Safe and Sane

The cafe was already gearing up for Independence Day. Flags, bunting and patriotism were the order of the day. Besides the obligatory apple pie, the sweets on offer seemed to be themed around red, white and blue. Strawberries, cream, ice cream and blueberries featured heavily.

In honor of the heat, iced tea and coffee were available alongside the hot varieties.

Juneteenth was still a couple days away, but the cafe had embraced the notion wholeheartedly. A barbecue was running among the tables out front, the closest thing they had to a garden, and pitchers of non-alcoholic fruit cocktails available at the counter as an alternative to coffee. Bowls of fruit salad sat alongside the sandwiches in the chiller cabinet.

Things had been pretty quiet since the beginning of the year. Well, he supposed quiet was a relative term when it came to working with the fire department. Still, no forest fires to contend with was a definite bonus. The weather had been mild and he'd finally gotten an evening to just hang out and chill.

He flopped into a seat at the club, bottle of water next to him and toed off his shoes.

"So much better," he said, loosening his tie as well.

Jesse was sitting on a sofa in the lounge, trying to juggle three balls. He wasn't actually doing bad at first, but after a bit one got away from him and was batted right into the face of someone by his attempt to catch it. "Shit! I'm sorry! Are you all right?!"

Mardi Gras might have been the day before, but the cafe had declared Shrove Week rather than Shrove Tuesday. A rather harried looking member of staff had been declared official pancake tosser, and pancakes were being sold with a number of imaginative fillings.

Edmund had been horseback riding on the barely snow covered ground. He was still flushed from the exertion, the wind on his face, the cold at his cheeks. He'd showered, so he didn't smell of horse and sweat, but it meant that his hair was still wet, snow flakes melting on his black hair, when he came into the club, almost thrumming with energy. He was happy and it showed on every inch of him as he came up beside someone at the bar. "May I get you a drink?"

Ben was so used to decorating for holidays that he did it without thinking about it much anymore. Wasn't a hassle to cut one of the trees on the ranch and decorate it. He paid other people to wrap presents for him, but he piled them deep for the kids and grandkids. And Nate. He'd added gifts for Nate this year again for the first time in too long, and it felt good.

So did the fire going in the fireplace tonight. He wasn't a big 'nog drinker, but he could and did handle rum, especially at the holidays, so he poured a glass for himself and one for Nate and took them both to the living room.

He handed one over saying, "Happy early Christmas."

Friday night in Sal's was always a busy night. This Friday was a touch busier than most, because there was no chance in hell Lin was playing a set on his own when Carl was in town, and if Carl was playing, Lin was going to move heaven and earth to get him a good crowd. Didn't take much, a word here and there in the right ears, spread around the bar, the club, onwards and through.

It meant that Friday night was busier than most, but the crowd was in a damn fine mood. Mellow and easy, celebrating the end of the week with a couple of beers, a couple fingers of Jack, or just a couple of guys down one end of the room, playing guitars and singing together like their voices had shaped the songs together from their birth.

For some of the songs, that much was even true.

It was a party. It was a costume party. There was food, there were traditional Halloween games- bobbing for apples, a place to carve jack o' lanterns and way, way too much candy and junk food. A place to dance. There were also a few open play rooms, set up for groups or exhibitionism, but that wasn't the focus of the night.


There were awards for the best costume, for the scariest, the funniest, the most creative, the sexiest.

You still interested in that song? Think I got something worked up could work out for you.

LK.

The weather was pretty temperate, considering that it was headed toward October. Warm days with some cloud cover. That meant the cafe wasn't pulling out the stops to break a heatwave, and it didn't need to worry about the heating bill to keep people warm.

Still, the evenings were sliding toward cool, so they'd broken out all the fancy hot chocolate additions, for the brave, bold, gourmand or just plain curious.

There were small wooden bowls of popcorn on every table and the smell, as well as the sound of more being popped, filled the air.

