Obiora smiled. He impulsively hugged her, silently apologising for lying.
He could feel her smile in her voice as she said in Igbo, “I love you.”
“I love you, too, mummy.”
“All right. I’ll let you off now.”
The brothers said their goodnights, and Obiora couldn’t have left quickly enough.
When they were on the pavement, the three brothers stopped automatically, glancing at each other.
“The Swan?” Obinna said, his eyes dancing with mischief.
Obiora felt a faint sense of foreboding. He cleared his throat. “Uh, you know, you guys don’t need to—I mean, shouldn’t you be heading home—”
“The Swan,” Obioma interrupted, looking just as devious.
“Fuck’s sake,” Obiora said.
“Language,” Obinna scolded, without much heat.
Obiora had no choice but to nod in helpless agreement when his brothers looked at him expectantly. “The Swan it is.”
The pub wasn’t located too far off from their parents’ abode, so they began to walk in its direction. Obioma and Obinna brought out their phones, presumably to text their wives about their whereabouts.
Obiora felt a slight pang, suddenly feeling, for the briefest moments, painfully alone. He shook it off.
The pub was busy when they arrived, though the crowd was still on the family-friendly side of it due to the early hour. The later it got, the more it’d be filled with university students looking to get drunk and have a great time, while the families dwindled down as they went off to bed to prepare for a new, tedious work day.
The music wasn’t too loud, the sound of it almost overshadowed by the noise of the pub’s patrons.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Obioma said, yelling slightly. “You get us a table. What’ll you guys like?”
“Just a vodka and coke for me,” Obiora said, not in the mood for anything fancy.
“Coke,” Obinna said. After he’d gotten married, he used to only drink when they hung out during the weekends. Then after he’d had his daughter, he’d stopped drinking altogether.
Obioma nodded. “Back in a sec! Text me if you’re gonna sit in someplace obscure.”
Obiora nodded.
Obinna jerked his head in the direction of the pub’s main room. “Up or down?”
Obiora looked around. “Up, I think.”
They headed upstairs and found themselves a small table in the corner of the room. Obinna texted Obioma their positions as he’d requested.
“So. How’s the little fireball?” Obiora asked, desperate to take control of the outing.
Obinna returned his phone to his pocket. When he looked up, there was an amused quirk to his mouth, like he knew exactly what Obiora was doing. “She’s doing great. Same as she was the last time you saw her. Which was, what? Last week?”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Obiora slumped.
His oldest brother took off his glasses and held them up into the light, squinting at the lenses. Seemingly satisfied that they were clean enough, he replaced them on his nose. He met Obiora’s eyes, and his expression turned serious.
Obiora swallowed.
“Let’s wait for Obioma,” he said, still watching him with that serious look.
