Page 16 of Tech Prince Troubles (Runaway Prince Hotel #6)

Chapter Sixteen

SAM

bouncing off the walls

M y “Walking on Sunshine,” I-kissed-Adri happy bubble burst the moment I walked into the café, and Mateo greeted me with a frustrated expression.

“What a shitshow of a shift. No clue what’s going on, but the registers needed rebooting twice, the grinder glitched out a few times, and even Gandalf was acting up more than usual. The pressure wasn’t right, and the shots weren’t pulling consistently.”

I grumbled at him and glanced at Gandalf. “It wasn’t just because none of you really…”

Mateo laughed. “I wish. No, that’s not it, Sam, really. Believe me, it’s acting up more than it usually does. Kitchen seems fine, though. Not a peep from Théo.”

“Okay. Pastries, but no coffee.” I crossed my fingers I’d only see Théo filling the displays. “I’ll check it out. You haven’t called the IT department?”

“They were busy and said they’d call back. You might have to chase after them.” There was a spark in Mateo's eyes I wasn’t sure I liked.

I sighed. “I guess I’ll do that… after I check on Gandalf.” Ma ybe I shouldn’t have mentioned anything about Adri. It was just a comment about espresso, but Mateo must have picked up on something.

“Go, rest. I’ll keep you up to date.”

“Sure. Cool.” Mateo yawned, grabbed his coat, and left. I turned to the shop. Zane and Lucy were already wiping the floor and logging into the registers.

I focused my attention on Gandalf. I set up the first shot, and Mateo was right. The pressure didn’t seem to be consistent, and the shot was off. I made a few more; they were all over the place, as if I was a rookie working this machine.

“Come on. What’s wrong with you?” I adjusted the grind size and tested the water flow, but nothing fixed the inconsistency. Every shot was different, and none were good. The grinder was acting up again.

Lucy yelled, “Sam! The register keeps glitching out. The keys… give the wrong output. I type a five, and it gives me any number but five.”

I turned, but Zane put his hand on the register and pointed to the laminated list of rules next to it. “Don’t let Sam touch anything but the coffee machines.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t going to touch it,” I said. “But I can’t describe what I can’t see.”

He hit the five, causing the screen to flash, and a seven appeared. “Right. Time to call IT. Let me know if the other registers do the same.” I dialed IT, surprised when Rick himself answered. “Hey, Rick.”

“Sam. Sorry, Mateo already called us, but we’ve been falling from one job into another.”

“I understand. But if I can’t get the registers to work, then I might as well close shop. And I don’t want to cut in line or anything, but… Gandalf isn’t working properly. ”

“Wait. What? Really? Reliable Gandalf? If you can’t even pull a decent cup, then it must be the end of the world.”

“Ha ha. Seriously, Rick, I’ve tried everything, but there’s something wrong that’s beyond me. It’s not just Gandalf; it’s the grinder and the cash register too.”

Zane held up three fingers.

“Correction. It’s all three registers.”

Rick sighed on the other side of the line. “I can’t make promises, but someone should be there in the next fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks.”

Rick must have heard my frustration in my voice. “Sorry for making light of it. I shouldn’t have. How busy is it?”

“We’ll manage. I know you’ve had tech problems for a while now.

Just didn’t expect them here.” I ran my hand through my hair and nodded when Lucy raised a questioning thumbs-up.

“It’s the start of shift, so it’s empty right now, but with early guests and morning regulars, I’m going to need at least one working register and coffee machine ASAP. ” And Gandalf had better not be broken.

“I know. I know. Don’t worry; someone’ll be there in fifteen minutes max.” Another sigh. “Our glitches shouldn’t have any effect on the café at all. This doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.”

He did sound frayed at the edges. “I’ll let you get back to work. If your tech can fix this before the rush, I’m opening a free tab for the hub for the next five days. And a box of Théo’s finest.”

“Yes on the pastries. But, please, set a two-per limit for the coffee. Can’t have my staff bouncing off the walls.”

I rang off and faced Zane and Lucy’s questioning expressions. “He promised me fifteen minutes. Guess all we can do is get all non-tech stuff ready in the meantime. ”

“And hope the ovens don’t go…” Zane added, mimicking an explosion with his hands.

I glared at him and crossed my fingers he hadn’t just jinxed us.

Not much later, Adri walked in.

“Good morning.” I couldn’t stop the goofy smile, as if it’d been minutes, not hours, since we’d kissed. “You’re early. I thought Rick said you were swamped?”

It amazed me how gorgeous he looked after such hectic nights. No frown. No puffy cheeks. Just glowing, iridescent skin, bright cerulean eyes, and a disarming, quiet smile. Niren genes were great.

“Hi.”

The hitch in his voice—as if he lost his Wi-Fi connection for a second—just made me want to kiss him again. “There are no swamps in Princedelphia.”

“It’s an expression. It means too busy for a break.” I was about to add that Gandalf wasn’t up for an espresso when he held up a toolkit.

“I’m not on break. Rick said you had problems?”

He sent Adri? Not that I wasn’t happy to see him. “I thought you were working on the west wing?”

“I was. Rick considered my skills the best-suited.”

Huh. Or the fastest. “I take it he mentioned the free coffee offer?”

Adri’s mouth curled into a smile. “In a hub-wide message, stressing the two-cup limit. Riley replied ‘YES’ in all caps, bracketed by coffee emojis. Five times.”

I clenched my arms to my side to keep myself from reaching out. “I bet she did.” She did love her flat white. “I don’t want to keep you past your shift, so I’ll let you get on with it.”

“I had a brief rest two hours ago. I’ll be fine.”

An image of him sitting at his desk with his fingers wrapped around the nearest socket popped up in my head.

