Page 53 of Buck & Mari

He wanted to do a lot of things to her.

With her.

“Yes,” Mari tried to hide her gaze from the women she’d walked in with. “We know each other.”

“Oh!” Her friend’s eyes widened as she looked at him from head to toe. Then she stepped up beside Mari and leaned in against her shoulder. “Is this the hot guy you were telling me about?”

Mari’s eyes widened then and she looked like she would love to melt into the floor.

Kawehi turned her head toward him and he could see that she was dying to ask him all sorts of questions.

Well, he wasn’t sure he’d have any answers for her.

He was still trying to understand his own feelings.

When he didn’t offer up any information, Kawehi turned to Mari’s friend.

She had no problem whatsoever piping up, telling Kawehi, “If he is who I think he is, this is the best possible start to the night.”

“Yeah?” Kawehi looked like she was about to pounce on him at any moment. “Do tell.”

“Well, my friend Mari here,” she put her hand on Mari’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “volunteers at one of the rehabilitation centers with her mom’s cat and apparently the crazy little cat took a liking to handsome over there.”

Mari’s friend had lifted her chin in his direction, but he knew that even without the physical gesture, Kawehi knew who she was talking about.

She could sniff out a bit of gossip about the Raiders at fifty paces.

It came along with basically being, as Pallas had put it a number of times, their Den Mother.

“Well,” she grinned, turning her attention from him to Mari and back again, “let’s have you both sit down together at the counter.”

Mari’s friend leaned in, grinning. “Maybe at the end of the counter so they can talk while I enjoy my view of the lanes.”

Buck watched as Mari lifted her gaze to his and instead of heading toward the other end of the counter, she walked up beside him and put her hand on the back of the swiveling chair beside him.

She looked like she wanted to say something to him, and he waited until she felt comfortable saying it.

When she spoke it looked like it surprised her as much as it did him.

“When I said I had something to do tonight.” She looked over at her friend who was already deep in conversation with Kawehi. “This is what I was talking about. My friend Reiko has been trying to get me to come here for Ladies Night. She finally wore me down.”

He smiled, understanding the sentiment.

“When you said you were busy, I gave into my team and said I’d come to the League Night. I…” before he could think better of it or stop himself, he looked down at his injured leg and shook his head. “I couldn’t think of a reason not to come.”

She touched him.

Her hand on his arm.

A gentle, reassuring touch.

A touch that turned his head and changed the beating of his heart, sending it skyrocketing in rhythm.

“You’re nearly healed, right?”

He nodded, thinking that physically, she was right.

He needed to rebuild his muscle and endurance, but physically, he was likely to get a clean bill of health at his next appointment. But beyond his body?