The Only Twenty-Four-Hour Bookstore in New York 1/6
J2 RPS AU
NC-17
Part 1 of 6
Master post
Art
Jared's first clue that it's going to be an interesting day is the twenty-something guy on the C train wearing sneakers, a green ski jacket, and what look suspiciously like Chicago Blackhawks boxer shorts. It's January and not exactly pants-free weather. Jared wonders if the guy's from Canada. He himself is bundled up - henley, sweater, jeans, wool socks, boots, winter coat, hat, scarf, gloves. He's been in New York ten years, ever since he came up here for college, and has fully absorbed the first law of the northeastern winter, which is Worry about how warm you'll be walking to the subway, not how stupid you'll look doing so.
Boxer shorts guy gets off at 59th Street. Jared continues on to 96th, gets off, walks a couple of blocks, and delivers his first book - J Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals - to a nice pre-war building with a doorman. Then it's back on the subway, down to 59th, change trains, go across town, and get off at 63rd and Lexington to make the next delivery - two biographies of Robert E Lee and an illustrated companion book to Patrick O'Brien's novels - to, surprisingly, a liquor store that isn't even open yet. Fortunately someone's inside to unlock the door and take the books.
He sees three more people without pants on the D train as he's heading back to his bookstore - two girls and another guy, all of them more or less dressed for the weather except for the fact that they're walking around in their underwear. And then he realizes that it must be No-Pants Day, when people drop trou to ride the subway. Chad participated in that their senior year of college, and his uncontrollable tendency to hit on pretty girls earned him an actual slap, as well as some laughter and a fair amount of pointed ignoring. Jared was too self-conscious about his legs at the time and just went along for moral support, or backup in case Chad did something he couldn't talk his way out of.
Jared pulls out his phone and texts Chad:
It's No-Pants Day! Are you riding the subway in your fanciest underwear? :)
The three pantsless people get off at 14th Street and Chad texts back:
I'm not wearing any underwear, Moose. Or anything else.
Jared takes that to mean that Chad has finally convinced the girl he's been chasing to sleep with him.
Good for him, I guess, Jared thinks. He doesn't have a very high opinion of the girl, or Chad's determined attempts to get her to go out with him, but Chad has never listened to him about women as long as they've known each other. Which is probably fair, considering Jared never listens to Chad about men.
The sun is shining and the temperature might conceivably be rising when Jared gets off the subway at 4th Street and heads towards Bleeker Street and his bookstore. There are people strolling here and there, walking their dogs, maybe going to brunch. He'll take Sadie to the dog run at Union Square Park later. He doesn't expect to see David and Mars the Wonder Mutt - Sundays are goof-off-with-the-kid-all-day day in David's household - but if he goes early enough he might see Mark and his two fat, spoiled pugs.
The bookstore, quite surprisingly, is a zoo. Genevieve has just gotten in and already looks harried, and AJ seems to be trying to convince a couple with two kids that no, there's no story time today, the store doesn't even do that, did they try the library? The couple is having none of it and the kids are only barely held in check. A middle-aged woman in a bright pink coat keeps trying to interrupt and the couple keeps giving her Looks.
Jared is suddenly profoundly grateful that Sadie is still up in the apartment, and not down in the store.
"Jared!" Genevieve cries. "Just in time! The card reader went down!"
Shit.
"What do you mean, it went down?" he asks, maneuvering himself behind the counter and shedding his scarf and coat and gloves onto the floor.
"It's not reading." She gestures for the first customer in line to swipe a credit card to demonstrate the problem. "It won't let people enter their card number, either. We can't just put up a sign saying 'We only take cash'."
"Why not?" Jared is already rummaging around for a piece of paper to do just that.
"No one carries cash any more," the customer offers. "Do you have a swipe attachment for your phone?"
"No."
"You should."
"Osric does," Genevieve says. "But he's not in today. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, but that didn't do anything."
"Did you call the company?"
"I was about to when you got here."
"I'm here now." He turns to the customer. She actually seems to be fairly patient, but the three people behind her are grumbling. "I'm sorry about this," he tells her. "Your book's sixteen thirty-three, and I can ring you up if you have cash or you want to pay by check."
She plops her bag on the counter and rummages through it. It's big and red and apparently contains everything except maybe a small kitchen sink. The man in line behind her says something rude and impatient to the man behind him - Jared can hear the tone of voice but not the words - and huffs out of the store. The woman with the bag finally retrieves her wallet and pulls out a twenty.
"You're lucky," she says. "This never happens at McNally Jackson."
"We're a lot smaller than McNally Jackson," Genevieve says.
Jared takes the twenty, rings up the woman's book - a not-very-thick collection of essays on architecture - and sends her on her way. He announces to the store at large and the two people still waiting to buy their books in particular that the card reader is temporarily down and for now they're just accepting cash or check.
"If you want to put your books aside and come back later to charge them, you can," he adds, and the next man in line does just that.
By now Genevieve seems to have reached someone helpful on the phone and is scribbling something down on the back of a store postcard. She elbows Jared out of the way, unplugs the card reader again, plugs it back in, and starts pushing buttons.
No one else has the cash to make their purchases. Jared goes to help AJ.
Genevieve manages to get the card reader to work, and the store continues to be pretty busy. AJ goes home, Kim comes in for her shift, Genevieve takes a break to walk around the neighborhood for twenty minutes. At four-thirty Jared realizes Sadie is still upstairs, probably hungry and thirsty and in desperate need of some love and attention. He tells Kim he'll be back at seven, puts all his winter weather gear back on, and goes to get her.
It's starting to get dark and it's still cold out but not brutally so. Sadie doesn't seem to care. She almost gets into it with an aggressive chihuahua in a blue fleece coat, much to the embarrassment of the chihuahua's owner, but Jared hauls her down the sidewalk and away. They walk up to the dog run, but no one he knows is there, and Sadie doesn't seem interested, so they just keep going.
They're gone for about forty minutes, and by the time they get back to the store things seem to have calmed down. Jared sticks his head in just to make sure everything is okay - and the card reader is still working - and so Sadie can say hello to Kim, and then goes up to his apartment. He has dirty laundry and dirty dishes, he's hungry, and there's probably football on somewhere. If there's a problem Kim will call him.
The bookstore downstairs is called The Moose and Mayhem, and it belongs to him. He worked there when he was in college at NYU. A couple of years after he graduated, when the man who owned it decided to sell it and retire, Jared and Chad and two of their friends scraped together their savings, took out loans, borrowed from friends and relatives, and bought it. A year later the two friends had sold their shares, and Jared and Chad ended up splitting ownership 75/25 and renaming it in their own honor. Chad stays on mostly as business consultant and accountant. It's only been The Moose and Mayhem for three years, and people still call for the former owner, or ask for it by its old name.
