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“Things’ll look better in the morning,” their mom used to say, “over an egg.”
They haven’t any eggs, and things don’t look better, per se--if anything, the punch-drunk surrealism of last night’s events has worn off in full, leaving the whole fucked situation looking shittier than it had when they’d all fallen asleep together in Kendall’s bed at Dimora Buonriposo. And anyways, what worth do Mom’s words have now, in the wake of her fucking her offspring just so her seat-sniffing new husband could get a leg up in local politics? What was the point of politicking in the UK anyways; didn’t America just run the whole world from its hyperpowered cockpit?
Such are Roman Roy’s musings as he picks at a plate of fragrant summer melon, poolside back at La Foce, while his more enterprising womb pals spit the same slough of equally unappealing options back and forth between them. Sow discontent from inside Waystar, Shiv keeps saying. Keep Dad close. And inevitably Kendall counters with run and recoup, alternating between crashing at their mother’s marital home while she honeymoons and going running back to Mattson at Lake Como or his homebase in Stockholm to plant seeds at GoJo, tank Dad’s deal.
“I need to stay close to--” Shiv jerks her head in the direction of the villa’s breakfast spread, where Tom Wambsgans and good ol’ cousin Greg are very obviously spying. “See if I can’t get inside his head. Figure out what Dad offered.”
“Dad didn’t have to offer anything; you’re the world’s worst spouse and your gay cuck husband hates you,” Roman chimes in.
“Fuck you, Rome,” Shiv fires back.
Kendall, frowns, ignoring the spat. “I get what you’re saying, sis, but I’m genuinely worried you’re gonna kill him if you dive back into this without having had a chance to step back and breathe. This whole thing is gonna make us crazy if we can’t get some distance from it.”
“So you’re suggesting a fucking vacation, or--?”
“Not a vacation,” Kendall says, exasperated. He’s pacing, hands in his pockets, and Roman briefly entertains the thought of kicking out to trip him into the pool before remembering he’d really rather not see his brother any closer to water than he is right now, actually. “If we’re gonna join forces on this, I wanna go all out. Keep each other close and mitigate any chances for Dad to get his hooks back in us.” He looks meaningfully towards Roman, and Roman replies with two middle fingers.
“You guys act like Dad doesn’t have any fucking power over you, either. All it’ll take is one good deal and either one of you could be back on his dick.” Distasteful, he sets his plate of fruit aside with a clatter, crossing his arms and settling petulantly into his chaise. “See, now you’ve made me go and say that and kill my own appetite.”
Kendall picks up the plate and rejoins where Roman left off, mindlessly munching melon for distraction more so than sustenance. He looks twitchy, and both Roman and Shiv are briefly fixated.
“Regardless of where we end up--” Shiv starts.
“We’re probably gonna have to discuss some stipulations,” Roman finishes for her, quirking a brow at his older brother, “especially in regards to a certain… suicidal junkie in our midst. Not naming names. Kendall. Oops, did I say that out loud? Yeah, it’s Kendall.”
Kendall looks between the two of them, sunglasses covering what is undoubtedly offense in his eyes. “Guys. I’m stable. I am good.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah. So,” Shiv pretends to inspect her manicure, “let’s talk about rehab.”
Kendall lets out a long sigh, head rolling back.
“Yeah, I can’t speak for the diversity hire here,” Roman agrees, nodding towards their sister, “but I’m not fucking working with you ‘till you get sober. Sorryyyyy. ”
“Agreed. If the last few months have been any indication of what you’re like as a free agent on coke, priority number one is getting you dried out before the new Roy dynasty makes any fucking moves.”
“Gosh, Shivy, you almost sound worried about me. And here I thought your hopes for my recovery were misplaced .”
There is an electric silence, and Roman has to look elsewhere to shield his eyes from what feels like looking at the arcs they specifically tell you not to look at in car shops. He knew reconciliation between the three of them wasn’t going to happen without stumbling over the obstacles of Shiv’s letter, the shit at the birthday party--but he’d been hoping they might have a little more time to float before the surface tension broke again.
