xp_logs | Kevin & Laurie | Monday evening

Laurie invites herself to dinner when she finds Kevin making gumbo and the pair start to plot a summer road trip.

Laurie peered into the main kitchen through the open hallway door, curious as to who was cooking, considering the georgous smell coming through. She grinned as she saw Kevin, and walked in to sit down on one of the stools in front of the main bench space.

"What'cha cooking?" she asked.

Kevin peered over his shoulder, knowing who it was from her avoid alone. "Cornbread and gumbo. Why, you comin' to mooch?" He was grinning when he said it, though. Laurie had fed him on multiple occasions. The figured he more or less owed her anyway. "Figured it was cold and sorta cloudy out so Ah wanted soup, but just soup was sorta borin' so Ah dug out my grandma's gumbo recipe. She grew up in New Orleans and moved to Georgia when my dad was almost eighteen or somethin' like that." Kevin even pronounced New Orleans more like Nawh Lens.

"Definitely," Laurie replied, returning the grin. She was the one usually cooking for others, so the chance to sample someone else's cooking was always welcome. "I've always wanted to go to New Orleans. Maybe check out the restaurants, do some touristy things. Although, they've got alligators there, right?"

"Yeah, Ah think so. Also, it's just sorta a rough town. If you wandered around alone it could be dangerous. Ah know you can handle yourself alright and all, but there are folks there who'd wanna take advantage of a girl all by herself in town." After all that warning, however, he added, "But it could be fun. They've got a real awesome jazz and bluegrass local music scene down there."

"You could always come with," Laurie said with a grin, pondering whether a road trip would be possible, it might be during her summer break from classes if Bishop and the X-men could spare her. "New Orleans in the summer maybe? Or would Spring break be better?"

"Ah'd vote summer long as you could handle the heat. It gets massively hot down there. And humid since it's right on the water and all." But the idea of a trip down to New Orleans was appealing. Really, any trips were appealing in Kevin's new age of freedom. A timer went off and it distracted Kevin from the beginning of a fantasy that involved going nomad. Instead, he had to pull the cornbread out of the oven.

"I'm like a lizard, only not with the scales, or the eating people thing," Laurie replied, leaning forward to get a good whiff of fresh made cornbread. One of the reasons Laurie enjoyed cooking so much was the visceral experience of smell and taste that went along with it. Almost nothing matched it for pure pleasure that you could do in mixed company. "I could ask the other X-grads if they wanted to come with even, we could make a true road trip of it."

"What about age appropriate non-grads? Mostly Ah'm thinking Laura or Cammie. But hopefully not Laura and Cammie 'cause someone would have to kill one of them so Cammie stopped snarking. Kyle? Okay maybe Laura and Kyle is as far as I get in my potential list. Maybe Jan?" He'd talked to and hung out with her more than usual lately and she was pretty cool. She also had a dirty mind and laced conversation with enough innuendo to make his brain derail. That was probably not useful while in a car with her for like eighteen hours driving to New Orleans. Once upon a time he would have added Julio, Nori and Jennie to that list but they had all moved onto other, non-mansion based things. "Maybe dig Marius out from under whatever hole he's buried under all the time?"

"We could throw up an invitation on the X-grad list, see who bites?" Laurie replied, bouncing slightly in her chair in excitement. "Nothing saying we have to take only one car, although I suppose we could always pry the micro bus from Jean-Phillipe for the trip, or just get him to come along."

Kevin had obvious reservations about that and it showed on his face. "Uh, do you really like everyone who has access to that community equally enough to be cool with anyone who might wanna come down with us? Seriously. If Jared tries to come Ah will try to run him over instead. 'Cause Ah can't stand him. And Cammie is a bitch to Laura if not to anyone else half the time. And Cammie's actually my friend. Ah'd sort of like everyone going to get along, y'know?"

"Hmm, you've got a point," Laurie noted, wrinkling her nose at the mention of Jared. She was someone who tried to like everybody, but Jared had been a stone cold bastard to a bunch of the people she liked, and she so didn't want to spend that much time in a car with him. "Okay, how about we each name five people we know we'd get along with and put them in a hat, then we draw out four names. That way it's totally random and fair, and if any of those four people don't want to go, we can always pull out another name."

After considering that for a bit Kevin nodded. "Alright, got a sheet of paper and a pen?" He looked at her over his shoulder again while stirring the gumbo. "Ah mean, if you wanna do a road trip we should start thinkin' 'bout it now." He set the ladle aside and grabbed a knife to cut the cornbread. One piece was pulled out, slathered with butter and set on a small plate which Kevin deposited in front of Laurie. "Pre-meal present."

