“And I should trust you, because...?” Rio let his voice trail off.
The embarrassment won and she briefly closed her eyes. “You’re right.” She turned to Dave. “He’s right.”
“You should trust her,” Dave said mildly, “because I do.” He held out his arms for Casey, and she damn near threw herself into them. “How are you? It’s been nearly—”
“Eight months,” she said it with him, hugging him so hard it nearly knocked him over.
Over her shoulder—she was nearly as tall as they both were—Dave laughed as he told Rio, “She was on location for a movie, then we were overseas...”
“Then I had to go to New York for another film—an indie,” she continued. “Which was fun, but it kept getting extended...”
“And somewhere in there, the attacks on Tampa and LA happened, and we drove to Maine and back, which took a little while,” Dave said.
“I was stuck in New York,” Casey told him, finally letting go and wiping her eyes. “For what felt like forever.” She laughed. “But not as forever as driving to Maine and back must’ve been.”
“Then the team went to Little Creek for training...”
“And then Jon went into rehab, so I went to Japan a few months early, because I wanted to be around for him when he got out.”
Dave winced, just a little, and Casey quickly added, “That wasn’t meant to be any kind of judgment or—”
“No,” Dave said. “I know. It’s just... there’s a part of me that wishes this was, like, even just a year ago.”
“It’s been a rough year,” she agreed. “Davy, he’s sober for the first time in... God, I don’t even know how long. And he’s so, so sorry.”
Rio cleared his throat loudly, because they’d clearly both forgotten that he was standing right there. And yeah, he was only Dave’s extra-fake-boyfriend, but Jon had been a certified shit-show, and two months clean-and-sober was nothing in the grand scheme of things. If Jon was still so, so sorry in two years, that would be something. Until then, as far as Rio was concerned, Dave had better things to do.
“For the record,” he said, since they were both silent and he now had the floor, “there’s zero part of me that wishes this was a year ago. And driving to Maine and back was pretty damn fun. Well, driving there was a teeny bit stressful, but back was fun.”
Casey was confused as she looked over at Dave. “I thought you did that with your teammate, the really cool, really cute one? The brainiac. What’s his name...? Rio.”
Oopsie. Apparently Dave and Casey were in closer touch than Rio had imagined. And brainiac? Really...?
Dave was wearing a busted look on his face, but no way. They could save this. Easy.
“Rio’s my nickname,” Rio told Casey. “You know the SEAL Teams and their nicknames.” That was not a lie. Nor was, “Rio’s short for Mario. I, um, drive really fast.” Also not a lie, but a non sequitur rather than the connected statement that she took it to be.
“Oh,” Casey said, and then looked at Dave and said, “So you and Luc have been... together... for longer than... I thought.”
If she was implying that somehow Dave was in the wrong, that he’d somehow been the one to cheat...
“Oh, no.” Rio was not going to let that stand. “Nuh-uh. Nope. You know why Dave broke it off for good with Jon?” he asked her. “I was there when it happened. It was when we were driving east, right after the attacks, and Jon didn’t respond to any of Dave’s Are you still alive? Please check in texts.”
Casey stiffened at that—clearly remembering how scary that day had been across the entire country when domestic terrorists attacked the power grid and other essential parts of the country’s infrastructure. Power went out in many major cities, and communication was spotty at best. Texts were the best way to make contact for an anxious nation checking in on friends and family.
“Maybe he couldn’t get through,” she suggested. “At first it was really hard to—”
“At first, yeah, but he didn’t text Dave back for days,” Rio informed her.
An older man pushed open the door, took one look at the three of them standing there, and quickly back-pedaled, shutting the door tightly behind him.
Casey finally seemed to realize that yep, she was in the men’s room. She shifted slightly, as if to leave, but Rio was far from done. He remained securely planted between her and the door and even crossed his arms for emphasis.
“We’d made it all the way to New Hampshire,” he continued, “before your brother finally checked in. Turns out he was fine. He was just being a dick by not responding, hoping that when he finally did surface, Dave would be so glad to hear from him, he’d throw him a bang.”
The look on Casey’s face was pure he’d-kicked-her-puppy. And yet, he could tell from her eyes that she didn’t doubt him. She was silent, no longer defending Jon or trying to excuse his behavior.
Dave however, winced hard. “Jon was trying to spark a reconciliation.”
