minutes that I don’t like small, confined spaces and I am nowhere near as nimble or as athletic as I’d like to be.
And that it was quite unlikely anybody would be desperately looking for me.
Because that’s what happens when you correct other people’s spelling: they don’t tend to spend much time trying to see you again.
On the upside, I haven’t been entirely unproductive. In fact, in the last forty minutes I have managed to:
1. Complete sixteen games of noughts and crosses in the dust on the window ledge.
2. Study a pigeon in the alleyway.
3. Recite the periodic table backwards, forwards and then inside out.
4. Sing my favourite songs from at least seven Disney movies.
I’m just pondering if the eighth should be Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or A Whole New World when I hear the door open behind me.
“Oh, thank sugar cookies,” I breathe in relief, wiggling my toes slightly. “I’m so sorry, Wilbur. I’m such a gullible idiot.”
Two hands gently grab my waist.
“You know what’s ironic?” I say as my jeans belt is unhooked from where it’s twisted round the window catch and I’m lowered softly to the ground. “I’ve never seen anywhere quite as dirty as this place purporting to clean things.”
There’s a warm laugh, and my toes immediately stop wiggling.
The hottest observed place on earth is Furnace Creek in Death Valley: in 1913 it measured 56.7 degrees Celsius, or 134 degrees Fahrenheit. They might have to recalculate that because right now my cheeks are giving the Californian desert a run for its money.
I spin around slowly and stare into the dark, slanted eyes of the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. His hair is huge and black and curly, his skin is the colour of coffee, his bottom lip is slightly too large and his nose turns up at the end like a ski-slope. The corner of his mouth is twisted up a little, and I happen to know that when he smiles it breaks his whole face in two and the insides of everyone in a ten-mile radius simultaneously.
Of all the people I wanted to see me with my bottom stuck halfway through a window, the only boy I’ve ever kissed was pretty much at the end of the list.
Him and whoever hands out the Nobel prizes, you know.
Just in case.
“Umm, hello Nick,” I say coolly, sticking my chin in the air as regally as I can. He smells green, even in a cupboard full of bleach.
“Hi Harriet. Were you under the impression that you’ve recently turned into a cat?”
It’s dark in here, but not quite dark enough: I can still see the end of his nose twitching in amusement.
“Of course not.” I try to lift my chin a little bit more. “I was just … umm …” What? What am I doing in a cupboard? “Keen to see as many elements of the fashion industry as possible. It’s important to get a really rounded view of modelling. From, you know, different angles.”
I clear my throat.
“Uh-huh,” he says, except this is nothing like the uh-huh the models gave me an hour ago. It’s a warm uh-huh. An amused uh-huh. An I inexplicably understand what happened without being told and I don’t think any less of you for it uh-huh.
“Umm.” I swallow. “What are you doing here?”
He grins and takes a step towards me. “I had to pick up a Versace contract from Wilbur, and he told me you’d gone missing. He’s checking under all the tables in the building, and I’m doing all the cupboards.”
My cheeks get steadily hotter.
Just because the first time I ever met Nick Hidaka I was hiding under a table doesn’t mean I’m always under one. I’ve seen him several times outside of furniture too.
His memory is very selective.
We stare each other out for a few seconds.
Clearly the only way to get out of this predicament in style is to stalk out of the cupboard. To stick my nose in the air, be dignified, and charge out in an adult, sophisticated kind of—
A bubble of embarrassed laughter pops out of my mouth.
Nope, that wasn’t it, was it?
“I’m a ninny, aren’t I?” I say, twisting my mouth and staring at the floor.
“A little bit,” Nick laughs in his warm Australian twang.
“I try really hard but I’m not entirely sure I can help it,” I admit. “It seems to be inbuilt.”
Nick puts a hand under my chin and gently tilts my head back up so I’m looking at him again. “Luckily, I have a soft spot for ninnies. Especially the kind that can recite the periodic table backwards.”
And as the boy I like best in the world leans down to kiss me, suddenly a cupboard doesn’t seem like the worst place in the world to be stuck in after all.
I pitch for it quite hard. I suggest a cupboard picnic: I’m pretty sure I have a few bits of broken chocolate bar at the bottom of my satchel and, if I rummage hard enough, half a cheese and onion sandwich we can split in two.
Basically anything that will prolong my time in what now magically appear to be incredibly romantic surroundings.
Unfortunately, Nick has other ideas.
“Isn’t there somewhere you’re supposed to be?”
“The casting?” I poke my head out of the cupboard and frown. The lights of the corridor upstairs have all been turned off. “I think everyone’s gone now. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t that bothered anyway.”
I lean up to kiss him again.
“Nope,” Nick laughs, kissing the end of my nose instead. “Not Brink. Somewhere else.”
Sugar cookies. Why does he always remember everything I say? If I didn’t know better, I’d think Nick had my life itinerary bullet pointed and stashed away in his pocket somewhere.
Which is totally the kind of thing I’d do, but I didn’t think it was his style.
“Oh,” I say airily, waving a hand, “I guess I’ve missed it by now. Never mind.”
Nick lifts an eyebrow.
