Page 25 of The Baby Dragon Cafe (The Baby Dragon #1)
Chapter 25
T he next morning, Saphira awoke with the very best sort of exhaustion. They had been up for hours last night, unable to get enough of each other, so when they did finally sleep, they both slept like the dead.
Saphira opened her eyes to find that Aiden wasn’t there. She stretched, then went to the bathroom. Her eyes widened when she looked in the mirror, and she tried not to laugh at the sight.
Her hair was a mess, courtesy of last night’s activities, and she had a huge hickey on the sensitive part of her throat. Heat flushed through her at the memories.
Saphira freshened up, stealing a shirt from Aiden’s closet. It had an embroidered floral detail on the chest and fell past her hips. Cute. Maybe she would keep this.
She braided her hair back so it wasn’t such a mess, then was about to leave the bedroom, when the door opened from the other side and Aiden entered. He was shirtless, wearing only boxer shorts, and was carrying a tray.
She was delighted at the sight (of both his body and the breakfast), but he looked dismayed to see she was already awake.
“What are you doing? Get back in bed!”
She held up her hands. “Okay, okay.” Saphira got back into bed, then took it a step further, pretending to go back to sleep. She felt the bed shift as Aiden sat down on it, then he cleared his throat.
She opened her eyes again. “Oh! Breakfast in bed! What a surprise!” He laughed, pinching her side, and she yelped. “No, seriously, this looks wonderful.”
The tray had a plate of French toast stacked high, maple syrup, a bowl of mixed berries, and a little vase of red roses. There was already a jug of water and two glasses on his side table.
“You are too sweet,” she said, kissing his cheek.
“Only the best for my best girl.” He poured her a glass of water, and she took a long sip.
“I needed that.” As she drank, he watched her throat, noticing the bruise, a smug glimmer in his eyes.
“I’ll be back.” He left, then came back a moment later with a little square of aloe vera, one side cut off to reveal the gel, which he rubbed against her throat. It was cool and soothing.
“Mm, that feels good.”
She loved how he took care of her. Saphira reached for the syrup, drowning her French toast in the liquid as Aiden watched.
“Please eat some of the berries, too,” he said, as she added a spoonful of whipped cream.
“Oh, I thought those were for you.”
He laughed. “They’re for both of us. You need proper nutrition.”
“Toast is nutritious!” She took a huge bite, relishing the sweet bread. “So yummy.”
With a smile, he fed her berries, which were also very sweet, and they ate breakfast together, their feet brushing against each other’s under the sheets.
When they were finished eating, he set the tray aside, and she stretched, her stomach full.
“I’m so glad I have today off.” Saphira got cozy, sinking deeper into the bed. It was already past noon, and sunlight streamed into the room, making everything warm and golden. She turned to him.
“So what do you want to do today?” she asked.
A wicked gleam entered his eyes. “I’ve got a few plans.”
The summer began, and Saphira had never been so happy. She and Aiden spent every free moment they had together, sometimes spending the night at Aiden’s plant-filled cottage, where he cooked for her and told her all about different flowers and they laughed and kissed and laughed some more.
Some days were at her apartment, where he also cooked for her, but she at least attempted to help by adding in vital ingredients like cheese and butter and heavy cream when he forgot. Sparky loved that they were together, and he was getting so big now, practically fully trained.
It was not all heat and fun; they spent time together doing mundane activities as well. Because wasn’t that what so much of love was? Just having someone to witness your life with you? To have someone to chat to and to react with?
One evening, Saphira had to do all her bills, so Aiden helped her out. He was absolutely shocked by her disorganization.
“This is stressing me out,” he declared, and he took all the invoices and bills and her laptop and created an impressively cohesive system. Aiden was surprisingly handy with numbers because of his own gardening business, and he had a number of tips that he could share with her, and which she willingly and gladly accepted and implemented.
“How are you so good at this?” she asked, awed.
“I love math,” he told her. She balked. “Everything always makes sense! It always works out, and you don’t have to worry or guess.”
