Challenge Me (Becoming Us #6)

Chapter 1

Remi

A star once entombed itself in stone,

In fear its heat would scorch the sky.

In darkness absolute it dreamed alone,

Of hands that dared hold its fire high.

Looking up at the sign on the wall behind the counter, I smiled. Not for the first time, either. That goddamned name belonged to me, in more ways than one.

Remi’s

It wasn’t the most creative name for the bar, but it made the whole thing feel like mine. I’d never changed the name of the last place, simply because I hadn’t been up for a rebrand. This one, though, was a brand-new spot.

All. Fucking. Mine.

New Haven had been treating me well in the six months I’d lived here.

It had taken a while for me to follow my best friend, Oli, to the East Coast, mainly because I had to sell The Commons back in Seattle.

With that little check, I’d been able to put a down payment on this beauty a few miles from Yale.

It wasn’t cheap, but it was the perfect place for a bar.

As long as I could contend with the competition, that is.

“Welcome to Remi’s,” I called when a few people walked in. Probably students. Most were. Sometimes, it was faculty, but I figured those ones went to higher-end establishments. That, or they drank in the comfort of their homes so they didn’t tarnish their little reputations.

Behind the walls where wisdom dwells,

The sweetest rot of Bacchus swells.

My mind turned over more words while I opened a bottle of wine.

What sort of students went out and drank wine on a Thursday night?

“Alright, ladies.” I slid the glasses over to them with a smile. “Are you starting a tab?”

“We’ll take the bottle,” the blonde one said. She dropped a card on the counter like I was meant to dive for it, then turned to talk to her friend.

I moved the tablet over and propped it in front of her.

She glanced at me, then at the screen with a scowl.

When she realized I wasn’t going to do it for her, she dramatically rolled her eyes and went for her card.

Her nails made it impossible to grab, so she slid it to the edge, picked it up, and slammed it against the machine.

Grabbing the glass and bottle, she said something to her friend and walked toward a table.

“Let me know if you need anything,” I said in my friendliest voice.

I flipped the tablet around and laughed under my breath. Since she hadn’t gone through the whole process, I tapped the thirty-percent tip option for her. It was unlikely that was her own money, and I doubted daddy would question her purchases, if he even noticed.

Me, though? I was scraping by, barely making enough to pay the mortgage on this building. I had to use my savings to get groceries every month, and if I didn’t bring in more business soon, I would be drained by the end of the year.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been in this position, so I wasn’t all that worried.

I’d had nothing for most of my life, but I pulled myself up by those fabled bootstraps.

Turning The Commons around had been my greatest accomplishment.

Remi’s was sure to take its place. If I had to keep sleeping in my office for a while, I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a sacrifice.

It had a roof, it was quiet, and most importantly, I couldn’t afford the damn rents in this city.

Ah, the things we did for those we cared about.

If that were the case, my best friend Oli shouldn’t have up and moved to New York with his boyfriend.

The guilt on his face when he’d dropped the news on me was hard not to play into, just to make him squirm, but when I told him I’d drop everything and leave Seattle behind, he’d given me the brightest damn smile.

I loved that fucking kid. I had ever since he got placed in the same foster home as me.

It was a bad one, and maybe that was why we’d become so close.

It was clear back then, even to my teenage self, that he was a little too innocent for someone who’d been in the system since birth, so what else was I supposed to do except take him under my wing?

I grabbed a rag and wiped down the counter. Despite my skill behind the bar, shit got sticky quickly in this place.

Not on my watch.

When a new song came on, my nose wrinkled.

I grabbed my phone and switched it quickly, which made someone groan.

Too bad. I wasn’t about to let music drag me into bad memories with bad people in bad places.

I’d already changed my number to stop my ex, Cole, from trying to contact me.

He knew I was gone, but apparently, he wanted to keep his talons in me.

Again, not on my watch.

I hid the song to make sure it didn’t come up again, then turned around.

At the same moment that a breeze came through the door, a scent wafted in.

It was sharp and clean, a sting of citrus tangled with smoke and pepper.

It cut through the beer and sanitizer from the towel, like a match struck in the darkness.

My gaze went to the entrance. A man walked in, then the one holding the door came after. I wasn’t sure which one the scent emanated from, and honestly, I didn’t care.

Although, the guy with the dark hair wrapped up behind his head had something that appealed to me. Maybe it was his face. Maybe it had to do with the energy around him—a little wild, a little cautious, a lot dangerous.