It's hard work and it takes up almost all his time - even when he's not there, he's at least half thinking about it - but Jared wouldn't exchange the store for anything.
The one thing that separates The Moose and Mayhem from every other small independent bookstore in New York is that it's the only twenty-four hour bookstore in the five boroughs. Jared is ridiculously proud of the fact that he's been able to maintain those absurd hours for three years. It means he works a lot of overnights, but so far, he doesn't mind. He's still young. He can live on five hours of sleep a day. Sadie regularly hangs out in the store. Not right now, because it's a zoo and that will make her crazy, but later he might bring her down for a few hours so they can keep each other company.
Besides, one of the cops who patrol the neighborhood in the wee hours likes dogs, and it never hurt to have a local cop think kindly of you.
At seven Jared puts all his outdoor gear back on - it's only three steps from the entryway that leads up to his apartment and the bookstore door, but you never know when you might have to run an errand - clips Sadie's leash onto her collar, and goes back downstairs.
"The card reader's still reading," Kim tells him. "Business was good. You have three orders for tomorrow." She shows him the slips of paper. "We didn't get any dogs although someone did bring in a cat on a leash, no little kids peed in the corner, Genevieve broke up a fight, and if you check our Instagram you'll see a new picture of Osric without any pants on."
"Um," Jared says.
"No-Pants Day."
"I knew that. I saw some people on the subway when I was delivering orders."
"January is such a silly month to do that." She shakes her head, amused at the weird ideas people have. "I wouldn't ride around bare-legged in this cold."
"Would you ride around bare-legged in the summer?"
"I have." She grins.
"You're here until eight, right? I need a coffee. You want one? I can get you decaf."
"No, I'm good." She takes Sadie's leash. "If you go to Rocco's, I'll take a black and white cookie."
One overpriced coffee, one black and white cookie, one cream puff, and two hours later, Jared and Sadie are alone in the store. Sadie lies down next to the counter. Jared orders the three books from earlier, resorts the books behind the counter waiting to be picked up, and makes sure the schedule for the rest of the week looks okay. He checks the store's Instagram account and chuckles at Osric's No-Pants Day subway photo.
It's cold behind the counter so he pulls on the knitted beanie that Blonde Sam made him for Christmas. The Sams - one blonde, one brunette - are both nurses at St Vincent's Hospital, and when they've got the graveyard shift they'll frequently stop by the store on their way back to their respective homes. Blonde Sam is a knitter.
It's always a little weird being in the store late at night, even when customers call or come in, but it gives Jared a chance to catch up on business things and straighten the place up. Today was busy, so the shelves are a mess. Sadie follows him as he fixes the children's books. Eventually she gets bored, lies down in front of the biographies, and starts to snore. She has a very delicate snore.
At eleven he takes her for a quick walk so she can pee and then upstairs so she can sleep on a bed. He has to hang the little sign just inside the door that says "Gone for a minute, be right back", in case someone wanders by and wants to buy something.
Jared isn't expecting anyone - Sunday nights during the winter are generally slow - and is surprised when someone comes in. He's even more surprised that it's someone he's met before.
"Hey, I know you," he says. "Danny's friend. Boss. Danny's boss."
"Yeah," the someone says. "And you're... sorry, I forgot your name."
"Jared. You're Jensen, right?"
"Right." The someone - Jensen - glances around the store. Jared gets a good look at his profile, his freckles, and the heather gray knitted fisherman's cap pulled over his ears. Jared remembers from the one time they met that Jensen has an almost weathered-pretty face, green eyes, and broad shoulders. The shoulders look even broader now under his navy peacoat, and there's a black scarf wrapped around his neck.
"I remembered that you work here," Jensen says.
"Actually I own here." Jared grins. "You didn't know that?" He tells everyone he meets about The Moose and Mayhem.
"Wait, you did tell me, sorry. It was kind of a busy day."
A week ago Genevieve and her girlfriend Danneel threw an afternoon party at the bar where Danneel works. The bar owners closed the place to customers, but it was still a party and they still had to make sure everyone was happy and had enough to eat and drink, and that the music wasn't too intrusive.
As one of the owners, Jensen would have indeed been pretty busy, although not so busy that he couldn't take some time to meet his bartender's girlfriend's boss, or have a conversation with him. A short conversation, but apparently enough for Jensen to remember the bookstore.
"So what brings you all the way out to the Village?" Jared asks. He doesn't know where Jensen lives, but the bar is in Brooklyn.
"I'm not quite ready to go home." Jensen yawns. "Tired, but not ready to go home. We had a band at the bar tonight and those are always a little more work." He shrugs. "It made sense when I left."
"You want a book? I mean, you're here." Helping customers find the thing they want or the thing they didn't even know they needed is one of his favorite parts of the job.
"What makes you think I don't have a Kindle?" Jensen grins.
"Then you could get something for someone else."
"All right." Jensen yawns again. "Sorry. Something that will keep me awake. You don't have a history of the coffee bean, do you?"
"We might have a history of coffee shops."
Jared walks out from behind the counter and leads Jensen through the shelves to the history section, past the stories of wars and empires and the men and women who shaped world events, all the way to the end where the weird specialized "history of things" books live.
"How do you feel about fish?" Jared asks, pulling out Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. He read it recently, enjoyed it, and is now invested in selling it to other people. Since he doesn't yet know enough about Jensen to be able to target his book-selling, cod is as good a place to start as any.
"Someone wrote a history of cod," Jensen says, sounding unimpressed. "Why?"
"It changed the world. It's pretty cool, the impact one little fish can have. Did you know there's a big wooden cod hanging in the Massachusetts State House, in Boston? It's the Sacred Cod. Because fishing was so important in the state's early days. A bunch of students codnapped it in the 30s. It was a huge deal. The cops found it eventually, though. I think someone tipped them off."
"How do you know that? I thought you were from Texas."
That only came up at the party because Jared was wearing an orange knit Longhorns hat.
"Well, I read the book. But I know a lot of trivial shit," he says proudly. "I read a lot."
"I'm not surprised." Jensen looks around the bookstore, at the shelves and tables stacked with books, at the display up front showing an assortment of recommendations for the new year, at the notebooks and blank books and mugs with literary quotations, the small rack of maps and atlases and the marked-down calendars, the little cards hanging from the shelves with staff recommendations written on them. "There probably isn't a lot to do here late at night."
"You'd be surprised." Jared takes Jensen over to the used-book section, which was last organized in alphabetical order by author, regardless of book title or subject. Jared wasn't around the day AJ was alone in the store and apparently very, very bored. Hopefully the random assortment of books will help him figure out what Jensen likes, because they're not looking at any one genre. "I should probably fix this eventually, because no one can ever find anything. But it's good for browsing, so I don't know."
