‘Yeah, but underneath all that. Your playful brown eyes and killer smile. That dimple.’ I reach out and touch his singular dimple, the pad of my index finger pressing against the first hint of five o’clock shadow on his cheek. ‘And you. Just you, Bram. Superficial things aren’t what makes someone beautiful.’
It’s like an out-of-body experience. My voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to me. The words sound like they’re coming from somewhere else, someone else. It’s like his honesty when it comes to feelings has rubbed off on me and it doesn’t even cross my mind not to be so embarrassingly open with him.
‘I’ve been so fevered tonight that I might not remember some of our conversations, but trust me, I’ll remember this one.’
‘Please don’t.’ At least it’s still too dark for him to see me blush, although I’m surprised the red glow from my cheeks hasn’t illuminated the room.
‘I’ll tell myself you’re just trying to make me feel better.’ He uses the wall for stability, and I haul his bag over my arm and tuck his jacket over the top of it, and keep a hand on his shoulder as we go down the stairs, him in front of me.
At the bottom, he holds a hand out. ‘For safety.’
That’s all it is, I tell myself as I slip my hand over his. For safety. To make sure he doesn’t walk into anything in the darkness.
He laces his fingers with mine and squeezes. ‘For safety.’
He’s quiet in the car, his eyes closed, his head resting against the window, and once we’re inside his house, whatever reserves of energy it took to get this far swiftly drain away, and I keep an arm around him to make sure he stays upright as he toes off his yellow boots, stumbles to the living room and sinks onto the sofa. He tries to protest as I plump up the cushions and make sure he’s comfortable. I find a bucket in the kitchen and leave it beside him, just in case, and put a glass of water on the coffee table. He’s not feeling as hot now and there’s a cream-coloured knitted throw over the back of the sofa, so I pull it down and cover him with it.
And because I can’t help myself with this man, I tuck it over him and lean down to kiss his forehead. ‘Goodnight, beautiful.’
I’m not leaving him alone, so I text Marnie to let her know I won’t be in the caravan tonight and curl up in an armchair on the opposite side of the massive room. There’s another snuggly cream throw over the back, so I pull that over me and huddle under it, and when I close my eyes, all I can think about is his smile and his soulful brown eyes, and how nice it was to simply be with him tonight.
16
It’s daylight when I wake up to sunlight streaming through the Georgian-style arched windows and Bram crouched beside the armchair, gently shaking me.
‘Cleo.’ He sounds panicked, and it takes me a few moments to remember where I am and what happened that led to me waking up in Bram’s living room, contorted like a pretzel where I’ve sunken into the armchair and folded in on myself. ‘It’s late and no one went to the supermarket or made anything last night.’
I grip his hand where it’s on my knee. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’ I have to squint in the brightness but he doesn’t look fine. He looks like he’s just fallen off the sofa himself. There are dark circles under his eyes that aren’t just from the smudged eyeliner. His skin looks sallow and you wouldn’t think there were many more directions for his hair to stick out in, but it’s invented a whole new compass. ‘Neither of us set an alarm last night. It’s gone 8 a.m.’
That makes me sit bolt upright and look at the clock on the living room wall. It is really late, and it’s too far to walk to Ever After Street from Bram’s, and my car is still at Marnie’s.
He offers to drive me back, but he looks too drained to make it down the hallway, never mind drive anywhere, so I call a taxi and tell him to take it easy, leave it at least twenty-four hours before eating anything, and drink some water. I stand on the steps outside his house waiting for the taxi to arrive, feeling like I’m doing the walk of shame even though spending the night at Bram’s was completely innocent, and when the taxi arrives, he walks me to the end of his driveway and insists on paying the fare.
In my panic to get back to the caravan, shower and change into another Alice dress, I’m still a discombobulated mess when I fall through the tearoom door. It’s after nine and there’s a customer waiting outside, and the only cakes on display are ones that didn’t get sold yesterday, and a few emergency back-up packets of French Fancies and Cherry Bakewells that I mercifully hadn’t opened yet, and anyone looking will immediately clock that they’re made by Mr Kipling and not by me, but it’s the best I can do for today.
