"I'd love to," she said. "The fact that I'm still full from yesterday means I definitely overate. I could probably walk for a year and not work it off." She lay back and pushed out her stomach, patting the bulge. "Looks like we're about to be parents to this food baby."
He laughed a proper laugh. "Then it's sorted. We'll drive out to the park near the big town and we can walk in and get a coffee, and maybe stare at the cakes we're too full to eat. No doubt March will be ready to wolf one down. That boy has a neverending appetite."
As he spoke, his own stomach grumbled and Tala raised her eyebrows.
"You were saying?" She poked his stomach. "Someone sounds hungry."
"Ok, maybe I'll almost definitely have a slice of cake," he said. "And maybe a sandwich." When she rolled her eyes at him, he just grinned and stretched out his arms in a yawn. "What can I say? I'm a growing boy."
She gave him a sly wink. "That you certainly are," she said, and she sank against him with a sigh. His arm returned to the back of the sofa, his hand meeting her shoulder once more, and he kissed the top of her head as though she was a sleepy child.
"Ok, this won't do," he said, suddenly standing and leaving her side cold. "We need to get some fresh air in our lungs. We've hardly been outside for, like, five days." He jogged on the spot for a couple of seconds before he gave up. "I've got some woollies you can borrow: we'll wrap up nice and snug and face the snow."
Tala stood, unfurling her comfortable limbs, and she smiled at Raphael's back when he turned around. A snowy walk on Boxing Day was something families did, something Raphael's family had always done, and yet she didn't feel as though she was just tacked on at the periphery. He wasn't asking as a courtesy: he wanted her there. She knew in the way he looked at her, the way he held her and touched her.
He had fallen into her life in the blink of an eye. Had she been a few minutes later that first night at the shop; had she not been so held up by the traffic; had Maddie not persuaded her to go to the bar ... had the slightest knock fractured her plans, she wouldn't have met him. She would still be curled up in the cabin, reading her books. She probably wouldn't have ever noticed she was snowed in unless she'd run out of food.
There was a tiny voice at the back of her head, the rational side that usually one, that warned her to take it easy, but it was too late for that. She couldn't take back her kisses or ignore the warmth in her heart or the dreams in her mind. Instead, she thought about her brother. He had known that Dalisay was the one the day they had met.
At the time, Tala had teased him about that. She had warned him that it was too much and too fast, and he had proven her wrong every step of the way. Now she had to eat her words: she had fallen into the same trap, lured into love when she hadn't even been looking.
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There was a brisk wind that made March shriek when they jumped out of the car at the edge of the empty park, the grass glazed over with snow. Tala was bundled up in Raphael's coat and his scarf was wound three times around her neck, her nose buried in the scent of his aftershave. His gloves were on his hands, his winter socks on her feet, and his fingers were laced with hers as they walked.
