Page 51 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
He’s been spending so much time at the shop lately that I half-expected him to be glad of an excuse to get away from me, and I can’t stop the massive grin because hewantsto spend a day off with me as much as I want to spend it with him.
After getting a takeaway picnic from Lilith’s, Witt wants to see more of Ever After Street, so we visit the Mermaid’s Treasure Trove, buy sweets in the Neverland Sweet Shop, wander round the Beast’s Enchanted Rose flower shop, which is conveniently next door to the Tale As Old As Time bookshop, and walk around Lissa’s Colours of the Wind museum. We ride the carousel three times and get our faces painted. He goes for tiger stripes and I go for butterfly wings on my cheeks, and then we wander through the Full Moon Forest hand in hand, surprisingly unselfconscious despite the fact we both look like overgrown children, and neither of us can stop giggling, whether from the exhilaration of shirking adult responsibilities or from the sugar rush of the candyfloss he’s bought to share as we walk along. Even though I work here every day, it’s been a long time since I enjoyed Ever After Street for the playground it is, but Witt brings out the fun in everything.
On the other side of the Full Moon Forest, there are wildflower meadows where we stop for a picnic before we reach the river. The water is a calm trickle over shallow rocks between almost-still deeper pools that glint in the sunlight and show the reflection of puffy clouds and blue sky in their surfaces, and like a real adult, Witt instantly takes off his shoes and socks, rolls his trousers up, and splashes straight in to paddle.
‘Come in, it’s lov— well, it’s absolutely frigging freezing, but I’m a firm believer that no one should see a river andnotpaddle in it.’
I’ve already sat against a boulder to pull my shoes off, because you can’t see someone else enjoying themselves so much andnotjoin in.
I yelp as my bare feet touch freezing water and slippery stones, and his arm circles my waist and holds me up as we paddle out a bit deeper. Both my hands are wrapped around his forearm, although he doesn’t seem any steadier than I am, even with his big feet, and I can’t see this little adventure ending without one or both of us landing on our bums in the water, yet somehow, it doesn’t matter at all.
His smile is radiant. For the first time since I met him, his face is free of the worry lines that often wrinkle his forehead, and he looks like a man without a care in the world, and just being with him is enough to make me forget everything about Ebony and the shop and all the things that aren’t right in my life and just enjoy the moment.
Even though I’ve found my footing, his arm is still around me and his fingers curl into my side, giving me a squeeze and waiting for me to look up at him.
‘Thank you for making me feel like a big kid. I missed out on a lot of childhood and I never realised how much until I saw this place again. I see the magic in the world when I’m with you. That’s something that evaporated a very long time ago for me, but everything feels different here.’
‘Me too,’ I say, but my mouth has gone dry from the intensity in his eyes and the words come out as a hoarse whisper. ‘On all counts.’
I haveneverwanted to kiss someone this badly before, and it would be so easy to act on it, but I force myself to take a step away from his arm, and look down at the water to avoid his eyes. How can I kiss him when there’s so much unsaid between us? Hidden by a mask and feeling like a different person at the ball was one thing, but I know him now, and I know how hurt he’ll be when he realises the truth about the missing Cinderella.
We’re far away from the castle here, the back side of it looming behind us in the distance, mostly hidden by the trees, apart from the tallest tower tops and spires, and when I turn back to him, he’s looking up at the hillside as though it’s the first time he’s ever seen it. ‘You okay?’
In one swift move, as if he’s not giving himself a chance to overthink it, he leans down to press his lips to my cheek. It lasts for less than a second, but it feels significant somehow. He hasn’t shaved this morning and the scratch of his dark stubble is at tantalisingly perfect odds with the softness of his lips. ‘Better than I’ve ever been.’
He sounds so happy that it’s enough to make my knees weak and my hand tightens on his arm because standing in the middle of a river is not the ideal place for knee unsteadiness.
I can feel his skin heat up with the embarrassment, and he hovers, as though he’s unsure whether to pull away or not, and then he tucks my hair aside and shifts until he can whisper in my ear. ‘See those rocks down there?’
I nod, unsure of where he’s going with the thought, but appreciating that he’s trying to cover the awkwardness and save either of us having to address it. He points to a weir downstream, where a line of flat boulders cross the river with water flowing between them.
‘I challenge you to reach them without falling over. Race ya!’ And with that he takes off, sploshing through the river, yelping as an unexpectedly deep pool soaks him to the calves.
There’s a lot of screaming and shrieking as we slip and slide over water-smoothed stones in the freezing river, probably scaring fish and terrifying any nearby frogs. He wins the race because his legs are so long you could climb them to the moon, but not without banging his knee up on a rock with a few choice swearwords. He stands in the water to wait for me, but I stop to kick water up and splash him, which turns into a splash fight, until we’re both out of breath from laughing so much and liberally soaked with river water.
‘Okay, okay, I give up.’ He shakes himself like a dog getting out of a bath and steps onto one of the huge flat rocks, and then holds his hand out to pull me up too, until we’re standing side by side, panting for breath and laughing like children.
‘Your tiger stripes are running.’
‘Your butterfly wings are smudged.’
‘You’ve got pink butterfly wings on your mouth.’
He ducks his head to let me rub it away with my thumb, and I’m holding his face again, just like I did that night at the ball, and every nerve ending is on fire. His eyes are closed and he turns almost imperceptibly into the touch and lets out a shuddery breath that has nothing to do with the exertion and everything to do with the closeness and the kiss that putmyface paint onhislips in the first place.
The urge to use my grip to pull his mouth to mine is almost unfightable, and I’m holding back so hard that my hand starts shaking and I force myself to step away, and he blinks and stands upright again, turning around to look at the river in front of us instead of the way we’ve just come.
There’s a large stony beach on the opposite side, backing onto more wildflower meadows and grassy fields where a few sheep from a distant farm are milling about, and the river stretches on until it reaches a bend that we can’t see around. He hasn’t let go of my hand yet, and he sits down on the flat rock, wordlessly urging me to sit with him.
When I do, he pulls his hand out of mine so he can take his glasses off and dry them on the bottom of his grey T-shirt. He reaches out for my hand again the instant they’re back on his face, and it sends a little flutter through me. The fact that he wants to sit here with me, he wants to hold my hand… it has to mean something. It has to mean he likes me as I am, not just as I was the other night, doesn’t it?
I stretch my legs out so my feet dangle in the burbling river, and he does the same, leaning back on one hand and letting his feet hang in the water, but within a few minutes, his banged-up knee protests at the angle and he pulls one leg up again.
‘Aww, poor baby.’ I untangle my fingers from his and reach over to slip my hand around his bruised knee, and he reaches over to hold my left hand instead and drops his head to the side, until it rests on my shoulder.
His trousers are rolled up above his knees, and my fingers stroke gently where they touch his skin, avoiding the graze from the rock, and he sighs a happy sigh and nestles against my shoulder, our joined hands resting on my lap, and it takes every ounce of willpower I’ve ever possessed not to press a kiss into his hair.
That sense of ease settles over me again. Everything is so easy with him. Ease is not something I’ve ever felt in relationships before. No one’s ever felt special enough to truly let my guard down around them, to let them in and see me as I am, rather than as the front I put on to the world. But everything feels different with Witt, and it has since the first moment I set eyes on him in that study.