Jensen pulls out a hardback at random - a biography of Sitting Bull - and flips through it. "You get a lot of college kids?"
"Yeah, they come in at weird hours, especially around finals and midterms. They're all awake studying or writing essays, and they'll realize 'Oh shit, I need to know about Greek vases, or the War or 1812, or the Harlem Renaissance, or aboriginal art, or Hinduism, or Sharon Olds', so they come in at three in the morning, panicking. The libraries are all closed and their professors will know if they crib from Wikipedia. Where else are they gonna go?"
"Can you help them?" Jensen puts the biography back on the shelf.
"I try to. Sometimes they just need to go somewhere to calm down. It's really quiet in here at three in the morning. Finals are stressful, you know? I get people who work second or third shift, on their way to or from home. There's a couple of nurses at St Vincent's who come by when they get off work. People don't even always want to buy anything - sometimes they just need to have a chat somewhere quiet for ten minutes. There's a cop at the 6th Precinct who'll stop in to say hi, just to get off the street for a little bit and talk to someone who isn't drunk or peeing on the sidewalk. He likes my dog."
"You have a dog?" Jensen asks, looking around the store and not seeing her.
"Sadie. She's upstairs. Sometimes I'll get someone who just finished the first or second book in a series and needs the next one right now. They can't wait. I love those people. Even Amazon's no use when you get to the end of your book and it's a cliffhanger, and you have to know what happens right this second. So you come to me." He beams.
"I don't need anything. I'm too busy to read."
"That's too bad. You should make time. What else are you gonna do when you're stuck on the subway? Although today you could have watched the people riding the train without their pants on."
"What?"
"It's No-Pants Day," Jared explains. "I saw a couple people on the train in their underwear."
"Clearly I don't take the subway enough," Jensen says, shaking his head in amusement. "Usually only when I have to go to Queens and my roommate has the car. Or tonight."
"So what do you do when you're stuck on the train to Queens?"
"Recently? Text about work. Listen to clips from bands that we might want to book. Look at photographers' online galleries. Read up on new and exciting developments in the world of small-batch craft bourbon."
"Then you might like this. Over here." Now that he has a clue as to Jensen's potential literary interests, Jared drags him across the store to the cookbook section, at the end of which are the books on beer and cocktails. "A reproduction of The Savoy Cocktail Book. Classic. Unless you already have it."
"I don't think so. There are a bunch of bartending guides and cocktail books in the office, though, just stuff we've collected over the years, so it might be there. What's this one?" He fingers a red spine with the title printed in an old-fashioned typeface, then pulls out the book and opens it. "Jerry Thomas' Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks, 1862 Reprint," he reads from the inside cover. "That's cool."
"You probably don't have that one."
"We certainly don't." Jensen starts reading through it and Jared, feeling like he might be intruding, and unable to comment on the book because he hasn't read it, leaves him to it.
Twenty minutes later Jared is straightening up the travel books when Jensen comes over with the reproduction bartender's guide and says he'll buy it.
"That was easy," Jared says, ringing it up and sticking a store bookmark inside it.
"I might be very easily convinced when I'm this tired. I don't need a bag. I'll read it on the subway."
"I told you, the subway's a great place to read for fun. The bus, too. You can read for work at work."
"Well, when I'm at work I'm working."
"Just try it."
"I need to stay awake somehow, anyway. Thanks." He grins. His eyes crinkle at the corners and suddenly he's even cuter than when he first came in. "Good night, or good morning, I guess. Take care." And he leaves.
The next afternoon Jared gets an email.
To: moose@mooseandmayhem.com
From: jackles@twobrothersnyc.com
Subj: Last night
Hey. Chris loves the bartender's guide from 1862. I think he's going to start picking cocktails at random to try on unsuspecting customers. We don't have the Savoy cocktail book, so I guess I'll just have to come back one night and get it.
Jensen (who started reading for fun on the train)
There's really only one reply to that:
To: jackles@twobrothersnyc.com
From: moose@mooseandmayhem.com
Subj: Re: Last night
Let me know if you make anything from Jerry Thomas. I can put the Savoy aside for you if you want. :)
Jared
He takes The Savoy Cocktail Book off the shelf, writes Jensen's name and "Danny's boss" on a slip of paper, sticks it inside the cocktail guide, and puts the book behind the counter with everything else that's waiting to be either picked up or delivered. There's no guarantee Jensen will actually come back for it, but Jared hopes he does. It never hurt to be prepared.
Two Brothers Bar (Red Hook's finest purveyors of bourbon, beer, and country bands) is locked and quiet at three in the afternoon, aside from the discussion going on at a table near the tiny stage.
"No," Jensen says, for what feels like the tenth time.
"Yes," says Chris, his best friend and business partner. "Audrey's is closing. We can expand into the space and use their kitchen."
Audrey's is the bakery next door. The owner has been saying for almost a year that he's going to close the place, and, as Jensen points out, the bakery is still open.
"Just because it's closing doesn't mean the space doesn't already have a new tenant," he adds.
"It doesn't. I asked."
"Who, Eric or the landlord?"
"Both. Eric didn't resign his lease and Bob's still looking for the right tenant."
"And you think that's us."
"Yes I do. Look, you can come with me to talk to the bank if it will make you happy. We already have some of the money for it, we've got the collateral for a loan, and think of the extra business we can do. We'll make it back in no time."
"You just want to cook for people."
Chris beams. Jensen sighs. He's looked at the books. He knows exactly how much money the bar makes in any given month, and he knows where most of that money comes from and where it goes. They already have a kitchen, and while it's more the suggestion of a kitchen than anything else, so far it's served them just fine. They don't have a large food menu because they don't need one.
Two Brothers has made a local name for itself for its selection of bourbons, whiskeys, and beers, even in a city full to the brim with places to drink small-batch liquor and obscure craft beer. As a bonus it has a country-western honky-tonk vibe and at least a couple of times a week there's live music, and every other week they have line-dancing. It has regulars. It's finally running (barely) in the black. Jensen wants to savor this for a year or two before they start adding a bigger kitchen, a full menu, and a full-time cook, before they start trying to sell themselves as a place to eat well, not just drink well.
Besides, they're still a little off the beaten path. The bar is just off Van Brunt, which is as much of a main drag as Jensen thinks Red Hook has, and there's not a lot of public transportation to this corner of Brooklyn. No one is going to walk by on the way home from work, look in the window, and think This would be a great place for dinner.
But Chris will not be swayed. He's put a lot of work into this idea. But he needs to put a lot more work into it before it's viable.
"Fine," Jensen sighs, "I'll go with you to talk to the bank. And Seth."
Seth is their accountant by virtue of being Chris' friend and having offered to look over their finances for free.
"Seth says we're good," Chris tells Jensen reassuringly. "He'll even come to the bank with us and ask the questions we don't know to ask. This is all preliminary, really. I just need you to be okay with it."
