Work Text:
Roman was the easiest.
It was easy to find him, easy to corner him, easy to take him home, easy to persuade him to fuck. A bar where he was drinking alone; pretend it was an accident; talk at him until he exploded, and then Lukas had him.
In the aftermath of death and sale, Roman had been left wanting anything. Anyone who did all the running, anyone who could overwhelm him, wham, bam, down and out, smack him hard and put him in his place. And it helped that Lukas now possessed his father’s role, king and master of all he surveyed.
They ordered martinis (girly drink but whatever kept things flowing) and kept drinking, Lukas sticking pins in wherever he could. Someway in, doing the sex talk, not frat boy but pretty disgusting since that was the way Roman rolled apparently, Lukas asked if he was all talk, and Roman recoiled.
‘Are you hitting on me? ‘Cause – ’ Little finger gesture going up and down, preparatory to some smart-assed remark Lukas wasn’t going to let him make.
‘Do you want me to be?
‘I’m not gay,’ Roman said quickly, then looked annoyed at himself.
‘Neither am I.’
‘Oh, wow, soooo convincing, right now.’
‘No, man, I’m not gay, I’m a sadist.’
Which was apparently the thing that made Roman come home with him.
The easiest to snag, yes, but unfortunately that was the only positive about the whole experience. The sex was boring and bad. Lukas didn’t really find him attractive, exactly, but he was curious, which was as good as being turned on. The sex thing he’d only heard snippets of, some of the scathing things Shiv had said, that might be funny to poke at.
It wasn’t. Roman was drunk and didn’t appear to understand what sex actually involved, and then when he did he didn’t appear to want to, really lacklustre, going-through-the-motions shit, letting Lukas toss him round, which was sort of hot but also annoying, and in the middle of round two, when Lukas started probing about Gerri (he’d picked a few details out of Tom and Greg, and filled in the rest via a hair-tossing, sour Shiv), he started to cry hysterically.
Lukas wasn’t a complete monster; he stopped what he was doing immediately. He didn’t know what to do with the crying. Round three was clearly out of the question, as was a do-over; the signs suggested that Roman would call the police on him for stalking if he turned up again. Comfort was not his forte and he didn’t see why he should have to, anyway. It wasn’t what he had signed up for, and whatever was wrong in Roman’s head was hardly his fault, was it?
He bailed the moment Roman shut himself in the bathroom, grabbed his stuff and, okay, yes, fled the scene.
*
It had started as a sort of joke. Just between him and himself.
These Americans, everything was fuck and kill, fuck and kill, and never meaning it. Lukas was not averse to this sort of language, he spoke it fluently, it got the point across. But when Hugo (shortly to be disposed of, but fun to juice him before throwing him out the window) described him as having ‘fucked’ the Roy brothers for the third time in one meeting, he happened to be looking across the table at Shiv, and it hit more literally than usual.
Why not make it more literal? Sex was easy to get, he didn’t need to pay or put in any effort, just go to a club and find some wasted twenty-five year old. But there was sex and then there was sex. Ebba wasn’t onboard for the former let alone the latter these days, she kept saying that she was leaving as soon as her contract was up, and the easy girls, the party, good-time sluts, they were kind of boring him. The lack of connection meant it had to be normo sex, or at least sex without any psychological twistiness, which was part of what had made it so good with Ebba.
Things hadn’t really been fun since the win anyway, which wasn’t how he had imagined it. And there was nothing to fill the gap, no big fight or fuck-over he could focus his energies on instead. Gutting various parts of Waystar occupied him for a little while, but that started to pall pretty quickly. Even ritually humiliating Tom was losing its joys, he rolled over way too easily.
Then he saw Shiv again, at some deathly dull high society thing Ebba and Karolina had carted him off to, ‘for the optics’.
She was trying to play it cool, but Lukas knew that she was desperate to get back in, to be included. Lukas debated putting her back on the board, but he wanted to get her really, really desperate, really begging for it before he gave in. The sex was also a factor. He didn’t think she’d fuck him for it, but you never knew.
Neither Tom nor Shiv really seemed to know everything about the structure of the company, which was irritating, and Tom was not a numbers guy, which pissed Lukas off, but Shiv had her finger on the pulse, she understood people, she was good at the cultural shit that bored Lukas rigid. And it meant he could pop up on Tom, fuck him over with something Tom was hiding from him, ancient history that Tom didn’t think he’d know about or understand.
