Page 71 of The Challenger

“Is it okay if I sit in here? I’m waiting for a room and could use a quiet space.”

Maybe it’s my hairdo from hell. Or that we are similar in age. Or the quiet desperation oozing from my every pore. Something resonates with her.

“Go ahead,” she says with a shrug.

I set my purse down on the polished marble slab running the length of the bar and hike myself onto a leather stool. With a grunt, the woman lifts another rack of glassware onto the trolley, positioning it until it clicks securely into the one beneath it. I can sense the muscles beneath her black dress shirt. She watches me wipe my face with a paper cocktail napkin.

“If you want,” she says. “You can order something from the restaurant and eat here."

“How about a bottle of Jack Daniel’s? And a straw.”

She slants her head to one side. “Guy trouble?”

I think about that and how much I want to reveal. But isn't that my overall problem? Not revealing anything? “General, all-around crisis.”

She wipes her hands on the white apron tied tight around her waist and offers a hand. A tattoo of a thorny rose stem circles one of her thick wrists. She could probably bench-press me. “My name is Annie. How about you start with a latte?”

I shake her hand and introduce myself. I’ve only been in her company for a minute or two and already feel calmed. “You’re probably right. Coffee first.”

The espresso machine at the end of the bar is one of those high-end jobbies with too many levers and buttons for my one-pod Nespresso mind. But Annie is one of those efficient, can-do types you want in your back pocket for a camping trip. She whips up a coffee in no time and slides the steaming cup across the bar.

“Enjoy.”

I nibble on the cinnamon-flavored cookie she provided, and my stomach grumbles. I am hungrier than I thought.

“I can’t figure out your accent,” I say.

Annie wipes down the foaming wand on the espresso machine with a knowing grin. She’s been asked this before. “Paris by way of Quebec City, Canada.”

“Is Quebec near Flin Flon?”

She cackles at the lunacy coming from the mouth of the drowned rat sitting at her bar. “Not even close. You must be American.”

“I take it that’s not a compliment?” Her forwardness is refreshing, actually. I am not offended, and neither is she. She sees through my sarcasm and it feels like she sees right through me, too.

“You don’t strike me as the type of person to be in a crisis, Flynn. What am I missing?”

I dip the cookie into the foam and watch it dissolve. “Are you saying that because I look so put together?”

She smiles, the tiniest bit amused. “You are in dire need of a dry cleaner, but yeah, you come across as someone who knows what they’re doing.”

I laugh wryly. Story of my life, right there. Nathaniel takes full credit for transforming me into the persona of Flynn Dryden, but like a woman transformed through plastic surgery, I was new, shiny, and pretty only on the outside. I am forever unsure on the inside. I bring the latte to my lips and take a sip before setting the cup back down. “Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Annie leans onto the bar counter. There’s an understanding between us I can’t pinpoint, but it comes from a shared experience. Maybe she knows what it feels like to be broken.

“So, your crisis is existential?”

“I found out at eighteen I was adopted.” I take a deep hit of coffee before saying aloud words I have never spoken to anyone. “I’ve struggled with a permanent identity crisis ever since."

Annie whistles under her breath. “Damn. Why didn’t your parents say anything earlier?”

My gaze drifts to the wall of booze bottles behind her. “I was super shy and socially awkward. They felt I would become more self-conscious if I knew I was adopted. In retrospect, they were probably right.”

“And you never suspected anything?”

“Once or twice.”

I had wondered several times over the years. No real reason for it, other than a vibration of something being off. But Cori had curls similar to mine, my height and slim build matched Edgar's, and I could patch my features together by analyzing their faces. Based on pure genetics, there was never a question mark.

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