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I shrugged.
“Would you prefer it if I went home?”
“What? No.” I took a breath and blurted out, “It’s something my brother said, about you’d be wanting to get married and have kids.”
Evie smiled. “And get a wine farm in Napa and a wife who needs to go on holiday twice a year to escape from it all?”
I chuckled, remembering the story Brett had told us at dinner last night. It had been a joke, he’d been teasing Nadine but there was an undercurrent there that I had picked up on, Evie too. Even in paradise, life was not simple, it seemed.
She came up to me, put her arms around my waist, kissed my cheek.
“I haven’t thought about any of that, to be honest. It’s not important to me.”
“But it might be, one day?” I asked.
“And that would be, terrible?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The first time round was pretty bad, to be honest.”
“How bad,” Evie asked. “Scale of one to ten?”
“About a hundred and four?”
She smiled sadly.
“Then we don’t go there.”
“Really?” I wondered if she could give up on all of it, just like that. She was young, as everyone kept pointing out.
“It’s early days for us,” Evie said with a soft smile.
“I know,” I said, leaning down to kiss her. “I’m just so happy right now with how everything is going, I don’t want anything to wreck it.”
“I’m happy too,” she said, kissing me back. “I love you.”
Just like that, the dark mood brought on by Brett’s ominous words disappeared. Like clouds drifting out of my sky.
Chapter 27
Evie
I spend Christmas at home. My brother comes down from Washington and brings his new girlfriend India along. There is not enough room in the cabin for all of us and we end up having to share couches and mattresses on the floor of my parents’ place. India is uptight and clearly nervous about meeting all of us and my father’s forced friendliness and my younger brother’s joking demeanor don’t make it any easier. On Christmas Eve, my mother tries to get India to open up a bit while we’re preparing dinner but it falls flat.
“Did you grow up in Washington?” she asks India.
“Not really,” she says, without elaborating.
“So, outside of Washington then?” My mother persists.
India is peeling potatoes and she seems lost in her thoughts. After a moment, she picks up that both my mother and I are staring at her, waiting for an answer. “Uhm, yes, a little town a few hours away.”
She offers no more information. I can see my mother struggling with this conversation.
“We used to live in Washington before we came out here,” I offer. “But Andy’s probably told you all about that?”
She smiles at me and says, “Yes.”
My mom is making big eyes at me and so I decide to make the whole situation less uncomfortable by talking about my new job and how it is going in the city.