It was a little cooler- highs in the low seventies, lows in the hight 40s- so the doors were closed this week and they were doing an assortment of teas. Despite it being newly September, not even Fall properly yet, there were pumpkins scattered throughout the cafe.

Wednesday came round again, and it was a perfectly average day.

No thunderstorms. No extreme heat. No fog. No rain. No themes at the cafe. No special offers. No experiments.

Just a pleasantly warm evening, with the full standard menu on offer.

And three new members of staff working at the counter.

Another stiflingly hot day, with the promise of thunder later in the evening. Every door and window in the cafe was firmly closed in the hope that the air conditioning would actually keep the place cool, and large parasols shaded outside tables for people determined to bake themselves.

Indoors, all was cool, with the usual selection of coffee and cakes, along with an experimental selection of home-made lemonade and elderflower presses.

Outside, slightly pinkened employees took turns to staff an old-fashioned stall selling ice creams and sorbets. Bets were being taken on how many people could actually manage to eat them before they melted.

No bets were being taken on the expectation of suggestive licking.

Tuesdays were one of Lin's favorite nights at Sal's. Sure, the crowd wasn't as responsive as a Friday night, but he got to play his set, try out some new songs, and didn't have to work a shift on the bar afterwards.

That didn't mean he wasn't behind the bar before his set, though, grinning when he saw a familiar face approaching. "Soda again? Or you not working tonight?"

To: "friends, boulder"
From: bethyjen.reynolds@googlemail.com
Subject: Venturing

Darlings,

The time has come, the walrus said, and so on and so forth. It's the semi-annual trip back to Blighty to see the family and so on, and I leave tonight, getting back on the 26th, though for the love of everything holy don't expect sense out of me that day or the next.

You've all got my mobile number, just remember that it's going to cost you hideous amounts to use it. If you want to get hold of me, you all have my e-mail address - or you do now - or Gus can always get in contact if there's any kind of emergency.

Let me know if you want me to bring anything English back for you. Anything that customs won't seize, anyway, and anyone trying to get me arrested by suggesting anything like that again simply won't get it, thank you Lee.

Take care of each other,

Love,
Beth xx

It was a comfortably warm, cloudy day. The doors and windows at the cafe were open again, and it was business as usual as the kinksters descended for their weekly date with caffeine and questionable public appropriateness. The staff was braced and ready.

Nate had spent about twenty minutes talking to the crowd, explaining the various "toys" that he used when he was performing and the safety rules behind everything.

He also acknowledged the irony that went with being an arson inspector and someone who played with fire for a hobby.

When his schpiel was done, he excused himself for a brief moment to check in with Ben (who was acting as his safety tech for the night) and to change into -- for the lack of a better term -- his "costume". When he reappeared he was bare-chested and wearing a pair of loose-fitting leather pants.

He lit the ends of his double staves and let the excess fuel burn off for just a moment before he gave Ben the signal to start the music and he began to move.

Slow, graceful sweeps to start with, getting his balance, gaining momentum before launching into a series of fast moves, twining the staves around his body, spinning both around each other until it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. Curving his body around the flames. Dancing with the fire as if it were a partner. Courting it. Chasing it. Letting it catch him.

The flames painted his body with a red glow, adding to the warmth of the setting sun. As it got darker, the flames traced paths in the air and Nate became a painter, creating fleeting flowers and mesmerizing abstract patterns until it was easy to forget he was there and there was only the fire.

Nate had agreed to go to a city council meeting for the chief later that night but the timing had made it impractical to go home for dinner. He'd called Ben to let him know what was up then headed to Sal's to grab some food.

When he saw Lin sitting on the edge of the stage, apparently just hanging out before his first set, he walked over and smiled.

"Hi, sorry to interupt, but we have a mutal friend -- your biggest fan."

Ben owned a ranch. It made sense that he had handset radios that he used when he was out in the acreage somewhere. He also had ATVs that were used to get around.

So it shouldn't have been too surprising that he beeped Nate on a handset Sunday afternoon, as the sun was setting, and said, "Got hung up out on the back stretch. Come out here and give me a hand."