Page 19 of An Espresso Machine’s Guide to Love & Mischief

“No.” The receptionist’s shrill, nasally voice echoes through the lobby. Her curly hair is piled high on her head. Her eyelashes are so long they’re visible from across the lobby, and her lips are painted a bright pink that takes me back to a childhood spent blowing way too many Hubba Bubba bubbles. “Now go away.”

She doesn’t seem surprised that Diva is a talking espresso machine, but then again, she’s a receptionist for a talking mug. I raise my eyebrows. “Isn’t it your job to direct visitors?”

She looks us over and curls her lip. “You don’t have an appointment.”

“This is important,” Nephrite says.

Diva starts spinning her nozzles wildly. “It’s a matter of life and death and money!”

A bit dramatic, considering it’s just a mug—unless that mug is her soulmate.

A crushing weight settles on my chest and makes it hard to breathe. Carrying the rather heavy Diva doesn’t help matters much.

I hold her more tightly to my chest and focus on the feel of her pressing against my pecs and abs in a metallic caress. My heart beats against her cold, metal side while she crushes it with her desperation to see Milan.

I never thought I’d be jealous of a mug, but a part of me hopes the receptionist never lets us through.

“Oh, you want money? Sorry, but we don’t help panhandlers here,” the receptionist says as she flicks her fingers at us. “Be gone from my—”

Hot water erupts from Diva’s nozzles, and the receptionist lets out a shriek.

“How dare you call me a panhandler?” Diva shouts as she continues to spew water across the lobby.

This is one hell of an interview. If I thought mine was going to be like this, maybe I would have shown up.

“Turn that thing off!” the receptionist cries.

“I’m not a thing!” Diva shouts.

“She’s a person!” I add.

“Diva, stop before you run out of water,” Nephrite says. “You know how much you hate when that happens.”

Diva lets out an audible sigh and stops spewing hot water all over the floor.

The receptionist reaches for something on her desk, and I realize it’s a tissue box a split second before it hits me on the side of the head.

“What the actual fuck?” Diva cries as it thumps to the floor.

“I could have caught that,” I tell her, “but I didn’t want to drop you.”

Diva lets out a hiss and her nozzles start to spin. I’ve gotten to know her well enough during the train ride to know that spinning nozzles are not a good thing.

“Are you going to clean up that mess or what?” The receptionist pointedly drums her long, pink, claw-like fingernails on the wooden desk. “Well? Get to work!”

I frown. “We’re not here to work. We’re here to interview someone for a job.”

“What?” Nephrite and Diva ask at the same time.

I glance between them. “Aren’t we?”

“Umm… Diva?” Nephrite says.

“Fine.” Diva huffs. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m Diva Del Ray, heiress to the Del Ray fortune. Technically, my sister was first in line to inherit, but she died. Well, technically we both died, along with our parents, but I’m still here.”

I can’t even begin to process the fact that there’s a fortune she’s supposed to inherit, or the fact that she died.

“Thirty-three billion, and you know who got it all? Milan Del Ray. But Milan Del Ray doesn’t exist.”