Lukas spent a lot of time thinking about Shiv, angry and pregnant and weirdly present even when she wasn’t, and by extension, about her two waste-of-space brothers. Lukas had really enjoyed the whole thing, honestly, until right near the end where it had looked like he might get fucked back. It had been invigorating. He loved fucking people over, he loved crushing them into the dust and leaving without a backwards glance, oh, that was your life’s work, the purpose of your existence? What do I care, man, this was just for kicks, it was easy, you mean nothing to me, I hardly noticed I was trampling you. Because he was just that good, he was just that much better.
Why not see what came of prodding the Roy rat nest? The victory had been less sweet than he had anticipated, the payoff not as great, partly because of the loose Shiv-shaped ends, partly because Kendall had departed the building without giving Lukas the opportunity to gloat and Roman hadn’t even cried while signing or anything.
And why not make the fuck-over a little more literal? There had been the idea, post-sale, bored already of Tom, finding Shiv recalcitrant, finding the victory somehow less sweet than expected, less whole. Shiv was not always particularly subtle in her reminders that none of them would have anything without her. She was furious too.
So. Complete the set. Catch them all.
*
After the Roman debacle, Lukas had started to think maybe the whole joke wasn’t so funny after all, but then Shiv started coming into the office more often, for vague, nebulous reasons, and, well.
Shiv.
Wait until the baby, don’t wait until the baby. It kind of creeped him out, the idea of fucking her with the baby inside, but after the baby she might be fat and weepy, not hot at all, and often women got weird about sex afterwards, he’d heard. Their cunts dried up or hurt or something. Their breasts sagged and leaked.
How far along was she, anyway? He asked Tom point blank, eventually, doing his best to make it a humiliating experience, made a joke about maternity leave and lactation breaks.
Six months. Six months was manageable, Shiv’d still be up for it he bet. Particularly because Lukas didn’t think she was fucking Tom at the moment. Interesting, a little bit, to fuck a pregnant woman, even if it was also discomforting.
Shiv got with the program pretty quickly, which was nice. She wasn’t as easy as Roman, but he’d laid the groundwork, she’d let him collect eventually. When he laughed and put his arms around her, found her mouth and stuck his tongue in it, one easy evening when he’d lured her over to his place by pretending he wanted a different perspective on one of Tom’s fuck ups, she did not push him away.
On the bed, embracing, she smelt so good. He found he liked the fleshiness brought on by her pregnancy. Ebba was like holding a fire poker, which he’d always preferred before. Shiv was small, like Ebba, something he could snap really easily, but also so soft, not like Ebba at all.
But then things started to go weird, it started to go wrong. She seemed to slip away under his hands, he couldn’t keep hold of her. Like she was changing shape, bird, fish, woman, a substance ultimately untouchable in the same moment that she was in his arms.
He hadn’t planned the actual fucking properly, but he’d had the vague idea of humiliating her, making her beg.
It was the other way around. She gave him nothing.
He was inside her, holding her tightly by the shoulder and then the thigh, palming one thick breast and thrusting like his life depended on it, and it was like he was the opposite side of the room. When she shoved at him, he let her roll them over, get on top, sit on his cock at a different angle that felt a lot less comfortable for him. He tried to touch her breasts, her cunt – she smacked his hands away.
Shiv took her pleasure in quick, definitive movements, and indicated without speaking that she didn’t give a fuck whether he got off or not. Using him like a dildo. It got him so hot for her, the shiver of unhappiness under the skin, the way she sat with her legs astride his, and it made him furious at the same time.
He could easily have pushed her under him, reminded her of how it actually was, but he didn’t. For some reason, he didn’t.
Afterwards, Shiv got straight up, put her clothes back on, and left. Lukas didn’t manage to get more than three words past his lips before she was out of the door. He wasn’t even sure that she’d come.
Then she ignored him for three weeks straight. He texted her a couple of times afterwards, their normal tone, and then in a steady, desperate stream, the sickest, filthiest stuff he could think of, anything to rile her up, get a reaction out of her, but fucking nothing, not a word. Shiv didn’t block him but she didn’t reply. She wasn’t in the office, there was no reason for her to be in the office, except that she had been giving Lukas – input.
He’d have sent her blood, but that joke was outworn, and it had been a special thing between him and Ebba anyway. Also Shiv, unlike Ebba, would not hesitate to sue from the first blood bag.
