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The tap on his shoulder startled him awake, but the grittiness in his eyes let him know that it wasn’t because he’d slept until three in the afternoon (again) or anything.
Blinking, he summoned a sleepy glare for his roommate, who was already fully dressed.
“Desmond, remember when I asked you to be my accountability partner?”
“Yeah, and remember when I only agreed because I thought it meant, like, quizzing you for your accounting class?” He replied with a yawn.
“Either way, please. I need your help. If you don’t come with me, I might actually murder someone today,” Connor said, and Desmond was sincerely disturbed at how serious his roommate sounded.
Still… “I don’t see how that makes it any more important that I get out of bed at eight in the morning. On a Saturday.”
“You’ll probably get called into court as a witness. It’ll be really inconvenient for you. You’ll have to buy a suit.”
“Connor, I just want to sleep.”
“Desmond, please. You’re the only one who can do this.”
He whimpered and pulled the pillow over his head. “Don’t you have other friends?”
“No.”
They were both quiet for a long time after that, and Desmond, at length, sighed and rolled out of bed. “Fine. What am I doing?”
Connor visibly brightened, but then it fled his face again as an even darker cloud than usual covered his features.
“My father has decided that I’m entirely too old to be unable to drive. So he’s having his assisstant teach me.”
“This is the Charles Lee guy you hate, right?” Desmond asked, pulling a t-shirt at random from his drawer and pulling it over his head.
“Yes. This is where you come in.”
“And all I have to do is keep you from killing him?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I can manage that,” he said, still vaguely grumpy about the whole thing. He stepped into a pair of jeans and grabbed a hoodie in case it was chilly outside, and asked, “Okay, when do we leave?”
“Now; he’s waiting outside.”
Desmond’s eyebrows twitched in surprise, but he nodded his assent, grabbed his cellphone off its charger, and followed his socially awkward and vaguely homicidal roommate out the door.
At the edge of the parking lot, Connor froze, and Desmond squinted to see what he was looking at. Following his line of sight, he saw a plain black sedan with not one, but two, people leaning against it.
“Who’s the other guy?”
“That’s…my father.”
“Oh. Is that…a good thing or a bad thing?”
“…I’m not sure. Probably bad, though.”
Connor shrugged, though, so Desmond, with increasing reluctance, decided to just go with it. Following with leaden feet and glaring at the sun that was obnoxiously low on the horizon, he made his way across the parking lot to the waiting car.
“Son,” the taller of the two men greeted Connor coolly as they approached.
“Father,” he replied, equally frosty, and, wow, nope, Desmond did not want to be in the middle of this at all thank you very much.
But then Connor’s dad was looking at him and he couldn’t run away now. “Connor’s roommate. I assume you’re here for moral support?”
“Something like that,” he replied hesitantly.
The elder Kenway merely raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and said, “That shouldn’t be a problem. There are four seats in Charles' car.”
“Four seats?” Connor interjected, “You’re going with us?”
“I had nothing better to do.”
“Well, let’s get on with it.”
Desmond was pretty sure that if his reluctance increased by two more levels, he would achieve his final form and be able to transform into an eagle and fly out of this horrible situation, but it didn’t seem to be happening, yet, so he got into the backseat with Connor’s dad.
“Do you have any driving experience at all?” Connor’s dad asked once everyone was in, and Connor was looking very uncomfortable in the driver’s seat.
“No,” he said shortly.
“How is it that you’re almost 19 years old and you’ve never driven before?” Charles Lee asked sharply.
“I grew up in Boston, Charles. Public transportation is actually a thing, there.”
“Enough banter, boys; let’s get on with this. Start the car, son,” Connor’s dad interjected, smooth and ever-so-vaguely-obnoxiously British.
With a jerky motion, Connor did so, holding the engine ignition slightly too long; Desmond could feel himself wince along with the two older men.
There was a silence. Finally, Connor asked, “What do I do, now?”
“Put the car in reverse,” Charles Lee replied, with a tacit but obvious ‘what are you, stupid?’
