Page 76 of The Baby Dragon Bakery
She focused on school. After class on Friday, she was in the library studying when Theo texted her:I heard cal broke up with you, I’m sorry.
Who told you???She sent the text just as she realized. Her mother.
Beena told me since you weren’t answering my calls.
Lavinia’s eye twitched; she needed to have a word with her mother. She texted back:It’s fine.
His response was immediate:Do you wanna hang out? Watch a movie? Should I bake you brownies? Anything I can do to make you happy?
Yes, she wanted to reply.You can fall in love with me. That will make me happy.
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t deal with him at the moment, she was too miserable.
But she couldn’t avoid Theo. The next day, while she was at work at the Baby Dragon, he came in, and her heart all but crashed at the sight of him. Lavinia stalked up to him, her chest hurting.
“Hey—” he started, but she cut him off.
“Can you go?” she asked. She couldn’t deal with him, not now and especially not in front of Calahan, who was in the kitchen at the moment.
Theo’s face wrinkled with confusion. “Lav, what . . .?”
“Please,” she said, voice low and defeated.
Theo swallowed. “Okay,” he said.
He turned around and left, but she knew that wouldn’t bethe end of it. She would need to face him eventually, to tell him what was going on, but she had no idea how to, and she didn’t want to.
It hurt too much.
That evening after work, Lavinia was in the living room with Biter, throwing the baby dragon into the air and watching as her little red wings flapped before Lavinia caught her again. The little draggo was significantly helping Lavinia’s mood—until she heard a car door shut outside. She shot up, already knowing who it would be. Heart beating fast, she ran to the front of the house, peeking out the window, and sure enough, it was Theo.
“Daddy, watch Biter!” Lavinia called, setting the baby dragon down. She sprinted up the stairs, going to Alfie’s room, where he was sitting on the floor, building a model airplane.
“I’m going to sleep,” she said, trying to sound normal. “Make sure no one wakes me up.”
Alfie didn’t look up. “’kay,” he said.
“Alf,” she repeated, tone warning. “I mean it.”
He gave her a weird look. “Okay, okay.”
“Thanks.”
Knocking sounded downstairs, and Lavinia hurried to her room, making it there just as Beena opened the front door.
Lavinia closed her bedroom door, getting into bed.
“Lavinia!” Beena called from downstairs, and Lavinia screwed her eyes shut. “Lavinia, Theo’s here!”
A few moments later, Lavinia heard someone coming up the stairs, and she tried to slow her breathing, to make it truly look like she was asleep. Alfie had better stop Theo from coming in; she was counting on him.
“Lavinia’s sleeping,” she heard Alfie say outside her bedroom door, and she mentally cheered for her little brother. “She said to make sure no one wakes her up.”
“I don’t think she meant me,” Theo replied. It was quiet.
Alfie knew that, for Lavinia, Theo was always the exception.
“Oh, yeah,” Alfie said. She heard him skip away.For god’s sake.
