“Yeah, it’s okay,” Rio said.
“For what it’s worth,” she said. “I never, ever looked at you and thought stupid. I think you’re stupid-hot, but you’re a SEAL, so to me that means you’re automatically smarter than most people in the universe. And now you have Dave, who knows that you’re smart. I mean, the first time he mentioned you to me—back then he called you Rio—he told me you were brilliant. I mean, yeah, he included cool and super cute, but look in the mirror, dude. He was painting me an accurate picture.”
Rio laughed a little, because even though his relationship with Dave wasn’t romantic, it did mean a whole hell of a lot to him that, indeed, Dave thought he was brilliant.
Swoosh. His phone made an incoming text sound—and he patted the pockets of his jeans, but came up empty.
“Never, ever, ever text or read texts while you’re driving,” Casey lectured, even though he didn’t pull out the phone he hadn’t found.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” he said, which made her laugh. It gave him the courage to keep this conversation going by asking a question he’d otherwise never dare to ask. “So if I’m not your type, who is?” Except he already knew the answer. “Todd?” Tall and lean. Blonde. Hollywood handsome. Deeply intellectual and clever.
“As if!” Casey laughed, but then added, “Did you just somehow send yourself a text?”
“What?” Rio glanced over at her, and oh, shit, that was why his phone wasn’t in his pocket—he’d dropped it into one of the cupholders in the console when he’d gotten into Casey’s car back in Palm Springs. He’d stashed it there since they were using her phone’s GPS to navigate.
But now she’d picked his phone up, and was looking at the text notification that had popped onto the lock screen.
“You just got a message from someone named Luc,” she said, “spelled the same way you do, with a C instead of a K-E.”
Oh, fuck.
“Hey, sorry,” she was now reading aloud the words of the text. “Crazy day at work, I gotta crash, more tomorrow. At least I think it says tomorrow—the whole message didn’t fit on the screen.”
Casey looked up at him then, clearly both amused and confused, but obviously expecting a rational explanation of some kind.
Oh, fuck. “I... have a cousin named Luc.” Not a lie, but rather epically stupid. Especially since they’d just been talking about his aversion to being perceived as stupid. This was, without a doubt, an extremely high level of stupidity.
Casey squinted a little at him, skeptical. “Spelled the exact same way?”
“It’s... a family name.” Also not a lie.
Shit, he wanted to tell her the truth, but first he needed to clear it with Dave. Rio looked at the clock on the dashboard. Dave, who was probably getting up to head over to the base right this very oh-dark-hundred minute. Do you mind if I take a sec and call Dave...? He could try saying that. Why not? So he did. He only had to clear his throat twice to get the words out.
Casey was surprised by the seeming non sequitur, but she rolled with it. “Sure, you can call him through my phone—it’s connected to the Bluetooth.” She raised her voice. “Call David P.”
“Calling David P.,” her car confirmed in its lady-robot voice as Rio tried not to sweat.
But okay. Dave would answer, Rio would say, May I have your permission to tell Casey the truth?
And Dave being Dave would say, Of course. Unless there was some reason Rio didn’t know about for Dave to say Hell no.
The buzzing sound of Dave’s phone ringing came through on the car’s speakers. It rang way too many times and then, sure enough, clicked over to Dave’s voicemail. You’ve reached Dave Patterson. Leave a message at the tone.
“Fuck!” This time Rio said it aloud, adding after that tone, “Call me when you get this, man.”
Now Casey was trying to figure out the reasoning behind his explosive F-bomb, so he told her. “It’s a code that a bunch of us use. Tone instead of beep. Beep is everything’s okay. Tone means he’s gone wheels-up with Team Ten—and not for training.”
“Oh,” she said, eyes wide. “Fuck!” Then, “Did you... how did you know?”
Rio shook his head, hard. “I didn’t,” he said. “I just did the time-math and thought he’d be getting up right now. But he must’ve gotten called in earlier tonight, changed his message before he left.”
He reached over and took his phone from Casey, unlocking it and quickly scrolling through it, one eye on the otherwise empty road. He had no missed calls. No texts from anyone on the SEAL Team, either. Because he was on leave, damn it.
Or... maybe not.
Maybe Dave had been chosen for whatever mission this was because he was Dave. All of the officers wanted Dave on their teams—dude was that good. It wouldn’t be the first time Dave had gone and Rio had not.
“Is there someone else you can call?” Casey asked. “To find out what’s going on?”