"I think I'm okay with it. But you manage the kitchen and the bands. I'll manage the bar."
"Fantastic!" Chris slams both hands on the table in excitement. "I'll get right on it." He jumps up and vanishes into the office in back.
Jensen still isn't completely convinced. But he can't deny that Chris' excitement is contagious.
The bar doesn't open until five, but Alona shows up at four to get ready for her shift and to mess around with new and interesting drink recipes.
"Try this," she tells Jensen, handing him a tall collins glass full of something bright blue over ice.
"What is it?" Jensen asks, eyeing it dubiously. The blue is most likely curaçao, unless she snuck in some food coloring, but he knows there has to be more to it.
"It's a surprise."
It tastes fruity, minty, and blue. "Let Chris try it," he says.
"Do you like it?"
"The mint's a little weird. Give it an interesting garnish and you can make it the mystery drink of the week. Does it have a name?"
"Not if it's the mystery drink." She grins. Jensen takes another sip. "I was thinking pineapple and a Maraschino cherry with a little paper umbrella. Kind of retro."
"This isn't just a resurrected tiki bar cocktail from one of the drink guides, is it? It tastes like we should be serving it in one of those glasses that looks like a Polynesian head."
Alona snorts. "Give me some credit. Besides, tiki bars didn't do mint."
Jensen shrugs, drinks some more, and hands the glass back. "Audrey's next door is closing," he says, to change the subject, "and Chris wants to move into their space and open a kitchen. I thought I should warn you."
"Cool." Alona sips the cocktail. "I always thought we should serve real food. He's not here, though."
"Chris? Yeah, I know. It's my night to watch you guys." Now it's his turn to grin. He and Chris trade off nights being in charge. Chris spends his off nights playing with a couple of bands, and Jensen spends his taking pictures.
He has made a concerted effort to find other things to do with his time besides Two Brothers, just so he won't go nuts. He'd wanted to major in photography in college, but had been talked out of it under the assumption that there wasn't any money there unless you were very lucky, and did he really want to spend his life taking pictures of other people's weddings? Or traveling to violent, unstable parts of the world as a photojournalist? He'd gone into physical therapy instead, and he was interning at a sports rehabilitation facility and bartending on the side for extra money when Chris moved to New York, started managing a bar, and convinced him to move up here.
Lots of sports injuries, Chris said. Lots of medical rehab. Lots of bars. Lots of me.
Jensen was in Houston at the time and not interested in staying in Texas forever, and Chris was very persuasive. But good physical rehab jobs were hard to find, especially if you didn't know anyone. Jensen didn't, and he was considering moving again when Chris suggested they open a bar together.
Sometimes Jensen thinks it's the best decision he ever made. Sometimes he thinks he should've laughed in Chris' face and gone back home.
Tonight, he thinks the bar was a good idea. The place is reasonably full, but not too crowded to breathe. The Ginger Girls' Club must have changed their meeting night, because there are three redheaded women sitting at the end of the bar chatting about Donna Noble (Jensen recognizes her name because his ex liked to watch "Dr Who") and drinking Red Stripe out of bottles.
"You know it's not really red, right?" he asks them.
"We know," one of them says. He doesn't know her name but thinks her accent is Scottish. It's freezing cold out but she's only wearing a t-shirt, a green one with a drawing of a Dalek on it. It must be a "Dr Who" night tonight.
"You don't have the red beer any more," another Ginger Girl says, almost accusingly. She's there every week and he knows her name - Felicia - because after a month of regular visits, she introduced herself. "We're going to start drinking somewhere else."
"Promises, promises," Jensen teases her. "How about some chips and dip? We have beet chips this week, just for you."
"You do love us!"
"You bring pretty girls every week to anchor one end of my bar. Of course I do." Jensen grins at them and goes into the tiny kitchen to assemble a basket of multicolored root vegetable chips and hummus.
He likes the Ginger Girls. He likes having regulars, just in general, but the Ginger Girls are well-behaved and fun and friendly and good tippers. Not all of them show up every week, and they keep changing their minds about what they drink, so they keep him on his toes. A month ago they brought a Ginger Guy, but usually they're all women.
Alona has to leave at midnight so Jensen closes up by himself. He finds a note from Alona in the office as he's making sure everything is ready for tomorrow - "Danny told me you visited Genevieve's boss! Is he as cute as you expected?" written on the back of an envelope in her terrifyingly neat print. He rolls his eyes.
"There are no secrets in this place, are there," he sighs. Jared must have told Genevieve, who must have told Danneel, who has probably told the entire bar. Chris hasn't said anything, but Chris is also consumed with adding a kitchen and dining space and expanding the bar's mission statement to include food. He's never been interested in matchmaking.
Danneel, however, has spent some quality time over the past eight months trying to set Jensen up with an assortment of her single friends and her friends' single friends. She'll be impossible if she finds out Jensen remembered Jared and went to the bookstore specifically to see him. Jensen hadn't lied to Jared, though, when he said he couldn't remember his name or that he actually owned the bookstore. He just remembered "tall, Texan, cute, and funny" and "Moose and Mayhem" and "open twenty-four hours".
"You people need a hobby that isn't my love life," Jensen adds. He puts on his coat and hat and gloves, locks up the bar, and goes home.
He's wondering if he should call a cab or risk a walk in the bitter cold when it occurs to him that aside from the one night he went to The Moose and Mayhem and bought the reproduction cocktail book, he hasn't really taken Jared's advice to spend his occasional public transit time with a good book. Is that a legitimate reason to go back to the store and see its cute owner? He could claim a lack of reading material.
He knows what his bartenders would say, if he were to ask them. He and his now-ex Matt broke up eight months ago, and part of their problem was the difference in hours. Matt worked a fairly conventional 9-5 job. Jensen had to be at the bar at least three, and usually four, nights a week, and sometimes didn't get home until almost morning. His life would be more compatible with the kind of person who owns an all-night bookstore.
He rolls his eyes at himself. What is he thinking? He's just started to miss having a boyfriend - not just someone to sleep with, or sleep next to, but someone to be stupid with and someone to talk about work with. He misses being with someone whose paychecks he doesn't sign. But he has that with his friends, the few he ever gets to see, and he has that with Chris, and is he really ready to start dating again? He certainly hasn't clicked with any of the guys Danneel has set him up with.
He's pretty sure Jared is single. He's almost positive Jared is gay. If he really needs to know, he can find out.
It doesn't matter right now, anyway. He has other, more immediately pressing, things to think about. There's Chris' new and exciting ideas for expansion, and tomorrow a brewery rep is coming by, and he and Chris need to talk about the band that was booked for next Thursday but had to cancel. At some point he'd like to get to the photography studio he shares out in Queens.