"Mm," Laurie responded, having already picked up the cornbread and bitten into it as soon as he set it down. She reached behind her to where she'd dropped her ever present bookbag and pulled out a spare sheet of paper and some coloured pens. "When do I not have paper and pens?"

"When your boyfriend's in town?" He grinned. Kevin was well aware that her boyfriend was currently in town from her journal. "Are you gonna be able to tear yourself away from him for long enough to road trip or are we gonna have to put him in the trunk?"

"It's tempting," Laurie admitted with a grin of her own, the idea of Eamon coming to New Orleans with her was incredibly tempting. "This is an Xavier's people trip though, he can always take me somewhere else at Christmas."

"Don't take him for granted or anything now." Kevin laughed at just how matter-of-fact Laurie sounded. He was sure she likely had reason to be, it was her boyfriend after all and they'd been together for like a year or something like that. "So are we pickin' five people each or five people total that we both can deal with for like a week or two?"

"Never," Laurie replied honestly, knowing that the fact that someone like Eamon could not only want to be with her, but love her as well was a continuing surprise, and a good one at that. "Hmm, we probably want a pool of people so that it's fair when we pick them out. So five each, but we probably want to make sure we can veto people that we couldn't deal with, so we'll write them out and then show each other who we've picked before we put them in the hat?"

"Or we can pretend we're not five and just agree on people as we go?" He thought writing them down and then slipping one another their selections was sort of silly, really. Kevin went back to stir the gumbo and test it. "And if we just agree on ten people together we won't have overlapping people, 'cause that makes it less fair."

"I suppose we could do that, although it's much more fun to act like we're five," Laurie noted, poking her tongue out at him. She thought about who would be her first pick, she'd have said Yvette but the combination of the heat in New Orleans and the crowds would mean her friend would be miserable. "How about Jean-Phillipe for my first choice then?"

She'd been suitemates with Jean-Phillipe for long enough to know she could get along with him, and if worst came to worst, she could always threaten him with an invitation to his cousin to come to dinner for a month.

"Ah don't really know him." He'd interacted with the guy a few times via the journals, but that was the extent of Kevin's relationship with him. He shrugged. "Can't think of any reason why Ah wouldn't get along with him. Ah want Angel." Kevin shot Laurie a wide grin over his shoulder. Angel was pretty much made for fun and mischief, which made her one of his favorite friends. Or it would if he were the sort of person to rank his friends.

"Angel is fine with me," Laurie replied, having had Angel as another suitemate during her teenage years, she knew she'd be fine with getting along with the younger woman. It would be fun to be spending time together again even, she didn't get to do that near enough these days. "Crystal for my next choice, if she can make it."

Kevin made a face. "Uh....Do we gotta? Ah mean, she's nice and all but she's sorta...princessy. And it's just weird, really. Like, Ah dunno. I don't not like her, but Ah can't see bein' in a car with her for hours. Can she be like an alternate if whoever we pull out first can't go then she can go into second round back up hat?"

"She's not that princessy," Laurie protested, but put Crystal's name aside. She'd just have to have coffee with her friend later in the week to make up for the fact that she wasn't going on this particular trip. "How about Kyle then?"

"Kyle's good. Ah'm down with Kyle." Kyle was Kevin's one male friend-type person. Damn, that was sad. But Julio had left and for some reason his introversion only attracted girls. Another taste of the gumbo and Kevin shut off the burner and moved the pot to a colder one. "How do you feel 'bout Meggan? She's newly legal and all that."

"Never really interacted with her," Laurie noted, wondering if that was enough to veto someone from joining them, and decided that it wasn't, especially since Kevin hadn't vetoed Jean-Phillipe. "I say put her in. Now, what about Monet?"

Laurie got narrowed eyes over his shoulder while he was in the middle of pulling down two bowls from a cabinet. "Can we get her to not call me 'Kevvypants' during the drive down or back? Ah like Monet, but Ah might actually swerve into oncoming traffic to try to stop the torture if she breaks out the nickname while Ah can't escape for like twenty hours or whatever it is."

"You know she only does that because she knows she'll get a rise out of you, right?" Laurie asked, putting Monet in the 'maybe' pile. "How about Jan then? She's fun."

"She does it 'cause she's evil," he corrected. "And you can put Monet in. Ah'm fine with her, Ah just might try to kill 'er if Ah've gotta be called Kevvypants for hours and can't escape." Though he wondered if Laurie was convinced Monet wouldn't manage to not use stupid nicknames on him and that's why she was putting her to the side. "Jan's cool. She looks out for my love mushroom," Kevin said with a grin and started to ladle out some gumbo into a bowl. "Can't not like a girl like that."

