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Roman scrambles into the back of the car with his shoulders hunched up to his ears.
“Hey, buddy, it’s me, not a driver. Wouldn’t you like to sit up front?” Connor asks, trying not to deflate at the lack of greeting.
“I know it’s you, Con. Jesus. You were hanging halfway out the window yelling at me. Can you just drive? I’m not gonna come up there and give you roadhead,” Roman spits.
“Whoa,” says Connor sharply.
Roman rolls his eyes and slouches deeper into his seat. At fifteen, he’s shorter than Siobhan and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Connor thought that the month or so at camp would’ve at least put some color on him, but Roman is downright sallow, sporting deep circles under his eyes and a healing split lip.
The camp is close to a lakefront property Connor purchased in his late twenties, a warning shot across the bow of the local real estate market on which he never followed through. He’s been holed up in the basement playing air hockey against the townies who clean his pool since Lottie Westinghouse ditched him for a lesser Pierce about two months ago. He’s certain she’ll regret it once he shows up on the gala circuit with a brand new lakefront nuclear fallout shelter. The pool-cleaning townies know a guy.
Last week, Connor volunteered to retrieve Roman before sticking him on a PJ back to New York. He thought, apparently erroneously, that it would be a nice thing to do. He remembers silent car rides with somber drivers when he would have much preferred an older brother in a sickass Jeep.
“Holy shit, do you remember what a gas pedal is?” Roman demands from the back.
Connor shakes himself and steps on it. Roman yelps.
“So, what do you think, Romey? Did you get my message? You want to stay with me a couple of days?” Connor asks, glancing in the rearview mirror.
Roman scrubs a hand over his military haircut. It looks odd on him – always has. Over Christmas, the first since Roman went away, Connor saw him flicking his head like he was trying to get phantom bangs out of his eyes. Now, he’s reverted to picking at his hands and touching his head like he’s not sure it’s still there.
“Yeah, fine. Whatever,” says Roman.
“A little gratitude, maybe? Wouldn’t go amiss,” Connor says. Surely he wasn’t quite as surly at this age – though god knows there’s no one to really ask.
“Thank you, Connor, for inviting me back to your sex dungeon,” Roman drawls.
“Inappropriate.”
“Oh, is it? Sorry, did you want me to pretend we had something to talk about?”
“We do have things to talk about. How was camp?”
Roman scoffs. “I loved it. I climbed three mountains a day and jacked off in the lavatories every night.”
“All right,” says Connor because he gets the point. Weaseling anything genuine out of Roman is a long game, and it’s way harder when Connor’s not coming in a week late to a holiday situation in which Shiv and Kendall have already been softening him up.
“Hey,” he says, new tactic acquired, “did you get any letters from Siobhan and Kendall?”
It’s the wrong tactic. Roman gets even more miserably small in the mirror, a ball of wretched teenager. Connor would feel worse about it if he didn’t know that Roman didn’t send any letters either – Connor’s spoken to both Ken and Shiv on the phone fairly recently. Roman has been much harder to get ahold of.
Connor leaves Roman alone for the rest of the drive in favor of detailing the upcoming plans to dig the pool down thirty-five more feet and start building his apocalypse compound. Aside from a snipe or two about Connor’s DNA already being so mangled that radiation shouldn’t be a worry (par for the course), Roman spends their time in the car in sullen silence.
Eventually, they’re standing across from each other in the dim, cool air of the garage. Roman looks even worse up close – there’s a faint bruise on his chin alongside the split lip, and his uniform is rumpled with several distinct grass stains on the shirt.
“Don’t you have a bag?” Connor asks.
Roman scuffs his sneaker on the garage floor, scowling at it like it’s done him a personal offense. “I did have a bag. At one point.”
Connor waits.
Biting down hard on his thumbnail, Roman mutters, “I think they threw it in the lake this morning. I don’t know.”
“Shit. Dad’ll sue their pants off for you, you know,” Connor says.
