Page 37 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
Howcan he be serious? When customers have put tags on that board before, it’s been with a fair bit of pushing on my part, and Darcy comes in and adds ten without a second thought.
He’s either a millionaire or he’s simply the loveliest man in the world, and I don’t think he’s a millionaire.
‘Only if you write them.’
‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no.’ He pushes himself up off the counter and steps quickly away, and while I’m usually clumsy and graceless, tonight I have cat-like reflexes as my hand darts out and catches hold of his. My fingers curl tightly around his palm, holding him in place.
For just a second, the world stops turning. Everything outside of our joined hands fades away, and there is nothing but my fingers curled around his glove. I didn’t realise I was going to touch him until my hand was holding his, stopping him from refusing such a simple request.
I intend to persuade him, but my mouth is suddenly dry and the feeling of his hand in mine has made me forget what we were talking about. Nothing seems to matter apart from that touch.
Instead of the usual buzz and hum of working on a busy street, everything is silent and calm, and while it could be put down to the fact it’s after closing time and it’s dark outside, I think it’s more to do with Darcy’s hand soothing some restless part of me, and I wish the gloves away so hard that surely a fairy godmother is going to pop up and magic them out of existence at any moment.
His covered head has dipped towards our hands and he swallowshard. He’s so close that I can see the rise and fall of his chest and hear every shallow breath.
Without letting go, I try to regain some composure. ‘You have the most beautiful handwriting I’ve ever seen.’ I give his hand asqueeze, and his other hand curls around the counter edge as if it’s made his knees buckle. ‘Leave some little part of you in the shop. Your handwriting belongs in a fairy tale; it will make each one even more special. Please.’
His fingers squeeze mine and he gives one nod, which seems like it took a lot of effort, and his fingers flex, like he’s realised we’re cutting off the circulation in each other’s hands, and I blink back to awareness to find Mrs Potts has returned to her window seat and is washing her paws in her basket. Darcy and I have clearly been staring at each other long enough for her to give up hope of any more Dreamies, and she’s a very tenacious cat.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…’ My eyes are on our joined hands and so are his. I go to pull my hand away, and his fingers tighten as though he wants to hold on. I squeeze his hand back and look up at his visor, hoping that somehow I’m looking into his eyes, and that’s enough to make him shake himself and yank his hand away sharply.
I take a fortifying breath and paste on a smile. ‘So just write that it’s worth ten pounds, and you can specify if it’s for a certain book or a certain genre or…’
‘Anything they choose? I have no right to dictate which books should bring people joy.’
Quite a change from the guy who threwOnce Upon Another Timeback over my hedge a few weeks ago. I can’t get rid of my smile. For someone who says he’s a non-reader, he’s the biggest booklover I’ve ever met, and the bar for booklovers is set pretty high in a bookshop. ‘I agree, but some donators have been quite pernickety about it and only want to put up a tag for a book they approve of.’
His scoff says it all and I push a marker pen towards him.
He looks between me, the tags on the counter, and his own right hand. It’s like he’s at war with himself. His gloves are thickleather and I doubt he could hold a pen with them on. And it hits me again. If it’s this much of a big deal for him to take a glove off, he’s never going to take anything more off, is he? Is he ever,evergoing to trust me enough to look at me without a barrier between us?
Right now, it doesn’t seem like it.
Eventually he sighs and removes the glove finger by finger, revealing a right hand that’s a mass of scars.
Although he immediately pulls his sleeve down as far as it will go, he’s not quick enough for me to miss it. His hand looks gnarled with silvery scars. Raised lines and marks of discolouration that shouldn’t be there, the healed remainders of some kind of injury, and when his fingers pick up the pen, they’re bent, like they’ve been broken and healed not-quite-straight.
There’s a tremor going through them and I realise how self-conscious he is – because of me. I turn away and busy myself by picking cat hair off the friendship form on the counter, but I’m transfixed by the way his fingers move. His handwriting is truly beautiful, each word is so neatly printed that it could have been done by a machine and each capital letter has swirls and flourishes like twirling vines, and it isjusthis handwriting, not some complicated calligraphy with a fancy pen, just him and a Sharpie.
Is it weird to be sexually attracted to someone’s handwriting?
The second Darcy has written the last tag, he yanks the glove back on. I’m trying not to watch him, but he’sright there, in front of me; his aftershave is all around; the feel of his hand is still in mine, as if he’s taken over all five of my senses.
I hand him a box of drawing pins and he gathers the tags and takes them to the honeycomb-shaped corkboard and pins them up carefully, painstakingly arranging them in the most eye-catching style.
I don’t mention his scarred hand. He knows I noticed it, and if he wanted to explain then he would have, but I can’t help thinking about it. What had to have happened to someone to give them that kind of injury? By revealing his hand, has he inadvertently let me in on the ‘something’ that happened to him?
‘Well, that was unexpectedly fun.’ He returns the drawing pins and picks up the bag withOnce Upon Another Timeinside it. ‘Thank you for having me.’
I can’t find the courage to say I can’t remember the last time I had such an enjoyable evening, so instead I say, ‘Come again sometime. You can keep the suit on.’
He tips an imaginary hat in my direction as he heads towards the door, stopping to say goodbye to Mrs Potts on the way. With his hand on the door handle, he stops and turns back. ‘Marnie… thank you for making me feel normal.’
With that, he’s gone, but I keep looking at the empty doorway for a long time afterwards. That’s the thing, isn’t it?Hemakesmefeel normal, like I’m not alone in the world, like there’s someone out there who understands what it’s like to feel lonely, and I understand his desire to hide away and escape people’s gazes and judgement too.
I can still feel the imprint of his hand in mine, and I can’t help but wonder how long it’s been since Darcy let someone get close enough to hold his hand, and why it’s so special that he let me. He could have pulled away… but he didn’t.
And that has to mean something.