Still fixated elsewhere, Roman hears a cold smile painting Shiv’s voice as she says, “You were more manic than any of us had ever seen you, Ken, and you needed a wake-up call.”
“Right. Being called an absentee father was just the fucking--refreshment I needed to come back to God and get back to fighting the good fight with Daddy. Worked out great for us, didn’t it, Shiv?”
“Oh my God. Enough,” Roman snaps, launching up from his seat and looming over his siblings, taking rare advantage of height over them. “You’re so fucking annoying.” He points at Shiv-- “Your letter was needlessly cruel--” and then at Kendall: “and your little stunt at the employee meeting was, while conceptually very funny, extremely tasteless in light of the fact that your female sister who is a girl was making her professional debut and you were posing for the fucking Woke Olympics at the same time. You fucked around and found out, Ken.”
Kendall and Shiv stare at him, then at each other, then at the ground between them. Shiv sneaks a smile up at him, and says, “Thanks, Rome.”
“Nuh-uh, I’m not on your side here. That letter seriously made me wanna puke.” He plants a hand on the crowns of both their heads. “You’re even. Alright? We’re not working together if you guys still have your panties all twisted up over a couple dick punches.” Roman comes back around to his chaise and sits, ignoring how stupidly impressed his siblings look by shutting his eyes and turning up his chin. “And for my part, Ken, I’m sorry I fuckin’ pushed you. Not… fucking--I’m sorry I pushed you. Seriously.”
Kendall actually laughs, which shocks Roman. “Cherry on top of a birthday cake that already sucked for a million other reasons,” he shrugs. “It’s… it’s cool, Ro.”
Roman gestures between the two of them, flicking his pointer finger sporadically. “Now you two. Hug. Shake. Whatever. We’re done with this.”
Kendall and Shiv both idle, awkward, and finally lean in to share a quick, stilted embrace. “Sorry,” they both mutter, and Roman claps his hands together with finality.
They sit quietly in a moment of warm awkwardness, all a little more raw than they’d prefer to be, half-watching as Tom and Greg give up on eavesdropping from so far away and disappear to some other part of the patio.
“What about--west coast?” Roman finally breaks the silence, scratching the fabric of his pants at the knee. “L.A. Little less NYT, little more fuckin’... Variety, or whatever. Buy up new blood and start publishing blue.”
“Poke the bear that is ATN from hippy-dippy California. Not a bad thought,” Kendall nods. “I’m down, but you guys would have to set up shop there ‘till I get back from Bifröst.”
Roman grimaces. “Nooooo. No Iceland. Nuh-uh. Veto.”
“Yeah, can’t we stick you in rehab in--Palm Springs? Malibu, or something?” Shiv agrees. “We don’t need you that far out, Ken.”
“I vote Palm Springs. He might come back with a nice man on his arm. Or a sex change.”
Kendall’s face very slowly turns into a wry smile. “Am I missing some angle on getting me to dry out with a bunch of Hollywood washups, or are you two just… actually being sweet right now?”
“Sweet? Gross. We don’t do sweet.”
“You are. You both totally are. You want me in the neighborhood.” Kendall presses a palm to his heart. “Aw. Guys. Are you actually gonna come fucking visit me in the nuthouse for once?”
“Yeah, man, we can talk into landlines on either side of glass,” Shiv jests. “That’s how rehab works, right?”
“Only a matter of time before Dad freezes our PJ access, anyways,” says Roman. “Better we have to Uber you back to Casa del Roy than worry about you getting stranded in Reykjavík until all is forgiven.”
“Or until Dad croaks,” Shiv mutters.
Roman shoots her a disapproving leer.
“Okay. Message received,” Kendall surrenders, putting his hands up. “But when I get out of L.A. rehab with a burgeoning rap career from all of my new music scene connections, you guys are gonna feel real fucking stupid for sticking me in there.”
--
They go in on a furnished rental outside of Riviera, sight unseen--a few hundred thousand a month for influencers to rent and film videos, probably, snatched off the market by the Roys. Some arcane modern thing up in the foothills of Santa Monica State Park and ten minutes up the road from the rehabilitation center where Kendall agrees to hole up for a two week residential program.
