Page 40 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
‘Yeah, I know, I just meant…’ He meets my eyes again and he looks deeply tired in a way that has nothing to do with the time of night. ‘I don’t know what I meant. The late night is making me punch-drunk. Just ignore me.’
‘You meant that you want to be important to someone. You want your life to matter.’
‘Yeah, but in a good way. The impact I have on the world now is…’ His eyes look up at the ceiling as he struggles to find the right words. ‘You bring magic to life. You make children believe in something. This museum is something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives, whereas I… I don’t think I’ve ever left anything better than I found it. Nothing haseverbeen improved by my input. That’s something I keep thinking about lately. That’s why I’m really here. This seems like a place to discover what lifeshouldbe like rather than what itislike, and I saw a chance to help it rather than destroy it.’
For once, I believe him. He’s so laid bare and open that it’s impossible not to. ‘We can implement the gift shop. Notallyour suggestions are bad ones.’
He laughs so hard that he curls in on himself and it’s the first time I’ve seen him laugh so unreservedly. It eases the tension and I flop down beside him and realise I’ve forgotten that we’re anything other than two friends having a very strange sleepover.
Darkness has long since fallen, and somehow it’s nearly midnight, the hours have passed in a flash, and the room is only lit by the otherworldly glow of the streetlamps outside coming in the window behind us. I get up to turn the torch on when I realise he’s struggling to see my face in the dark. He’s shifted closer and he’s squinting every time he looks at me, looking like he’s struggling to make out what I’m saying.
‘Has your Tablet of Gloom got enough battery to make use of your Disney movie subscription?’
He laughs. ‘I knew I was going to regret telling you that.’
‘Oh, come on, what better way to stay awake than by watching a Disney movie? Call it doing important research for the gift shop you’re going to implement,’ I suggest, knowing that a ‘sensible use of working time’ is something he can’t deny the appeal of. ‘You choose it while I go and make another cup of tea.’
He pushes himself up with a groan. ‘I think this is only going to work ifyouchoose it. Whatever you think is most important for me to see.I’llgo and make the tea.’
Once he’s standing upright, he stretches and it shouldn’t be as sexy as it is, but my eyes are glued to the sliver of stomach that appears as his grey top lifts, and the flex of a forearm as his sleeve catches and rises up.
‘And Liss?’ He’s looking at me like he knows exactly where my focus was, and I try not to think about how much I like him shortening my name. It feels friendly and easy-going, something we’ve struggled with until now. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘I’m not sure.’ His head tilts as he thinks about it, making his dark hair flop to the side. ‘Watching my professional front splinter and helping me hold it together?’
He disappears up the stairs to the kitchen before I can formulate a response. Even though I’m not much of a ‘professional front’ kind of person, I think he’s done exactly the same for me too, and I force myself to stop pondering it, otherwise I’ll still be staring at the blank tablet screen when he comes back.
I straighten out the dustsheets and plump up the sleeping bag, and then prop the Tablet of Gloom against the baluster posts in front of us, open his browser and findBeauty and the Beast, and it’s almost as difficult to get his words out of my head as it is to stop thinking about the colour of his eyes, the fall of his hair, and the scent of his aftershave, and how I expected this to be the longest night of my life, and now I’m wishing morning would never come.
14
I wake up in the most uncomfortable position known to mankind. My head is pillowed on a pile of dustsheets and I’m still covered by Warren’s sleeping bag, and there’s an ache in my hip that suggests I’m too old to be spending nights on the floor. And yet, as I turn onto my back and stretch luxuriously in the daylight streaming in from the windows above, it doesn’t feel like a bad thing.
I don’t know how long I stayed awake last night, but it wasn’t long enough to see the end ofBeauty and the Beast, but talking to Warren, getting to know arealpart of him was worth any stiffness and aches this morning. I might have failed on the stakeout part, but it feels like a win on some level.
The smell of coffee is wafting down from the kitchen upstairs, and I haul myself to my feet and run to the bathroom to clean my teeth and try to make my hair stop resembling the nest of a not-very-houseproud bird, and I groan as I drag myself up every step towards the kitchen on the third floor.
‘You sound like you slept on the floor last night.’ Warren’s sitting at the kitchen table with his water bottle, a mug, and the Tablet of Gloom in front of him, and he looks up when I arrive in the doorway, sounding like I’ve just run a marathon, not climbed a couple of flights of stairs.
‘I think I did, for a bit. You didn’t really stay awake all night, did you?’
‘Sleepless nights are a regular thing in my job. It makes no difference whether I’m having them here or at home.’ He lifts the mug like he’s making a toast and takes a sip of his coffee. ‘And no, I gave up too. Put my head down for a few minutes at 5a.m., woke up two hours later. I’m clearly too old for stakeouts.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ I go over to the kitchen unit to re-boil the kettle and try not to be touched that he’s put a mug and the jar of instant coffee ready for me.
‘It was nice to talk to you last night,’ he says as I busy myself with making the much-needed coffee. ‘Something I don’t do very often.’
‘Lie on a hard, cold landing and eat dreadful crisp-type things?’ I turn around to look at him while stirring my drink, even though I don’t like instant coffee, there is nowhere near enough caffeine in tea for mornings like this.
‘Talk.’
I’m surprised by his openness again and I meet his tired eyes across the kitchen. ‘You should do it more often.Weshould do it more often.’
‘I can’t disagree with that.’
I splosh milk into my mug, give it a final stir, and take the seat opposite him at the kitchen table.
