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But when it came to her shoes?

Ebi didn’t care much about her everyday shoes, but when she had access to her ‘nice’ shoes?

She treated them like she should treat the scratching post that was in the corner of the living room.

She turned her dressy shoes into thin black ribbons of leather-looking vinyl.

Picking up her shoes, Mari walked past the cat who was watching her with a glint in her eye and put the dress and shoes back in her closet.

It was time to get herself something to eat.

Dinner, which was normally a lonely affair, had a new kind of charm to it, just like the light that had crossed her parents’ portrait.

Maybe the world was letting in a little sunshine.

She decided that she just might be ready for it.

FOUR

BUCK

His luck was back to shit.

His plan to meet with Mari had disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Well, it wasn’t smoke, but an emergency lockdown at the base.

Sitting in the office for the team, Buck used the equipment to work on his marksmanship.

The state-of-the-art simulation gave him the chance to take out some of his frustration on the computer-generated targets, only stopping when he got a call from the rehab center.

A call he answered in seconds when he saw the Caller ID on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mister Derringer? This is Nani. I was just calling to check if you were coming in for the session you scheduled today.”

Fuck!

He’d forgotten to call and cancel after the news came in that there was a security issue on base.

“Sorry, Nani. The base is on lockdown. I should have called to cancel.”

“No worries, sir. We heard about the lockdown here at the center. Everyone was worried when the news came through. Are you okay?”

Her concern made him feel a little better.

“I’m fine. We haven’t heard any definitive news.” And that’s what was bothering him. In the past he would have been called out with his team to investigate. It was part of the reason he was upset.

The other part…

“Oh good,” he heard Nani’s sigh of relief through the phone. “Everyone asked if you were okay.”

Everyone?

“Nani?”

Buck sat down on the edge of the table beside him.