Page 56 of A Wonderland Wish on Ever After Street
I laugh and go to pull away but he curls tighter around me. ‘Don’t go yet. This feels too good.’
‘Yeah, it does.’ The words hang in the air like a decoration. So real that I could touch them. Itdoesfeel good, in a way I never expected it to. I never intended to let anyone inagain. Love hasn’t been on my radar in recent years. After my ex, I was glad to be alone. I’d forgotten what it’s like to fall for someone.
And then Bram burst into my life in an explosion of colour and card tricks and he’s got under my skin without me even noticing, and suddenly Icareabout him. Ilikehim. I like spending time with him. I get butterflies as I drive towards his house in the evenings. If today is any indication, Imissthe living daylights out of him when he’s not around.
I’ve spent the majority of the past twenty-four hours with my hands on him in some way, and it’s feltgood. And this hug, it’s like we’re the only two people in the universe, and everything is right with the world, as long as neither of us ever moves.
It feels like waking up when he finally starts to stir, grunting with stiffness where his body has been curled so tightly around mine, and he looks kind of dazed and blissful, squinting at the sudden brightness of the kitchen light. ‘That was probably the nicest hug I’ve ever had.’
I laugh, because there he goes with just blurting things out again. And yet there’s something refreshing about it too. Bram doesn’t play games. He says what he feels in the moment and worries about it later. Or, actually, doesn’t worry about it later, unlike me who lies awake at night replaying conversations where I made myself look foolish that day in my head, and it makes me want to be more like him. Being happy for people to think whatever they want of him, and being secure enough in himself for it not to matter. ‘Ditto.’
He smiles, that stupidly wide smile that brightens up the whole room and makes his singular dimple dip his cheek and his tired eyes shine, and it’s impossible not to smile back, and… I really want to kiss him. I’m at just the right height to slide my hand along his jaw and cup his face. It would take nanoseconds to push myself onto tiptoes, and I take a breath, trying to steel myself to find the courage to do it, and… and then his stomach lets out a growl of hunger, making his cheeks flare red as he giggles with embarrassment.
I shake my head to clear it. ‘I’m coming home with you tonight. You can eat something later so I’m going to make you a piece of toast and a cup of tea andnothingelse. I don’t trust you not to go home and bake a batch of brownies and eat the whole lot.’
‘You’re coming home with me so you can bake something for the shop tomorrow. Get back on the horse before the stable door has bolted… No, that’s not right. You know what I mean. Don’t let this one incident knock your confidence.’
‘I don’t think I should ever bake again.’
‘’Course you should.’ He reaches out and takes my hand again. ‘And I’m going to be your first tester.’
‘No you’re not. You can’t still have faith in me after that.’
‘I still have faith in you after that. You were made to do this. This job lights you up. You just need to get a teensy bit better at identifying whether something is cooked or not.’
I burst out laughing. At least we can agree on that.
17
As the wedding gets closer, the one thing that gets stronger is how much I love Ever After Street and want to stay here, no matter what. Ilovemy tearoom. I’ve bought some copies ofAlice in Wonderlandfrom Marnie and put them out on a shelf, and it’s a joy to see customers pick them up and flick through them while drinking their sparkly tea.
It’s the sense of community too. I only met Marnie last year but I feel like I’ve known her my whole life. I love my Ever After Street colleagues. I feel like there are people I can turn to at any time with any question or query, and people to help out if needed, like Franca did last week.
And then there’s the help with the wedding. It’s Thursday evening, three days before the big day, and Marnie, Darcy, and I are in Bram’s kitchen, the four of us forming a tag team with the Nutella muffins and Creme Egg cheesecakes. We’ve got over a hundred and fifty of each to make before Sunday, and with the help of a battalion of airtight containers, they’ll still be fresh enough by the big day.
Bram’s put a nineties’ music playlist on, and we’re all singingalong and dancing around the kitchen, and none of us are any good at singingordancing, so the self-consciousness has gone, and we’re just enjoying ourselves, according to Bram’s policy of making tasks fun. And it’s brilliant. What seemed like an overwhelmingly impossible undertaking has become a fun evening with good friends.
He and Darcy are making the cheesecakes and Marnie and I are working as a team on the muffins, and I’m having one of the happiest evenings I can remember in recent times, and it’s all because of one man.
I meet Bram’s eyes across the kitchen, and he beams at me, tips an imaginary cowboy hat in my direction, and then line dances back over to the counter to the tune of ‘Cotton Eye Joe’.
I tap my foot as I stir the third batch of muffin mixture, and Marnie steps closer and nudges me with her elbow. ‘He’s smitten.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ I try to ignore the little quiver that sets off in my chest.
‘He hasn’t stopped smiling since we arrived, and coincidentally, he hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we arrived either. And neither have you, for that matter.’ She nudges me again and whispers, ‘I’m starting to think that you and I only paired up to ensure there was no canoodling over the muffins.’
‘Canoodling!’
I don’t realise how loudly I’ve said it until Bram and Darcy both turn to look at me.
‘…is a great word.’ I try to save the sentence, which fails when Bram raises both eyebrows with a cheeky grin, and it makes my face flare so hot that it could be used to cook the muffins if we run out of oven space.
‘This is fun.’ Darcy, who is still limping as he recovers from a broken ankle at the end of last year, swipes another piece of the cut-up Creme Eggs the boys are using on the other side of the kitchen. ‘Why have we neverdone this before?’
‘I didn’t think anyone from Ever After Street would want to hang out with me. You know who my father is,’ Bram adds when Marnie and Darcy both look at him in confusion.
‘I didn’t,’ Marnie says. ‘I only ever dealt with my own landlord.’
