Page 34 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museum

‘I think it might not be what you think it is. I’m going to…’ I point upwards. I was going to say ‘make sure he’s okay’ but whatever his reasons for hiding this are, I don’t want to openly suggest that he isn’t okay, so I finish lamely with, ‘…bathroom.’

When I get up to the kitchen on the third floor, Warren is standing at the table with cardboard laid out in front of him and a pair of scissors in hand. ‘What are you doing?’

He jumps at the unintentional volume of my voice, but now I know he’s struggling to hear, it came out louder than intended.

‘Oh, good, it’s just you.’ He lets out a sigh of relief and holds up a star-shaped piece of cardboard that he’s cut out. ‘Trying to make a new tag for the bear. Cardboard isn’t ideal but I messed up.’

There are so many things I could say, but like an out-of-body experience, I walk across the room, take the scissors out of his hand and drop them on the table, and pull him into a tight, tight hug.

‘What the—’ He chokes off the protest when I squeeze him tighter, and after a few moments, his arms slide around me and pull me against him and, breath by breath, some of the tension starts to seep from his body as he breathes into it.

It’s not the first time we’ve hugged, but it is the first time we’ve hugged without a computer chair between us, and I let myself get lost in his arms and in the luxury of his leather-scented cologne.

One arm stays around his back and the other slides further up, until my fingers are playing with the ends of his hair on the nape of his neck and he tries to disguise the shiver that goes through him, but it’s impossible to ignore the way he curls just a little bit tighter around me.

‘What’s this in aid of?’ he says into my shoulder, sounding happily faraway.

‘Nothing,’ I murmur, but I’m on what I’ve realised is the wrong side.

‘Hmm?’

I’ve never thought anything of it, but now I realise how often he says that.

How often he gets people to repeat themselves.

There is so much behind that ‘hmm?’ now, and I shake my head, knowing he’ll feel it and take it as being unimportant.

I want to tell him I know, but here, right now, with half of Ever After Street downstairs thinking he’s hiding something, now isn’t the moment.

Instead, without a word, I revel in the cuddle for a couple more minutes and he does the same, doing nothing but holding me and letting himself be held, and I especially enjoy the noise of disappointment he makes in his throat and the way his arms tighten when I start loosening my grip and he holds on for a few moments more.

When we pull back, I force myself to take a step away in case I leap on him again, and he looks so knocked off-balance that he has to rest a hand on the table to stay steady.

‘That was nice.’ He pinches the bridge of his nose and flicks his head like he needs to clear it. ‘Unexpected, but nice.’

‘It was.’ I hold his gaze and silently will him to let me in, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he picks up a pen and leans over the table. ‘What’s the name for the tag again?’

He gets me to spell it out, and I make an effort to form each letter clearly and loudly, and he adds a few floral flourishes to the cardboard and then takes the new tag back downstairs, hoping to catch Ali before he’s sealed the box.

I could follow him, but tonight has rapidly taken on a different tone, and I stay put, waiting for him to come back because I have a feeling there are too many people downstairs and he’s going to segregate himself up here for the rest of the evening if I let him.

I listen from the landing, I hear him give Ali the new makeshift tag for the bear, and then he comes straight back up. Before I can think it through, I blurt out, ‘Fancy a walk?’

‘A walk?’

‘Yeah, what you said earlier about hand-delivering wishes. That bear and the superhero cape aren’t far from here and are only about fifteen minutes apart. We could do that easily. Why don’t we?’

‘Just you and me?’ he asks, and when I nod, a grin breaks across his face. ‘I’d like that. My car’s in the car park and I can charge petrol to my work expenses.’

‘No. On foot. It’s a beautiful autumn evening and you seem like you could use a break.’

He gives me a curious, questioning look, like he’s trying to figure out what my hidden agenda is, and I raise an eyebrow until his mouth twitches into a smile. ‘Okay, okay, you had me at getting out of here. And autumn. You had me at autumn.’

He tries to correct himself, but the first answer was the most honest and exactly how I imagined he’d be feeling after what just happened.

He tidies the cardboard offcuts away and puts the scissors back while I go and grab my coat and autumn scarf.

‘Do you have a coat or a hoody or something? We can’t just walk up to people’s doors, you need something to cover your face so no one will recognise you.

’ I wave the end of my scarf in his direction.

He shrugs. ‘Nope. Only the jumper I’m wearing. All my coats are at home and I don’t think I’ve ever owned a scarf.’

‘Then you’ll have to borrow something from one of the mannequins.’ I give it some thought and then hit on the perfect idea for a quick disguise. ‘Prince Florian’s cape! You can wrap it round your shoulders like a shawl and pull it up when we get near any doorbell cameras.’

‘I don’t even know who Prince Florian is.’

‘Snow White’s prince. His kiss wakes her up after the bite of poisoned apple.’

‘I suppose that’s another one I’ll have to add to my watchlist.’ He jokingly rolls his eyes as he holds his hand out towards the stairs, inviting me to go first, and we trundle back down together.

Usually, I love being around the others, but tonight, with everyone trying to set me up, coupled with my sudden realisation about Warren, it’s started to feel a bit suffocating and I need some space too.

While he disappears into the Prince Suite to find the mannequin of Prince Florian and borrow his cape, I ask Mickey to get the others and smuggle out a couple of exhibits while we’re gone, and she thinks my idea of hand-delivering a couple of wishes is a clever ploy to get them the privacy to do it, and I don’t tell her that it’s nothing to do with smuggling exhibits out and everything to do with a sudden and overpowering desire for some air, and to get Warren alone, where there’s no one questioning his motives, and find out exactly what he’s hiding and why.