And he really should take Jared's advice and start reading for fun on the train.
Onward!
NC-17
Part 1 of 6
Master post
Art
Jared's first clue that it's going to be an interesting day is the twenty-something guy on the C train wearing sneakers, a green ski jacket, and what look suspiciously like Chicago Blackhawks boxer shorts. It's January and not exactly pants-free weather. Jared wonders if the guy's from Canada. He himself is bundled up - henley, sweater, jeans, wool socks, boots, winter coat, hat, scarf, gloves. He's been in New York ten years, ever since he came up here for college, and has fully absorbed the first law of the northeastern winter, which is Worry about how warm you'll be walking to the subway, not how stupid you'll look doing so.
Boxer shorts guy gets off at 59th Street. Jared continues on to 96th, gets off, walks a couple of blocks, and delivers his first book - J Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals - to a nice pre-war building with a doorman. Then it's back on the subway, down to 59th, change trains, go across town, and get off at 63rd and Lexington to make the next delivery - two biographies of Robert E Lee and an illustrated companion book to Patrick O'Brien's novels - to, surprisingly, a liquor store that isn't even open yet. Fortunately someone's inside to unlock the door and take the books.
He sees three more people without pants on the D train as he's heading back to his bookstore - two girls and another guy, all of them more or less dressed for the weather except for the fact that they're walking around in their underwear. And then he realizes that it must be No-Pants Day, when people drop trou to ride the subway. Chad participated in that their senior year of college, and his uncontrollable tendency to hit on pretty girls earned him an actual slap, as well as some laughter and a fair amount of pointed ignoring. Jared was too self-conscious about his legs at the time and just went along for moral support, or backup in case Chad did something he couldn't talk his way out of.
Jared pulls out his phone and texts Chad:
It's No-Pants Day! Are you riding the subway in your fanciest underwear? :)
The three pantsless people get off at 14th Street and Chad texts back:
I'm not wearing any underwear, Moose. Or anything else.
Jared takes that to mean that Chad has finally convinced the girl he's been chasing to sleep with him.
Good for him, I guess, Jared thinks. He doesn't have a very high opinion of the girl, or Chad's determined attempts to get her to go out with him, but Chad has never listened to him about women as long as they've known each other. Which is probably fair, considering Jared never listens to Chad about men.
The sun is shining and the temperature might conceivably be rising when Jared gets off the subway at 4th Street and heads towards Bleeker Street and his bookstore. There are people strolling here and there, walking their dogs, maybe going to brunch. He'll take Sadie to the dog run at Union Square Park later. He doesn't expect to see David and Mars the Wonder Mutt - Sundays are goof-off-with-the-kid-all-day day in David's household - but if he goes early enough he might see Mark and his two fat, spoiled pugs.
The bookstore, quite surprisingly, is a zoo. Genevieve has just gotten in and already looks harried, and AJ seems to be trying to convince a couple with two kids that no, there's no story time today, the store doesn't even do that, did they try the library? The couple is having none of it and the kids are only barely held in check. A middle-aged woman in a bright pink coat keeps trying to interrupt and the couple keeps giving her Looks.
Jared is suddenly profoundly grateful that Sadie is still up in the apartment, and not down in the store.
"Jared!" Genevieve cries. "Just in time! The card reader went down!"
Shit.
"What do you mean, it went down?" he asks, maneuvering himself behind the counter and shedding his scarf and coat and gloves onto the floor.
"It's not reading." She gestures for the first customer in line to swipe a credit card to demonstrate the problem. "It won't let people enter their card number, either. We can't just put up a sign saying 'We only take cash'."
"Why not?" Jared is already rummaging around for a piece of paper to do just that.
"No one carries cash any more," the customer offers. "Do you have a swipe attachment for your phone?"
"No."
"You should."
"Osric does," Genevieve says. "But he's not in today. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, but that didn't do anything."
"Did you call the company?"
"I was about to when you got here."
"I'm here now." He turns to the customer. She actually seems to be fairly patient, but the three people behind her are grumbling. "I'm sorry about this," he tells her. "Your book's sixteen thirty-three, and I can ring you up if you have cash or you want to pay by check."
She plops her bag on the counter and rummages through it. It's big and red and apparently contains everything except maybe a small kitchen sink. The man in line behind her says something rude and impatient to the man behind him - Jared can hear the tone of voice but not the words - and huffs out of the store. The woman with the bag finally retrieves her wallet and pulls out a twenty.
"You're lucky," she says. "This never happens at McNally Jackson."
"We're a lot smaller than McNally Jackson," Genevieve says.
Jared takes the twenty, rings up the woman's book - a not-very-thick collection of essays on architecture - and sends her on her way. He announces to the store at large and the two people still waiting to buy their books in particular that the card reader is temporarily down and for now they're just accepting cash or check.
"If you want to put your books aside and come back later to charge them, you can," he adds, and the next man in line does just that.
By now Genevieve seems to have reached someone helpful on the phone and is scribbling something down on the back of a store postcard. She elbows Jared out of the way, unplugs the card reader again, plugs it back in, and starts pushing buttons.
No one else has the cash to make their purchases. Jared goes to help AJ.
Genevieve manages to get the card reader to work, and the store continues to be pretty busy. AJ goes home, Kim comes in for her shift, Genevieve takes a break to walk around the neighborhood for twenty minutes. At four-thirty Jared realizes Sadie is still upstairs, probably hungry and thirsty and in desperate need of some love and attention. He tells Kim he'll be back at seven, puts all his winter weather gear back on, and goes to get her.
It's starting to get dark and it's still cold out but not brutally so. Sadie doesn't seem to care. She almost gets into it with an aggressive chihuahua in a blue fleece coat, much to the embarrassment of the chihuahua's owner, but Jared hauls her down the sidewalk and away. They walk up to the dog run, but no one he knows is there, and Sadie doesn't seem interested, so they just keep going.
They're gone for about forty minutes, and by the time they get back to the store things seem to have calmed down. Jared sticks his head in just to make sure everything is okay - and the card reader is still working - and so Sadie can say hello to Kim, and then goes up to his apartment. He has dirty laundry and dirty dishes, he's hungry, and there's probably football on somewhere. If there's a problem Kim will call him.
The bookstore downstairs is called The Moose and Mayhem, and it belongs to him. He worked there when he was in college at NYU. A couple of years after he graduated, when the man who owned it decided to sell it and retire, Jared and Chad and two of their friends scraped together their savings, took out loans, borrowed from friends and relatives, and bought it. A year later the two friends had sold their shares, and Jared and Chad ended up splitting ownership 75/25 and renaming it in their own honor. Chad stays on mostly as business consultant and accountant. It's only been The Moose and Mayhem for three years, and people still call for the former owner, or ask for it by its old name.