“Hmm, I suppose that is true,” she said. “But you have to know what to do to begin with.”
“Yes, but you can easily learn the rules,” he replied. “I feel like in real life, I always need to worry or wonder—practice things in my head, overthink, over-prepare.”
“I noticed that about you at first,” Saphira said. “You would be very in your head—but I don’t think you are so much, anymore.”
“That’s because I’m comfortable with you,” he replied. “You make everything go quiet, in the very best way.”
“Even though I’m so loud?”
He laughed. “Even though you’re so loud.”
They spent some nights working on the numbers, and the changes Aiden suggested helped Saphira to step away from her cafe even further. She could take more days off, which was just as well—she couldn’t get enough time with Aiden.
Some days they grabbed food with Theo and Lavinia; she loved to see Aiden slot so easily into her life, with the people she loved. Both Theo and Lavinia really liked Aiden, which made Saphira happy. It meant a lot to her that he spent time with the people in her life who were important to her.
She wished Nani-Ma could have met him; she knew Nani-Ma would have loved him, just like Saphira did.
Saphira was just so happy. She couldn’t believe that this was her life, that Aiden was hers. She could touch him whenever she pleased. Sometimes in the mornings, if she woke before him, she would watch him sleep, touching the curve of his dark eyelashes, tracing his nose, his mouth.
Then he would kiss her fingers, waking, taking her hand and kissing her palm, her wrist. They would both fall back asleep, her hand resting against his cheek, his fingers on the pulse in her wrist.
She had always believed in magic, and what she felt for him—what he felt for her—just confirmed her steady faith all these years, like she was finally being rewarded.
Everything was lovely, perfect, wonderful.
Except that, sometimes, during their dates, Saphira felt as though people in town were watching her. She was self-conscious, hyper-aware, and so she would overhear what seemed like people talking about her.
At first, she tried to convince herself that she was being dramatic—that she was imagining it. But it was like a rock in her shoe, and she couldn’t shake it out.
Her insecurities were growing, affecting her more and more. She kept thinking of her mother, who had reached for something that wasn’t hers by buying a dragon on the black market; how it had ultimately led to her demise. Saphira thought she could understand that desperation now; she couldn’t imagine a life without Sparky.
But even though she had been training Sparky, he did not truly belong to her, and he never would. Saphira wasn’t from a Drakkon family, and she could not change that.
There were the little comments, the little looks. She was sensitive to them, especially now that Sparky’s training was nearly done, and she would be losing her official link to the baby dragon.
Saphira was in a much better place with the cafe, but if Sparky’s training stopped, she would no longer be paid, and she was so close to paying off the last bit of her mortgage. Aiden had offered to pay it off for her, but she did not want a handout.
He had already given her such an expensive gift recently: he had gifted her two more identical gold bangles to complete her set. She loved them, and wore them every day, and she could accept something like that—even if it seemed too much—but she could not accept him paying off the last of her mortgage.
The cafe was something she needed to complete on her own. It was Nani-Ma’s money that had begun this dream, and Saphira had to be the one to finish it.
One day, she was walking along Main Street, on her way to pick up ice-cream, when she heard her name. It was some girls, gossiping mindlessly, not caring what they said or who might hear. They were Drakkon girls, and Saphira had seen both of them riding their dragons above Starshine Valley before.
They were talking about Saphira and Aiden, disdain and confusion clear in their tone.
“I just can’t believe they’re actually together,” one girl said.
“Even them hooking up is hard to understand, but properly dating? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. She isn’t even one of us! She’s an outsider.”
And that word: outsider . It triggered Saphira deeply, and she decided right then. Enough was enough. She needed to prove herself. She couldn’t keep going on like this.
Saphira recalled what Mireya had said on Mount Echo, how there was a ritual available for those outsiders who married into riding families. So that they could belong amongst the dragons.
Maybe if Saphira did the ritual, she would stop feeling this way. She would belong.
At dawn, Saphira awoke and left a sleeping Aiden behind.