Perfectly publike. It’s a great place to sit back, drink beers, eat wings and hang out with other hipsters while getting your axe throw on. Which is exactly what’s happening in the back half of the pub.

It’s even manned by a huge, ominous-looking bouncer who doesn’t let anyone through the door without first signing a waiver and passing a sobriety test.

I drag my attention away from the axe-throwing enclosure and search the bar for the backstabbing turd who owns the place. I find him behind the bar, a black towel thrown over his shoulder, matching his black-rimmed glasses.

I cross the hardwood floor, noting that it’s been freshly varnished, and step up to the bar as Ronan places a pint in front of one of his customers with a wink. She also happens to have recently been a customer of mine.

He grins when he sees me and props his thick, gloriously tattooed forearms on the bar. Gloriously tattooed? What is wrong with me? “You taking a break from Wonderland to join the madness, Alice?”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m a little busy.” He motions to the already crowded pub. “But you can pull up a stool and tell me all your woes over a pint.” He winks.

I want to poke him in the eye.

I ignore his semi-flirtatious behavior, aware that these are probably the lines he uses on every single woman who bats her lashes at him, which I don’t do. Instead, I slap the coupon on the bar. “Would you care to explain this?”

“It’s a coupon for half price beer and wings. Not sure you’re much of a wing eater since that would mean getting your fingers dirty.” And there’s that smile again. So condescending.

“I know it’s a coupon and I know what it’s for, thanks. I’m fully capable of reading. What I’d like to know is what the hell you think you’re doing coming into my café under the guise of being supportive, when really, you were planning to steal my customers.”

His smile drops. “I wasn’t trying to steal them.”

“Oh, really?” I wave the coupon in front of his face. My voice continues to rise over the thumping bass. “So you just happened to stop by and drop a handful of coupons at my patrons’ tables inviting them to leave my place and go to your Grand Opening, which you also happened to schedule the same day as mine?”

He bites his bottom lip, glancing at the women sitting at the bar to his right, who all recently came from my café. “Can we talk over here?” He tips his head to the end of the bar.

I follow his lead and meet him at the other end. He uses his hip to open the swinging half door that separates the bar from the rest of the pub and motions me down a short hall. Old, framed photographs line the wall, a few of them slightly askew, as if someone has brushed them with their shoulder on the way past and tried to right them, but only ended up setting them even more out of line. For some reason it’s endearing, annoyingly so. He ushers me into a small office, which was clearly left out of the renovations based on the ancient desk and the rolling chair that looks like it’s from the seventies.

He leaves the door slightly ajar. In this confined space I’m noticing how big he is compared to me. At five-five I’m not exactly fun-sized, and my heels put me at a solid five-eight, but Ronan is well over six feet.

Not that I’ll allow his size to intimidate me.

I toss the coupon on his desk—it’s messy and there is a pile of them scattered all over it—and cross my arms. “Real dick move, hijacking my Grand Opening, Ronan. You said your place wouldn’t be ready for at least a couple of weeks. It somehow miraculously came together in one?”

His brows pop. “It’s not like we’re appealing to the same client base. You serve fruity drinks and cupcakes, and I serve beer and bar food.”

“That might’ve been a decent argument if you hadn’t come by pretending to be all nice-nice, putting on a great show for my customers, having yourself a foodgasm in front of them, buttering them all up and stealing them right from under my nose with this.” I stab at the coupon.

He half-rolls his eyes. “I didn’t steal them.”

“Like hell you didn’t!” I throw my hands up in the air, agitated, and nearly hit him in the face since there isn’t much room for flailing in here. “More than half the women lining your bar were in my café before you pillaged them.”

“Okay, pillaged intimates something a lot more sinister than handing over a coupon and inviting them to stop by when they were done at your place.”

“They might have stayed longer, had another drink, ordered some cupcakes to go if you hadn’t stopped by and flashed your pretty smile and special offers at them.” I flick his glasses, which is admittedly crossing the invisible don’t-touch line, veering into assault territory, but I’m really fired up and we’re less than a foot apart so it’s almost impossible to not touch him. “Are these even real or are they a prop? What about your tattoos? I’d hardly be surprised if you ordered those fake sleeves online so you can look more hipster than you are.” I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he brings out a side of me that I didn’t even know existed. Sure I can get worked up about things, but not usually to this degree.

“So I can…What?” He shakes his head and holds up his hands, maybe to prevent me from flicking him again. “I’ve been pulling twenty-hour days for the past week, and if I wear my contacts it feels like I have sand under them. The glasses are real, and so are the tattoos.”

“So you’re a legit thieving hipster. Good to know.”

He purses his lips. “I’m not trying to steal your business.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you after you drop by and flirt with all my customers and leave these coupons for them?”

“I wasn’t flirting with them.”

“Oh my God! Yes you most certainly were with the smiles and the banter and the damn winking.”

“I don’t wink.”

“Oh yes you do.”

“I do not.”

I hold a hand up, unwilling to argue about this. “The winking isn’t the point. The point is that you’re a lying, conniving bastard and I’m on to you.”

I reach for the doorknob at the same time he does, so his fingers skim the back of my hand. I jolt from the contact, because it honestly feels a little like I’ve been electrocuted. Not in an I’m going to die kind of way, but more of an unexpected stimulating way. I’m not sure which is worse, actually.

He raises both hands in the air and adopts a contrite expression. “My intention wasn’t to steal your customers, Alice.”

“It’s Blaire, not Alice!” Of course he’s still making fun of me. “As if I’m going to believe that after you leave fake poop in front of my back door and all the anger management, get Zen with yourself flyers! Not to mention what you did to my poor unicorn martini glass!”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on, I was playing around and you have to admit the unicorn glass looks way cooler now.”

“It’s an abomination! And of course it’s funny to you since you’re the one doing the pranking!”

His expression sobers. “Look, it’s too bad you took it the wrong way, but you came in here that first day guns blazing and I figured it might lighten you up. Obviously I was way wrong about that. As for the grand opening, I just thought it would be better for both of us if they happened on the same day, more like a two-for-one kind of deal, you know?”