Page 38 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museum

‘Liss, I hate to state the obvious, but are you aware that you’re drilling a hole into the ceiling?’

From halfway up the stepladder, I lift my safety goggles and turn around to face Warren where he’s standing in the doorway of the Fairytale Homes hall. ‘Oh my God, am I really? How did I get up here?’

He laughs as he comes over and reaches up to put a steadying hand on my lower back as I push myself upwards to inspect the hole.

It’s gone all the way through and into the floor cavity of the landing above, so I start to climb down and he holds a hand out to help me.

I slide my wood-dusty hand into his, even though I’ve managed to get down off many, many ladders without assistance before now.

‘I’m trying to work and all I can hear is this burring vibration coming from below.’

‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t think it would disturb you on the third floor.’ It’s after closing time and I assumed he’d be going home soon anyway, but I’ve got a project planned for tonight so I’m not going anywhere yet.

‘No worries. Your burring vibration is more interesting than my work.’

It’s not the first time I’ve heard little throwaway comments like that, but it’s the first time that quite so much contempt has laced his voice when talking about it.

‘Dare I ask what you’re doing?’ He lets go of my hand and brushes wood dust from his, and I take my goggles off and shake my hair out.

‘I’m building a beanstalk.’

He laughs like he thinks I’m joking, but I get an idea. ‘Actually, seeing as you’re not busy now, we’re building a beanstalk. I could do with the help.’

‘Do people not traditionally grow beanstalks?’

‘Not this kind.’ I can’t help grinning as I nod towards my boxes of craft materials. ‘This is a floor-to-ceiling beanstalk with a giant living at the top of it. The hole is so we’ve got something to attach it to, I’ve just got to go and take a landing floorboard up so I can put a hook in place.’

He glances between me, the hole in the ceiling, and the craft boxes with a look of both wonder and trepidation. ‘I’ve never heard anything like the things you come out with. You never stop. You’ll never give up on this place, will you?’

‘No, of course I won’t.’

‘Neither will I, I promise you that.’ He takes a step closer and reaches over to brush a bit of wood dust out of my hair and then tucks it back with a wistful look in his eyes.

‘We’re in a good position now. You can pay the extra rent.

The gift shop looks fantastic and every time I come downstairs, you’re running between that and the front desk.

The interest in the escaped exhibits is increasing every day.

My company can’t… I mean, they won’t… want to change things now.

We’re bringing in revenue and gaining fans left, right, and centre on the internet.

That alone would create more backlash than they’d want to deal with. We’ve done what we set out to achieve.’

There’s something in his voice that still doesn’t sound as confident as it should, and it intensifies the niggling doubt in the back of my mind.

Things might have improved for Colours of the Wind, but we are not bringing in more money than a cinema complex would, and we never will be.

I try to let his words reassure me. He is the property expert, after all.

He’s going to know what his company wants, and if he says we’ve done what we needed to then I should take his words at face value.

I trust him so much more now I know what he’s been hiding was nothing to do with his job or the museum.

He never actually said he wasn’t busy, but he seems happy to get involved, and I can’t help watching as he pulls his brown-and-cream-striped jumper off, revealing a black long-sleeved top underneath, and he pulls the sleeves up to his elbows, oblivious to the fact I’m ogling him, but those forearms really do deserve to be showcased far more often.

My mouth has gone dry and I only realise I’m staring when he claps his hands together and asks what I want him to do.

‘Right, I’ve just got a wholesale order of jumbo pipe cleaners, so we’re going to wind them together for vines to build the framework for a beanstalk from the floor to the ceiling.

Then we’re going to add giant paper leaves, paper tendrils, crepe paper flowers, glittery oversized beans painted in bright colours, and I’ve got some cotton wool for clouds at the top, and a big planter for the bottom so it looks like it’s actually growing out of a pot. ’

‘If anyone had asked me, two months ago, if I’d ever build a beanstalk, I would have cackled at the thought, but you make beanstalk-building seem normal.’

I laugh out loud, giggling until he meets my eyes again and it suddenly feels like the room has shrunk until I’m forced to take a step closer to him, and it would be so easy to reach out, tangle my fingers in the thermal material of that black top and haul him down until I could kiss him…

We blink at each other for a few moments, his eyes are on my lips and this time, it’s not because he’s reading them, and my fingers twitch with the urge to reach out, but I force myself to take a breath and look away.

