I felt his smile against my cheek. “You saidthat’s really romantic.”
I waved a hand but couldn’t seem to summon up the energy to add anything else.
“What doesschwangerschaftmean?” he said, a second or ten minutes later, his tone even lower.
A smile came to my face. “Pregnancy.”
A few beats of time went by again—four, five seconds? “Makes sense. I used two of those to accomplish it.” He put a hand over my stomach, and I gave him a stab with my elbow in his ribs. He laughed quietly in my ear.
One minute my eyes were half open, and the next, the world went dark, voices playing in the background. A sense of floating with the snow outside consumed me. Nothing about the stolen sleep was cold though; on the contrary, warm and relaxing.
The sense of floating ended abruptly, and I was jarred from sleep, as though I had jumped off a cliff and was about to hit rock bottom.
Blinking at Brando, it took me a minute to bring him into focus. He wasn’t staring at me, but at Rosaria. So was the rest of the table. Most of the other table was heading out.
“What?” I asked.
Brando stared at them until they were back out in the snow.
“Something happen between you two?” He looked down at me.
“Me and Rosaria? No. Why?”
He looked toward the door again and didn’t answer my question.
The look on Aunt Lola’s face did. She nodded at me once, her eyes roaming outside of the window to Rosaria before settling on me again. I assumed Rosaria had hit me on purpose on her way out.
It didn’t help matters that her sister and parents had come along on this trip. One sister egged the other on, and her sister didn’t like me. I had punched her in the nose a while back. In my defense, it was in honor of Carmen.
“I’m going to have a talk with Rocco,” Brando said.
“No.” I shook my head. “Rosaria’s just feeling threatened.”
His eyes met mine. “You noticed.”
“Yes, but I’m not taking the bait.”
He didn’t respond, but I could hear the wheels spinning inside of his head.
“Let me deal with it,” I said. He and Rocco didn’t need the issue. They had found a way to be close, and I didn’t want jealousy over Luca to ruin it.
Leaning down, he placed a soft kiss on my lips, his free hand caressing my chin. We gazed at each other until Luca cleared his throat and then reminded the table that if we were going to make our dinner reservations, we needed to get moving. It was more of an order than a reminder.
He didn’t need to tell me twice.
Fondue!
Taking Mia from Maggie Beautiful, Brando held her with one arm while keeping my hand in his. She whispered his name, and then her eyes blinked open. She had fallen asleep, too, but was ready for more experiences.
* * *
Brando had arranged for the three of us to toboggan to Furi, the quaint hamlet where we were to dine for dinner.
Our toboggan even had a lantern.
Sticking Mia’s lion in my bag, he handed her a stuffed animal that was the exact replica of the sheep we saw on our trek up to the breakfast spot. He must’ve bought it from a gift shop. She gasped at the sight of it, bringing it to her heart,baaaingat it. It even had a bell around its soft neck.
“You do understand that you can’t keep those two together, right?” I fluffed the lion’s hair; it poked out of the opening in the bag. “One is a meal for the other.”