“What, sue the camp? Yeah, touching. Can’t wait for fucking – Gerri to get here in two weeks and hand my bag back covered in fish jizz. No. Just – just don’t tell him, okay?”
“Hey, whatever you want, man. You can borrow some clothes for tonight. Come on; I’ll show you your room.”
Roman’s entire face twists in disgust. “You don’t have staff here? Did Dad cut you off or something? Did you knock that one chick up?”
“I have cleaners twice a week,” says Connor, “and a chef and people for the grounds, obviously. And my assistant is on call. But no, I’m living a very independent life out here, Roman. You should try it; you might like it.”
“Ooo,” says Roman, sucking air through his teeth, “doubt it.”
Connor shuffles him off to one of the guest suites, promises dinner in an hour, and slips off to his study to call Kendall’s office. The assistant gives him the run-around, meaning Kendall’s told her to filter his calls: expected, but galling nonetheless. There was a time when the kids were little when they fought over the phone to speak with him first.
It's no use trying Shiv at this time of day – much to her horror, she’s been packed off to France with Caroline – so Connor leaves a quick message with Logan’s assistant confirming Roman-acquisition and heads off to oversee dinner prep.
At dinner, he lets Roman have two glasses of wine. He really shouldn’t, but it’s nice to see Roman loosen up a bit. The flush makes him look less like a walking corpse. Through joking asides and several mumbled half-stories, the source of the problems at camp becomes obvious: Roman has a big mouth, loathes manual labor, and does not know how to fight. Same as it ever was.
Connor’s offering to demonstrate his favorite capoeira moves when Roman abandons the table without so much as a “good night.” It’s almost irritating enough for Connor to miss the fact that Roman barely touched his food. He toys with the idea of playing nanny – making Roman come out and eat his vegetables or some such shit, but it’s so absurd that he just paces back and forth outside Roman’s door for a few minutes, listening to the television blaring explosions and pulpy dialogue.
Eventually, Connor fully abandons ship and heads off to look over bunker schematics. He’s still on his first glass of whiskey when Roman comes slinking into the study, having miraculously abandoned the TV. He’s wearing Connor’s nightclothes now, swimming in the shirt with the pants rolled up to his ankles.
“You know about Bitey,” Roman says as his opening line.
Connor laughs nervously. He does know about Bitey. He doesn’t particularly like knowing about Bitey. It’s something about which you’re likely supposed to speak to professionals. At what age should one’s teenage siblings stop biting each other? Probably before they even gain the qualifier teenage.
Roman sways a little drunkenly, and Connor very much regrets letting him have the second glass of wine.
“I want to play Bitey,” Roman demands.
“Absolutely not.”
“You’ve never even played. Don’t you feel left out?” There’s a note of genuine, plaintive wonder in Roman’s voice. He looks far younger than fifteen.
“I have played,” says Connor.
“With who?” demands Roman, suddenly harsh.
“With you, Roman. That time you bit me at your mother’s?”
“Oh, shit!” Roman laughs, all trace of jealousy vanishing in an instant. “That’s right. My first win ever.”
“Is it a win if you didn’t warn me?” Connor asks, bemused.
“It’s a win for me because you called mercy,” Roman says primly. “But you don’t get to say you’ve played. The biting is part of it.”
You have to be a killer, Connor thinks. He takes a long draw of his whiskey. “I’m not going to hurt you, especially not for a game.”
Roman’s never been good at hiding his emotions. He looks like he just missed a step on the stairs. In the next instant, however, he paints over it: broad strokes of derision and scorn.
“Yeah, alright, pussy. Keep drinking yourself to death; I’m going to bed.”
He turns to leave, and Connor fully expects that to be the end of it. Instead, Roman hesitates in the doorway. He frets his thumb over the doorjamb for a moment, then looks back.
“Loveyougoodnight,” he says, so fast as to be almost unintelligible, and then he bolts like a scared rabbit.
Connor takes another sip of whiskey, yells, “Love you, Romey,” down the hall, and feels satisfied.
It’s something.