From Tuscany, Roman and Shiv have no choice but to fly back to New York with Logan and his entourage--it is as pleasant a flight as it can be, Logan and Gerri and the rest of the Waystar goons up in the front cabin, Roman, Shiv, Tom, and Greg firing brain lazers at each other in the rear. Or Roman and Shiv firing lazers, more like; Tom pretends to look over paperwork for the GoJo sale, and Greg falls asleep stretched across three seats. Conversation is cliquey and limited; Roman once asks Shiv if she thinks Ken and his kids were forced to fly commercial, and Shiv only giggles as long as Tom isn’t looking inquiringly up at them.
On the tarmac after they land, before separate cars take them back to their apartments, Roman touches base with Shiv one last time.
“So,” he starts, eyeing the chauffeurs helping their father into his private car, “you sure Tom’s not gonna try and… tie you up in the walk-in when he finds out you’re cutting and running to Cali?”
“I told him we’re going out together to get Ken settled at rehab.” Shiv squints against the late afternoon sun. “I’d say we have a week before he and Dad started sniffing into where we’ve run off to, and we have to put in official statements for leaves of absence.”
Kendall will submit his first, of course. Medical leave. Better fucking stick this time, Roman catches himself thinking in a moment of vulnerability.
The three of them meet with suitcases at Teterboro at nine that night, and once they’re in the air, watching the lights of New York City dim beneath them, the foggy tension of rebellion gives way to elation--for Shiv and Roman, at least. Their brother has been around the bend on betraying Logan already, and watches with some bemusement as his younger siblings fall to slap-happy delirium.
“Should I get someone to open champagne?” Roman asks.
“Rub it in my fucking face, why don’t you,” Kendall mutters, plucking at the leather upholstery.
“Oh, shit,” Roman bursts into laughter, buckling over the back of Kendall’s seat. “I fucking forgot. Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Uh-huh.” Kendall jabs an accusatory finger between the two of them. “You’ve both been through this song and dance with me before; you know you’re gonna have to put in the work, too.”
“Support system, I remember,” Shiv says, throwing up her hands.
“You’re the only Roy on the sauce, bro, unless there’s something Connor’s not telling us. You won’t see either of us tempting you back into the world of nose candy.”
Kendall runs his hands over his face, groaning. “See, you can’t even say that to me. Nose candy . Now I’m thinking about it.” Lightly, he bonks the back of his head a few times against his headrest. “Thank God my withdrawal symptoms don’t last that long. I was in the worst of it a couple days ago. All fuckin’ paranoid and shit.”
“Oh yeah, ‘cause you’re only ever paranoid when you get off coke,” Roman mutters, rolling his eyes.
“How about we talk about something else,” Shiv suggests, pulling a water bottle from the cabin’s bar and tossing it Kendall’s way.
“Yeah, you’re right, Shiv.” Roman plops down in the seat nearest hers. “How about--oh, can we talk about how your husband and his little boyfriend are plotting to shoulder us out of the company?”
“Pass.”
“I, for one, would love to talk about how much I hate Gregory Hirsch,” Kendall pipes up.
“Oh, I bet you would. Tom stole him back from you,” Roman coos, twirling the tip of a finger into his cheek. “Shiv, are the powers of Tom Wambsgans really so seductive? What’s actually going on there?”
“Don’t know, don’t wanna know,” Shiv huffs. “Tom just likes having a bug he can pull a leg off every now and then, I guess.”
Roman catches Kendall’s grimace, and turns back to him. “Sorry you lost your bug,” he says in mock pity.
“Greg was not my bug. I was good to that little prick. I bought him his fucking apartment. Sort of. Gave him an apartment I’d already bought.”
Roman and Shiv both perk up attentively at this.
“You did?” Shiv asks.
“Is there something you wanna tell us, Ken?” Roman grins, curling his hand into a fist and jerking it suggestively beside his head.
“Gross, Rome,” Shiv sighs.
“He was getting my coke for a while. Figured I’d do him a good turn. Keep him close at hand.”
“Oh, I’ll bet,” Roman mutters.
