And there was another of those super-vulnerable statements that both Casey and Dave flung about with no fear.
Although, to be honest, Rio couldn’t imagine the Casey who’d been up on that stage this evening saying something so honest and raw. She’d been upbeat and charismatic, and seemingly intimate in the details of her experiences filming Wild Sky and playing Dana Zannino. But her performance on that stage was just that—a performance. She seemed to be sharing, but it was nothing like this, like pajama-wearing Casey, who clearly felt safe enough in the privacy of this room to drop that kind of truth bomb.
She kept going. “And I definitely didn’t get that with Todd. Or Emilio, or Alan, or even way back with Shaun, who didn’t love me enough to stick around when it got weird and hard.”
“Emilio and Alan...?” He thought he knew who they were—actors she’d been romantically linked to over the past few years—but he wanted to make sure.
“More exes,” she confirmed. “Post-Todd. Short term, because...” She rolled her eyes as she shook her head, then finished the last dregs from her almost-empty bottle of beer, setting it down on the bedside table before smiling ruefully at Rio. “Maybe I didn’t see the truth about Dave and Jon’s relationship because I was so focused on Jon’s addictions. That was incredibly hard, but Dave stayed. Or at least he kept coming back for way longer than I would’ve.”
“Me, too,” Rio said, because why the hell not? It was true, so why not open his mouth and tell her he agreed? And he could even add, “I think it was a major mistake—Dave coming back all those times—for both of them. I mean, from what I know about enabling.” He shook his head. “You think you’re helping, but it harms. Badly. And I know—in part because Dave told me, and in part because I was there at the very end—that he was pretty shattered by Jon’s bullshittery.”
Casey winced again. “I always thought Jon’s bullshittery—his infidelity—was a symptom. You know, that it only happened because he was drunk. Like, if he’d just stop drinking, he’d also stop waking up in strangers’ beds. I thought that would vanish along with the vomiting and the hangovers and the lying and the stealing and... I mean, how could it be possible that Dave wasn’t enough for him?”
“Yeah, but is that really what you think—that you weren’t enough for Todd?” Rio countered, laughing a little because no way could she possibly believe that.
Except her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “You don’t seriously think—”
“But I wasn’t,” she whispered. “I’m not. Enough for him.”
Before he could respond, she made a face and wiped her eyes with both of her hands, laughing a little as she tried to shake it all off. “I’m sorry. You’re just such a good listener, it’s so easy to talk to you—”
He spoke over her, unable to contain an outburst of “If you were my girlfriend, I’d never freaking look at another woman again!” But then he heard what she’d just said—he was easy to talk to. Words that had never been spoken to his face by any woman ever. “Really?”
At the same time he realized what he’d just said, because she countered with a teasing, “Easy for you to say, since you don’t look at women in the first place.”
Jesus, if she only knew...
Rio forced a laugh, and it sounded as phony as it felt, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Some people are just not wired for monogamy,” he said.
She nodded. “I know. It just sucks when you are—and you love someone who’s not.”
“You, um...” He cleared his throat. He never would’ve dared to ask her as Rio, but as Luc...? The words actually came out of his mouth. “You still love him? Todd?”
Casey was quiet for a moment, absorbing herself in the task of cleaning up the napkins and paper plates and brownie crumbs—putting them into the empty pizza box and then carrying it toward the door, where she set it outside in the hotel corridor.
Rio wasn’t sure she was going to answer at all, and even started to say, “Sorry, that’s none of my business—”
But as she turned to come back, she said, “It’s okay,” as she met his eyes only very briefly before settling back onto the bed.
“I love what I thought we had,” she told him then. “I love that he loved me before I was her—Dana. Everyone since then—Emilio and Alan—they wanted Dana. And trust me, that gets old, really fast. But you probably know what I mean. Dave always said you guys get a little of that with the whole Navy SEAL thing.”
“Yeah, but I can hide that I’m a SEAL,” Rio pointed out.
“Or you can do what you’re doing, and date another SEAL,” she tossed back. “Because look at you. Holy crap, you’re hot! You can’t hide that.”
Um... “Thank you...? But it’s really not the same thing. I can wear some dumb sweater or jacket, if I want to hide my... self. Your face is kinda everywhere. You know, I was in Japan and I saw you on the side of a bus.”
Casey laughed a little. “Yeah, they really love Dana in Japan. But that’s my choice. I chose that—I continue to choose that. And I love it, I do—getting paid to act, to play dress-up...? That still feels crazy. Yeah, dating is super-weird; it’s challenging, but... I’m really so lucky.”
“That’s kinda how I feel about being a SEAL.” Look at him, using the word feel in a sentence. Maybe this wasn’t as hard as he’d always thought it was. Or maybe... “You know, it’s easy to talk to you, too.”
“If feels like I’ve known you forever,” Casey told him. “Like, we fit really well.” She laughed a little. “Of course, Dave loves us both, so it makes total sense we’d be friends at first sight.”
Rio squinted at her, thinking about the conversation they’d had in that grocery store parking lot. She laughed again, clearly knowing why he was making that skeptical face.
“Okay, maybe not quite at first sight,” she continued. “That was my fault. My crazy got in our way. But the wedding was fun. And this—” she motioned around them “—has been... really great. This whole con has been teetering on the edge of disaster, but your being here is... Well, it’s made it fun. I’m really glad you came.”
