Chapter One
Timeline: Blame It on Rio (TDD #14) is set both in the present day, about six months after King’s Ransom (TDD #13), and about three years after the end of Night Watch (TDD #11). Please embrace the time warp!
Wednesday
“Excuse me, Mr. Rosetti...?”
Rio turned from humping a six month supply of TP from his shopping cart into the trunk of his ancient car to see a young woman who looked a hell of a lot like TV star Casey Esparza bearing down on him with the focus and intention of a heat-seeking missile.
Like Casey Esparza, her pixie-cut, messy short hair was bleached a harsh shade of blonde that made her midnight brown eyes seem impossibly vibrant in her ridiculously pretty face. She even had the exact same flying bird tattoo on her arm, along with the one that said Love is love, as well as that little quarter moon scar on her face just above her eyebrow and...
Holy shit, this woman didn’t just look like Casey Esparza, she was Casey Esparza.
“Mr. Rosetti...?” she said again as she planted herself just a few short feet away from him, because his wide-eyed astonishment that Casey freaking Esparza was here standing next to him in a Ralph’s parking lot in San Diego had left him speechless and stupid.
“Yeah,” he managed, even though he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had addressed him as Mr. Rosetti—it was probably over a decade ago in high school English class with old Mr. Hennessy who’d watched Stand and Deliver and To Sir with Love too many times. Again you disappoint me, Mr. Rosetti...
The young woman in front of him cleared her throat self-consciously. “I’m Casey—”
“Esparza,” Rio finished along with her as he closed the trunk because standing there next to hundreds of future ass-wipings added too much additional weirdness to this already odd encounter. “I know who you are. I was just listening to Rain on Me.”
A few years ago, she’d released an album because apparently she couldn’t just act her face off, she could sing, too.
She blinked—clearly surprised and maybe even a little dismayed. But she forced a smile. “Dave is… a bit of a fanatic about that album. I mean, he always was extreme, about everything I did, right from the start.”
Her voice was melodious—rich and pleasant—but deeper and huskier than her delicate soprano in the songs she sang. Wrote and sang—her insightful, heartfelt lyrics blew him away.
But here and now her non sequitur blew him up—even more than he’d already been blown up by being approached by Casey freaking Esparza during a Ralph’s run, when he was already late.
“I’m sorry,” Rio told her. “I know you must be used to people acting extra-stupid around you, and I really hate to be so predictable, but what...? Who is what now?”
She laughed a little, her smile warmer and more genuine now—making him realize that she was tense, anxious even.
“You okay?” he added. He glanced around the parking lot but there was no one and nothing that jumped out at him as a threat. She had a huge following on social media—even Rio knew that, as Facebook and Twitter averse as he was. Her live-streams were known for being entertaining and informative—everything from simple cooking videos to book and movie recommendations to her hilarious acting masterclasses. She was funny and smart and personable. And here she was. Standing right there in front of him. All by herself.
There was nary an entourage next to a tour bus, waiting for her to deliver whatever it was she’d approached him to say. No tour bus. No city bus, either—nothing remotely bus-like. In fact, there wasn’t even a giant black SUV with darkened windows idling nearby.
Where the hell had she come from? And hello, come to think of it, how did she know his name?
Had he won some kind of super-fan prize? Had one of his SEAL teammates entered some weird Instagram contest for him, as a joke? But that didn’t make sense—no way would she approach some potentially psycho random-fan contest-winner without a team of bristling bodyguards.
As Rio looked back at her, she was gazing at him so intensely, looking so deeply into his eyes that he nearly felt the ground shift beneath his feet. And okay, what the hell kinda bullshit thought was that...? What was he, twelve? Was this how all those screaming tweens felt when they saw BTS?
“Hmm,” she said, still holding his gaze, as if she were trying to read his mind. God damn, her soft brown eyes were gorgeously bottomless and he felt that weird shift again.
“You in some kind of trouble?” Rio asked, but oddly his voice came out as hardly more than a whisper. Shit, he was the one in trouble here. He jerked himself free from her spell-casting gaze in order to scan the parking lot again—what had he missed? And what had she said? That Dave was what...?
But she shook her head and started backing away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t’ve—”
“Dave Patterson...?” Rio asked. He knew more than one David. It was a common name, but Patterson was a teammate—and over the past few months, especially after Rio’s swim-buddy Thomas got his ass married, Rio and Dave had become close friends.
“Yeah. God.” She closed her eyes and ran both hands down her face. “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry. It’s just... we lived across the street when we were kids and... Then he and Jon were... together. For years. Almost ten years.”
Rio tried to remember—was it Dave who’d insisted on listening to Casey Esparza’s album during last winter’s endless road-trip home to California from Maine, or was it Rio who’d first put it on? Either way, Dave hadn’t said, Hey, guess what, I grew up across the street from her. Or, if he had, Rio hadn’t been paying attention.
But now she’d said...
“Jon,” Rio repeated the name she’d just casually dropped, as if he’d know exactly who she was talking about. And maybe he did. “Jon-without-an-H...?”
And that was a great big affirmative as she nodded, again giving him another of those deep, searching looks. “I’m so sorry,” she said again. “It’s just that he’s my brother.”
What now...? His best bud Dave Patterson’s lyin’, cheatin’ asshole-of-an-ex was Casey Esparza’s brother?
Yeah, Dave definitely hadn’t told Rio that little factoid. Nor had he mentioned, not even in the too-many-beers-to-drown-the-heartbreak phase of his still-seemingly-raw breakup, that he and Jon had been together for nearly ten years.
Ten years. Jesus Christ.
“He’s just gotten out of rehab,” Casey said, clearly still talking about her brother, H-less Jon. And whoa, that was news to Rio, too. “And I just...” She took another fortifying breath. “Well, I wanted to make sure you and Dave both knew that he went in on his own this time—I didn’t drag him, Dave didn’t drag him—obviously. Mom didn’t... No one dragged him. He wanted to go in. He was ready. And he’s done the work. He really has. It was a sixty-day program.”
“That’s... good,” Rio said. Why was she telling him this? Was Dave not answering her calls? “But that kinda doesn’t erase the fact that he treated Dave like shit.”
“That was the disease,” she whispered. “The alcoholism.”