“That’s not to say I didn’t like him.” Looking sorry for himself, Kendall rests his chin in his hand. “When he agreed to give me what he’d stashed on Cruises, help me try to take Dad down, I kind of thought… I dunno. Like I said, the whole thing was a fucking bust. But he seemed… you know, nice. Like he didn’t really have the capacity to be slimy, despite his better efforts. Fucking joke’s on me.”
“No such thing as nice in this family,” Roman murmurs, leaning back in his seat with crossed arms. “We all suck blood. It’s just that some of us make you itch after, and others give you fuckin’ Lyme disease.”
Looking glum, Kendall nods.
“Where’d he fucking come from, anyway?” Shiv chimes in. “Like--am I crazy, or does it feel like we all just blinked one day, and then Greg was hanging around?”
“Oh, yeah, no, absolutely,” Roman says. “Yeah, I literally have no idea where he came from.”
“I mean--Uncle Ewan, technically,” Kendall tells them. “Fruit of the… fruit of his loins. He calls Dad his uncle, but he’s actually his great uncle. Our… first cousin once-removed, or something.”
“Where was he up until, like… eight months ago?” Roman furrows his brow.
The three of them glance around at one another, at a loss.
“Well. Anyways. He’s Tom’s problem now, apparently,” Shiv goes on.
Roman and Kendall share a look, and then focus hesitantly on their sister. “You talk to him today?” Roman asks.
“About--uh, y--sort of.” Shiv toys with a lock of her hair.
“Which means no,” Roman tells Kendall in faux conspiracy, hidden behind a hand.
“In all fairness, I don’t know what there is to say.” Kendall casts Shiv a look of empathy. “You filled him in, and he picked Dad to hitch his trailer to, for some reason. Spite. I dunno. I don’t know how you come back from that.”
Shiv shakes her head, bridge of her nose pinched between two fingers. She inhales, then gives a callous shrug. “I thought I said I wasn’t in the mood to talk about this.”
“Actually, all you said was ‘pass’ when I offered it up,” Roman replies, “but I suppose we can drop it, considering it’s… fresh.”
They are quiet for a moment, telegraphing to move into their own worlds for the rest of the flight, maybe. Kendall roots around in his backpack for his headphones, and Shiv scrolls headlines on her phone.
“Oh, fuck,” she mutters.
“What?” Roman and Kendall say.
“Sorry, Ken.” Shiv tosses her phone to him, and Roman cranes over his shoulder to read the headline: ROYCO INHERITOR FILES FOR TEMPORARY MEDICAL ABSENCE IN WAKE OF ATTEMPTED SUBPOENA PUSH. He doesn’t have to read further to know it’s none other than their father, speaking through layers of journalists supposing the scorned son may have been impaired during his upset--again.
Tentatively, Roman moves a hand to grip Kendall’s shoulder in support, but Kendall just barks out a frosty laugh. “His old favorite hat trick: ‘look at my son, off his gourd again.’ He could at least cook up something new for me.”
Roman pulls the phone from Kendall’s hands and briefly scrolls, skimming. “Well, he didn’t leak your suicide attempt by floatie,” he says, “so there’s that.”
“Only a matter of time, I’m sure.”
The rest of the flight passes in ponderous silence, mostly; Shiv briefly falls asleep with her jaw slack and Roman pokes Kendall’s shoulder to make him remove his headphones so he can whisper “catching flies,” making them both giggle like children. Roman puts on a movie he half pays attention to, but mostly he sits in the foreign warmth of this new alliance, disbelieving its viability--surely they cannot survive this without cutting each other’s throats--but reveling in it all the same; it’s all they have. All he has. He lets his own headphones hang around his neck for a while and leans to rest his forehead against the back of Kendall’s seat in front of him, hearing the distant rhythm of Kendall’s music piping into the cabin like a whisper. Looking through a little window into his brother’s head.
The sky is still painted with a blush of blood red when they land in L.A., three hours in the past. All three of them fall asleep slumped against one another in the car that takes them to the rental, and stagger into the minimally lit space like zombies on arrival. Nonetheless, Kendall musters the energy to call dibs on the master suite--and as much as Roman would like to fight him, he just doesn’t have the energy.
