ALAN
I hear a commotion down the street as I slip into the crowded coffee shop, but I'm immediately preoccupied when a kid with a coffee tray runs into me and spills half of a latte on my coat.
"Oh, s**t, sorry man, my bad," he says, grabbing napkins off the molded cardboard tray and mopping my front clumsily.
"Yeah, no problem, ’scuse me," I grumble, feeling my temper flare, but unwilling to get into it with some poor dope whose biggest offense was not paying attention.
I get my coffee and croissant and sit down at a tiny round table in one corner of the packed room. I'm barely settling in and have my first bite of flaky goodness in my mouth, when someone steps out of the crowd and sits down across from me.
"Uh, hi," I say in mild puzzlement. The woman's in her early thirties maybe,
