Art Sales

The coffeeshop was absolutely packed. It seemed as though every magical being in all the land had arrived for the newest brew of ambrosia tea. It was truly a marvel and a wonder. Tea made, allegedly, from the blood of gods. It was said to totally rejuvenate any magical creature that tried it.
Cami, however, couldn’t care less. She was on hour ten of her twelve hour double and frankly just wanted to go home. Everyone was so loud and she had made so many of those stupid ambrosia teas that her hands were stained gold. When the tea first came out, Luci had tried it and immediately deemed it to be a scam. It tasted like a regular black tea with cream. It was rich and smooth, but nothing to write home about.
“Hi, welcome to Draconis Coffee, what can I get for you today?” Cami asked, defaulting to her usual monotone customer service voice. She kept her bleary eyes glued to the screen of her point of sale system.
“Oh wow!” The customer exclaimed. “Your scales are so pretty! I don’t see many half-dragons around; that’s so cool!”
Cami glanced up from her screen, ready to lay into the cheerful customer for calling her a half-dragon, but she was taken aback. Standing in front of her was the most stunning woman she had ever seen. She was all golden, just like the accursed tea Cami had to make. She was dressed in a collared forest green dress lined with lace. The green really brought out the glimmering gold specks in her eyes.
“Uh… I,” Cami stuttered. She swallowed hard and forced a placid, usual customer service smile onto her face. “Thank you, but I’m not a half-dragon. More like a sixteenth-dragon. Far descended. Yeah.” Cami cleared her throat and nervously toyed with the end of her braid. “Anyways, what can I get for you?”
“Oh! Yeah! I wanted to try the ambrosia tea, but I was actually wondering if you could mix it with the strawberry lemonade and add those delicious little fruit pieces on top?”
“Oh, uh yeah. Sure. Let me figure out how to put that in my system.” Cami, with much effort, returned her gaze to the screen and puttered about with the system before figuring out how to input everything. “Alright and a name for the order?”
“Luci,” the customer said, her voice still bright and cheery. “L-U-C-I, no ‘y.’” She said, obviously having had her name misspelled many times before.
“Gotcha,” Cami said, writing the name in a fluid script onto the plastic cup. “I’ll have that right out for you.”
“Thank you so much!” Luci said before flouncing off to wait for the drink to be ready.
Cami turned around to her drink making station and fell into a rhythm. It was easy, really, being able to make drinks. It felt like a practiced dance to Cami. She knew where everything was, had every recipe memorized, and could easily deal with modifications to the recipes on the fly. She found her hands dancing across the cabinets and selecting all the ingredients she needed before lovingly beginning.
She grabbed the jar of ambrosia tea leaves and set two teaspoons to steep in a cup of already boiling water; the ambrosia required a high temperature to really get all the flavor out. She then went about making the lemonade. Everything at Draconis was handmade right in the store, which consequently was why there was always a decent wait for drinks and snacks. Regardless, Cami squeezed the lemonade into the labeled cup and gently poured over a hot sugar and water mixture that had been cooking up on the stove. She mixed it together until it was all incorporated before pouring the glittery ambrosia tea over the top and giving it a stir. The lemonade greatly diluted the color of the drink, making it very similar to the color of Luci’s eyes.
Not that Cami had already memorized Luci’s eye color, of course. That would be crazy and inane. Cami wasn’t like that. She wasn’t the type to easily fall for someone. She wasn’t the type to give out her number to customers or ask people on dates out of nowhere.
Except, there she was, scrawling her number on the cup before she put the ice in so that her number wouldn’t get smudged. And there she was, writing in on a napkin as well to give out with the drink, just in case. And there she was, eagerly approaching the counter to give out the drink, which she never did because she hated the customer interactions.
“Luci!” She called out, trying to get her voice loud enough to be heard over the din of the conversations happening around her.
Luci bounded up to the counter, wavy hair bouncing perfectly as she did so. As she grabbed her drink, she wrapped her hands around Cami’s, sending electricity coursing through Cami’s body.
“Thank you!” Luci said happily. She glanced down at the cup, spotting the number written in messy handwriting. “Oh and I guess I have to thank you doubly! I’ll be sure to use that,” she said with a wink. Then, she left, heading out the front door, drink in hand.
The rest of Cami’s shift went by unremarkably and by the time her double was over, she was left absolutely exhausted. Her body ached and she smelled way too much like coffee. Her hands were stained golden. Gold like Luci. Gold like the girl she couldn’t possibly get out of her mind even if she tried.
Right as she was about to go to bed, her phone chimed, reading: “Hey! This is Luci, the girl you gave your number too, hopefully the only one!”