But curled up atop the sheets of his own bed, it’s like somebody turned the lights back on in the office space of Roman’s brain: the events of the last 24 hours catch up to him in a torrent. This house feels very big, suddenly, and New York feels millions and millions of miles away, the opposite side of the world, not the country. Kendall will check into rehab tomorrow. Shiv has already expressed her intent to split time between here and New York, keep some kind of a handle on Tom. Roman is scared and alone and wants the comfort he wishes he could ask of his dad but knows he wouldn’t get, not even if all the things that had just happened hadn’t happened. It’s a whole fucking mess.
He pads out into the dark of the open concept kitchen-living room-dining room fucking… thing , hearing soft voices from each of his siblings’ rooms and seeing lights on behind closed doors.
Roman turns on one lamp and then switches on the TV, picking a streaming service at random with only the stipulation that it isn’t GoJo and finding something that feels familiar, some million year-long sitcom that isn’t really funny anymore but feels a little like sinking into a warm bath. And he actually watches, actually pays attention, because it’s something external and not one of those frightening realities floating around in his head.
Somewhere a door opens, and soft feet follow him out. He feels the intangible shape of Kendall—known by smell, breath, the sound of his clothes shifting—lean over the back of the couch to look down at him, then up at the TV.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” Roman mumbles.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Nope.”
Kendall quietly watches for a moment, snickering at a joke that doesn’t warrant a laugh track but earns one anyways. “Mom watched this show when she was pregnant with Shiv. You remember that? We had all the DVDs. Dad hated it. Sanctimonious antipatriotism, and Alan Alda was gonna turn his sons into fruitcakes.”
“Well, shit. Guess he was on the mark there,” Roman says, and then regrets it. Too many cards on the table, for his part. But if Kendall even catches it, he doesn’t acknowledge it; bless him. “No, I, uh… I guess I kind of do. Dad hadn’t stolen you away to New York to go to Buckley by then?”
Kendall shakes his head. “It was something like a month after Shiv was born that I went.”
“And then you saw her at Thanksgiving and her neck was already upright,” Roman smirks.
“Terrifying. The weird little alien that had just come out of my mother was a human, suddenly.” Kendall comes around the side of the sectional and sits, resting his feet on the coffee table. “That sucked so fucking bad. Those couple years before you followed me out. I can’t imagine how it must have been for Con, being an only child for that long. I don’t know who I am without you two.”
He says this so casually it’s almost like a completely normal statement, and not something that makes Roman want to cry and puke and kill them both all at once. He pulls his knees up to his chest and crosses his arms over them, casting Kendall a hesitant eye.
“So… what’s rehab gonna be like? Nice digs, or are we talking, like… rubber rooms?”
Kendall smiles. “No, not usually.”
“They gonna give you electroshock? Zap your brain into sobriety?”
“I feel like somewhere along the line you got mixed up on what rehab is,” Kendall laughs. Fuck drugs; nothing gets Roman as high as that, making his older brother laugh. Stupid. “But I guess—this’ll be a new one for me. Maybe they do things different out here. Electro--electroshock, sure.”
Roman forces himself to shoot Kendall a sympathetic smile for as long as he can stand it. “I’m… I’m kidding.”
“I know.” Kendall picks his nails. “Been through it all before.”
“You wanna try and stick with it this time? Save us the heartbreak?” This comes out sourer than Roman would prefer. Too honest, fuck.
Before Kendall can reply, another door opens, and Shiv appears in her pajamas, crosses her arms at the sight of them conspiring in relative dark. She leans against the wall, eyeing them.
“Hey,” Kendall greets her.
“We keepin’ you up with our scheming? Plotting to strongarm you out with our big manly… strong… arms?”
Kendall and Shiv both fix Roman with a glare.
“Okay. Too soon. Fucking sorry.”
“Just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” Shiv says nonchalantly. “Not often I hear you two having what sounds like an actual honest conversation.”
“We’re really not conspiring against you.” Kendall is serious. This peace is too delicate for his tastes, still. “C’mon. Come sit.”