*
When Shiv came back to the office ‘to consult’, she looked even more pregnant but even more untouchable too. She acted like he wasn’t there, like he was boring there, she rolled her eyes at him openly whenever she wanted. Lukas wanted to kill her. He wanted to fuck her again.
And this time, he would touch her, he would pin her down, he would get what he wanted out of her.
Lukas started hinting about it to Tom, but only when Shiv was there. It would be no fun otherwise. It was great. Shiv’s face went rigid each and every time. And Tom – ha, all that fucking bullshit, that he could take anything, Lukas talking about fucking his wife to his face, it meant nothing. He wasn’t going to say anything to Lukas, but he was going to take it out on everybody else, Shiv and Greg and Karolina and nameless underlings. He tried to take it out on Oskar, who was better at that game than him, and on Ebba, who started talking about her tell-all memoir loudly again.
‘Why are you even with him?’ Lukas asked Shiv interestedly the next time, twirling her hair round his fingers.
‘The next time’ happened after a gala they’d attended, the GoStar gang, Shiv in something long and red that skipped over her stomach but clung to her tits. She was so fucking hot, even though she was the size of a fucking blimp.
That evening something was off between Tom and Shiv, more than usual. The stink of unhappiness came off them. Showboating, the whole crew of them, for the cameras. Shiv’s face all snarled up when she looked at Tom. Tom put his hand on her belly for the photographs; Lukas was surprised he didn’t lose an arm.
He hadn’t thought about it before the sale. Shiv Roy, youngest child, comes with weak whiny husband attached. Why did women fuck anyone? Why did women marry anyone?
(At one point, Lukas had thought he might marry Ebba, but it had seemed like an unnecessary amount of effort when he had already her whenever he wanted, and also he knew she would try to put her foot down about fucking other people. He hadn’t been fucking other people for the most part, not when he was really really into her. It was like he’d told Roman in Italy. He got so into people, and then they disappointed him. But for that gap, they were the whole world and point.
Lukas was kind of worried that he was into Shiv now in that same way, to the point he didn’t want to fuck other people, which was never a good sign. Women were all the same after a while, they went crazy on you.
Look at Ebba, she’d done her best to fuck him over with the whole fake numbers thing, plus she’d gone all neurotic on him, which was tiresome. Nowadays she couldn’t take a joke and she wouldn’t fuck him at all. Not since she got back from leave.
It would be so fucking boring if Shiv went like that too. She would probably go like that. Because of the baby. Fuck, how long until she’d be able to have sex again?)
The second time was like the first: good, in that even without a little heightener he came so hard he was briefly worried he’d blown a synapse, and bad, in that Shiv would not give him the reaction he knew was there. And the third time. And the fourth. And the – more, and more pregnant, and still untouchable, and time was running out, and nothing Lukas did, none of the nasty little tricks and surprises he’d used to grind Ebba down, and Lydia and Mila and Ani before her, none of them worked.
What did she want? What was she even getting out of the whole thing? She didn’t seem to like him, the way she had when they’d first met. She didn’t seem to notice him at all, whether in the board room, or face down head twisting back with his dick inside her, the same bored expression, glazed over, not even seeing him.
It shouldn’t have been a worry because Lukas was on top now, the balance of power was entirely in his favour no matter how much Shiv hinted about how it was only because of her.
But he thought of her more and more, he fantasised about fucking her in the office, getting her so riled up she disgraced herself, humiliated herself with the obviousness of her want. Logan Roy’s daughter: appearances were everything.
Eventually he came to the obvious conclusion: she was fucking him to get back at Tom.
How had it not occurred to him before? No.1, straight after Tom had fucked her over about the make-up of the board; No.2, at the gala, Tom showing her off like a show pony; No.3, when Tom said, ‘Sweetheart, shouldn’t you be resting?’; No.4 – fuck, fuck, fuck, how had Lukas not caught on.
It was like those girls he fucked after Ebba, headphones on, not having to speak to them, not having to do any of the work. She was using him like he had used the girls and he did not like it. It was the wrong end of the fuck.
It made the whole thing cold and twisted up. And Tom, fucking Tom! Why would she give a fuck about Tom?
A night out, the heavy stuff Lukas normally didn’t touch when there was serious work to be done, a mediocre fuck with a rail-thin barbie blonde twenty-year old, and he felt more like himself. Lukas Matsson was not going to be screwed over by some fat housewife, breeding stock for her inferior husband. Lukas Matsson was not going to let the bitch get away with any of it. And Lukas Matsson was not going to lose his temper.