It’s another one of Tabby’s days off and, without Bram, I’m a frazzled frenzy by 11 a.m. As I’m on my own, it’s sod’s law that today is the day that every human in Herefordshire has decided to visit Ever After Street and pop in for a cup of sparkly Wonderland tea, and I’ve already sold out of crumpets, I’m running low on teacakes, and the display case is looking alarmingly bare. Even the bread for sandwiches is going to run out before the day’s end at this rate.
I haven’t had a chance to reply to Marnie’s texts yet, and when she pops over at lunchtime to check on me, she’s shocked by the length of the queue and the amount of customers waiting far too long for their orders.
‘You need help, Cleo.’ She dashes a plate of tea and sandwiches over to a waiting customer, even though she’s got Darcy minding A Tale As Old As Time on his lunchbreak, and then comes back to get another one. ‘I’ll put a call out in the shopkeepers messaging group and see if anyone’s not busy.’
It’s the kind of day when everyone on Ever After Street is busy, and I’m surprised when, less than twenty minutes later, Franca from The Nutcracker Shop at the year-round festive end of the street arrives, bearing packets of teacakes and crumpets. ‘One of the pleasures of owning a Christmas shop on a warm spring day is that people aren’t thinking about nutcrackers. Which is unusual because I’m always thinking about nutcrackers. I haven’t had a customer for hours, so I was out the back carving anyway; it makes no difference if I close up for a bit. Where’d you want me?’
She’s already gone through to the back room, put the food on the unit, donned an apron and tied her hair up, and I’m so grateful that I could cry. Except crying over sandwiches is frowned upon and might bother some customers, so I hastily add crumpets and toasted teacakes back onto the menu board while Franca rushes to take orders to waiting tables, chats to customers to distract them from how long they’ve been waiting, and most importantly of all, boils the kettle to make me the first cup of tea I’ve had all day.
You can say many things about Bram, but one of them is that making sure there is always a cup of tea nearby is his top priority, and I’ve never realised how much I appreciate that until today.
Franca stays for a couple of hours, but by mid-afternoon, it’s quietened down enough that she goes back to The Nutcracker Shop. It’s good to see The Wonderland Teapot so busy, but I’m missing Bram so much. How alive the tearoom feels because of him, and how he makes everything feel better. No matter how busy we are, he never loses his cheeky grin and positive attitude, and his sense of being in control of everything makes me feel in control too, and today, I can feel all the threads slipping out of my grasp. Even with Franca’s help, it makes me wonder how I would ever have managed without him.
I’ve been thinking about him so much that I think I’m hallucinating when, just after 4 p.m., the door opens and Bram walks in. I’m spreading butter on a plate of bread-and-butterflies for a young girl, while simultaneously making the tea her father has ordered, and also keeping an eye on the tearoom when the door opens and I catch sight of a flash of blue.
‘Bram!’ If I didn’t have hygiene gloves on, I’d have rubbed my eyes to make sure I’m not seeing things. ‘What are you doing here?’
He flashes me a bright, smiley grin and holds both hands up in a surrendering gesture. ‘Before you say anything, I’m not an on-duty Mad Hatter, I’m an off-duty friend.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’
‘I like being here,’ he says with a shrug, and I can’t help smiling at his simple honesty.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Moreno.’ He greets our regular customer, who’s sitting at a table, eating her usual toasted teacake while watching her grandson on the flamingo croquet. ‘Those teacakes would have nowhere to go without you.’
The old lady regards him and it clearly takes a moment before she recognises him because he looks so different to his usual character.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise that was you. I wondered where you were today. My grandson was looking forward to seeing his favourite Hatter.’
‘I’d like to believe I’m the only Hatter around these parts.’ He tips his baseball cap to her, waves to the grandson, and then slips in behind the counter.
I don’t intend to smile quite so widely, but there’s something about his presence that makes the weight of the day pressing down on my shoulders feel lighter somehow. ‘You’re supposed to be taking the day off. You know, to rest and recover?’
Apart from the baseball cap, he’s got his grey hoodie on over a white T-shirt and black jogging bottoms, his hair is washed and smooth, curling at the nape of his neck and around his ears, and if I wasn’t in the middle of handling food, it would take all my willpower not to reach up and tuck it back. ‘Go home. Watch Netflix.’
‘I’ve seen Netflix.’
‘All of it?’
‘Feels like it sometimes.’ His dark eyes are twinkling as they hold my gaze, and I have no doubt that he knew I’d protest and he came fully prepared not to let me.