Shiv turns as if to make for her bedroom again before yielding, settling into the couch between them. She nods towards the TV. “What’s this?”
“White noise,” Roman tells her.
“Jet lagged?”
“Jet lag’s for going forward. It’s, like, 1AM in our bodies. Even later--earlier--if we’re still on Tuscany time.” Roman chews the inside of his cheek. “So maybe it’s looped back around, actually?”
Shiv snickers. “How much of our being fucked up comes from a million layers of unresolved jet lag over the span of--as many day-long trips the world over?”
“Probably a lot more than we bargain for,” Kendall chuckles. After a calculated pause: “You guys wanna bunk up again?”
Shiv pulls a face. “Once in our adult lives was enough tenderness to last me a while. Thanks, though. Just wanted to check in.” She stands and walks back to her bedroom. “Night.”
“Night,” Roman and Kendall call after her. Then Kendall looks at Roman, quirks a brow.
“What, so you can molest me in my sleep? No. I’m good.”
“Does it get you off, saying shit like that?” As he stands, Kendall places a firm hand on the top of Roman’s head, mussing his hair. “Go to bed, Ro. And sleep in. Don’t wake up to see me out.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” He was, but whatever. Now he’s feeling all grossly vulnerable and it’s turning him back around to snark. “If they steal your phone, have fun in the nutshack. Don’t get shower raped.”
“Thanks, pal. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Roman watches him stalk back to his room. Only when he hears Kendall’s door shut does he turn his attention back to the sitcom to watch its last ten-ish minutes, chuckling at a few of the gags, sinking into its soft theme music. When he retreats to his room afterwards, he falls into a dreamless sleep atop his sheets, flanked on either side by spare pillows.
--
Kendall’s absence is felt, all the more for the few two, three-day periods Shiv returns to New York City, leaving Roman in this big stupid modern shithole alone. For the first week he hunkers down, sitting in strange hanging egg-shaped seats and chaises and the sectional in the living room to scan headlines and watch more of the stupid 70s sitcom that has inadvertently become his lullaby. The house chefs arrive with Kendall’s departure, and they serve the fresh, fishy things that one has to specifically request of NYC caterers: ahi tuna and jicama and breakfasts of passion fruit over yogurt that Roman gulps down mindlessly, ungratefully. Once when he’s the only one in the house he forgets to summon another chef for the afternoon the regulars have off, and he burns the shit out of a grilled cheese that he really could’ve sworn he’d still known how to make from college. But he eats it, and it kind of scares him how good it is. Black bread in a burnt armor of cheese and butter and salt and he made it. So maybe he doesn’t need Daddy anymore, or the soft landing pad of his accommodations and money and tendency to book things for the kids without them even knowing someone had to book them in the first place: cars, doctor’s appointments, meals. Fuck you, Kendall; maybe Roman isn’t a real person--but he could be.
Real. That makes him think. Makes him remember a book that Kendall used to read to him--the nannies, sure, but mostly Kendall, at his own behest. His big, sensitive, weepy brother and his favorite fucking book about a stuffed rabbit that gets tossed into quarantine for scarlet fever. Wild. If Roman believed in talk therapy, somebody could have a field day with that.
The stuffed rabbit gets loved near to disintegrating before it gets turned real, purified of human illness and set loose to fuck and frolic like the other four-legged bunnies. Roman wonders if that could be them, maybe, loved out of the house and home that is Waystar. Loved to death, metaphorically.
By week two Roman gets antsy. He meanders up to the mountainside to the Getty, looks at art and tries to guess from whose private collections the works are on loan. He wanders through their new neighborhood, feeling like a Manson waiting at the end of all these winding, gated driveways. He leans over the deck railing by the pool and looks down at Santa Monica, a stretch of sand and surf abutted by Route 1. It’s hot, hot as shit. Roman wonders if they have a pool where Kendall is.
One night, just a few days before Kendall’s program sets him loose, Shiv gets back from the city in time for dinner, a spread of miso-glazed salmon and broccolini on black rice. She and Roman sit down together out at a little deck table by the pool, belatedly realizing it feels somewhat formal, just the two of them and their food and the cotton candy sky of smoggy Los Angeles laying down to sleep.
