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“I hope you remember, the losing team treats the winning team to dinner tonight,” she reminded.

Ayaan nodded immediately. “Agreed.”

The rest of them climbed out of the pool one after another, helping each other onto the deck and reaching for their towels.

Vishnu handed Simran hers before pulling his own towel around his shoulders, while Krish reached for Trisha’s hand as she stepped onto the deck.

Raghav automatically held out his hand to Siya. She took it, letting him pull her up. For a moment, all eight of them stood around the pool, wet, exhausted, and still laughing about the game.

“Alright,” Ayaan announced. “See you all at dinner then?”

“Seven-thirty?” Siya asked.

“Seven-thirty,” Vishnu and Krish agreed together.

The wives exchanged knowing looks, their expressions almost conspiratorial, but their husbands were far too distracted by their own arguments to notice. With another round of laughter, they began making their way back towards their respective villas, still arguing and replaying the final point as though they had just played a championship match rather than a completely ridiculous game of pool volleyball.

*****************

Dinner Time

The table for eight had already been set when Meher and Ayaan arrived at the restaurant. They had chosen a table overlooking the water, leaving the remaining chairs empty for the other three couples who were still on their way.

Ayaan, however, seemed to have forgotten that he was sitting in one of the most beautiful resorts in the Maldives. He couldn’t seem to take his mind off the shirt he was wearing.

It was a loud floral print in shades of green, red, and a few other colours that, according to Ayaan, had absolutely no business existing on the same piece of clothing. He looked down at himself for what had to be the tenth time, his expression growing more irritated with every glance.

He had no idea what had possessed Meher to buy something like this for him. Ayaan had always preferred solid colours. White. Black. Navy. Grey. Anything understated and uncomplicated. He had never been the kind of man who walked into a room wearing enough colour to attract attention from the other end of it. And now, thanks to his wife, he was sitting at dinner looking, in his own words, like a walking flower garden.

Meher, sitting beside him, was struggling not to laugh.

“You look really good.”

Ayaan slowly turned his head towards her. The look on his face made her bite back another smile.

“You don’t have to look so conscious,” she added softly. “It’s just a shirt. The moment I saw it at the resort boutique, I immediately thought it would look good on you.”

“That is the part I still can’t understand,” Ayaan muttered. “What’s wrong with your taste now?”

“I don’t know about that. But I wanted you to wear it tonight.”

Ayaan looked at her. Even back in the resort villa, when she urged him to wear this tonight, he had wanted to tell her that this was absolutely not his style and that he had no intention of ever wearing it again. But then he had seen the look on her face and couldn’t really deny his wife something this small. So he had finally given in.

But giving in did not mean he had to enjoy it. So he sat there with his shoulders slightly stiff, occasionally glancing down at the shirt as though it had personally offended him.

Meher reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

“You spend every day looking like the entire world is waiting for you to solve its problems. Tonight, I just wanted my husband to look like he was on holiday. Relaxed. Different. And maybe a little ridiculous.”

Ayaan stared at her. “That last part was unnecessary.”

He tried to hold on to his annoyance, but the corner of his mouth finally twitched. He couldn’t argue with that.

“Fine.” He sighed. “But this is the last time.”

“We’ll see.”

“Meher.”