ALEXEI #3
“Brute force,” I continue. “It’s a product that sells. It attracts gamblers, spectators, and... serious sponsors. It’s beneficial for them to see you accompanied by serious management. For our profit.”
Griffin lets out a dry laugh, completely devoid of humor. “It’s always about the money, isn’t it?” he says, bitterly.
He picks up the heavy leather menu from the table, deciding that serious management isn’t worth his interest. Good. I just need him to be seen today, not to ask questions.
He opens the menu and stares.
“What the hell is ‘terrine’?” he mutters, more to himself than to me. It’s the most honest thing he’s said all night.
“It’s a French appetizer,” I explain. “Pressed meat or vegetables, cooked in a mold.”
Griffin watches me with narrowed eyes, no longer disguising the involuntary twitch of someone considering flipping the table. He obviously hates everything: his own ignorance before the menu, the way the waiter returns to our side hoping one of us will untie this social knot.
I know that expression. It is universal: the look of the subject who knows he is being tested and refuses to allow the other to score even a single point. Griffin at most tolerates a draw until a structural flaw exposes me to ridicule.
I recognize my peers.
“What’s the most expensive dish on the menu?” he says.
I immediately notice the waiter’s discomfort, who hesitates before the transparency of the question. The entire restaurant is a temple where money is converted into status via subtext, never explicit; Griffin has just committed heresy by demanding the nominal value of the trophy.
I don’t stop him.
“That would probably be the Kobe fillet, sir, served with white truffles and a smoked root puree.”
“Give me about five of those.”
Griffin looks at me and the crooked smile now blossoms with his absolute provocation. It’s a childish tantrum. The message is clear: since you care so much about money, I’ll help you burn it.
The waiter looks at me for help, for a cancellation code, for any gesture that would free him from this scene. The ma?tre d’ watches from a distance, already knowing he will have to intervene if things get out of hand.
Instead of denying and reducing Griffin to the role of a spoiled brat, I offer the waiter a social smile.
“And bring the house wine for me, please.”
The waiter takes the order, hesitates, then walks away, casting alternating glances at me and Griffin, trying to decide which of us is worse.
“Kobe is a Japanese controlled designation of origin,” I say.
“The certification is only valid for The Black Kuroushi lineage. The cattle destined for slaughter in the US come from Texas, without that lineage. What they serve here is Australian, at most, but they charge as if it were Kobe. Most people don’t notice the difference. ”
He is speechless for two seconds.
“...So why do you pay?”
“That’s how the world turns.”
He considers.
“And you, have you always been like this? A know-it-all nerd?”
“No. Sometimes, I just pretend.”
He gives me a crooked smile. It’s genuine. I like that.
I allow myself a furtive glance at my watch under my shirt cuff. Twelve minutes for Ivan, if his habits hold. I never underestimate military discipline applied to social delay—it’s an inverted precision, a ritual of dominance over the other’s time. Enough time.
“Well,” I begin, “I didn’t bring you here just to be seen. Some circumstances made me... find you in the first place.”
“Like an abandoned puppy you decided to take home,” he says, his eyes returning to their usual bitterness that precedes me.
“Haven’t we talked about this already? I’m not interested in pets, Griffin.”
“So a ‘product’? An ‘asset’?”
“A solution,” I interrupt. “You are a solution.”
He weighs the word, letting the weight creak the back of the chair.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I prefer ‘problem’. It makes more impact.”
He refuses to accept any label I give him. Fascinating.
“A problem for the right people, yes,” I agree. “And that’s exactly why you are a solution for me.”
“The right people... like your cousin? Uncle?”
He hadn’t forgotten about Ivan. He just turned him into an uncle.
“My cousin, yes. He’s one of the factors we’re going to manage.”
Two waiters approach now, the ma?tre d’ returning with the same plastic smile, and an assistant. They distribute the wine, plates, place cutlery, and perform a bodily ballet to remove the silver cloches. The smell of truffles, animal fat, oven humidity.
The dish is a sculpture. But Griffin looks at it with skepticism.
He presses the food with his fork, observes the consistency, lets out a disdainful sound, and then cuts a microscopic piece with his fork, bringing it to his mouth as if it were poison.
Then, he closes his eyes for half a second. The pleasure of the meat, the salt, the fat, dissolves all the pose of a caged animal. Griffin is just another human before an experience that transcends the cartography of misery.
When he reopens his eyes, the sarcasm returns, but now it’s defensive.
“Fuck if it’s Australian or whatever,” he says with a frown. “This is fucking good.” He chews, points the fork in my direction—in any restaurant of this level, it would make the neighboring table call security—and says, “Good thousands of dollars spent, Alex.”
The nickname is unexpected. American. A familiarity he has no right to have. No one calls me “Alex”, and he has no right to either. He knows it. And that’s exactly why he does it.
“It’s Alexei,” I correct, and my voice resonates more sharply than I normally allow.
He stops chewing. “What? ‘Alexei’ is too formal for a guy who’s already seen me naked.”
I accept the game.
“Not personally,” I say. I want to see which direction he takes the next provocation.
His fork hovers inches from the plate. Griffin watches me, now quiet, suspicious.
“Are you flirting with me?”
“Would that change anything for you?”
The silence lasts longer than would be comfortable for most people.
“If it did, I’d already have my hand down your pants.”
It’s poetic that he puts attraction on the same shelf as violence.
Before the tension can escalate any further, he breaks eye contact and returns his attention to the food, as if nothing had happened. The Australian meat. He eats another piece and then nods his head towards my wine glass, still full.
“Are you going to drink that?”
The tension, for a moment, dissolves. He really wants the wine.
I laugh, unable to help it. Griffin is chaos in its purest state.
I push the glass towards him. He takes it, unceremoniously, and takes a generous sip. The silk of the red wine stains his chapped lips, and I can imagine how many kinds of stains Griffin would leave in the world if he weren’t constantly kept on the sidelines.
He holds the chalice as he’d hold a beer glass. When he finishes, he returns the empty glass to my side of the table.
“You really have a talent for turning anything into vulgarity,” I say.
“Someone has to get their hands dirty while you hold the glass with your pinky up. You started it.”
He has no idea how right he is.
“It’s true. I started it,” I admit. “I saw you in that ring. And I think you like to be seen, Griffin. You’re just not used to being seen by someone who truly understands what they’re looking at.”
The armor of sarcasm and anger cracks, and underneath is something raw. He opens his mouth to answer, perhaps to deny, perhaps to curse, but there is no answer. Responding to objectification sounds easier than responding to being called understandable.
It’s at that moment that a familiar silhouette appears in the doorway.
Ivan has arrived.