Poppy is gonna laugh her ass off if she ever finds out about it.
*~*~*
"Hey, Frankie. Have I told you lately that you're gorgeous and talented and just one of my very favorite people ever?"
"What do you want, Walford?" Tom can almost hear Frankie's eyes rolling over the phone.
"A reservation."
"Call reception."
"For tonight. I know, okay, I know? But you can charge me whatever and put us wherever, I just really, really need this."
"Us?" Frankie asks. Tom curses himself silently. He
does
love Frankie, but if there's anyone who's worse for gossip than Poppy, it's her. It's probably a chef thing.
"I… Okay, I'm gonna level with you, but only because I really need this and you
cannot
tell another soul, but I promised to take a boy to dinner and it really needs to be the best place in town, and you don't need me to tell you that that's your place."
"You're right; I don't. Is this a cute boy?"
"This is a really cute boy. Who I would really like to like me." Tom plays idly with a sugar packet, planning his next move. "If you do this for me, you can personally tell Poppy that I was there with a cute boy half my age."
"Half your age? Wow."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But I'm staring down forty and I figure I get to take cute, younger men to dinner now and then, maybe buy a motorbike. I'm not doing anything illegal or really stupid."
"Tom?"
"Yeah?"
"It's a Wednesday night. We're not exactly overbooked." Frankie sighs. "What time do you want?"
"Seven-ish would be great?" Tom chews on his lip sheepishly.
"Seven-ish it is. What's the cute boy's name?"
"Cin."
"Is he a stripper?"
"No, no. C-I-N. He's an art student. He thinks I'm a capitalist pig. It's great."
Frankie laughs. "Your tastes have not changed since college. Careful, you nearly married the last rebel you took to dinner."
"Yeah, but then
you
married her. How is Sophia? And the kids?" It's been a long time since he really got to see Frankie, or talk to her for any length of time, so he might as well distract himself from being nervous about taking Cin to dinner by catching up with her.
"Mattie's starting junior high next year. Isabella's so grown up already. I feel like I was pregnant a month ago, but she's five years old now. Time flies. You ever having kids I can tell embarrassing stories about you to?"
"Not really my thing. Totally into encouraging them to grow up to be great people, not so into the idea of raising one of my own. I'd way rather fund a bunch of school programs to make me feel like I'm doing my part for our youth. But I'm glad yours are okay. Plans for any more?"
"I'm getting a little old for more kids. Although Sophia offered to be pregnant this time, so maybe. It's nice to have family around you."
"I bet." Tom's smiling again. Frankie's obvious happiness is contagious, and he encourages her to keep talking about what's going on with the kids and the restaurant and how she's thinking about opening another premises in California, doing something a little different and leaving her current place in the hands of her head chef, who offered to buy in a while back.
It's nice to just chat idly with an old friend, and while Tom's at a loose end, he'd only stress about wanting Cin to like him.
As it is, he orders a glass of wine at six-thirty from the bar that he's been nestled in the corner of since three, drinks it, thanks the barman, and leaves what he imagines will be the biggest tip of the week for him before collecting his coat and heading out. It's ridiculous to be as nervous as he is about meeting anyone for dinner, but there's something about Cin that makes him eager to impress. Hopefully, Frankie's menu will do it.
*~*~*
"I should preface any opinions I give with the disclaimer that I know little to nothing about food. I'm not even sure what this is," Cin says with his fork halfway to his mouth.
Tom freezes. Maybe trying to impress a broke college student with Frankie's unique brand of avant-garde cuisine isn't the best idea he's ever had. He watches Cin's face carefully for clues, but he can't suppress the urge to explain himself. "It's an aged steak. Do I give you the full, dorky explanation or just let you eat it and find out for yourself?"
Cin doesn't bother to answer before putting the neat bite into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. One of the dorky details that Tom had been ready and willing to share was that it didn't take a whole lot of chewing, but Cin's making his polite little orgasm sounds again, and that seems more important for the moment than the specific benefits of aging beef.
"This is actually really good," Cin says, with another bite on the way to his mouth.
