Page 25 of The Cinderella Prince

Tristan and I let our glasses touch and drank to seal the plan. Life would run us all over eventually, but at least we could dance all night until then.

CHAPTER 8

Starting Over

Tristan

Cedric hesitated.There was an adorable frown on his face and a smile that only touched the corners of his lips. If I didn’t know how impossible and otherworldly his feelings for me were, I would have swooned.

“Come along, Princess,” I said, gesturing down the stone-paved path with my head.

“Uh, Princess? No, thank you. And I’m not four, either, Tristan,” Cedric said.

“You’re failing to prove that,” I teased. “Zoos are fun no matter how old you are.”

Putting on a mock pout, Cedric narrowed his eyes and followed me in. “I happen to be one of the patrons of Verdumont’s biggest zoo.”

“There’s more than one?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

Cedric muttered, “There are two.”

“How sweet of you,” I told him. “And I’m going to show you a handsome fellow you’ll fall in love with.”

His gaze lingered on me for a moment or two, his expression frozen in that instant. When he looked away, he seemed ever so slightly more flustered. “We’ll see about that. Oh, and if it’s a snake, I’ll just warn you that there’s no surer way to send me running home.” He glued his feet to the ground, a scared expression washing over his face.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him after me. “I would never do that to you.”

He laughed abruptly and hurried after me. As we navigated the maze of this small and intimate zoo, Cedric told me about the efforts in Verdumont to create much more humane conditions for the animals. “It’s a complicated situation,” he explained. “Most of the animals had been bred in captivity, so to speak, and releasing them into the wild is a death sentence. We limit the number of people allowed inside our zoos at any given time. I wouldn’t call them resorts, but the animals have much better living conditions than in a lot of places I visited.”

We talked about his travels around the world as he stopped by a few areas with friendly zebras and young, willful elephants. As we neared the destination I had in mind, I said, “We have this sponsorship program intended to rescue and care for the animals.” We rounded a corner and climbed over a bridge that connected two sides of an artificial river. “And I’m Pudding’s foster dad.”

“Pudding?” Cedric asked. Before he could speak the name, we approached the Bamboo Haven, where Pudding lived. It was an acre-large plot of land, walled with bamboo groves and enriched by rising slopes and artificial caves, hosting five pandas living their best lives. Although people moved around the area and observed the pandas that wereoutside, the place was tucked away for peace and quiet, equipped with specialty walkways for observers wanting a closer look.

At the nearest fence, there were five plaques done in bronze, each stating the basic biological information for one of the pandas, and each had the name of the patron added to the bottom.

Cedric’s eyes widened when he saw Pudding’s plaque with my name on it. He realized I wasn’t kidding. “Tristan, you do odd jobs at a bar. How do you…?”

I shrugged before he could finish. “I’m terrible with money, I know.” I wasn’t going into the monthly deposits from my parents. It made my heart clench to think of them. Most of it went to Pudding, anyway, except for my portion of the rent.

“Is he here?” Cedric asked. A bubbly, almost childish excitement painted his voice. “I’d love to see him.”

My hand wrapped around Cedric’s again, yet the sensation of touching him was no less electric the second time around. It raced straight to my heart, but I kept my face smooth and led Cedric down the pathway for observers to an opening that allowed us to see most of the Bamboo Haven’s interior.

As we approached the safety railing, I scanned the ground and spotted my friend sitting, his hind legs spread out before him, his back upright, and bamboo sticks scattered around him. He used his front paws to handle the sticks.

“You can tell them apart?” Cedric asked when I pointed at Pudding.

“He’s the youngest,” I explained. We gazed at thepanda as he lifted a piece of bamboo and started to bend it until it broke. He was careful about doing it, his little arms moving slowly, his teeth baring in an expression of great effort.

Cedric watched with unrestrained wonder. The sheer delight on his face removed the creases of tiredness that were starting to show themselves around his eyes and mouth. “What is he doing?”

I chuckled. I had seen Pudding at it countless times. I had once come here with Roman and asked Pudding’s then-carer what it was all about. “He was adopted very young and cared for by humans,” I said. “Pandas are very impressionable, especially at such a young age. Pudding obviously has the strength to snap the sticks like toothpicks, but because the girl who cared for him first struggled to break the sticks for him to snack on, he learned to do the same. Or he started doing it to fit in, I don’t know. But here he is, two years later, acting like it’s the hardest thing in the world.”

Cedric laughed out loud. He didn’t take his gaze off Pudding since we spotted him.

“You should see him climb,” I said. “It’s so clumsy and human that it freaks you out.”

Cedric shook his head slowly, still looking at Pudding for a few moments. Then, slowly, his head turned to me. The intensity of his gaze never failed to create physical weight when it was on me. “So, this is what you do,” he mused. “You go around rescuing and helping.”

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