Who: Chidera Okeke and Hamish Roberts What: Consolation Milkshakes When: Thursday, 22 March after the Cannons loss. Where: Riding House Cafe, Oxford Circus, London Warnings: Not even a little
The problem with being able to write back and forth to someone at anytime was that it could be distracting, and Hamish was easily distracted. So while he found himself in London within an hour, finding the cafe he'd agreed to meet Chidera at was another story.
By the time he made it through the door and spotted her waiting for him, he was ten minutes late but deeply apologetic. "Sorry, I totally got distracted and then had to find this place and while I usually run late, not when something's happening right after I made those plans," he offered, taking a seat opposite her.
At least the last thing he'd read before he'd had to leave was Meaghan agreeing to go out for her birthday. Otherwise that entire conversation would have been a lot more distracting even now that he was there.
"But I'm here now, yeah?"
Chidera looked at him sideways as she closed her book and gestured at the drink sitting across from her. “Think it might be more milk than shake at this point, but I reckon it’s still tasty.” For her part, her matching Toblerone milkshake was already half drunk and the whipped cream was gone. “What did I interrupt?” she asked as slid her drink back over and took another sip.
Hamish grinned, reaching for the slightly melted shake that looked absolutely delicious. He took a sip, and then nodded his approval at Chidera. "Right, this is brilliant," he agreed, before giving her a look.
"Oh you know, just me sorting out who gets what and when. I bet more than usual on this last match. Like my broom collection for that portkey I was gonna hand over to you." He gave her a slight shrug, not too concerned about the brooms as his job made them easily replaceable.
“You bet your broom collection?!” Chidera said, flabbergasted as she leaned forward before realizing that they didn’t have the sort of relationship where she could hit him on the side of the head. “You have a problem, you know that?” she added as she sat back in her chair and shook her head. “Rich boys.”
“You make more than I do,” Hamish pointed out. “My job just affords me free brooms every once in a while? Besides what’s the point of being attached to anything?”
He took a long drink, unaware how close he had come to being slapped upside the head, though he’d have not thought anything of it if she had. “So when are you wanting to go to Nigeria?” he asked. “Cause I am one hundred ten percent behind that idea.”
Chidera gave him a slightly exasperated look at both statements. Honestly, the thought of actually going was, and had always been, a distant fantasy. There was never enough money to be had, even if she was making a steady income that could support both her and her mother’s life, and it seemed so frivolous to spend it on a vacation. Save, save, save - that had been drilled into her. You never knew when you needed it.
But all the saving in the world hadn’t kept her out of Azkaban, had it?
“You, me and my mother, you mean?” she chided with a smirk as she took another sip.
“Well I wasn’t gonna presume that I’d be invited,” Hamish replied, honestly. “But I was counting on you wanting to take your mum with you. So I’ll have that covered. Especially since my Da wants to tag along with me to Ghana so I can get him to cover that trip, meaning I got yours. I’ll just need details as soon as you have them,” he added matter-of-factly.
“You know I’m not really going to let you pay for a portkey to Nigeria, don’t you? Surely you’ve got some actually charity you could put that to, hmm? As you pointed out, I’m not exactly floundering.” Her mouth curled up in thought as she then sighed. Giving off the impression that she was both ungrateful or finding different ways to put him off was not what she was going for.
“I can’t even start thinking of any of that until the season is over. Usually I don’t even drink,” she pointed out, holding up her nearly-gone cocktail.
"Not even for your birthday?" Hamish asked innocently. "But really, all I care about is making the trip happen," he said, not at all put off. "Spend any time with me you'll learn I priortise experiences over things." And he'd do what was needed to have those experiences, like living in a house with nearly a half dozen roommates.
Though that was drawing to an end.
"It would be pretty expensive to live in London, wouldn't it?" he asked, changing the subject even though it followed his train of thought.
“Depends on what you define as livin’. If all you need is a bedroom and access to the bathroom, don’t mind the neighborhood, you can do it on the cheaper side. But if you want to live in Kensington, yeah, you better be flush with your grand-dad’s legacy,” Chidera snickered. She finished off her drink and set it at the end of the table, replacing it with a glass of water before her. “And yeah, I have one drink for my birthday. I keep myself on a strict regimen during the season. Lots of protein, lots of water, lots of sleep - and hopefully a one way ticket to playing for England like your Dad did.”
"One bedroom, one bath," Hamish replied. "I share my current place with at least four other people at any given time, often more. Wouldn't be bad to have it all to myself."
He raised a brow at her season's regimen as she had discipline he definitely lacked. "So, I rated an exception to the rule?" he asked with a grin. Because that's definitely what he was hearing. But playing for England? "That's a good goal. I hope you make it. Sometimes I wonder if my parents ever wished either my sister or I would have followed in their footsteps. Though I'm sure they consider this a step up from what I was doing…"
“Living the jet-set life abroad?” Chidera suggested, a devilish sort of delight.