It's hard work and it takes up almost all his time - even when he's not there, he's at least half thinking about it - but Jared wouldn't exchange the store for anything.
The one thing that separates The Moose and Mayhem from every other small independent bookstore in New York is that it's the only twenty-four hour bookstore in the five boroughs. Jared is ridiculously proud of the fact that he's been able to maintain those absurd hours for three years. It means he works a lot of overnights, but so far, he doesn't mind. He's still young. He can live on five hours of sleep a day. Sadie regularly hangs out in the store. Not right now, because it's a zoo and that will make her crazy, but later he might bring her down for a few hours so they can keep each other company.
Besides, one of the cops who patrol the neighborhood in the wee hours likes dogs, and it never hurt to have a local cop think kindly of you.
At seven Jared puts all his outdoor gear back on - it's only three steps from the entryway that leads up to his apartment and the bookstore door, but you never know when you might have to run an errand - clips Sadie's leash onto her collar, and goes back downstairs.
"The card reader's still reading," Kim tells him. "Business was good. You have three orders for tomorrow." She shows him the slips of paper. "We didn't get any dogs although someone did bring in a cat on a leash, no little kids peed in the corner, Genevieve broke up a fight, and if you check our Instagram you'll see a new picture of Osric without any pants on."
"Um," Jared says.
"No-Pants Day."
"I knew that. I saw some people on the subway when I was delivering orders."
"January is such a silly month to do that." She shakes her head, amused at the weird ideas people have. "I wouldn't ride around bare-legged in this cold."
"Would you ride around bare-legged in the summer?"
"I have." She grins.
"You're here until eight, right? I need a coffee. You want one? I can get you decaf."
"No, I'm good." She takes Sadie's leash. "If you go to Rocco's, I'll take a black and white cookie."
One overpriced coffee, one black and white cookie, one cream puff, and two hours later, Jared and Sadie are alone in the store. Sadie lies down next to the counter. Jared orders the three books from earlier, resorts the books behind the counter waiting to be picked up, and makes sure the schedule for the rest of the week looks okay. He checks the store's Instagram account and chuckles at Osric's No-Pants Day subway photo.
It's cold behind the counter so he pulls on the knitted beanie that Blonde Sam made him for Christmas. The Sams - one blonde, one brunette - are both nurses at St Vincent's Hospital, and when they've got the graveyard shift they'll frequently stop by the store on their way back to their respective homes. Blonde Sam is a knitter.
It's always a little weird being in the store late at night, even when customers call or come in, but it gives Jared a chance to catch up on business things and straighten the place up. Today was busy, so the shelves are a mess. Sadie follows him as he fixes the children's books. Eventually she gets bored, lies down in front of the biographies, and starts to snore. She has a very delicate snore.
At eleven he takes her for a quick walk so she can pee and then upstairs so she can sleep on a bed. He has to hang the little sign just inside the door that says "Gone for a minute, be right back", in case someone wanders by and wants to buy something.
Jared isn't expecting anyone - Sunday nights during the winter are generally slow - and is surprised when someone comes in. He's even more surprised that it's someone he's met before.
"Hey, I know you," he says. "Danny's friend. Boss. Danny's boss."
"Yeah," the someone says. "And you're... sorry, I forgot your name."
"Jared. You're Jensen, right?"
"Right." The someone - Jensen - glances around the store. Jared gets a good look at his profile, his freckles, and the heather gray knitted fisherman's cap pulled over his ears. Jared remembers from the one time they met that Jensen has an almost weathered-pretty face, green eyes, and broad shoulders. The shoulders look even broader now under his navy peacoat, and there's a black scarf wrapped around his neck.
"I remembered that you work here," Jensen says.
"Actually I own here." Jared grins. "You didn't know that?" He tells everyone he meets about The Moose and Mayhem.
"Wait, you did tell me, sorry. It was kind of a busy day."
A week ago Genevieve and her girlfriend Danneel threw an afternoon party at the bar where Danneel works. The bar owners closed the place to customers, but it was still a party and they still had to make sure everyone was happy and had enough to eat and drink, and that the music wasn't too intrusive.
As one of the owners, Jensen would have indeed been pretty busy, although not so busy that he couldn't take some time to meet his bartender's girlfriend's boss, or have a conversation with him. A short conversation, but apparently enough for Jensen to remember the bookstore.
"So what brings you all the way out to the Village?" Jared asks. He doesn't know where Jensen lives, but the bar is in Brooklyn.
"I'm not quite ready to go home." Jensen yawns. "Tired, but not ready to go home. We had a band at the bar tonight and those are always a little more work." He shrugs. "It made sense when I left."
"You want a book? I mean, you're here." Helping customers find the thing they want or the thing they didn't even know they needed is one of his favorite parts of the job.
"What makes you think I don't have a Kindle?" Jensen grins.
"Then you could get something for someone else."
"All right." Jensen yawns again. "Sorry. Something that will keep me awake. You don't have a history of the coffee bean, do you?"
"We might have a history of coffee shops."
Jared walks out from behind the counter and leads Jensen through the shelves to the history section, past the stories of wars and empires and the men and women who shaped world events, all the way to the end where the weird specialized "history of things" books live.
"How do you feel about fish?" Jared asks, pulling out Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. He read it recently, enjoyed it, and is now invested in selling it to other people. Since he doesn't yet know enough about Jensen to be able to target his book-selling, cod is as good a place to start as any.
"Someone wrote a history of cod," Jensen says, sounding unimpressed. "Why?"
"It changed the world. It's pretty cool, the impact one little fish can have. Did you know there's a big wooden cod hanging in the Massachusetts State House, in Boston? It's the Sacred Cod. Because fishing was so important in the state's early days. A bunch of students codnapped it in the 30s. It was a huge deal. The cops found it eventually, though. I think someone tipped them off."
"How do you know that? I thought you were from Texas."
That only came up at the party because Jared was wearing an orange knit Longhorns hat.
"Well, I read the book. But I know a lot of trivial shit," he says proudly. "I read a lot."
"I'm not surprised." Jensen looks around the bookstore, at the shelves and tables stacked with books, at the display up front showing an assortment of recommendations for the new year, at the notebooks and blank books and mugs with literary quotations, the small rack of maps and atlases and the marked-down calendars, the little cards hanging from the shelves with staff recommendations written on them. "There probably isn't a lot to do here late at night."
"You'd be surprised." Jared takes Jensen over to the used-book section, which was last organized in alphabetical order by author, regardless of book title or subject. Jared wasn't around the day AJ was alone in the store and apparently very, very bored. Hopefully the random assortment of books will help him figure out what Jensen likes, because they're not looking at any one genre. "I should probably fix this eventually, because no one can ever find anything. But it's good for browsing, so I don't know."
Jensen pulls out a hardback at random - a biography of Sitting Bull - and flips through it. "You get a lot of college kids?"
