Roman hates Kendall's stupid birthday party. Apart from the entry shaped like their mother's genitals, that was a stroke of genius, but the rest is all dumb and fake. It's not even his real birthday. 40 years old and he's still celebrating the made-up date his daddy picked for him, instead of sharing his birthday with Jesus. There's plenty of Christ imagery at the party though, rumour has it Kenny intends to nail himself to a cross at the end of the night. Roman hopes that's literal.
He's on cloud nine after his talk with Matsson. When is your father going to die? Matsson asked. That got to him, more than he thought it would. Like, obviously Logan is going to die at some point, but not really. That's the stuff of science fiction nightmares.
Still, he pulled off the business chat successfully, like a real fucking businessman. He's the man. Then Shiv hits him where it hurts with COO who can't fuck, and he can't hit a girl, not in public anyway, so he takes it out on Kendall. Come on, hit me. He'd love it if Kendall physically attacked his brother at his birthday party, the press would be fantastic.
Instead Kendall gets in his face and says You're not a real person, whatever the fuck that means, and he sounds like he means it. So Roman pushes him down with a Happy birthday fuckface. For once, it's Kendall who ends up being physically assaulted by a family member. Roman feels a flicker of guilt, remembering the times Kendall defended him from Dad, but then he remembers water pistols and lost games of Bitey and boar on the floor? and fuck him.
Roman is still on a high walking home, and thinks this must be how Ken feels when he's on drugs. He's not quite sure what happened tonight, but he knows he won. Kendall was humiliated and somehow, that means Roman won.