“Not everyone wants what we have to offer,” Auntie Zee said to Calisa.
“I thought you’d…I don’t know…offer them more? Talk up the inn? Give them a discount?” Calisa said. “Isn’t the customer always right?”
Auntie Zee snorted. “That’s bullshit. And the full quote is: ‘The customer is always right in matters of taste.’ You build what you want to build, offer it as widely as you can to whoever you think will appreciate it, and if other people like it or don’t like it…that’s on them. Not you.”
She thought of Ethan. That sentence shouldn’t have applied to him, but…it kind of did. He hadn’t wanted what she built. And that was on him.
Jack laughed at something one of the guests said, and Calisa peeked again into the sitting room. He was chatting with the guests as he served cake to Zef.He likes me as I am.He saw her as she was. He listened to her. He never tried to change her.He’s what I need and want.
As if he sensed her watching, he looked over. Calisa met his eyes and smiled, and he smiled back, instantly and fully, like he’d been ready and waiting for her to notice him.
“I think I understand,” Calisa said to Auntie Zee.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A week after the grand reopening, Calisa made crème brûlée for the first time. Mom-Elise had looked up the recipe online and read it to her over the phone. She whisked, heated, baked, then cooled. Now she had a half-dozen ramekins ready for their tops to be crisped into caramel.
“Ready for your big moment?” Calisa asked Steve.
He waddled over to the six shallow dishes of custard and dipped his head.
“No eating,” she said. “Fire.”
Tilting his head, he looked at her quizzically.
“You can do it. Steady flame.” She sprinkled spoonfuls of white and brown sugar over the top of each custard. “Come on, Steve. Fire.”
He looked at the crème brûlée again, and she tickled under his chin. He chirped and wriggled his body, then he opened his mouth and a spurt of fire came out. She lifted each dish to the flame until the sugar top crystalized to a perfect golden brown.
“You’re magnificent,” she told the little dragon.
He preened.
Jack came in through the back door. “You let him inside again.”
“Yep,” Calisa said. She patted Steve on the head and then went to the fridge to fetch him a slice of meat that they’d purchased from the Night Market on their last visit. He took it daintily out of her fingers using his teeth, and she washed her hands before putting the perfect crème brûlées back into the refrigerator to chill until it was time for them to be tonight’s dessert. “How’s Melidor?”
“Nearly ready to return home, she says.”
“And the seedlings?”
“Loud.”
She’d heard them chirping and squealing when she woke up this morning. They sounded like baby birds crossed with the pop of bubble wrap. She wouldn’t have guessed they’d squeak like that, but she supposed it wasn’t anything she’d ever given any thought to before this summer.
“Steve, do you want to go play with the baby dryads?” Calisa asked.
He obediently flew out the back door as Jack held it open.
Jack crossed to her as she was putting the last of the crème brûlée into the fridge. “These look incredible,” he said, peeking over her shoulder. “Let me know if you need a taste tester.”
She turned to make a joke and the words fled from her mind. His eyes were warm and laughing, as they always were, and before she’d even decided to, she was kissing him in the chill of the open refrigerator door. His lips were warm and soft,and his arms wrapped around her and made her feel as if she were enclosed in the world’s nicest blanket.
“Close the fridge door,” Auntie Zee said testily behind them.
Calisa and Jack jumped apart.
“Sorry,” Jack said and closed the refrigerator door.
