Page 51 of An Espresso Machine’s Guide to Love & Mischief

“No, really. I grew up at a boarding school, and it had tons of storage rooms and hidden passages. We’d explore them after lights-out. No treasure though. But one time, when I was in LA, I bribed a guy at the docks for a pirate treasure map.”

“Did you ever find the treasure?”

“I’m getting to that.” She pauses dramatically. “It wasn’t easy, you know. I had to hire a crew to help me find the island. That map was not easy to follow.”

I lean forward in my seat.

“We sailed to four separate islands. Dug up the entire beach on every single one. It took us weeks.”

“And?”

“We found the island. But the only treasure on that rock was buried rum. It was at least two centuries old and mostly evaporated.”

I roll my eyes. “That didn’t happen.”

“Sure it did. I even tried it. Drank the small amount left, but it made me think I was some kind of monkey. I climbed a palm tree and stayed up there for two days. Come to think of it… that probably wasn’t rum after all.” She sighs. “I can still taste it. I miss tasting things.”

“It can’t be easy, being stuck in an espresso machine.”

“It’s not. Though it can’t be easy having to hop bodies.” Starbucks twists her knobs several times. “You really don’t have a body of your own?”

Ah, so she is a born hopper. “No, I don’t. Haven’t since I died…” I try to mentally count the years. “Fuck, has it been ten years already?”

“Was it scary?” Tim Horton’s asks.

“Was what scary?”

“Dying?”

I tense. “I don’t like to think about it.”

“Me neither,” she admits. “but… I can’t help thinking about it. Whenever my battery runs out, it feels like dying all over.”

I glance at the battery pack taped to her side. I didn’t realize a spirit could just… cease to exist when their object loses power.

“You’re scowling again,” she tells me.

“I just don’t like to think about dying.” Or to think about the assholes who put her into that machine. It’s a good thing Missy overheard them at Union Station and alerted me to come rescue poor Starbucks.

“I know what you mean,” she whispers. “It was terrifying when the water closed in around me.”

“You drowned?” Fuck. I’d been so sure she was a born hopper—how did I get that wrong? Poor Tassimo. Drowning is a painful, scary way to go. Missy died that way, too, and she still gets panic attacks sometimes.

“Yeah, everyone did when the cruise ship sank.”

“Cruise ship?” I feel a tightening in my gut. “You died on a cruise ship?”

“Yeah, it was all over the news last year. It was my family’s cruise line, the Del Ray.”

A cold vise tightens around my heart like the moment when it stops for good. I jump to my feet and slam my palms on the table. “Fucking hell!”

Chapter 24

Diva

My gaze snaps up to Trevor’s. Poor guy looks so agitated on my behalf. Not that I blame him. “It really sucked when I found out, but I don’t actually remember it. I passed out right before the storm hit and woke up with my lungs full of water—long story.”

“I don’t want to hear your fucking story,” Trevor bellows. His voice echoes through the dining room.