“Oh,” he replied, sounding like his patience was already straining.
“Turn the wheel in the direction you want the back of the car to go, and get us out of the parking spot.” Charles Lee sounded even less patient.
Connor went to change the gear, surprised when it wouldn’t move.
“Put your foot on the brake,” Desmond suggested helpfully. He got the feeling that if he left this up to Charles Lee, someone was going to end up dead, either due to murder, or Connor’s driving.
“Thanks,” he replied, and tried again, successfully shifting the car into reverse.
The next few seconds were a blur, but one thing Desmond would always remember: it was a damn good thing the parking lot was nearly empty on that Saturday morning, otherwise a) the driving lesson would have been much shorter, and b) countless cars would have been completely destroyed.
Still, it wasn’t a complete failure. Connor did manage to get out of the parking space.
And halfway across the lot.
“Haytham, sir, your son seems to be a leadfoot,” Charles Lee commented once they had come to a stop.
“Well, that’s why you’re teaching him, isn’t it?” Connor’s dad replied nervously.
They kept talking, but Desmond missed most of it when Connor turned his head to speak to him. “Desmond, what should I do now?”
“Uhh—put it in drive, maybe do a couple of slow loops around the parking lot?” He suggested, remembering when his mom had taught him how to drive. He had been nervous as fuck, but probably not nearly as uncomfortable as Connor was now.
Connor nodded tightly and did that, shifting the gear, and starting the car toward one edge of the lot, jerkily switching between the gas and the brake in a way that made Desmond’s teeth clack together with a concussive force that was undoubtedly going to give him a headache before the end of the day.
“Stop it with the—oof—lead foot, Connor!” Charles Lee exclaimed after the eighth time they were all thrown forward against their seat belts.
“I’m trying!” Connor said through gritted teeth, before slamming on the brakes again.
Finally he, had managed to drive almost to the hedges lining the parking lot’s edge, and would have to turn to continue. Having had no formal training, Connor did not know that he was supposed to slow down for a turn and instead, accelerated into it. It wasn’t bad since he was going so slowly to begin with, but it was still enough to throw Connor’s dad into Desmond, who grumbled about that.
“Apologies, Connor’s Roommate.”
“Uh, no worries, Connor’s Dad.”
“Call me Haytham. Wait, no, you’re a student. Call me Dr. Kenway.”
“Uh, no worries, Dr. Kenway?”
“That’s better.”
Desmond liked to block out the memory of the next half-hour or so, but Connor slowly did get better at driving around the parking lot, despite vague threats from Charles Lee, open returned threats to him, and sass and snark from Haytham-Call-Me-Dr.-Kenway. Desmond liked to think that his legitimately helpful hints were the primary reason for that.
“Think you’re ready to take on the road, now?” Dr. Kenway asked, and Desmond couldn’t see Connor’s face but the sudden tension in his shoulders told him that this wasn’t a good idea. There were other cars on the road, and it wasn’t acceptable to sporadically slam on the brakes when one was uncomfortable with the speed he was driving.
Still, he went to the parking lot’s exit and looked both ways out at the deserted street. Seemingly at random, he took a left.
“Connor?” Charles Lee said.
“What?”
“This is a one-way street.”
“Shit.”
“Language,” Dr. Kenway said in a judgmental sing-song. Desmond could hear his roommate grinding his teeth.
Luckily, they did not encounter another car before getting to the end of the one-way street and turning onto a larger, four-lane road populated by college diners and shops. Since it was still really early on a Saturday morning, there were hardly any cars on the road, but it was still enough to make Desmond, at least, nervous.
Calmly, he warned Connor, “This lane ends here in a bit, you should go ahead and merge left.”
Immediately taking his suggestion, Connor swerved into the left land, cutting off a yellow beetle who honked angrily at him. Charles Lee’s face was dark with anger, and Haytham gritted out, “You know what, maybe someone with more experience should take the wheel.”
