Page 28 of Challenge Me

I grabbed the cards and got to my feet. He followed, but I ignored him when he said my name. It wasn’t until I’d tossed them in the trash that I turned to him. He glared at the bin, and I wondered if he’d actually reach in to grab them.

“Why would you do that?” he demanded.

“You shouldn’t need cards to get to know me.”

“Renshu sent me a list of things we need to know about each other. I don’t want to be caught off guard if we talk to Clara eventually.”

“Renshu can eat a bag of dicks. He sounds like a lonely old man.”

“He’s not. Remi,” he growled when I marched back to my seat.

I ground my teeth together while I watched our plane pull up. With Amir’s attention on me, I wanted to find my seat and close my eyes until we landed in that damn alligator-infested redneck state. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to go down with a riptide.

I heard him sigh, but I ignored him. Every so often, he took a sip of his coffee. The little sound from his lips on the cup drew my gaze to him more than once. He had such a regal bone structure that I had to wonder if he was bred from kings of men.

Your beauty bends the air to reverence;

I stand beneath, a ghost without inheritance.

Still silent, we boarded the plane ahead of the peasants who didn’t get first-class tickets. Maybe I held my chin higher so my nose could be above the stench of lesser beings.

We’d barely stepped onto the plane when Amir laughed. “You look like you have a stick up your ass.”

Unable to contain my smile, I looked at the aisle numbers. “I get window.”

“No, that’s my seat.”

“Too bad.” I dropped into the chair before he could try to steal it from me.

“Alright, but you have to answer a question for me.”

When he sat, I looked at him and arched a brow. His eyes met mine, such a dark and calm color that was difficult to read.

“Is it from one of your little cards?” I asked.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “No, completely organic.”

I waved my hand for him to go on.

“You disappeared deep into your head earlier. What were you thinking about?”

“Do I have to be thinking about anything? Maybe my head is just full of empty space.”

“I don’t think so.”

After situating my headphones around my neck, I brought my heels up on the chair. “I’m going to ask a question first. Why was it so easy for us to talk when we first met?”

He contemplated for a minute. “Maybe the mystery of it all. You certainly confused me, but also intrigued me.”

“I think it was the lack of expectation. This isn’t anything real”—I motioned between us—”and we’ll go our separate ways soon enough. But hell, man, you had notes jotted down like I’m a data set, not a person.”

Amir’s lips rolled. “I get what you’re saying. I’m sorry.”

I must’ve been messing around with the worst kind of guys for too long because I found myself surprised by his quick apology. For the briefest second, I wondered what the point of this entire thing was. When we met, we’d connected in a way that was undeniable. Ever since then, it had been a struggle, to put it lightly. I didn’t know which one was more true to us, but if I actually got to know him, maybe it’d be like that first night.

Then again, that might have been some sprinkle of fairytale magic that wasn’t meant for us. We’d simply been caught in the crossfire of someone else’s happy ending.

He was too put together for me to attach myself to in the daylight. I wasn’t molded to fit into a life like his. I’d learned to live in ruins, and that was a place he wouldn’t know how to survive.