"Do I want to know what a love mushroom is?" Laurie asked, giving Kevin a quizzical look. Not exactly the sort of conversation she'd ever thought she'd have with Kevin but she had to admit just the name had her grinning. She placed Jan in the 'to be put in the hat' pile. "Let's see, guy wise we've got Marius?"

"There are guys who live here?" The faux surprise came with an appropriate facial expression. The guys were far outnumbered by the girls. "Marius is cool. He can come. John-who's-probably-Nick-but-not-Nick is cool, but Ah dunno if they want the possible amnesiac or evil clone going on a road trip with us so should he go in the hat or not?" He would have suggested Julian, but he honestly didn't know the guy well enough to know if he would get along with everyone else.

Kevin brought Laurie the bowl of gumbo and a spoon and set them down by her pad of paper. His eyes moved over the list of names they had acquired already. "What about Laura? She's not a guy but she could still kick ass in a real guy-like way?" He was also sort of partial for completely ulterior motives as well, but Laurie didn't need to know that.

"Laura's cool, we get along pretty well and I figure she's not near as grumpy as her Dad in inclosed spaces," Laurie said, writing down the guys he'd mentioned, plus Laura. "Maybe Angelo, if he isn't off saving the world this week?"

She took up the spoon Kevin had given her and took a healthy bite of the gumbo, savouring the taste of the spices and making appreciative noises as she chewed.

"You'd need to convince him to take like a week or two week off from work," Kevin pointed out. "Ah'm not real sure you can manage that. Maybe we should aim for someone who doesn't have a full-time job?" He ladled some gumbo into a second bowl for himself as he thought about their options. "What about Amara? Part time job and school would be out. We could probably convince her to chill out for a while. Sorta sounds like she needs to embrace misbehavin' and down time anyway."

"Amara would be fun," Laurie mused, writing her name down and counting back over the people they'd decided on. "Okay, that's nine, we need one more to make it ten."

Wandering back over to where Laurie sat, Kevin took up residence on a nearby stool with his bowl of gumbo and more buttered corn bread for both of them. "Nope. Not helpin'. Ah've got gumbo, you get to figure out the tenth person." With that he made a show of taking a bit spoonful of gumbo, which was a little too hot for doing that with but Kevin tried really hard to not show it.

"How about Remy?" Laurie asked with a grin, wondering what sort of face the Cajun might make should they actually invite him to their little roadtrip. Technically he was a graduate of the school, and thus eligable for nomination. From some of the stories she'd heard, he'd actually been a part of several interesting outings when he was considered a student.

Kevin blinked at her, spoon hovering over his bowl before his mouth. "Uh, no. No weird Cajun guy who might actually kill us all instead. Ah's rather take the librarian." He wans't serious about inviting Tabitha, but she was way preferable to Remy.

"Awww, but just think of all the fun danger we could have all gotten into with him along," Laurie said with a giggle, writing down Tabitha as the last name on the list. "Well, that's ten then, what should we use as a hat?"

The spoon had finally gotten into his mouth so Kevin was reluctant to hurry with the chewing and swallowing so he could answer her. Instead he got up, spoon handle sticking out of his mouth, and found a clean mixing bowl. He mimed putting it on his head like a hat, then set it down in front of Laurie. The spoon finally got pulled out of his mouth, but Kevin was dedicatedly chewing slowly and not speaking. He did give her a bit of a grin, though.

Laurie rolled her eyes at her friend but dutifully tore up the paper and rolled them into balls before placing them into the bowl and swirling them around with her hand. She then held the bowl up above Kevin's head. "You get first choice."

His gumbo was abandoned for a moment while Kevin slid the bowl away and reached up to grope about inside the bowl. He found a little paper ball that he thought was promising and pulled it out. The ball was set down but he didn't open it. "We're doin' the big reveal here. No peeking until they're all out. You're turn."

Laurie handed the bowl to Kevin and then reached up to swirl her hand around inside it for a moment before she found a particular uneven ball, she plucked it out and placed it before Kevin's first choice before taking the bowl back from him. "You get to do the drumroll when we do the reveal."

"How many are well pullin' out again? Three? Eight? Ninety-two?" He grinned and went rifling about again for another ball. He found one that wasn't so much a ball as a disc. It must have gotten smooshed in all their rooting around in there. Kevin set it next to Laurie's uneven ball and took the bowl back from her.

"Four people, so that's one more person to pick," Laurie noted, taking quite a long time before she picked out the smallest ball she could find in the bowl, or what felt like the smallest one. She placed it beside the other three that were already on the table, and placed the bowl to her left. "Time to open them."

Kevin pushed his bowl a little further away and started a drum roll with his fingers against the tabletop.