“Me, too,” he told her.
“Okay, now it’s your turn. What was your pre-Dave story?”
She wanted to know...? Okay. Okay. She was talking about his romantic history. Normally, he’d run screaming from a TMI-revealing request like that. But this was not a date. Not even close. He wasn’t going to sleep with her, certainly not now, and most likely not ever. This connection he was feeling was pure friendship—although that was probably going to get blown up when she found out the truth.
And wasn’t that too freaking bad.
Still, Rio was sitting right here, in the present, and she’d asked him a question, so he answered. Awkwardly because he didn’t want to lie, which made the telling of his tale tricky.
“There’s not much to report,” he said. “I dated a little in high school—nothing close to serious. But I was a hot mess, so... I had trouble in school—I almost didn’t graduate. But I made it through, moved out to California, did some carpentry work, met... someone who... well, I fell pretty hard, but... they, well. They didn’t take me seriously and I got...” Rio cleared his throat and went for it, Dave-style. “Pretty badly hurt.”
Casey didn’t burst into flames or run screaming from the room—in fact, she offered him another brownie, which he took. “Thanks. After that, it was lots of hook-ups—one-nighters, maybe a coupla days at the most, but really nothing long term. I joined the Navy, got my college degree after going through BUD/S. Which kinda meant I didn’t have time for a relationship until the very recent past.”
He took a bite of the brownie as he gave himself mental high fives for keeping his story honest while gender-neutral. But then Casey asked her next question. “When did you know you’re gay?”
Yikes. He stole the answer he’d heard Luc give many times. “When did you know you’re straight?”
“Right,” she said. “Sorry, it was just you said they instead of he, and Dave used to do that because his parents were... well, they were pretty awful. I was getting ready to time-travel so I could beat people up for you.”
Rio laughed. “And you’re not exactly like Dana how then...?”
She laughed, too, her brown eyes sparkling. “Busted, but—”
“Yeah, no, I know,” he cut her off. “I was teasing. My parents were great. They’re still great.” Luc would wholeheartedly agree. “My whole extended family. Extremely, excellently great.”
“I’m glad.” She was still smiling at him. “Not just for you, but for Dave. His family... not so great.”
“Yeah, but you’re his family,” Rio said.
“Still,” she said.
He tried to imagine his mom not calling him three times a week, his not being part of Aunt Angie’s intentionally silly emails, his sister Carla’s often ALL CAPS!! text chains to the cousins, his sister Bella’s constant additions to the shared photo file called “Sammie is finally here!” and... “Yeah.” They would all embrace Dave so happily and noisily. Rio was more determined than ever to help Luc make that happen.
“Hey, I’m going to bathroom-up,” Casey said. “Get ready for bed. The first event tomorrow is insanely early.”
Rio reached for his phone, checking the schedule.
“And yes, Dave has made very sure that I know that eight AM isn’t even close to early for a SEAL, so no need to comment,” she continued, laughter in her voice as she headed for the bathroom. “It’s early for me when I’m not on set.”
“What’s your alarm set for?” he asked.
“Seven. And not a minute earlier.”
“I’ll probably wake up before that,” he told her, “but I’ll be quiet, you won’t hear me. I’ll grab my stuff, go and shower in the gym. I’ll be back here with coffee at... seven-thirty?”
“Perfect,” she said with one last smile before she closed the bathroom door behind her.
Alone in the sudden silence of the hotel room, Rio looked down at his phone, and swiped to his text messages. Found Luc’s contact info.
And this time, instead of Y’ok? or How’s London, he went with, You were epically stupid to break up w Dave. He hit send.
He didn’t expect a reply. It was early in the morning over there—not Rio-early, but Casey-early, and his cousin leaned more toward Casey’s civilian-friendly time-clock than Rio’s military one.
So Rio sent a quick text to Dave. Checking in. The air biscuit went to Napa but I don’t trust him to stay put, so stay vigilant and don’t do anything stupid.
Right after he hit send, a reply came swooshing back almost immediately.
I know. I’m an idiot. Whoa, that was Luc—after weeks of silence, owning his stupid.