He would play it chill.
*
‘Shivvy, Shivvy,’ he said, the way her brothers had sometimes called her, the next time Shiv deigned to let him fuck her.
They were going at it with her on all fours, because her belly was now big enough to make anything else awkward. It should have brought her down some, but it was like she wasn’t even aware of how degrading her position was. He’d made her wait, or tried to make her wait, braced on the bed, but nothing stirred her and he was so turned on he couldn’t hold out, had to stick it in her immediately. He got a little bit of a reaction from that, a grunt and a swaying of the hips, but then she righted herself and went silent again.
‘Yeah, you want it, you want it so bad.’
The dirty talk was maybe not that sophisticated or high class, but a woman who let herself be fucked like a bitch in heat was not sophisticated or high class. Honestly, at that stage, Lukas was just saying whatever came into his head. He was getting somewhere, he just knew it. ‘Shivvy,’ he said again, ‘Yeah, that’s what you need, huh, you need my cock, you need it so fucking bad you can’t –’
‘What a fucking cliché,’ Shiv said over her shoulder, very nearly the first thing she had said to him in bed, in the act itself. ‘You could at least mix it up a little, sound less like a low-budget porno.’
Lukas was so stunned he stopped thrusting and nearly fell out of her entirely. None of his women ever spoke to him like that. None of them complained, it turned them on. Girls liked that talk.
Fine, fuck her harder until she came, definitely came, or no, pull out, teach her a lesson, that he didn’t need her or really want her, yes, pull out, make her beg – but he was coming, he couldn’t help himself, a sudden swooping feeling overtaking his head at the same time, and then Shiv was elbowing at him to get him off her, not playfully, really fucking hard, jabbing backwards at his ribs until he rolled over and lay panting on his back.
Shiv sat up, still naked. She clutched a pillow to her chest, which should have made her look self-conscious of her nakedness. Should have. One leg crossed, and he could catch a glimpse of her pussy, dark and flushed, long lips. Ebba was like a fucking Barbie doll down there, how could he find Shiv more… Never mind.
He wanted to put his mouth there on Shiv, but he didn’t know if she would let him and a refusal would be so fucking anger-making, would put her in-fucking-charge. Those heavy breasts, her nipples darker than when they first fucked, probably from pregnancy, right?, and the sparse blonde hairs on her belly – fuck, he was getting hard again, really hard, like some fuckass teenage boy seeing his first pair of tits.
Lukas moved closer to her, put his head on her knee. Another woman might have stroked his hair. Shiv at least didn’t immediately shove him off but nor did she make any gesture suggesting he was welcome there, nuzzling into her well-padded thigh.
This might prove regrettable but at that moment, despite the fact he had literally just fucked her ten minutes ago, he wanted to put his dick in her more than anything else in the world. He risked a glance up.
Kerosene blue eyes directed straight at him, looking at him, seeing him properly at last. Only thirty seconds but Lukas felt like she’d hit him. Then she looked away.
‘What?’
‘You’re not much good in bed,’ she said out of nowhere, not looking at him. ‘I mean, so conventionally attractive, but – boring.’
Ebba had never complained. He was livid. Ebba would have said something! One of those other girls would have said something!
‘Uh-huh, yeah, ‘cause Tom fuck’s you so good, and that’s why you’re here, right? Shivvy-Shivvy.’
‘No,’ shaking her head, that little cat look back in her eyes, ‘No, Tom’s much better than you. I guess you just coast on your looks, right? Like you coast on someone else’s business model.’
‘Yeah, that’s why you’re gagging for it, gagging to choke on my dick, that’s why all I have to do is call and you come running, that’s why you’re doing this –’
‘This tawdry little cliché?’ flicking her fingers like she was ridding herself of a bug.
‘Then why are you here?’ he tried to put his mouth on her neck, hand on her nipple, she pushed him off. Still cool and collected.
‘Oh, you know, it’s something to pass the time. And besides, I was curious.’
‘Curious about what?’
She was up and off the bed, picking up her clothes. She’d left them on the chest of drawers so she didn’t have to stoop awkwardly to get at them over her belly. She’d planned it. She’d planned her exit. What else had she planned?
‘Curious about what?’ he said, following her, pathetic, catching at her arm. Fuck, he had to stop her, had to make her realise she wasn’t in charge.