"Yeah, they come in at weird hours, especially around finals and midterms. They're all awake studying or writing essays, and they'll realize 'Oh shit, I need to know about Greek vases, or the War or 1812, or the Harlem Renaissance, or aboriginal art, or Hinduism, or Sharon Olds', so they come in at three in the morning, panicking. The libraries are all closed and their professors will know if they crib from Wikipedia. Where else are they gonna go?"
"Can you help them?" Jensen puts the biography back on the shelf.
"I try to. Sometimes they just need to go somewhere to calm down. It's really quiet in here at three in the morning. Finals are stressful, you know? I get people who work second or third shift, on their way to or from home. There's a couple of nurses at St Vincent's who come by when they get off work. People don't even always want to buy anything - sometimes they just need to have a chat somewhere quiet for ten minutes. There's a cop at the 6th Precinct who'll stop in to say hi, just to get off the street for a little bit and talk to someone who isn't drunk or peeing on the sidewalk. He likes my dog."
"You have a dog?" Jensen asks, looking around the store and not seeing her.
"Sadie. She's upstairs. Sometimes I'll get someone who just finished the first or second book in a series and needs the next one right now. They can't wait. I love those people. Even Amazon's no use when you get to the end of your book and it's a cliffhanger, and you have to know what happens right this second. So you come to me." He beams.
"I don't need anything. I'm too busy to read."
"That's too bad. You should make time. What else are you gonna do when you're stuck on the subway? Although today you could have watched the people riding the train without their pants on."
"What?"
"It's No-Pants Day," Jared explains. "I saw a couple people on the train in their underwear."
"Clearly I don't take the subway enough," Jensen says, shaking his head in amusement. "Usually only when I have to go to Queens and my roommate has the car. Or tonight."
"So what do you do when you're stuck on the train to Queens?"
"Recently? Text about work. Listen to clips from bands that we might want to book. Look at photographers' online galleries. Read up on new and exciting developments in the world of small-batch craft bourbon."
"Then you might like this. Over here." Now that he has a clue as to Jensen's potential literary interests, Jared drags him across the store to the cookbook section, at the end of which are the books on beer and cocktails. "A reproduction of The Savoy Cocktail Book. Classic. Unless you already have it."
"I don't think so. There are a bunch of bartending guides and cocktail books in the office, though, just stuff we've collected over the years, so it might be there. What's this one?" He fingers a red spine with the title printed in an old-fashioned typeface, then pulls out the book and opens it. "Jerry Thomas' Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks, 1862 Reprint," he reads from the inside cover. "That's cool."
"You probably don't have that one."
"We certainly don't." Jensen starts reading through it and Jared, feeling like he might be intruding, and unable to comment on the book because he hasn't read it, leaves him to it.
Twenty minutes later Jared is straightening up the travel books when Jensen comes over with the reproduction bartender's guide and says he'll buy it.
"That was easy," Jared says, ringing it up and sticking a store bookmark inside it.
"I might be very easily convinced when I'm this tired. I don't need a bag. I'll read it on the subway."
"I told you, the subway's a great place to read for fun. The bus, too. You can read for work at work."
"Well, when I'm at work I'm working."
"Just try it."
"I need to stay awake somehow, anyway. Thanks." He grins. His eyes crinkle at the corners and suddenly he's even cuter than when he first came in. "Good night, or good morning, I guess. Take care." And he leaves.
The next afternoon Jared gets an email.
To: moose@mooseandmayhem.com
From: jackles@twobrothersnyc.com
Subj: Last night
Hey. Chris loves the bartender's guide from 1862. I think he's going to start picking cocktails at random to try on unsuspecting customers. We don't have the Savoy cocktail book, so I guess I'll just have to come back one night and get it.
Jensen (who started reading for fun on the train)
There's really only one reply to that:
To: jackles@twobrothersnyc.com
From: moose@mooseandmayhem.com
Subj: Re: Last night
Let me know if you make anything from Jerry Thomas. I can put the Savoy aside for you if you want. :)
Jared
He takes The Savoy Cocktail Book off the shelf, writes Jensen's name and "Danny's boss" on a slip of paper, sticks it inside the cocktail guide, and puts the book behind the counter with everything else that's waiting to be either picked up or delivered. There's no guarantee Jensen will actually come back for it, but Jared hopes he does. It never hurt to be prepared.
Two Brothers Bar (Red Hook's finest purveyors of bourbon, beer, and country bands) is locked and quiet at three in the afternoon, aside from the discussion going on at a table near the tiny stage.
"No," Jensen says, for what feels like the tenth time.
"Yes," says Chris, his best friend and business partner. "Audrey's is closing. We can expand into the space and use their kitchen."
Audrey's is the bakery next door. The owner has been saying for almost a year that he's going to close the place, and, as Jensen points out, the bakery is still open.
"Just because it's closing doesn't mean the space doesn't already have a new tenant," he adds.
"It doesn't. I asked."
"Who, Eric or the landlord?"
"Both. Eric didn't resign his lease and Bob's still looking for the right tenant."
"And you think that's us."
"Yes I do. Look, you can come with me to talk to the bank if it will make you happy. We already have some of the money for it, we've got the collateral for a loan, and think of the extra business we can do. We'll make it back in no time."
"You just want to cook for people."
Chris beams. Jensen sighs. He's looked at the books. He knows exactly how much money the bar makes in any given month, and he knows where most of that money comes from and where it goes. They already have a kitchen, and while it's more the suggestion of a kitchen than anything else, so far it's served them just fine. They don't have a large food menu because they don't need one.
Two Brothers has made a local name for itself for its selection of bourbons, whiskeys, and beers, even in a city full to the brim with places to drink small-batch liquor and obscure craft beer. As a bonus it has a country-western honky-tonk vibe and at least a couple of times a week there's live music, and every other week they have line-dancing. It has regulars. It's finally running (barely) in the black. Jensen wants to savor this for a year or two before they start adding a bigger kitchen, a full menu, and a full-time cook, before they start trying to sell themselves as a place to eat well, not just drink well.
Besides, they're still a little off the beaten path. The bar is just off Van Brunt, which is as much of a main drag as Jensen thinks Red Hook has, and there's not a lot of public transportation to this corner of Brooklyn. No one is going to walk by on the way home from work, look in the window, and think This would be a great place for dinner.
But Chris will not be swayed. He's put a lot of work into this idea. But he needs to put a lot more work into it before it's viable.
"Fine," Jensen sighs, "I'll go with you to talk to the bank. And Seth."
Seth is their accountant by virtue of being Chris' friend and having offered to look over their finances for free.
"Seth says we're good," Chris tells Jensen reassuringly. "He'll even come to the bank with us and ask the questions we don't know to ask. This is all preliminary, really. I just need you to be okay with it."
