AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Look, I'm just going to be blunt here because that's my style, and then we can get some food,” I said as I met her gaze. She raised both eyebrows this time and waited for me to continue. “We've got some animosity to contend with and I’m not saying we won’t have to address that at some point.”
She held up a hand to stop me. “Hold on, I have a question before we even have this conversation. Why the fuck did you guys steal all of our ideas?”
Or we could talk about it now.
“That was me,” El admitted. He was slightly apologetic and a bit unrepentant. “But to be fair, we didn't steal your ideas. You don't own the rights to celebrating sports events in the city and themed nights are kind of universal. Those things happen all over the country. I guarantee you could go up to any single bar owner in this competition and they would tell you the same. Now… were we inspired by your events? Yes.”
She gaped at him in shock. El was nothing if not bold and blunt.
“You guys cost us business and you put your flyers in the convenience store that is literally on the same block as my bar, that’s hardly innocent,” she argued, crossing her arms. Apparently, her anger at us had chased away her previous exhaustion.
Her words had both of us stopping.
“We never did that; we don’t even hang out flyers,” I said.
El winced. “I may or may not have paid a newspaper boy to pass out as many of our flyers as he could. I’d planned on passing them out myself and trying something new but then the opportunity came by and I couldn’t resist. He took fifty bucks and I called it a win.”
“You know, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this almost seems like a miscommunication,” Zath hedged.
“Miscommunication? Don’t act like you weren’t just as frustrated with their bullshit as I was,” she argued.
He shrugged. “I was. But they’re your mates and honestly, business is business.”
“You started up a bar six months after us and immediately drew in all the customers that we had fought tooth-and-nail to get,” I added on. It wasn’t accusatory, it was a fact.
“And then you stole them right back,” she fired at me.
The argument felt more charged than angry and I let out a low chuckle. “You don’t hold back, do you?” I was too anxious to sit, so it was my turn to start pacing.
Even as I walked, my gaze flickered from one of them to the next. Nyla was gorgeous with her long, wavy dark hair that shined in the harsh lighting of the room. Her features were pretty, yet strong, and her blue eyes were expressive.
Zathrian was tall and lean, with an angular face that could have landed him any modeling job without much effort. He seemed calm and attentive, his eyes bouncing from her to us, always on high alert. Even as he focused on the room, his fingers toyed with a silver coin, passing it from one finger to the next absently.
El was bulkier than Zathrian and his energy was more apparent than both of them combined. He was always moving and doing something. He had a soft dusting of freckles over his face and entire body and his auburn hair was shaggy, hanging just in front of his green eyes.
Honestly, I found all of them intriguing. Everyone in our group had a strong personality and stood out perfectly against the others, like the contrast of night and day.
“Maybe we can work something out when we get back, but for now, we're in the middle of the competition and I don't think we're going to solve anything sitting here hungry,” Zathrian said.
I nodded thoughtfully. “I can agree to that. Maybe we can figure out schedules or something so we don’t end up with stuff on the same nights or too close together.”
Nyla threw up her hands in frustration. “No, that's too easy,” she bit out bitterly. “I've spent the last six months hating your fucking guts, getting angry every time you stole ideas or threw a theme night when we were planning one. Hell, every time you threw one right after us, I was ready to march down there and confront you. Now you’re telling me that you didn’t vindictively put out flyers or try to step on our toes. Oh, but it’s okay, because my ideas weren’t original ideas, right?”
“To be fair,” El said quickly. He didn’t hold back and it might just save us tonight. “I didn't say they weren't original ideas. I just said that you didn'towntheme nights. We already planned on doing some of them, we were just waiting to get established a bit. But it seemed that this hot bartender across town had other plans for us. I mean, we didn’t know you were hot at the time, you’re like a ghost online.”
She snorted at that and I was glad to see her relax again. “Yeah, I was trying to keep a low profile. When I left, I literally walked away from everything and everyone, and I didn’t want anyone to find me until I was ready.”
I hadn’t realized she’d left friends and family behind as well. That took guts to just up and move and start over again. And strength.
My bear let out a loud grunt of approval. The more time we spent with her, the more he approved of her.
“You don't do anything by halves,” I noted.
“Sometimes, you have to put yourself first. That's what I did and that's what I've kept doing,” she explained. “Zath and I both owed it to ourselves to stand up for ourselves and go after our dreams.”
“So do we,” I said evenly. There was no anger or annoyance in my voice, just honesty. Did we get frustrated by the competition? Yeah, we did. We were a new, struggling business. It didn't matter how much money El had in his bank, profits were profits and we had bills to pay. Our business needed to be successful enough to pay those bills and make enough to pad our own accounts. That wasn’t happening until the last few months.
“It seems we're at an impasse,” El said. “So, what do you say we solve it by going to get some damn food because I'm starving.”