Maybe I shouldn’t have spent an hour researching Niren physiology after the kids went to bed.

That, combined with the warped dreams of the glowing energy networks beneath his skin and his twisted, fiber-optic tapered legs wrapped around me, had my imagination running away with me.

Part of me wanted to hide in the office and not give my baristas more ammunition.

Instead, I shadowed Adri as he checked the system logs and traced the walls of the café with his fingers.

He held a small device in his other hand.

The screen was off, and not a beep came out of it.

Yet, Adri reacted as if it fed him plenty of information—nodding, frowning, turning, and tracing the same piece of wall five times.

Then he did the same behind the counter. And all this while the screen was off.

I thought about saying something, but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of my baristas.

So, I kept it to myself when he placed his fingers against Gandalf’s side and when he checked the non-working screen, tilting his head like he was listening.

I held my breath as he moved his fingers along the cable, from the plug toward the wall, as if smoothing out wrinkles, until Gandalf hissed.

He turned to me. “Try it now.”

My fingers shook as I prepared an espresso. Gandalf sputtered a little, but the shot was perfect. One wasn’t enough to satisfy me, so I made another, and another. Those were perfect too.

I let out a sigh of relief and held the cup out to him. “Thanks. What about the rest?”

Adri inhaled the espresso—I would never tire of the sight—but didn’t take the cup. “I won’t be able to tell until I scan them. I need to keep my systems clean for that.”

“Of course. I’ll make you one when you’re done. It’s on the house, remember? ”

Adri huffed a soft laugh. It lit up his face. I almost pulled him in for a kiss. Heat traveled up my neck as I put the espresso down. “I’ll let you get to it.”

He treated the other coffee machines the way he had Gandalf—running his fingers along the sides and the cables until they hissed. That one of them didn’t was a bad sign.

Adri’s drawn brows confirmed my suspicion. “The middle one is fried. The other one is sluggish, but it works.”

Sluggish was better than not at all. “We’ll manage.” Those machines weren’t as finicky as Gandalf.

Adri nodded and moved to the closest cash register and card reader.

While outside the world burst to life, inside, time slowed with every brush of Adri’s fingers along the register.

It wouldn’t be long before our first customers would come in, but the longer Adri lingered at the register, the more I convinced myself we might as well close shop.

Zane and Lucy stood in the doorway, ready to disappoint customers when Adri finally announced, “This one will get you through the day. I’ll have to come back later for the others.”

I sighed. After he’d rested, I assumed, since his shift was almost over. “Thank you.” It would have to do. I’d told Rick one machine and one register, and Adri gave me two machines.

“You heard it, folks. We have two machines and one register. Be polite but firm when you explain orders will be slow today. Offer a ten percent discount for the inconvenience, or a free slice of whatever Théo has on offer.”

“Yes, Boss,” they answered as one.

This was going to be a long shift.

“I’d like to run a few more scans before I return to the hub. Do you have a place I can sit other than a booth?” Adri asked when I turned to him.

I showed him to the office. “You can use the computer in here.”

The beautiful smile he threw me undid me.

As he put his toolkit on the desk, I imagined closing the door with my foot and reaching for him.

My heart raced at the way he’d gaze at me, then at my hand.

My mouth went dry at the thought of even trying to speak.

How he’d take my hand and give me the tiniest nod to allow me to pull him against me.

Hunger wrapped itself around me as I imagined him kissing me?—

“Are you all right?”

I blinked, embarrassment heating my face. “Sorry. I zoned out.” I needed to get out of here before I forgot to ask him if he wanted it, too.

The way he stared at me made me wonder if he knew what I’d been thinking. “Can you log in?”

“Of course.” I moved slowly, want coursing through my body, then fled the office without checking if he needed anything else. I cursed myself for letting my mind run away with me as I checked in on Théo—still happily baking without issues—and joined my baristas.

We found a slow but steady rhythm, filling order after order, offering discounts and pastries to those who waited. No one complained that service wasn’t quite as usual, that the machines took a bit more coaxing, and that the register beeped even when its buttons weren’t pushed.

In the growing throng of customers, Adri disappeared through the side door without a word. Disappointment hit me hard, but he was probably trying not to interrupt the flow.

A flow that kept us going until the early morning rush passed, and even the machines sighed in relief.

“Man, that was tough.” Zane wiped the sweat off his forehead and leaned against the counter.

“Ditto,” Lucy chimed in before chugging down water. “And our shift isn’t over yet.”

“Any word from IT? ”

I shook my head. There were no messages on my phone—if only I’d remembered to exchange numbers with Adri last night… “He said he’d be back later, but I don’t know when that’ll be.”

Of course, that was when the bell over the side door jingled, and Adri walked in, again carrying his toolkit.

“We were just talking about you,” Lucy said as she poured herself more water.

“Hey.” It sounded lame, but our imaginary kiss in the office was still messing with my mind. “I hope you got some rest.”

“Long enough.”

“So, what’s the verdict?”

“It’s complicated, but the issues here are definitely connected to the glitches at the hotel.”

“I thought our system wasn’t connected to the hotel?”

“That’s why it’s complicated,” Adri said. “It’s also why your registers will have to wait. I need to run even more scans.”

“Will there be more glitches?”

“I don’t know. I hope these new scans will tell me how to stop that from happening.”

Fair enough. “I’d best let the rest of the staff know, then.” At least Layla and my co-managers, so we could decide on staying open or closing for the day. “You want that espresso now or later?”

“Now sounds good. In your office?”

He didn’t wait for a reply, he just turned and disappeared into the office, leaving me staring—heart pounding—at the way his skirt brushed the floor.