"I think I'm okay with it. But you manage the kitchen and the bands. I'll manage the bar."
"Fantastic!" Chris slams both hands on the table in excitement. "I'll get right on it." He jumps up and vanishes into the office in back.
Jensen still isn't completely convinced. But he can't deny that Chris' excitement is contagious.
The bar doesn't open until five, but Alona shows up at four to get ready for her shift and to mess around with new and interesting drink recipes.
"Try this," she tells Jensen, handing him a tall collins glass full of something bright blue over ice.
"What is it?" Jensen asks, eyeing it dubiously. The blue is most likely curaçao, unless she snuck in some food coloring, but he knows there has to be more to it.
"It's a surprise."
It tastes fruity, minty, and blue. "Let Chris try it," he says.
"Do you like it?"
"The mint's a little weird. Give it an interesting garnish and you can make it the mystery drink of the week. Does it have a name?"
"Not if it's the mystery drink." She grins. Jensen takes another sip. "I was thinking pineapple and a Maraschino cherry with a little paper umbrella. Kind of retro."
"This isn't just a resurrected tiki bar cocktail from one of the drink guides, is it? It tastes like we should be serving it in one of those glasses that looks like a Polynesian head."
Alona snorts. "Give me some credit. Besides, tiki bars didn't do mint."
Jensen shrugs, drinks some more, and hands the glass back. "Audrey's next door is closing," he says, to change the subject, "and Chris wants to move into their space and open a kitchen. I thought I should warn you."
"Cool." Alona sips the cocktail. "I always thought we should serve real food. He's not here, though."
"Chris? Yeah, I know. It's my night to watch you guys." Now it's his turn to grin. He and Chris trade off nights being in charge. Chris spends his off nights playing with a couple of bands, and Jensen spends his taking pictures.
He has made a concerted effort to find other things to do with his time besides Two Brothers, just so he won't go nuts. He'd wanted to major in photography in college, but had been talked out of it under the assumption that there wasn't any money there unless you were very lucky, and did he really want to spend his life taking pictures of other people's weddings? Or traveling to violent, unstable parts of the world as a photojournalist? He'd gone into physical therapy instead, and he was interning at a sports rehabilitation facility and bartending on the side for extra money when Chris moved to New York, started managing a bar, and convinced him to move up here.
Lots of sports injuries, Chris said. Lots of medical rehab. Lots of bars. Lots of me.
Jensen was in Houston at the time and not interested in staying in Texas forever, and Chris was very persuasive. But good physical rehab jobs were hard to find, especially if you didn't know anyone. Jensen didn't, and he was considering moving again when Chris suggested they open a bar together.
Sometimes Jensen thinks it's the best decision he ever made. Sometimes he thinks he should've laughed in Chris' face and gone back home.
Tonight, he thinks the bar was a good idea. The place is reasonably full, but not too crowded to breathe. The Ginger Girls' Club must have changed their meeting night, because there are three redheaded women sitting at the end of the bar chatting about Donna Noble (Jensen recognizes her name because his ex liked to watch "Dr Who") and drinking Red Stripe out of bottles.
"You know it's not really red, right?" he asks them.
"We know," one of them says. He doesn't know her name but thinks her accent is Scottish. It's freezing cold out but she's only wearing a t-shirt, a green one with a drawing of a Dalek on it. It must be a "Dr Who" night tonight.
"You don't have the red beer any more," another Ginger Girl says, almost accusingly. She's there every week and he knows her name - Felicia - because after a month of regular visits, she introduced herself. "We're going to start drinking somewhere else."
"Promises, promises," Jensen teases her. "How about some chips and dip? We have beet chips this week, just for you."
"You do love us!"
"You bring pretty girls every week to anchor one end of my bar. Of course I do." Jensen grins at them and goes into the tiny kitchen to assemble a basket of multicolored root vegetable chips and hummus.
He likes the Ginger Girls. He likes having regulars, just in general, but the Ginger Girls are well-behaved and fun and friendly and good tippers. Not all of them show up every week, and they keep changing their minds about what they drink, so they keep him on his toes. A month ago they brought a Ginger Guy, but usually they're all women.
Alona has to leave at midnight so Jensen closes up by himself. He finds a note from Alona in the office as he's making sure everything is ready for tomorrow - "Danny told me you visited Genevieve's boss! Is he as cute as you expected?" written on the back of an envelope in her terrifyingly neat print. He rolls his eyes.
"There are no secrets in this place, are there," he sighs. Jared must have told Genevieve, who must have told Danneel, who has probably told the entire bar. Chris hasn't said anything, but Chris is also consumed with adding a kitchen and dining space and expanding the bar's mission statement to include food. He's never been interested in matchmaking.
Danneel, however, has spent some quality time over the past eight months trying to set Jensen up with an assortment of her single friends and her friends' single friends. She'll be impossible if she finds out Jensen remembered Jared and went to the bookstore specifically to see him. Jensen hadn't lied to Jared, though, when he said he couldn't remember his name or that he actually owned the bookstore. He just remembered "tall, Texan, cute, and funny" and "Moose and Mayhem" and "open twenty-four hours".
"You people need a hobby that isn't my love life," Jensen adds. He puts on his coat and hat and gloves, locks up the bar, and goes home.
He's wondering if he should call a cab or risk a walk in the bitter cold when it occurs to him that aside from the one night he went to The Moose and Mayhem and bought the reproduction cocktail book, he hasn't really taken Jared's advice to spend his occasional public transit time with a good book. Is that a legitimate reason to go back to the store and see its cute owner? He could claim a lack of reading material.
He knows what his bartenders would say, if he were to ask them. He and his now-ex Matt broke up eight months ago, and part of their problem was the difference in hours. Matt worked a fairly conventional 9-5 job. Jensen had to be at the bar at least three, and usually four, nights a week, and sometimes didn't get home until almost morning. His life would be more compatible with the kind of person who owns an all-night bookstore.
He rolls his eyes at himself. What is he thinking? He's just started to miss having a boyfriend - not just someone to sleep with, or sleep next to, but someone to be stupid with and someone to talk about work with. He misses being with someone whose paychecks he doesn't sign. But he has that with his friends, the few he ever gets to see, and he has that with Chris, and is he really ready to start dating again? He certainly hasn't clicked with any of the guys Danneel has set him up with.
He's pretty sure Jared is single. He's almost positive Jared is gay. If he really needs to know, he can find out.
It doesn't matter right now, anyway. He has other, more immediately pressing, things to think about. There's Chris' new and exciting ideas for expansion, and tomorrow a brewery rep is coming by, and he and Chris need to talk about the band that was booked for next Thursday but had to cancel. At some point he'd like to get to the photography studio he shares out in Queens.
And he really should take Jared's advice and start reading for fun on the train.
Onward!