Every Saturday Night (Firsts and Forever 6)

Even though I’d been trying to keep my expression neutral, Kel picked up that something was wrong. “Here,” he said, as he stepped around the counter, “let me take the baby over to the indoor play area’s viewing window, so he can watch the dogs. Lark’s in Noah’s and my office, unpacking some new dog collars for our retail section.” He gestured at the tidy display of merchandise at the other end of the bright, cheerful lobby, and then he took the baby from me and said, “Go on back. You know where the office is.”

“Thanks, Kel.”

As I moved the stroller out of the way, he asked, “Did something happen today? You don’t quite seem like yourself.”

“Kathy’s parents want to take the baby from me, so I have to fight them in court.” I whispered that, just on the off chance Owen understood some of it. Then again, he’d actually had a front row seat to the entire confrontation and seemed completely oblivious, so this was probably all beyond his comprehension. Thank god for that, because he didn’t need that kind of worry in his young life.

Kel squared his shoulders and pushed his currently hot pink hair out of his eyes. “They can’t do that! We won’t let them.”

“I totally agree.”

He shifted the baby onto his hip. “Go talk to Lark and tell him what’s going on. We need to rally the troops!”

I found Lark sitting on the floor, surrounded by colorful dog collars. When he saw me, he smiled and exclaimed, “Hey there, Logan, what an awesome surprise! What do you think, is this a fabulous accessory or what?” He tilted his chin up so I could see the pink, rhinestone-studded collar he was wearing around his neck.

I nodded as I sat down cross-legged beside him. Lark studied me closely, and then he exclaimed, “Something’s wrong! Is it the baby? Where is he?”

“He’s out front with Kel. He’s fine, but something awful happened.” I told him every detail, and as soon as I stopped talking, my brother lunged at me and grabbed me in a hug.

“Don’t worry, Logan. They don’t stand a chance. Dylan and I both have some money saved up, and we’ll put every penny of it toward getting a lawyer. I need to let him know what’s happening. He went to Berkeley today to have lunch with his parents.”

As he let go of me and quickly composed a text, I said, “Thank you so much, Lark. I really just came here for moral support, but I really appreciate the fact that you want to help.”

“Of course I want to help! There’s no freaking way any of us are going to let our baby go to live with some homophobic dentist! Also, just for trying to discredit me for being a stripper, I’m going to message this witch I met last week and ask him to put a curse on the dentist.”

As Lark typed furiously, I asked, “Do you mean he’s a Wiccan? Because they don’t do that.”

“No, he’s a witch. I know the difference.”

Why argue? I had to ask, though. “Where did you meet this witch?”

“At Whole Foods, obviously.”

That made absolutely no sense, but again, it was best to just let it go. After my brother sent the text, I said, “I called Lucky, and he’s going to find us a lawyer. I called Hal, too, and he wants to help. With all of us pooling our resources, I feel like we actually have a chance at a fair fight. It still scares the hell out of me, though. If there’s even a chance I could lose Owen—”

“There’s no way.” Lark looked fierce as he said that. “Good always triumphs over evil. Everybody knows that.” I loved his optimism, even if I wasn’t so sure that was true. After he received a reply from his boyfriend, he said, “Dylan’s on his way back. Do Yolanda and JoJo know what’s happening?”

“Not yet. Eliot doesn’t, either.”

Lark started texting again. “I’m sending them a quick summary and telling everyone we need a house meeting tonight. All hands on deck for Operation Defeat the Dentist.”

“Good idea.”

A message popped up less than a minute later. Lark grinned and told me, “Yolanda’s pissed. She’s ready to go find the dentist and kick him in the nuts.”

“Fine with me. Just tell her to wear a disguise, so the Wilsons and their spies don’t use it against us.”

Lark shuddered. “How creepy that they hired someone to get all up in our business like that. It wasn’t enough to just locate you and the baby. They must have dug deep to find out I worked as a stripper, since that was a couple of years ago. What a puritanical thing to try to hold against you, too. Like, oh no, a member of your family shook his ass for money, the shame!”

“I know. It’s weird and ridiculous, and it tells me a lot about the type of people we’re dealing with here.”

“Really shitty ones.”

I nodded and said, “Exactly.”