himself be pulled closer in the booth, as he wraps his hand high around Tom’s shoulder with a squeeze.

“You know…” Tom says, as he pulls away, looking at Greg with an unreadable look in his eyes, and the slowly turning his head with a smirk. “If I’d met you while I was still with her? That would’ve been a big ol’ mess.”

Greg wets his lips, looking down between them. “Tom, like...”

“I’m serious,” Tom says, dropping his voice further with a low hum. “It’s a line, but it’s true. I look at you and – and something inside just starts yapping like a purse dog.” He laughs with a huff. “Maybe it’s because you’re tall. You get that a lot?”

“Uh, no, not like… ever,” Greg says, shaking his head with a small shrug. “People don’t really notice me?”

“I refuse to believe that,” Tom says, brow furrowing, leaning in to kiss Greg, again, thumb sweeping heavy against his jaw. “How could anyone not notice you?”