Rather than confronting what that was, I grab an armful of green pipe cleaners and shove them at him, and he grunts at the unexpected weight of the humungous things.

‘Start twisting the dark green and light green ones together for structural integrity and colour variegation,’ I tell him, and then pick up my electric screwdriver and metal hook and run upstairs.

On the second-floor landing, I unscrew the floorboard and lift it so I can fit the hook into the cavity that will give us something to attach the top of the beanstalk to, and then because everything is better with tea, I go up to the third floor and make us a cuppa each in the kitchen.

‘I’ve never seen pipe cleaners like these,’ Warren says when I get back to the hall carrying two mugs and holding a packet of biscuits between my teeth. ‘I didn’t think anyone used them outside of nursery school crafts.’

They’re hefty, sturdy, and furry, and the second I saw them, I knew they’d make perfect vines for a giant beanstalk with some creative twisting, which he’s got down to a fine art in the five minutes I’ve been gone.

His double-thickness vines will form the base of the beanstalk, which will get narrower as it goes up, so I put the mug and biscuits down, and start using singular pipe cleaners, twisted lengthwise, and start creating the top section so we can, somehow, meet in the middle.

‘So I know I missed a lot of the discussion the other night, but one thing I heard loud and clear was the wedding stuff…’ he says after we’ve both got into the swing of twisting beanstalk vines around themselves.

‘Conveniently, that was the one part I hoped you’d missed.’ I groan, having also hoped that if he had heard it, he’d have the courtesy to never mention it again.

He laughs. ‘You have my utmost sympathy. There’s nothing worse than a wedding as a single person. They should rename them “pity-fests” and be done with it.’

It’s a welcome giggle and I appreciate the solidarity, even if I’d have appreciated him pretending he hadn’t heard it more.

‘This is the quiet guy from the castle who brought the glass slippers back and the girl who makes dresses in The Cinderella Shop?’

‘Witt and Sadie, yes.’ I appreciate him making an effort to get to know my friends, especially when it’s obvious that most of the Ever After Street shopkeepers are still hostile towards him, and I wouldn’t blame him for not even trying.

‘They’re not really doing mandatory plus ones, are they?’

‘I think it’s mostly for my benefit.’ I put down one section of beanstalk when it’s reached two foot long and start twisting pipe cleaners together for the next part.

‘Everyone else around here has found their perfect match, been set up, or paired off in some other way in the past few years, apart from me. I’m the last single one left on Ever After Street, and I suspect they conspired to think this would be the perfect excuse to search their phone books, friends, siblings, colleagues, and long-lost acquaintances far and wide to find me a pity date. ’

‘Trust me, anyone lucky enough to be on a date with you, it would not be out of pity.’

My hands freeze on my beanstalk section and I look over at him, trying to work out if he’s pulling my leg or not, but he doesn’t sound jokey. ‘Thank you. That’s a lovely thing to say.’

‘I could come. If you want a way to get them off your back, I mean. Not out of pity. Just because it would make me feel like the luckiest man in the world, and—’ He hesitates like he didn’t intend to say that, and then tries to backpedal.

‘I meant, like I said, I sympathise with anyone forced to attend a wedding alone, I’ve been there too many times, and we could do it together, poke fun at all the daft traditions…

er, if the others would let me in, I know I’m persona non grata around here, but…

Sorry, I’ve become really bad at thinking before I speak.

I didn’t mean you should go with me, you’re probably sick of the sight of me, I just meant…

’ He trails off like even he doesn’t know what he really meant.

‘I’d like that.’ I meet his eyes and then amend my choice of words. ‘I’d love that.’

He smiles that wide, unguarded smile again, the one that blazes across his face like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud on a dull day, and I can already imagine the pitch of Mickey’s squeal when I tell her I’ve got a wedding date, and the others can stop desperately searching the passing acquaintances of their partner’s brother’s colleague’s neighbour’s ice-sculpting classmate’s barber, and even though it’s not a date date, it should still work for getting everyone to leave me content in my singleton status.

‘It’s not until December. You won’t still be here, will you?’