Archer’s stomach flipped on his way to go find his damn shoes.

Was the show perfect? No. There was still some tension between Beau and Ben, not to mention Caleb. At least twice, Archer had been prepared to drag those two apart based on the looks Beau was throwing. But, in the end, no one cried or fainted or bled, so it was miles better than the night before. The troupe agreed to gather at ten o’clock the next day for a meeting and rehearsal so they could talk about any adjustments that needed to be made and to polish up the choreo.

Archer was surprised and also somehow not when they arrived in the greenroom the next morning and saw Stewart talking animatedly to Mateo, Judy tucked under his arm.

“Stewart! You’re back. Again.” Archer hugged him and gave Judy a scritch behind the ears.

“Archer, darling.” Stewart squeezed his arm. “How lovely to see you.” He greeted the rest of the group as they hugged him and fussed over Judy before taking seats around the room.

“We missed you,” Archer said to Stewart, adding and that’s putting it mildly in his head. He wondered if Stewart had heard about the dumpster fire he had run out on.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, it was an emergency that required my immediate attention. We’ve settled the matter, but it put Judy out of sorts, didn’t it, Judy?” Judy licked at his hand. He patted her head as he continued. “We needed some time to recover. I hope things didn’t go too badly after”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“the breakup.”

“Uh…” Mateo hemmed, exchanging glances with Archer. “What was it you wanted to tell us, anyway?” he asked.

“Did I not tell you before I left?” Stewart frowned. “How odd.”

“Well, the…” Archer waved a vague hand around the room. “… and then you left. I hope the emergency wasn’t too serious?”

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Would you believe that Judy’s food supplier up and moved to Canada? Ridiculous! Just when I found a suitable organic high-protein whole-meat, whole-grain food with glucosamine and probiotics, they relocated! And they canceled the rest of my orders, if you can believe it. Anyway, I spent half the night on the phone, but it’s all sorted now. They’re going to charge me an arm and a leg for shipping, of course, but Judy’s worth every penny, aren’t you, my darling?”

“Stewart. What was the news?” Mateo asked patiently.