Page 1 of The Baby Dragon Bakery (The Baby Dragon #2)

I t was a crisp evening at the end of September, and autumn was just beginning.

The leaves had started to change color, lush greenery giving way to shades of red and orange and yellow.

The air was brisk, the humidity of summer replaced with a slight chill in the night.

The breeze smelled warm and earthy, like wood and amber.

Black-scaled dragons flew in the air above the glittering party at the Sterling Estate, their eyes shining like purple jewels.

Lavinia Williams wrapped her arms around herself, taking in the revelry as she sat on the side of the dance floor.

Her feet ached from dancing for the last few hours at the home of her good friend Genevieve Sterling but, more relevantly, she was here for the engagement party of her other good friend, Saphira Margala, who had recently become engaged to Genevieve’s brother, Aiden.

The party was outside, taking advantage of the stunning estate and this perfect in-between weather, not too summer-hot nor too wintry-cold.

String lights twinkled above the dance floor and the outdoor tables, while more tables were set up under canopied tents lit with glowing lanterns.

A live string quartet played music, while waiters walked around with fizzing flutes of champagne, handing drinks to the remaining guests dressed in their very finest gowns and suits.

Lavinia was beyond happy to be at one of her best friend’s engagement parties. Ever since Saphira and Aiden had gotten together last spring, Lavinia had watched as her already bright best friend grew more and more radiant, lit from within with a joy that was incomparable.

Here the happy couple was now, joining the few people left on the dance floor. The party was nearly over, and mostly everyone had gone. It was very late in the night, or very early in the morning—Lavinia had lost track of time.

On the dance floor, Aiden reached for Saphira’s hand.

He had been in an expertly tailored suit earlier, but had since shucked off the jacket and tie.

The top few buttons of his white dress shirt were undone, the sleeves rolled up.

As for Saphira, her hair had been up in a complicated updo, but it was half down now.

The massive engagement ring on her left hand sparkled. It was a gorgeous basalt stone surrounded with diamonds, set on a gold band; Lavinia loved the gold accent. She admired the six gold bangles jingling on Saphira’s right arm as Aiden lifted her hand and twirled her.

Saphira held up the end of her white silk dress, twirling on her bare tiptoes. She would wear purple at the wedding that June, for the basalta dragons that she and Aiden were claimed by, hence the white now.

As Saphira’s bridesmaid, Lavinia had been given the rundown on the Drakkon family customs in which Saphira would partake. Saphira and Aiden’s baby dragon, Sparky, flew overhead, playing with the other Sterling dragons, the adult dragons letting the babies fly around them.

The happy couple sang to each other as they danced, their eyes locked, smiles wide on both their faces.

Once, Lavinia had thought Aiden to be awkward and stoic, and while he was still more the strong and silent type around everyone else, with Saphira, he was as dazzling as her, two stars shining in the night sky, sparkling together.

There could have been a hurricane or a tornado and neither would have noticed, they were so entranced with one another. Then Aiden sang the lyrics wrong, and Saphira threw her head back with open-mouthed laughter. Aiden gathered her into his arms, kissing her neck, and Lavinia’s chest felt tight.

She had to look away from Aiden and Saphira, the scene was so intimate.

It felt intrusive to watch, and while she was overjoyed that her friend had found such a fairy-tale love, the scene made her ache.

She yearned for a love like theirs—for a love like the one she had witnessed her own parents share her entire life.

Lavinia had always looked up to her parents, basking in the warmth of their beautiful relationship, the way they loved each other. She adored her mother, especially, and wanted to be just like her.

Her mother, Beena, had met Garrett, her future husband, the winter after she had turned twenty-four, and now Lavinia was fast approaching that same time, with winter just around the corner. A frisson of stress shot through her, making her feel agitated.

Then a man approached her, a drink in each hand, and Lavinia felt flustered for altogether different reasons.

“Here you go.” Theo Noon handed Lavinia a crystal goblet, and she gratefully accepted the chilled drink.

Theo was Lavinia’s best friend, and had been since they were children.

They were both twenty-four now, much changed from the eight-year-olds they had been when they had first met.

Where in the past they had run through garden sprinklers in the summer together, now they attended engagement parties.