"Tending at pubs, working security night shift at the Ministry, selling tickets to matches, quitting my job when I couldn't get a night off. Everything and anything that didn't require that much skill. Not so much the jet-set life and definitely not abroad."
He finished off his drink, and then looked at Chidera, considering her for a moment. "Yeah, I grew up well-off, never lacked for anything. But you know my Da, even if he could set me up for life, he wouldn't."
Chidera took a girlish sip of her water through the straw. “Nothing wrong with those things. Tending at pubs. Working security. Yeah, I reckon they cramped your night life, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. If your parents were, that’s pretty fucking terrible of them, innit?” It wasn’t stated like a question, but rather something Hamish was to agree with.
No there wasn't anything wrong with those things and Hamish had never been ashamed of those jobs and he wasn't sure why she thought he would be. Nor were his parents ashamed of him...
And then it hit him.
Oh. Oh.
"Bloody hell, I have to sound like an arse, don't I?"
“If it’s any consolation,” Chidera laughed delightedly, “I’m expecting you to be an arse so I may be reading everything in that direction. You’re like… I dunno. Unreal sometimes. Blithely moving through life on a whim, it seems. Antithesis of all good Ravenclaws,” she teased herself. "Yeah, good, that's consolation," Hamish replied not finding it consoling at all, but he took the teasing easily. "Bloody hell, and Monte even made that comment about the horses…"
He shook his head. "I mean, that's a good description of my life. Or at least it was…" The war had changed things, but somehow he managed not to mention that, given his present company. "It is entirely Gryffindor though?" he asked instead.
“I think to a certain extent yeah, yeah? All impulse, fire and fury. I don’t know how you lot do it - I like lists. I like schedules. I guarantee any trip to Nigeria is going to be very well thought out.” She paused a moment and tilted her head as if listening to some far off bird. “You know,” she laughed, “is it going to be dreadful for you to travel with a planner?”
"So I am invited?" he asked, a mischievous tone to his voice. "Because I think I can manage, if you can accept that sometimes plans change? Or there needs to be a day when I'm in charge." Yeah, that was even better.
She waived a finger in his face. “You have to earn a day in charge, mate. You know, liftin’ heavy things, fannin’ us with palm fronds, peelin’ grapes - that sort of thing,” she replied brightly.
"Or I could just up and go, move through Nigeria on a whim," Hamish replied, teasing her this time. "Easier than peelin' grapes."
“Pretty sure that’s not true,” she retorted, “but even if it is, it definitely won’t be as fun.”
She wasn’t sure how she went from not even thinking about it to flirting about it, but here she was. With Hamish chatting about The Trip Of Her Life as if it would be real. And maybe it would be. Maybe this was the year that she did it. She could imagine being in a club in Lagos with him or someplace magical - she didn’t even know what the magical community in Nigeria was like! It wouldn’t be impossible to balance the two potential lives such a trip would represent.
With a soft sigh. “Maybe we should make it a bet.”
"Make what a bet?" he asked her suspiciously, still not keen on working during a holiday. But Hamish was grinning, because he recognised that she was seriously considering this trip, rather than it just being a theoretical discussion anymore.
"I mean, this trip is happening now," he assured her. "But I'm not gonna fan over you with palm fronds. But other than that," he added, "it's okay to want something for yourself."
It was a curiously insightful line, that. Chidera’s eyes darted away slightly as she took a sip of her water.
“I’m not good at that. Well. That’s not true. I’m good at pursuing my goals. But it seems… frivolous, I guess.”
"Yeah, well you can't take it with you when you go and all that," Hamish replied. "And I'd never count travel as frivolous. Not when there's still places I haven't seen, food I haven't tried, cultures completely different from ours… Can help give new perspectives, and it kind of takes you out of yourself if that makes any sense."
Leaning forward, she folded her arms one over the other.
“I don’t. Know what you mean. Takes you out of yourself meaning... You’re not you anymore?”
"No, you're definitely you," Hamish replied, thinking about how to explain it. "But say, you know your world right? Like before you went to Hogwarts, and all you knew was the Muggle world, then suddenly there's magic everywhere? So you thought you knew how everything worked or at least as much as an eleven year old can. Right. Terrible example by the way, sorry."
He paused again, thinking he needed another drink but not acting on it. He had to work more that night, maybe. "It's just that when I think I'm certain about how I feel or think about something, sometimes I'll go somewhere and it's just completely different. And what I believe is suddenly less important than where I am. And it's always sort of breathtaking and beautiful when I realise how little of the world I know."
Chidera bounced her head back and forth thoughtfully as she looked at the table.
“You should be doing, like, a travel series. You can articulate it well. Enough to make me want to do it, at least,” she acknowledged with a small smile.
"Yeah, well you're going to, remember? Already been decided."
He was smiling as he said that, trying not to smirk. He'd already been enough of an arse that night.