‘What you wanted out of this. If it would be interesting. Whether you were as dull in bed as they all said.’
‘‘They’? Who the fuck is ‘they’? Shiv –’ grabbing her properly as she headed out of the bedroom and towards the elevator.
‘Fucking don’t touch me!’
He backed off, both hands raised.
‘Hey, hey, don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. Unlike your brother, I don’t go in for domestic violence – ’
There was glass in air and then glass in his face. Lukas found himself on the floor, dazed, a hot trickle running down his forehead, and the elevator doors closing in his face.
She had flung a vase at his head.
*
This was the most exciting thing that had happened to him since Lydia and the hair pin incident.
If he got mad, she won. He wasn’t mad, he told himself. He was chill. He was in control of the situation. He was in control of Shiv, or she never would have lost it enough to do something like that. So Lukas was sticking his dick in crazy after all – he’d done it before, and it was pretty exciting to have been doing it without realising it.
Now was the time. He could call the fucking police on her, he could tell Tom, he could do all sorts of things. Now he could reel her in. He had the upper hand! Wait, he’d already had the upper hand. The upper, upper hand then. Time to let Shivvy-Shivvy-Shiv-Shiv know it too.
Thus Lukas ordained that what had been Logan’s office (which he had purposefully said not to touch, just to piss off Tom) could be emptied. Looking through the pictures was interesting too. Shiv. Just Shiv. Not her brothers. The wife too, and various presidents with the old coot.
‘Somebody was the favourite, hey?’ he said. Shiv hadn’t wanted to be there when the office was cleared out, while Tom had been desperate as he so often was – ‘he was my father-in-law, ha, ha,’ – so Lukas had enforced having them both.
‘Only daughter, hmm?’ Tom jumped in. He sidled closer to his wife, put his hand on her belly. ‘I guess I’ll be just as bad, ahaha, right Shiv? A girl dad!’
‘Right,’ Shiv said dully. She had one of the photographs in her hand. Logan and Reagan. Logan looked much happier than Lukas had ever seen him in real life.
‘Oh, a girl?’ Lukas said, preparatory to the vilest possible comment he could think of, something so fucking sick she might even lamp him in front of Tom, ha, or at least she’d see exactly how much her spineless little sea clam wasn’t going to defend his pregnant wife – ‘A girl, Shiv? Well, you know what they say – ’ Stopped, because Tom was opening the door to let Gerri in. Because Shiv wasn’t paying attention to him.
And she wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t looking at him at all.
*
Prior to everything, Lukas had assumed the sale would be peaceable. He assumed they were normal business people, Kendall’d take it on the chin and keep going. Not that he cared either way. Still, nothing had said it would be any other way.
But between Tom’s nervousness and Shiv’s storminess, a different picture emerged. Shiv in the office, furious, arguing (actually arguing) with Karolina on how to deal with her brother, the quick-fire epithets she attached to him, the way she spat out the words to describe him – it all suggested someone so unstable, her brother, mad and vile and dangerous, her brother.
Who hadn’t actually cropped up again, but whom they all seemed to assume would, having gone completely off the deep end, no doubt sworn to fuck up the company as much as he could i.e. not at all. But generating a few tabloid headlines maybe.
Therefore Lukas had expected something entirely different to what he got.
A snarling, ranting, raving, puking, hissing thing, stalking the office, lurking beside the bins. Maybe sending a package of his own, like Lukas had to Ebba. Haunting them all.
Kendall certainly haunted Shiv, that had become very clear. Lukas wondered if it would satisfy him to know that he hadn’t even had to lift a finger to haunt her. He’d gone dark, he’d gone rogue. They all waited for his re-emergence with baited breath, what would he do, what would he say. But nobody actually looked for him.
The thought of his suicide excited Lukas a little. It would have been pretty funny if he’d done it on the spot after losing the board vote but bad for press and Ebba would never have shut the fuck up about it and Shiv probably would have been more difficult to fuck.
Now if he did it, it would just look sad and pathetic, and it wouldn’t even feel like Lukas or Shiv had driven him to it, which would have been interesting at least.
Honestly, Kendall was the Roy Lukas felt he had the least grasp on, not because he was complicated or deep or some shit, just he was so fucking erratic.
What Lukas had understood from the birthday party (deeply cringe, revoltingly obvious, and also maybe a bit nuts, but not in the hot sort of crazy way that made Lukas want to stick his dick in it) and everything as they fought over the sale (not impressive, but just enough agility to keep things frustrating, an irritating block, dead-in-the-eyes most of the time, mutual antipathy every time he walked in the room).
