Malachi grinned and nodded relevantly. He definitely agreed with that statement. "I'm glad to hear that. I'd hate for you to have complaints about the place you actually live," he said with a smile. He laughed. "Oh yeah. Sorry, I apologize for belittling shoes by calling them a toy," he said teasingly. He knew plenty of both women and men that took clothes and shoes seriously since it was how people actually saw them. In high society he'd noticed that everyone's opinion of people were based on their bloodline as well as how they presented themselves to everyone else. He followed her eyes to the sketchbook and just nodded slowly for a moment. "It's okay. You can ask anything. I brought it up first anyway. But yeah, you could say art is my thing, but there's more important things now. There's things like my family, providing them for, giving them more than what someone can on the salary of an art gallery curator and part-time art teacher, you know? I don't want them to want for anything, to need for anything in their lives. As an Auror, I get paid more it's true and it brings me a big higher in the society that Lavender wants. She doesn't want to be high society, but she's been stuck on the low end of society for awhile. I want to give her something better, you know? Maybe it's wishful thinking. I think she thinks I'll bail out in a few weeks or maybe, if I'm lucky, months. But I don't have to give up art to be an Auror. I mean, I left art school and didn't give up art. It'll always be important to me, a part of me." He shrugged, not sure if Astoria could understand any of that or where he was coming from.
He laughed. "How would you know? You've barely seen me with her," he teased, clearly not taking offense. "Which actually just means that you should spend more time with us so you can see for yourself and hope you don't actually get sick around us." He smiled, not even remotely taking back the invitation. He was sure that Lavender wouldn't mind having Astoria over as a guest. She hadn't mind when Malachi had invited her to the wedding. Astoria was her friend. He laughed. "You're really trying to scare me, aren't you?" he asked, "You want me to go crazy from all this worry for them, huh? You're kind of cruel." He was teasing, of course. Cruel was one of the last things he'd actually call Astoria. He laughed. "Okay, no early death."