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He cleared his throat, softly and tried to be… humble. “Hardly.”

But he was still smiling.

“Are you hungry?”

He turned to look at her. “Always.”

“Okay…” she drove along the road through Kailua. “What are you hungry for?”

“I don’t usually eat out much,” he frowned at his own words. They were true, but it sounded so… boring. “You pick the place.”

She flicked on the turn signal like she had been waiting for the answer. “Do you have anything you don’t like to eat?”

He shook his head. “I’m good.”

An indignant yowl reached his ears, and he shifted in the chair, thankful when his calf muscles didn’t pull painfully. The cat carrier was on the backseat, and Ebi was glaring through the bars.

“What’s up, shrimp?”

The cat sat down on the floor of the carrier, folded her front paws one over the other and looked at him as if she was planning his murder.

“Uh oh.”

Mari smiled as they continued down the road. “By now, we’d be home and she’d have the run of the place. She’s mad.” Mari lifted her eyes to look in the rearview mirror. “I’ll have to be on guard later, so she doesn’t smother me in my sleep.”

“Does she do that?”

Mari’s sigh was sweet. “Not yet, but I think it’s only a matter of time.”

The sound of her sigh was still echoing in his ears as they turned onto another street. Buck was left wondering if she’d make the same noise if his lips were on her throat.

“That’s the only problem,” she explained. “We can’t sit at the restaurant to eat. I have to take her somewhere I can put out her food for her so she can eat.”

Buck looked up ahead and recognized the area. “My condo is around here. We can pick up food and eat there. Ebi can have room to run around.”

A moment later, she nodded her head and her smile brightened. “Sounds good.”

And it did.

They’d had women at the condo before. He shared the duplex with a few of the other guys because rent was so damn high, but it worked.

This would be the first time he’d brought someone over and shit, he had no idea what kind of mess might have been left behind in the common spaces.

He’d moved down to the ground floor after the crash, and that had made things easier for him, but he mainly stayed in his room, staring at the wall when he was home.

“I share the house with a couple of the guys from my team,” he started to explain.

“I share my house with the fur ball in the back seat. If you’re worried about what I’ll think, don’t be. The change of pace is already exciting.”

Okay, he told himself. Try to relax.

As if.

“Okay, we just need to turn in here and find a parking space.”

Buck looked up at the signs and stores around him. He recognized it as the Enchanted Lakes Shopping Center. It was a kind of strip mall anchored by a Safeway Grocery store on one end and a Starbucks on the other. There was also a McDonald’s in the parking lot.

They’d only gone there for Safeway in the past when they needed some quick grocery items, they didn’t get at the PX by the old Aloha Stadium.