"Did you expect it not to be?" Tom finally starts in on his own plate, getting over the nervousness of eating with a stranger now that Cin's started first.
"Honestly? Yes. I did mention that I know nothing about food." It's pretty obvious that despite knowing nothing about food, Cin
is
enjoying it.
"I wouldn't have taken you to eat something I knew was crap." Tom would have liked to sound less insulted, but he was hurt that Cin, for whatever reason, thought his taste in food might be lacking. Especially since it's about the only thing he has any taste in.
"I didn't expect it to be objectively crap." Cin rolls his eyes. "I just didn't expect to like it. I'm used to bulk-buying ramen and eating cafeteria food. I've almost reached the point where anything else doesn't really taste like food."
Tom wrinkles his nose at the memory of being used to those things, too. "I've been there. This is way better."
"I'll concede that it is, in fact, way better." Cin sniffs, then reaches out for his water glass. The beginnings of a cold are obvious in his voice and eyes, but he's probably barely noticed himself yet. Too busy trying to survive and keep up with school work to worry about his health as well.
"I've been thinking about that thing you said, about charity?"
Cin looks up. He obviously wasn't actually expecting an answer and had been won over by free food, which Tom was fine with. If the worst mid-life crisis crap he does is taking attractive younger men out to dinner, he's home free.
"Go on," Cin says, with his fork halfway to his mouth again. It's good that he's eating. He looks like he could do with at least two more meals a day than he's getting. Tom could kind of use someone to look after, and pushing it is tempting.
"You can absolutely go about it the wrong way. Creating dependencies is the opposite of helpful, because then you're even more screwed if the help ever goes away. So I'm making my sister do a full audit of all our charity stuff to make sure we're not doing that."
"Making your sister?" Cin's eyebrow seems to be permanently raised whenever Tom tries to explain that he's not actually the devil incarnate. It shouldn't be endearing, but it sort of is.
"Asking my sister. I've never been able to make her do anything, not even when we were kids," Tom explains. His sister is the number-one, best person on the planet as far as he's concerned, but ridiculously smart little sisters are a law unto themselves.
"What's her name?" Cin tilts his head, interested now. Like he's just seeing Tom as a human being for the first time.
"Poppy." It's impossible not to smile when he thinks of her, so Tom doesn't try to stop himself. "I think you'd like her. She's like you. Total smartass. Cares a lot about people. That's why she's in charge of charity stuff."
"Maybe I should be taking her out to dinner. She sounds nice."
"She'd eat you alive, but I'm happy to give you her number." Cin's really not Poppy's type, but she'd see the appeal of him, too. He's cute and sarcastic and cynical, but Tom's sure there's a playful side under all of it. He's nursing a crush the size of Rhode Island already.
"So once you've fed me and gotten me drunk…" Cin pauses to finally drink a mouthful of wine, which Tom was starting to worry he had some kind of moral objection to. It only occurs to him then that it's more than likely that Cin's not old enough to legally drink. Tom's stomach bottoms out in a moment of panic, but he assures himself internally that if Cin was uncomfortable with it, he would have said something. He's really not afraid of speaking his mind so far. "I assume you mean to take me somewhere and fuck me."
Tom's face heats up, his surprise at Cin's bluntness making him feel ridiculous. He's not opposed to sex with Cin, but that honestly isn't what this was about. Obviously, it's exactly what it looked like, but he just wanted a little company that didn't gush over him or get their lips chafed kissing his ass.
Cin's eyes widen when he sees that Tom's expression has changed. "Or you had absolutely no intention of that and I'm actually being unfair to you."
"I wouldn't go that far. But I didn't plan to seduce you or anything. I'm flying out in a few hours, so I don't even have a hotel room. I like my own bed too much." He regrets mentioning a bed, because that brings up the mental image of spreading Cin out on his own wide, comfortable one. Cin's tiny; he'd be swamped by the mattress and Tom could prop him up on a dozen plush pillows and kiss him until they're both breathless.
For whatever reason, the fantasy degenerates quickly into cuddling, minus the sex, and Tom feels really old all of a sudden.