“You think Ken has a shot at staying sober this time?” Roman asks. Shiv knits her brows at him in a way that very clearly implies she thought their brother’s absence might mean respite from talking about him, just this once, but then she tilts her head this way and that and gives a little sigh.
“I dunno. I guess we don’t know what the factors, the--the triggers are for him. Like, is it being in proximity to Dad?”
Roman stabs at a piece of fish. “Didn’t stop him the first time.”
“Right. So is it New York?”
Roman barks out a laugh at that. “Uh, yeah, I don’t think he was ever more coked out than he was in Shanghai.”
“Well, yeah, but Stewy was there,” Shiv frowns. “At least… most of the time.”
“But he sure as shit hasn’t been around since the bear hug.” Something occurs to Roman, and he feels his appetite waning. “Hey, you don’t think…”
Shiv’s face opens; it’s like reality smacks them both across their kissers in tandem. “Fuck me.”
“That was at your wedding,” Roman utters. “Just after.” He leans his forehead in his hands.
“Dad helped him cover up his involvement with the dead caterer in exchange for him fucking Sandi and Stewy.” Shiv lets out a shaky breath. “Because… he knows, he has to.”
“He knows everything,” Roman mutters miserably.
They stare down at their half-finished plates, sickly.
“Do you ever…” Roman plays with his fork, tapping it against a glass of sauvignon blanc at his side and listening for the bell tone. “Do you wonder if maybe the best thing Dad could do for Ken, genuinely, is carve him out?”
“Just Ken? Why not the rest of us?” Shiv snickers darkly. “I mean… yeah? But no. It’s a thought I’ve entertained.”
“For purely selfless reasons, I’m sure.”
“Right. Absolutely. But… who are any of us without this company? The… web of it?”
Roman shrugs, feeling meek. “The Roy siblings?”
“Gibberish without Royco,” Shiv dismisses him, sipping her wine. “Might as well be the Smith siblings. Or, like, a family of… carpenter ants.”
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing to be , Roman thinks, but does not say.
Shiv is considering him, maybe seeing his consternation. “It’s like asking if any given member of the House of Windsor would be better off stripped of their royalty,” she continues. “Maybe in theory. But lowering themselves down among the public would mean being eaten alive, like a… goat in a shark tank. But hey, at least we’re not nearly as inbred.”
“Eh, don’t be so sure, gingie. You’re a cataract away from being suspiciously albino.”
Shiv throws a stalk of broccoli at his head. Smearing the oil off his forehead, Roman throws one back, and Shiv giggles as it hits her chin.
“You remember when we were little, him talking about wanting to be a marine biologist?” Shiv smears her napkin over her jaw.
Roman munches the head of the offending broccoli, something for his mouth to work at. “Yes, I do. And I remember the astronomical downgrade of white rapper aspirations when he hit eighth grade.”
“I mean, I don’t think he ever specified that he wanted to be a white rapper. I think, ideally, he would’ve been… y’know. Not that. A non-white rapper.”
“Well, Siobhan, there’s a limited extent to which we can fight the circumstances of our birth.”
And they sit with that, because don’t they just fucking know it.
A few days later, Shiv makes up a bullshit excuse to return to New York over the first forty-eight hours of Kendall’s release. She didn’t love the whole support system thing the first time around, and she’s not keen on it now, clearly. Roman doesn’t disguise his contempt for her over this, but alas, away she goes, leaving Roman to take on the role of welcoming committee solo.
Kendall checks out first thing in the morning, apparently, because Roman half-wakes to a rising sun and the crunch of a car coming up the gravel driveway before losing consciousness again, drifting back into maybe ten minutes of strange, vivid dreams. He stirs again, sort of dizzy, and clambers out of bed, pacing slowly into the kitchen and feeling a stillness settle over his chest at the sight of familiar articles strewn about: sunglasses, a baseball cap, wallet on the kitchen island. It’s still early; the chefs haven’t arrived to make breakfast yet. Roman pokes his nose into Kendall’s bedroom and, though there’s a little duffel of personal effects on his neatly made bed, Kendall himself is missing.
