My brews flew up as I blinked at her.
“Coffee shop guy.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re joking?”
“What?!” Lottie shrieked, making me wince.
“I know,” Hannah deadpanned. “I bet the angels are up there with a bag of popcorn just laughing their asses off at this turn of events.”
“Who’s coffee shop guy?” Cole asked with a furrowed brow, glancing between us girls for an explanation.
“Don’t even get me started on this douche canoe,” Lot said with an eyeroll.
When it was clear she wasn’t going to explain Lot stepped in. “We were working at a coffee shop a few months back, actually, weren’t you preparing for your second interview with the newspaper?”
“Yes,” Hannah hissed with irritation.
Lot shook her head at her sister’s dramatics and continued. “Anyways. Hannah and this guy ran into each other. He was carrying a to-go tray of coffees, and they spilled all over both of them. Han, apologized, of course, even though it was a completeaccident and by the looks of it, I’m pretty sure the guy was the one who turned around and wasn’t even looking when he bumped into her. But the guy was capital P-O'd.”
“I might have taken a page from Em’s book and used some colorful language when he insulted me under his breath.”
“What’d he say?” Mason asked.
Hannah waved her hand in the air, “I don’t even know exactly. It was in Spanish. I think. Whatever it was, definitely didn’t sound like a compliment. When he realized I was just standing there staring at him, he commanded me to go get some napkins and clean up the mess. Well, I told him I was waiting for his balls to drop, because apparently that was what it took for men to act like grown adults and accept it was an accident and move on.”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Cole shouted holding out his fist for Hannah to bump.
I smiled, watching the pride on his face as he stared at Hannah.
“So, you’re working with this guy?” I asked.
Hannah sighed loudly, “Unfortunately. I got pulled onto an assignment that would have otherwise been a dream if it weren’t for him being on the team.”
“What’s the assignment?” Lot asked.
“It’s for the investigative journalism team. We’re working on a piece about some suspicious deaths of a number of employees at an undisclosable gas company.”
We all gasped and Hannah threw her hands up, “I know! It’s gonna behugewhen the story comes out, if we ever get our hands on the information we want. But…freaking Julian Navarro has to be there and ruin all the excitement. And now I just hate going into work.”
“He’s not harassing you, is he?” Cole asked. I looked over to find him frowning like he was planning to hurt Julian if she answered yes.
“No, no. Nothing like that. He just likes to push my buttons. He’s harmless, but annoying as all hell.”
Cole didn’t seem satisfied with her answer and Hannah was quick to change the subject, asking Mason if he was ready for his hiking trip he was going on next weekend with the trekking club he was a part of.
My anxiety didn’t let me process the conversation around me as it continued. It was unnerving to hear that she was going to be working in investigative journalism. My brain was already nagging me to Google myself. My online presence was already non-existent before I joined Los Siete, but I knew there had been one article and a police report about my disappearance as Olivia Walsh. The FBI and Witness Protection had assured me that they had buried the information online, and it was true, when I put my name into the search bar nothing relevant came up. It helped that it was the name of an actress. I gave up after going through twenty Google search results pages.
The only thing about me on the internet that I had been able to find was the church website which mentioned in the about section under Theo’s picture, ‘his wife, Olivia’. Otherwise, it was like I didn’t exist, whether I was Shiloh Tellez or Olivia Walsh.
But with it near the anniversary of my disappearance, I was always concerned that he might make some sort of public post appealing for any information. Not that he had a social media account that I was aware of. It was against the church's beliefs to be a part of social media. The only platform they published anything on was recordings of the sermons which were archived on a password-protected website that wasn’t accessible to the public. It was only used, as far as I knew, by the church staff to share previously recorded sermons with other members. AndTheo used them on occasion to prepare for sermons that he was writing.
“Em?”
I blinked up at Lottie. “Hm?”
“You want something to drink?”
I glanced at the open cooler and reached down, grabbing a cold water bottle.