Then he paired it with everything on paper about Kendall Roy (Harvard, Shanghai, family man, acquisitions, impressive career for a nepo baby up until it came to versus off-the-rails on drugs, rehab, acrimonious divorce, absent father, failed patricide, corporate turn-off a man who always missed the moment), and came up blank.
Who the fuck was he? Not as interesting as Shiv, Lukas thought, and definitely not as attractive, but maybe entertaining enough since Shiv wasn’t putting out. ‘Putting out’ – she had him speaking like a high school comedy.
And that had been the idea in the first place, and it would piss Shiv off so much if he could wave it in her face, you’re not special, I fucked all three of you, I fucked you all in every sense, what are you going to do about it?
So Lukas went looking instead. It took a while. He was going back and forth between Sweden and the US again, which he hated, and it took a while to get round to it. Shiv was never in the office anymore. She was, according to Tom, extremely fucking pregnant and, according to Greg, extremely fucking angry.
*
Lukas had expected a bar or a club or the gutter, from what Shiv had let slip. He had thought it would be easy, as long as Kendall didn’t take a leaf from his sister’s book and smash a glass in his face straight away, and that would be funny in its own right.
But no. Kendall was apparently not going out in public anymore.
When Lukas finally pinned down which apartment Little Lost Cokehead was hiding in, he tried to talk his way up, but the lobby guy wasn’t budging.
‘Just fucking call him and say I’m here,’ Lukas tried finally.
The guy was right in the middle of saying ‘I’m calling security if you don’t leave NOW sir,’ when a familiar behemoth hoved into view and made for the elevator. Lukas was taller, but that guy had some (out-of-shape) bulk on him. What the fuck was his name, the guy the old prick had always had trailing after him?
‘Carlton! Hey, Carlton!’
Goliath didn’t turn around. Fuck, not Carlton then.
‘Cedric? Whatever, Roy’s guy!’
The elevator dinged open but thank fuck, the man-elephant turned around.
‘You’re going up right? Just tell him I’m here. C’mon man, I’ve been trying to get hold of him for weeks, it’s important.’
Christopher’s face didn’t change. He turned back around and got in the elevator.
Lukas ground his teeth, paced a little. He’d tell his boss, he’d have to tell his boss…
The desk phone rang. The useless fuck picked it up, said, ‘Yes, of course, Mr Roy,’ and turned back to Lukas. ‘Mr Roy says you can go up, sir,’ he said with a pissy look.
Kendall looked thin, sort of grey-coloured. Lukas thought of Shiv, right now all glorious colour, rosy pink and red.
‘Kendall! Great to see you, dude, it’s been too long,’ Lukas said cheerily and threw one arm around him.
Kendall waited politely until he was released then said, ‘Thank you, uh, thanks, Colin, you can go now.’
Colin! Lukas knew it began with a C. The mountain shuffled off, and there was Lukas where he had worked so long to be: alone with Kendall Roy.
‘Surprised you let me up,’ Lukas said, when it became clear Kendall wasn’t going to say anything.
Kendall shrugged. ‘Uh-huh. It’s not you I’m pissed at,’ he said.
‘Great. Since you’re, uh, not pissed at me, you could offer me a drink.’
‘Sure. What else would you like, the art off the walls?’ Kendall said, but he still didn’t sound ticked off.
Lukas threw himself onto the sofa without asking. ‘Chop-chop, fucking at it,’ he said.
Kendall kind of made a noise, like maybe he was thinking about laughing, then started rummaging in the drawers of a large and very ugly piece of furniture. He handed Lukas a bottle of Absolut Vodka, which tasted exactly as cheap as it looked.
‘What, no glass?’
‘A glass is, uh, extra.’ He kind of quirked those crooked teeth a little at that too.
‘You have a glass.’
‘Water. I’m not drinking.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘What about, the, y’know,’ with a little snorting gesture off the back of his hand.
‘Oh yeah, no absolutely, man,’ Kendall said in monotone. ‘No, I’m like up to my neck in it. It’s just booze I’m off.’ He sat down on the sofa cautiously, not too close to Lukas.
‘Man, they all talk about you like you’re going to top yourself outside the office.’
Kendall shrugged. ‘Thought about it. But not for me.’
Lukas raised his eyebrows.
‘I’ve got kids, dude.’