When they got closer, I took in his dark eyes against his bronze skin. It was hard to tell since his hair was in a bun, but I was pretty sure it had some waves in it. As he leaned his elbow on the counter, I inhaled. Definitely him.

Odin grant me strength.

“Hey, man,” the other guy said in a bit of a southern drawl.

There was a crooked smile on his face, but now that I’d given Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome my stamp of approval, the accent didn’t make my heart flutter like it would’ve otherwise.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t have the face a poet could only dream of.

I casually leaned my hands on the counter. “What can I get started for you two?”

“I’ll have a whiskey,” the darker-haired man said. He smiled at me, less exuberantly than his friend.

“Same for me.”

“No original thoughts in that head, Trav?”

Trav laughed. “I’m fueled by deadly doses of caffeine and dumb memes. You know that.”

“And brooding artists with sharp jaws.”

“Oh, come on, Amir. Don’t sell him short. Roman has a big dick, too.”

I pursed my lips to keep from laughing while I poured the drinks.

Gay but taken. That cut my chances in half.

No, I wasn’t looking. No dating for me. Oli checked in on that front way too often and had set a new rule after my repeated debacles with Cole, and maybe some others: He got to vet every one of my prospects.

He may have been a couple years younger than me, but I couldn’t deny that he was a better judge of character by a long shot.

The question was: Would I listen to him? We’d see how things went. And how desperate I got.

I set the whiskeys in front of them. “Here you go.”

They took a seat at the bar, and I tried not to look too satisfied about it. Sure, they were both hot as hell, but they also seemed fun to listen to. Gods knew I could use the entertainment to get through these long shifts.

“That him?” Amir asked, looking at Trav’s phone that buzzed on the counter. When Trav spun it toward him, Amir smiled around his glass. “Looks like Tessa likes her new stepdad. You made a good choice. Although, it was looking spotty there for a minute.”

“Ah, what do you know? You were just on the sidelines.”

“But I was watching.”

As Trav responded, Amir’s eyes found mine. Not interested in apologizing for listening in, I smiled at him. Instead of returning it, he looked at Trav again, nodding along as he went on about baseball. I knew next to nothing about the sport, so I tuned out.

As I buzzed around the bar, I occasionally glanced over at the two men.

They stood out, like they didn’t belong in my humble bar.

It was a nice place, but I hadn’t gone for the modern vibe that everyone else was obsessed with.

Remi’s boasted a more classic look, maybe to match the immortal appeal of the university, or maybe because I believed Millennial Grey needed to die a painful death and fade away into obscurity.

Around here, deep green walls pulled you in while the warm gleam of brass fixtures caught the light and made it feel both dark and well-lit.

Velvet seating gave the place a speakeasy edge, along with the recessed tiles of the ceiling.

With just the right amount of exposed brick, the bar had character and carried the faint memory of smoke and laughter from decades ago.

Shadows felt thicker and conversations became atmospheric, inviting the people who came here to stay longer.

At least, that was my vision for it. In reality, people seemed mildly intrigued by it, then they got drunk and spilled things on my marble-inspired floors.

It came with the territory.

As I took an empty cup from one of the tables, a wispy guy there looked me up and down. He bit his lip, almost like he was nervous.

“You need anything else?” I asked.

“Do you own this place?”

His voice alone was young, and that was without remembering his ID had told me he was twenty-one. Age gaps weren’t bad, but for me, they only went one way. A man nearly a decade younger made me want to gag.

“I do,” I replied.

“It’s super nice. Like, really nice.”

I smiled. “Thanks, I appreciate it. You want another”—I checked the can I’d picked up—”White Claw?”

“Is it on the house?” his friend asked, winking at him.

Forcing a laugh, I shook my head. “Nope, sorry. Gotta make an honest living out here.”

“Ignore her,” he said quickly. “Another would be cool.”

I dipped my chin, then turned around. My heart thumped strangely in my chest when I saw the stranger at the bar looking at me. Trav said something to him, then they both stood. Trying not to be nosey, I walked into the back and dropped the dishes into the sink, then returned to the front.

There was a hundred-dollar bill where the guys had been, which put a little pep in my step. Too bad I didn’t shoot my shot. Good tippers were an underappreciated gem in the service industry.

I hummed to myself as I dropped the bill into the register. Despite what might’ve been a missed connection, I thought it could be a sign that my luck was turning around.

Maybe I could be one of those weirdos who posted on Craigslist looking for the person they’d seen in the grocery store. It’d be a love story for the ages. Or a documentary about my mutilated corpse.

Either one was fine with me at this point.