Page 6 of Maldives & Mistletoe

FOUR

Eve and Theo

EVE

Evelina had never really been a fan of flying. And then once, Theo had taken her out in a small single-engine plane after earning his pilot’s license, and suddenly, she was forced to face that fear head-on. Not that her husband would have made her go out in the plane with him if she was scared, because he wasn’t the type.

But she had wanted to go. She’d wanted so badly to celebrate that moment with him, so she swallowed her fear, and got in the damn plane.

The first ten minutes had been absolutely terrifying. She still remembered how her heart had felt as they climbed higher in that plane. Like if it didn’t stop beating altogether, then it was going to race right out of her chest. But that was the thing about Theo, too. Eve swore the man just knew when she was scared. Like he could feel her fear, or something.

He’d started speaking, his voice echoing through the comms in her ears as the plane leveled out. Soon enough, they’d been in the air for twenty minutes, and Eve was distracted from listening to Theo talk to her as she stared at the beautiful sights below her.

She didn’t mind flying so much after that.

“Not really all that surprised that Tommas had a private jet on stand-by,” Theo murmured beside her. Sitting in the aisle seat so that she could take the window, he had a better view than she did of the rest of the people on the jet. “Although, he could have saved us a lot of trouble today and just directed us there instead.”

Eve laughed as Theo’s hand curved around her thigh under her dress. “I think the point of today was Tommas pointing out we don’t always have the best ideas when it comes to the kids … or I guess, traveling with all of them.”

Theo made a noise under his breath. “That’s fair.”

It wasn’t a lie. They were the only ones in their large group of friends that still, after all this time, were childless. Not that they didn’t enjoy children because they did. They were always the first ones to speak up and take anybody’s kids when they needed a night away. They had three extra bedrooms in their house saved just for their nieces and nephews to use that were filled with toys and things the kids loved.

They just … never wanted their own.

Eve had wondered over time if that might change for them. She waited for that motherly urge to strike that would remind her of the ovaries in her body that had a fucking time clock ticking down.

It never came.

She just didn’t feel the urge to have her own biological children, and she was fine with that. Theo never said anything one way or the other. He had the grandest time taking care of everyone else’s kids, and being the terrible influence that he was.

Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he owned that shit.

The fun uncle.

“Or maybe the lesson was that we shouldn’t all travel with five kids,” Theo said. “Maybe we should just wait until they’re older. At least then, they’ll actually remember these trips.”

Eve made a face. “No—private flights, instead.”

Theo chuckled. “Yeah, all right.”

Because yeah, despite the fact she didn’t want her own kids, she still wanted everybody else’s kids around her. That made her happy.

At least, she didn’t get as defensive anymore when someone else thought to look at her and outright ask, “When are you going to have one?”

Sure, it was invasive. Like their private business or choices was public consumption simply because someone dared to ask about it. But she didn’t get as offended as she used to, and she knew people didn’t really mean any harm when they asked.

Thing was—Eve figured that wasn’t her purpose, or Theo’s. They weren’t put on the earth, or given each other, simply to procreate and bring life to the next generation of their family. They had other things to do. A different purpose, even if they hadn’t quite figured out what that was just yet.

“Hey,” Theo murmured.

Eve glanced over at him. He was grinning in that way of his. A way that told her he was thinking of something fun or bad or a mixture of the two. That had never changed where her husband was concerned.

“What?” she asked.

“Let’s go explore. They’re all passed out. I want to check out this plane.”

Eve arched a brow. “It’s a private jet. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”