“No, dad, you’re the one who decided I need to know how to do this,” Connor replied darkly, barely managing to come to a stop at the red light. The yellow beetle was still honking. Desmond sank in his seat, hoping he would one day get a job that would pay for all the therapy he was inevitably going to need.
Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, grateful for the distraction. His heart leaped into his throat: it was a text from Lucy, the gorgeous girl in his philosophy class.
From: Lucy Stillman
9:11 AM
Hey Desmond! Rebecca, Shaun, and I were going to get together tonight to study for Dr. Vidic’s exam. Want to join?
A study group. It wasn’t a date, but it was spending time in Lucy’s presence outside of class. He would take anything that he could get. And if it improved his philosophy grade, that would only be a bonus.
He composed a reply immediately, erased it, typed in the exact same thing, erased that, reworded it slightly, erased that, and went back to the original message, finally sending it. It said,
Sounds great! Where and when do you want to meet up?
He pocketed his phone and looked up just in time to see Connor speeding under a railroad-barrier as it was coming down, only barely making it in time. His heart began pounding for an entirely different reason as he glanced over at Dr. Kenway, whose face was frozen in horror.
“Okay, okay, pull over, Connor,” Charles Lee was saying.
“What, why?” Connor said, pulling over into a gravel shoulder nonetheless.
“Because, I think we all agree, you are done for the day,” he said, opening his car door and getting out, motioning that Connor should do the same.
He did so, and they switched sides, Charles Lee, seeming to relax a lot as soon as Connor was out of the driver’s seat of his car (honestly, Desmond couldn’t blame him), and very safely drove them back to the dorm.
When he dropped them off, Dr. Kenway moved up to the front seat and said, “Alright, Charles Lee, when are you free to give Connor another driving lesson?”
“Haytham, sir, are you sure you can’t just enroll him in driver’s ed?”
“What? Of course not; why would I pay for that when I can have you do it. I already pay you.”
Charles Lee sighed, and for a brief moment, Desmond almost felt sorry for him. “Of course, sir.”
Dr. Kenway looked at his son, then, and said, merely, “Connor. I’ll be in touch.”
“Yeah,” Connor replied, equally impersonal, and Desmond kind of wanted to know what was up with them.
Still, he was free of this incredibly awkward experience, and there was plenty of time before his study session at (Lucy had texted him back!) four for a glorious nap.
His roommate was already walking off, and Desmond hurried to follow him back to the dorm.
“Hey,” he said when he caught up to him. “What’s the deal with you and your dad? I mean, I don’t get along with mine, but it seems like you don’t even know yours.”
“That’s because I don’t,” Connor said, flashing his student ID before the sensor to unlock the main door into the dorm.
“Okay,” Desmond said, following him in, “Explain.”
Connor didn’t say anything for a while, and Desmond was beginning to worry that he’d pried where he shouldn’t have, but then, when they were going up the stairs to their floor, he started talking.
“I never knew him. I mean, my mom talked about him, but I’d never met him. This guy who lived in the apartment next to ours, Achilles, was more of a father to me than me real dad ever was, growing up. But then, a few months ago, he turns up out of nowhere, and says that if I go to school here, it’ll be free of charge since he’s a professor. And now he’s literally everywhere.”
“You don’t seem sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Desmond said, intending it to be a joke.
Connor smiled briefly, but then he shrugged, unlocking their room. “I’m not. I’d like to be happy that he’s in my life, but…he’s just so fundamentally different from what I expected my dad to be like.”
“Like what?”
“Like, god damn it he is so conservative that I literally do not know how to speak to him sometimes?” Connor said.
“Oh,” Desmond said.
“Yeah,” Connor replied.
“That sucks, man,” Desmond offered.
Connor shrugged again. “Sorry for dragging you along. You didn’t need to be involved in that.”
“Hey, we’re friends, right?” Desmond said, desperately hoping that Connor didn’t take that as an open invitation to use him as a buffer between himself and his dad ever again.
But he smiled, and opened one of his textbooks, so Desmond decided that that nap was exactly what he needed before meeting up with Lucy (and the others).