Page 13 of An Espresso Machine’s Guide to Love & Mischief

“Guys…” I keep my voice down so only Neph and Fletcher hear me, “is that man following us?”

“What man?” Fletcher looks back.

Neph does, too.

“The one wearing the Rolex. He’s on our right, a few feet back.”

“Whose feet? My feet? Or Nephrite’s feet?” he asks. “We have different shoe sizes.”

“What?” Neph asks.

“Um…” I say.

“I was kidding,” Fletcher chuckles. “We mostly use meters here in Canada, though sometimes we use feet.”

I giggle and look for Rolex Man—but he’s nowhere in sight.

“I don’t see anyone wearing a Rolex,” Neph says. “Not that I’d recognize it if I saw one.”

“How could anyone not recognize a Rolex?” I ask in disbelief.

Neph shrugs.

“I wouldn’t recognize one either,” Fletcher says.

I gasp. “I don’t see him anymore, but from now on, I’m pointing out every single Rolex I see. How have you survived this long without knowing what one looks like?”

Neph laughs like I’m joking, and Fletcher joins her.

I sigh. “I guess that man wasn’t following us after all.” It’s not like the old days, when I was rich and hot and had men following me across the world.

“It’s not every day you see two people carrying an espresso machine through the subway,” Fletcher says.

“Maybe he wanted a coffee,” Neph adds. You can take the barista out of the cafe, but apparently you can’t take the cafe out of the barista. Or the barista out of the barista? Girl thinks about coffee more than I do—and I’m the one who’s filled with coffee beans.

For the rest of the walk to the subway, I keep a lookout for Rolex Man, but there’s no sign of him. I do notice a slightly stooped gray-haired woman following us. Way to act paranoid, Diva! She’s probably just walking as slowly as we are because of her age. And like Neph said, she’s staring at us because she wants coffee.

“The subway’s just through there,” Fletcher says.

A man holds the door for us, and Fletcher and Neph carry me inside. There are turnstiles up ahead, and Fletcher swipes his black Presto card. Neph—who picked one up at the airport—does the same. Apparently, espresso machines, like pets and children, ride free.

The old lady is still behind us. She lets a couple through the gate first, then follows and heads toward the exact same stairs Neph and Fletcher do. Probably because she’s going to the subway too.

Something about her feels off. For some reason, she reminds me of the elderly man who stole my vape pen out of my hand in a billabong and then jumped into the swampy water and swam away.

I watch her, and because I’m a hunk of metal, she can’t tell that I’m looking her way.

She passes in front of a poster about cleansing the city of rats—ewwww! I’d shudder if I could. At least seeing rats is better than flying in the cargo hold, and it’s good that the city is doing something about the problem.

I refocus on the old lady, who follows us down the stairs. I’m convinced that she’s tailing us, but I was already wrong once. I don’t want to be known as the espresso machine who cried wolf. I don’t need Fletcher and Neph to think I’m paranoid on top of being useless and steamy—in the unwanted sauna way, not in the way I was before I died.

Fletcher and Neph pause halfway down the stairs for a breather. The old lady does, too. Maybe she’s just tired?

But if she is following us, and I don’t warn them, it could be another disaster like the time I didn’t tell my friend that the guy she thought was a hot prince was just a theme park entertainer in costume.

“Okay, don’t look, but that old lady is definitely following us.”

Fletcher and Neph both turn to stare at the old lady, which is the last thing you do if you’re being followed. Shit!