Scenarios might have changed, but one thing remained: he was always her partner in crime, always by her side.

Theo was tall with wavy brown hair, which at its worst made him look like a mop but at its best, like tonight, fell into perfect curls that she wanted to wrap every one of her fingers around.

He was wearing dress pants and a navy-blue button-up dress shirt, the sleeves of which—this late into the party—were rolled up.

Lavinia hardly ever saw him in formal wear, and he looked especially handsome tonight. She found it difficult to look away.

She had always thought him handsome, in a distant, objective way.

Then, a few months ago, things suddenly stopped feeling objective and started feeling very, very personal.

She didn’t even know when it had happened, her developing feelings for her best friend but, after denying it to herself for some time, she found she could no longer pretend; there was no escaping what she felt.

The problem was that she didn’t know how he felt. Sometimes she was so sure he felt a similar way, but then sometimes she couldn’t tell at all. To make matters worse, there was no one whose second opinion she could seek.

She hadn’t discussed it with anyone. Theo was her best friend, which meant that he was the first person she told anything, but of course, she couldn’t talk to him about it, and it felt wrong to discuss something with anybody else and not with him, and so she had been quiet.

“What is this?” Lavinia asked, shifting her attention to her drink. It was garnished with a cinnamon stick, and she took a sip as he sat down beside her. The liquid was cold and refreshing as it went down her throat, the flavor strong and surprising.

“An apple ginger fizz,” he said, taking a sip from his own glass.

“Oooh. Fancy.”

“And fun.”

“My favorite combination,” Lavinia said. Theo snorted.

“Your favorite combination is more like chaos and fun.”

She waved her free hand. “Same thing.”

They sat and watched the dance floor for a moment, both enjoying the general splendor.

“It’s nice to see Saphira,” Theo said. “I feel like it’s been a while, even though it’s probably only been a little over a week.”

“I feel the same,” Lavinia agreed.

There was a time when Lavinia would see Saphira almost every day, as she worked at Saphira’s business, the Baby Dragon Cafe. Theo would also be a frequent visitor. He had a job at the Rolling Pin Bakery, which supplied Saphira’s cafe, and would come by every few days to drop off bakery deliveries.

But now that Lavinia had just started her second year of vet school—where she studied mythical animals such as dragons, griffins, chimeras, and phoenixes—she didn’t get the chance to see Saphira as much.

She only worked at the Baby Dragon once a week, now, because she didn’t have any other time with classes and her internship at the Animal Hospital.

Because the cafe was doing so well, Saphira had hired a lot more staff and wasn’t there as much either; she oversaw things as the business’s owner and manager, but spent less time with her boots on the ground.

“I kinda miss how things used to be,” Lavinia said. Though it was fantastic that the cafe was doing so well and that she was in vet school, it had been fun to work with one of her closest friends, even when the busy routine had made her perpetually tired.

“I kinda miss it, too,” Theo agreed. “Early morning deliveries were hell everywhere else, but I loved swinging by the Baby Dragon and seeing you and Saph and the little draggos.” He smiled. “The free drinks weren’t bad, either.”

“God, I could go for a coffee,” Lavinia said.

Theo elbowed her. “It’s, like, four a.m. You don’t need a coffee, you need sleep.”

She ignored his comment, instead lamenting dramatically. “Now everyone’s growing up and getting old ,” Lavinia said. “I mean Saphira is engaged .”

Saphira was twenty-seven, and Aiden was twenty-nine, nearly thirty, but still . At the age of twenty-four, Lavinia felt that none of her friends should have been taking such adult steps.

Now that Saphira was engaged, she had officially moved out of her apartment on Main Street and into Aiden’s cottage.

For the past year, they had been back and forth between each other’s places, but Saphira had moved out of her apartment entirely now.

It made sense for her to move into Aiden’s place, as the cottage was bigger, and his garden had space for their baby dragon, Sparky, who was turning two in October.

Dragons matured after age two and continued developing until age five, at which point they were used for riding.

Lavinia was happy for her friend, but there was no denying that everything was different now, and it would only continue to grow more and more so as time went on. She knew she had two options: she could either resist it or embrace it.