* * *
Rowan
Scooby had been gone for hours. Or, at least, it seemed like hours, and I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. Lord was on alert, pacing beside me, feeling my anxiety despite my attempts to control it. I felt bad and wished I could figure out a way to calm down, but I’d already taken my anti-anxiety meds and I couldn’t risk taking more.
Needles had come and tended to Gary before several of the other men had removed him from my home and cleaned my bathroom so well, it was like he was never there.
Another thirty minutes passed and then I heard a pounding on my door, so I rushed to it and pulled it open, nearly bursting into tears when I caught sight of Scooby. “Oh my god, honey, what happened?”
“Stanley will no longer be a problem,” he said, walking inside.
“What does that mean?”
“Just leave it there, Twinkles, okay?”
I stared up at him.
“All in or all out,” he pressed.
I closed my eyes. “Fine. I’ll leave it alone for now.”
He cupped my face, kissing me. “Thank you.”
“Can we go to bed now?”
“Yeah, baby. Gonna hit the shower, then I’ll be right there.”
I nodded and followed him into my room.
* * *
“I’m not sure I can take an entire Saturday away from the diner, Scooby,” I said, wiping down a menu before dropping it into the wooden box attached to the counter. “Plus, what would I do with Lord?”
The lunch rush was finally over, and Scooby had invited me to a family day at his club. However, it was on a Saturday, typically our second busiest day of the week next to Sunday, which made it impossible for me to be gone.
“You can bring Lord. And technically, it’d be a Saturday and Sunday morning,” he said.
“Then, it’s a hard no, honey.”
He paused his floor sweeping and leaned against the broom. “Don’t you think it’s time to hire some help?”
“Yes, yes, I do,” I said with a sigh. “But that’s not going to solve the immediate Saturday problem.”
“I can help Dusty clean tables,” Gizzard offered from his place in the corner booth by the window. It had become his spot and although he said he was only there for Dusty’s desserts; it wasn’t lost on anyone he didn’t show up when she wasn’t working. “We got a couple o’ recruits who could slap on aprons and wait tables for ya, so you could go to the party.”
“That’s true, Gizz,” Scooby said with a slow smile.
“No,” I said, firmly. “I’m not making Dusty and Monty supervise untrained, rowdy bikers just so I can go party with my old man.” I couldn’t stop a grin. “As much as Ilovesaying that out loud.”
“Sweetheart, Monty and I can handle a couple of rowdy bikers,” Dusty countered. “You should go to the party.”
“You really wouldn’t mind taking on Saturday and Sunday alone?” I asked.
“We would not,” Monty yelled out from the kitchen.
“You admit to listening to loud music your entire life, so, how do you still manage to have the ears of a bat?” I called back. I heard his laugh and turned back to Scooby. “Looks like I can make Saturday.”
Scooby set the broom against the table and closed the distance between us, pulling me in for a far too close to rated-R kiss.