Roman sets his eyes on the wall of glass at the back of the house, scans the deck--sees a body faceup in the pool, and feels bile lap, burning, at the back of his throat.
“What the fuck. What the fuck,” he feels his lips whispering--not so much hearing the words, just feeling them, feeling all wrong all over as he stumbles out the sliding door and onto the concrete of the stone of the pool deck just as--God fucking damn it--Kendall rights himself from his natant float, casting Roman a look of greeting for only as long as there isn’t a flip flop being chucked at his head.
Kendall barely dodges the shoe, and it hits the water with a slap. “Dude, what the fuck?”
“Can you not fucking do that?” Roman’s voice is all high pitched and it’s so goddamn embarassing. “Fucking--no. Sorry. Whatever.”
“Rome. Rome. Hey.” Kendall splashes over and hoists himself out of the pool.
“Just--I thought--fucking… stupid. Sorry.”
Understanding softens Kendall’s face. “Hey. Hey.” He reaches for Roman’s shoulder, and Roman contorts away.
“ Don’t fucking-- hey. It’s fucking nothing, it’s fine. I was being dumb. Just thought--”
“Sorry. I’m sorry, man. Roman. Come here.”
“Do not --” Roman gasps in fury and relief and outright cold when his big brother’s arms, whole wet body gathers him up, this lanky shadow that smells like chlorine and sunshine. “Wet! Wet! Get off me!”
“I’m good, dude. I’m okay.”
“Yeah, well, I wish you fucking weren’t! Get back in your stupid pool and drown again.” But even as it comes out, Roman hates himself for saying that, and for just a second he lets his temple lean against the soft heat of his brother’s chest. “Sorry. Can--I need you to get back in and get my shoe.”
“Mmm… how about you get it,” Kendall says, and then there’s a horrifying gut-drop lurch as Kendall feints back towards the pool with Roman still in his arms, making like he’s pulling them both in before he reels back again, laughing maniacally.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” Roman is exhaling, disguising his own terrified laughter in rage. He shakes himself free and backs over the deck towards the house, shaky and damp in his sweats. “I’m calling rehab and telling them to pick you back up. Clearly you’re crazier now than when you checked in.”
But as he reenters the house to still his breath he hears Kendall laughing outside, splashing back into the pool and coming out with Roman’s discarded shoe. And it’s a good sound. Clear. Doesn’t have that saucy rasp Roman recognizes when Kendall’s high.
Kendall enters with a towel around his waist, shivering in the AC. He leaves the flip-flop by its match at the back door and comes over to stand beside Roman where he’s seated at the island, toying with Kendall’s sunglasses.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.” There’s a smile in Kendall’s voice, but a little guilt, too.
“Why do you even--why do you do that?”
Kendall snickers. “Because… I’m your sibling? Put on this earth to fuck with you, just a little?”
“Not that,” Roman rolls his eyes. He spins on his stool and nods out towards the pool. “I mean that . You just fucking drowned, dude. Are you not, like, traumatized? Or is this still a killing yourself thing?”
“Almost drowned,” Kendall corrects him, and then when Roman shoots him a glare: “Sorry.
“Uh… well, my last therapist would say it was something about returning to the comfort of the womb,” Kendall continues, still playing at the humor angle.
“Uh-huh. And here I thought I was the one with the Oedipus complex.”
“But… I dunno.” And it really sounds genuine, like this is the first time he’s even thought about it. “I guess I just like feeling held up.”
For a minute their eyes meet, brows knit in self-awareness, and Roman mimes sticking a finger down his throat and puking.
“I didn’t mean that in a stupid way,” Kendall runs a hand over his brow, cheeks hot.
“There are only stupid ways that could be meant. Therapy talk-loving motherfucker. Christ, I need to bleach my ears.”
Mortified but chuckling nonetheless, Kendall disappears into his bedroom to conjure and throw on a hoodie over his swim trunks. “I’d have gotten a round of applause for that in group,” he calls out after him.
“Then go tell it to group,” Roman fires back. But he’ll remember that for a long time yet-- held up . He remembers most things Kendall says, for better or for worse.