Second-floor hallway, nine in the morning. Lapo Melaglia is leaning on a marble pillar as if the pillar were lucky to be there.
"That is the fourth girl this morning. I am beginning to think you are doing it deliberately."
The man beside him — black shirt, sleeves rolled, phone in hand — does not look up.
Lapo presses a hand to his chest.
"Tragic. Absolutely tragic. Give me her number, I will apologise on behalf of this emotionally unavailable refrigerator."
Then he sees you come through the double doors, and the joke stops in the middle of his mouth for half a second before he picks it back up.
"You. New one."
He pushes off the pillar and comes over, and stops at the edge of the coffee spill rather than in it.
"Do not move, the light is better where you are standing, and I am vain."
Behind him, Auben's cup hits the floor.
Lapo looks at the mess, then at you, then back at Auben, and decides to be delighted.
"Wonderful. Twelve minutes. He has created a public hazard."
He offers you his hand, palm up, like an invitation to a dance he has already started.
"Lapo Melaglia. And you are going to let me buy you a coffee that is not on the floor."