"You were thinking about it just now, weren't you?" Cin sips his wine again.
"I can honestly say I wasn't thinking about sex. Just thinking that I'd really like to give you my number."
Cin looks at him for a few seconds, calculating, and then pulls his phone—which is a couple of generations old and has seen better days—and hands it over. "I assume you know how to work it, since you made it."
"That would be a fair assumption if I had actually made it. I just own the company that bought the rights to the OS," Tom explains even as he deftly unlocks it and enters his private number that only a few people are allowed to have. He fills in his email address, too, just in case Cin is the kind of person who doesn't really like phones. “I made an app once and then never showed it to anyone.”
“Well, I can barely
use
most apps.” Cin takes it back when it's offered and taps on it a few times. Tom's phone beeps a second later, and he doesn't make the connection until he's looking at a text from an unknown number that just says
hi
. He looks up at Cin while he saves the number.
"I was trying to give you all the power in this relationship." He probably sounds like an idiot, but he's uncomfortably aware of how much power he could potentially have over Cin. Cin obviously either doesn't feel that way or doesn't care. Possibly he just has more faith in Tom than his media image would suggest he should.
"If you can't set your own boundaries, I don't want to be in any kind of relationship with you." Cin shrugs, his shoulders coming almost all the way up to his ears.
Tom considers this over a mouthful of some of the best aged steak he's ever had, which he's been neglecting to eat while he mentally fawns over a belligerent art student who isn't even a little in awe of him. "Works for me."
Cin's room is dark when he gets in, so he assumes his roommate is asleep and flops down on his bed fully dressed, kicking his shoes off. The buzz from his half of the bottle of wine he'd shared with Tom swims in the dark in front of him, and he's just about to let sleep take him when the light on the other side of the room flicks on.
"So, did you at least get laid?" Rachel's voice sings out from her side of the room. "Because you could use it."
"Apparently, that was never the plan." Cin stretches out, arching his back and then relaxing into the mattress. He could have gone for a thorough fucking from a nice, older man in an equally-nice hotel room. Tom didn't impress him just by existing, but it had to be said that he was attractive and his reputation preceded him. It would have been a good story to tell, if nothing else.
Rachel snorts. "Well, you were seen going into a fancy restaurant with him. Unknown younger man."
Cin looks over to see Rachel grinning, already tapping and swiping at her tablet to bring up the photos. She turns it around after a few seconds to show him a fairly clear one of Tom holding the door, his hand at Cin's back, leading him inside. Anyone who knows him will know it's him instantly.
"At least they didn't say unknown younger woman." It's not the worst thing in the world. Dinner with a billionaire isn't something that happens every day, and at least if his parents see it, they'll regret cutting him off. Maybe. Probably not, knowing them. Tom Walford is almost certainly too liberal and too openly bisexual. It also wouldn’t help that he’d been the man who made the Internet what it is today. They tended to think that all of the worst evil in the world stemmed from there.
He wonders if he has a duty to Tom to tell him, for PR reasons, that the guy he had dinner with isn't legally a guy. He gets as far as taking out his phone before figuring that it'll come out sooner or later and he's not really responsible for coming out to every person he bumps into. Instead, he types out a different text.
I didn't hate dinner tonight. You're welcome to call me if you're ever in town again.
Cool. Will do
.
The reply makes him smile. He doesn't hate Tom, regardless of whatever impression he'd given him. If Cin gives him a hard time, and he knows he did that, it's only because he expects better from him. From everyone, but Tom especially. He's a genuine work-your-way-up-from-nothing story and Cin wants him to be perfect.
Which, maybe, he could be, if Cin gives him a chance. So that's exactly what he's going to do.
"Sexting?" Rachel asks dryly.
"I wish. Turns out Mr. Walford is a gentleman. Which is a pity, because yeah, I could really use it."
"I can make myself scarce whenever."
"Ugh. College boys." Cin sighs. "I guess there are college
girls
, but I've never been able to talk to girls. Not girls I'm interested in fucking, anyway."