‘Uh-huh. And when did you last see them?’
He’d hoped for an explosion, because from what he’d pinched and prodded out of Stewy (off the board and out of Waystar, thank fuck, he annoyed the shit out of Ebba and while Lukas was all for that, it was only fun when he was doing it) and Frank et al. that had been what did it at the board vote – ‘Insofar as we could hear what was being said,’ Frank had added, the sanctimonious prick – but nope, more blankness.
‘Did you seriously come here to talk about what kind of father I am, man?’
‘No,’ Lukas said. ‘I came here to fuck you.’
Still that fucking wall-face.
‘Yeah. What, the first time wasn’t enough for you?’
‘No, I meant – fuck you, fuck you.’
No reaction, which was galling, and when Lukas felt galled, he escalated, he stabbed until he got a response.
So he put his hand on Kendall’s thigh and stroked it.
‘What the fuck, man?’ Deadpan, blank face.
‘That’s the idea, yeah.’
‘Uh-huh. And this is just a spur-of-the-moment kind of occasion, or what, you decided to make fucking me over a lot more literal?’
‘See, you get it. Let’s get this show on the road.’
Kendall shook his head, laughed. It did weird things to the hangdog lines on his face like he was out of practice.
‘And they say we’re fucked up.’
But it wasn’t a no. And he didn’t move Lukas’s hand off his thigh.
Cheered, Lukas poured them both another drink and continued to prod until the blankness fell away – at least for a while.
*
Kendall was languid, not at all how Lukas had thought he would be pre or post-coital. Maybe he was different with somebody who hadn’t had to chivvy him into bed. Or with somebody who hadn’t neatly taken his inheritance off him and trod him into the dirt for all to see.
It had been actually quite good, far out ahead of the Roman debacle, if not as good as with Shiv. And Kendall didn’t seem to be in a hurry to kick him out right away.
‘What brought this on?’
‘Maybe I’ve wanted to fuck you since your birthday. Since Italy. Since Norway.’
‘Uh-huh, yeah, no. Try again,’ Kendall said – and he was smiling.
It was kind of interesting, that smile.
Not outrageous, but Lukas kind of felt himself perk up a bit, sit up and pay attention properly for the first time that evening. Maybe he could provoke the kind of fit Kendall had had at the board meeting. That would be interesting, and not in the way things were interesting right now, in a frustrating, missing puzzle piece way that turned Lukas on but also pissed him off a lot.
Huh, so pretty like with Shiv after all.
‘Honestly, I kind of had a little bet with myself…you know, collect the full set.’
If he’d said that to Roman, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. If he’d said that to Shiv, he wasn’t sure how she would have reacted, but it would have been bad. Another vase to the face, perhaps.
Kendall looked at him for a moment, then laughed. Getting back into practice then.
‘So am I first or last?’
‘Last.’
‘Uh…who was the best then?’
‘Shiv,’ Lukas said without thinking.
Kendall smiled.
‘Uh-huh, uh-huh. Makes sense, she’s the one you were actually, uh, attracted to.’
Lukas felt indignant. He’d put on a pretty good show, he felt, and he hadn’t noticed Kendall saying otherwise during.
‘You complaining?’
Kendall shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse.’
‘What, three stars?’
Kendall looked at him thoughtfully, mouth turned slightly up.
‘Two-and-a-half.’
‘No, three,’ Lukas said childishly.
‘Three out of?’
‘Out of five. C’mon. You came.’
‘Uh, if that’s your bar, I’m not sure that isn’t another half down.’
Lukas put one big hand on Kendall’s ribcage and pressed down. Kendall slapped at him, and yes, he was actually laughing now. It was completely unattractive – like a weird coughing fit – but there it was.
‘Fine, fine, three – a provisional three.’
‘Three for three, the full set,’ he said smugly.
Kendall rolled his eyes. Lukas wondered just how pissed he would be if Lukas told him that made him look like Shiv.
He settled down in the bed, put an arm around Kendall automatically, started thinking about Shiv’s face, when he told her. It would be good, he bet. He understood now that she would do her best not to give him a visible reaction but she was shit at that, she couldn’t do the dead face the way Kendall could, and that was good, the dead face was deeply creepy and unsexy, and Shiv was never unsexy –
Kendall shifted slightly. If Lukas was reading him right, he was amused, whether by the arm or by the whole situation.
‘There’s just one more thing.’
‘What?’
‘You left out Con.’