The overall effect was precisely what she’d had in mind: a salon. A living room. A home.
Instead of the usual four-top and two-top table and chair sets, they had low tables and wingchairs upholstered in old-fashioned damask. Mismatched Persian-style rugs lay across the floor. Lighting was brass sconces and floor lamps, and stained-glass pendants over the bar. Bookshelves were arranged more like they would be at home, with knickknacks and decorative pieces—also for sale—tucked in amongst the volumes.
And the walls. Oh god, the walls. No Picassos or Gauguins, of course—except for the few posters they used for advertising—but tons of local artists offered their pieces on consignment, and the walls were utterly covered with original art.
To preserve the vibe of the place, they were open only in the evening. You could come in just to shop for books, but you couldn’t do it at ten in the morning. You could, however, shop to your heart’s content at midnight.
She turned and headed to the bar. Dre stood behind it, wiping the water spots off a clean glass. They grinned. “You always look like you just stepped into heaven when you come through that door.”
“I usually feel like I just stepped into heaven. This is what I’m meant to be doing.”
Dre smirked. “Really, I should get a finder’s fee or something for pushing you not to sell.”
“Your finder’s fee is getting half the business for a quarter the value. If you ever take me up on it.”
Making the face that saidUgh, whatever, Dre said, “That is the safest offer you’ve ever made. Even a quarter the value of this place is more money than I’ll ever have in my possession at one time. We all know this.”
Yes, they all knew it. Dre was a nightmare with money. The BMW motorcycle out back was bought in a flurry of good feeling because they were so proud of themself for having saved so much. Of course, they’d been trying to save so they could buy into the business.
Other attempts to save up had resulted in the beautiful tattoo sleeving their left arm, a spontaneous trip to New York to see Patti LuPone on Broadway, and the tuition for a semester of cosmetology school for their girlfriend at the time. The girlfriend had lasted about three months, and she’d dropped out of the school in the middle of the semester Dre had paid for.
One of the pressures that had cracked Dre and Petra apart as a couple was money. Petra was conservative about spending, while Dre was like an unsupervised eight-year-old standing in a candy store with a hundred-dollar bill in their hand. They’d had a lot of arguments about the ways Dre thought Petra should be spending a lot more money to get the bar going, and the ways Petra thought Dre would drive them both into bankruptcy.
When she was especially irritated at her ex-lover/forever bestie, Petra saw that Dre had manipulated her into owning the business Dre wanted for themself but would never be able to afford. But really, it didn’t matter. Petra was happy with the way things had happened. It felt organic—more than that, it felt predestined.
Dre would be head bartender as long as they wanted the job—and, practically speaking, they ran the place together—but Petra and Dre would never truly be business partners. They would be friends as long as they lived, but they would never again be lovers. These things, too, had found their right place organically.
At Gertrude’s at least, things were as they should be.
CHAPTER THREE
Jay slipped his StreetBob in beside Duncan’s brand-new Low Rider at the front of the Dawghouse. He was about fifteen minutes late, to whatever extent that mattered, but Duncan was still sitting astride his bike, so either he’d been late, too, or he’d been sitting there for a while. Knowing Duncan, it was a little bit of both.
Duncan knew Jay as well as Jay knew him, so he wasn’t surprised he’d had to wait. He grinned and nodded. “Hey, bruh.”
Jay returned the nod. “Hey.”
“You talk to your old man?”
“Nah. He wasn’t around. Talked to my mom, though.”
“Best case, then.”
“Yep. It’s all good.”