Hoh, Jesus, Luc, he was Luc, not Rio, and he’d just failed, massively, to recognize his own fake name.
And of course it was Casey freaking Esparza standing behind him and calling him Luc, so when he turned to face her, he braced himself, because this game—the fake fake-boyfriend game—was in play.
Except when he turned to face her, she was so very Casey freaking Esparza, with her dark brown eyes and her pretty face and funky hair—with a streak of blue today to match the color of the dress she was wearing.
He’d seen her from a distance—across the church during the wedding ceremony—and he’d noticed her dress was kinda perfect for a friend’s wedding. Understated. Simple. It didn’t quite reach the floor, but it flowed around her legs. It wasn’t cut low. It wasn’t tight, and nothing gleamed or reflected light—it was sequin-free. Because this was not her day and she was trying hard not to stand out.
Which was, of course, impossible.
She was unbelievably beautiful, and he was thrown completely off his game. He was supposed to be Luc, instead he was Stupid.
“Yes, I’m Luc. I am, absolutely, Luc,” Rio said, repeating it because saying it once, apparently, wasn’t enough. He rounded out his total idiocy by saying. “Hi. Hello. Hello.” And then one last, “Hi,” because his stupidity had clearly gained control of his vocal chords.
It was possible she was used to people’s brains shorting out when she greeted them, because she didn’t take a giant step back, eyes wide and face grimacing to say What the hell is wrong with you...?
Instead, she smiled sweetly and small-talked him, clearly giving him a chance to catch his breath. “The ceremony was lovely, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Rio said, because it had been nice. He was glad for a quick, easy, and obvious answer, but shit shit shit, now it was his turn to ask her something equally small-talkishly appropriate and he was still completely blank. Dave. Say something Luc-ishly appropriate about his fake boyfriend, Dave. “Dave’s, um, in the head.” Civilian, civilian, she was a civilian. Head was a nautical term. “Men’s,” he swiftly added. “Bathroom?”
“Ah,” she said. “Look, Luc, I want to apologize to you for...”
She trailed off, and he knew what she was talking about—approaching him at Ralph’s—so he jumped in with, “It’s okay. Dave told me—”
But she wasn’t done, she’d just taken a fortifying breath, speaking over him. “That weird, creepy stalker thing I did, by following you, and—Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said, laughing a little, because he hadn’t expected her to name it like that—so pointblank and honest. “I’m sorry for interrupting you, and... How exactly did you find me, anyway?”
“I staked out Werewulf’s,” she admitted, glancing over at the bathroom, as if gauging how much time she had before Dave came back out. “Last Tuesday night. I know it’s one of Dave’s favorites—restaurants near the base, I mean. I got lucky—you were both there, and... I followed you home. Wow, that sounds extra terrible when I say it out loud, doesn’t it?”
Rio tried to make sense of that. “You followed me home and... sat in your car outside my place all night...?”
“No!” She was emphatic. “That would’ve been... too creepy. God, but it’s already too creepy, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, Luc. I just... I wanted to meet you. Talk to you. And okay, I was hoping you’d be some... brainless rebound twink, and I’d convince you to dump Dave. Entice you with tickets to something, a movie premiere, where I’d introduce you to someone shiny and famous and you could, you know, trade up...? I mean, not in reality, because Dave is... Dave.”
“Wow,” Rio said. Her pointblank honesty was so much like Dave’s, it was almost as if they were the siblings. How was it that Jon had grown up with the two of them and turned into such a lying liar? “That is... Wow.”
After another almost furtive glance toward the men’s room, she kept going, clearly embarrassed but determined to explain. “I guess I just really wanted Dave to see how much better Jon is now. God, he’s so much better. I thought if I could just get them into the same room together for, like, five minutes...”
Again, she looked over at the door to the bathroom, and Rio suddenly realized... “You’re distracting me while Jon ambushes Dave in the head.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in astonishment. “What? No! Wait!”
But Rio abandoned his place in line, damn near running through the crowd toward the bathroom where Jon was no doubt getting his five minutes alone with Dave. Shit, he was an idiot. He should’ve thought of that. He shouldn’t’ve let Dave go in there without him.
Casey, meanwhile, was in hot pursuit. “Luc, no, wait! I wasn’t—”
He ignored her. This was Hollywood—or close enough. More important, she was Hollywood. She was an award-winning actor. And here he’d been foolishly admiring her for her honesty.
He pulled the door open and burst inside—to find Dave, seemingly all alone, calmly washing his hands in the sink.
Casey—who clearly had all kinds of boundary issues—was right behind him. “Luc, oh, my god!”
Rio pushed open each of the stall doors—bang, bang, bang—checking to make sure that her brother wasn’t lurking in there.
“What’s going on?” Dave asked as he dried his hands on a linen towel. His voice was deceptively mild, in contrast with the spark of genuine amusement that glimmered in his eyes as he looked from Rio to Casey and back.
“Just making sure Air Biscuit Jon didn’t waylay you while you were alone in here,” Rio said.
Casey was hovering somewhere between embarrassed, frustrated, and annoyed. “If you’d simply asked instead of assuming the worst, I would’ve told you that Jon went out to the car to take a time-out with his meditation app.”
