Page 42 of Fire for Effect

“I had filed for divorce, you know that.”

“Doesn’t matter. The Army doesn’t acknowledge separation. You could have still been prosecuted for infidelity if anyone found out. I was trying to protect you.”

It sounded like an excuse, but I believed her. I believed her because… well that’s exactly the kind of thing she’d do. Protect me.

“And…” She let out a long sigh, crossing her arms, her head falling forward. “I didn’t want to be that girl.”

“What girl?”

“The kind that slept with her married teammate.”

Her confession struck me right in the heart.

“No one would have thought that of you,” I said, ready to take her in my arms again. “Not the team. You know that.”

“Maybe not, but what about others? The people outside? The people I’d be on a team with after we all moved on?” She was drawing into herself, hugging herself across the middle. And I was jealous of that. I was jealous of the fact that she was holding herself together when that was my job. “I’d be carrying a black mark forever.”

Her excuses made sense. But they were just that now - excuses.

“I’m divorced now,” I said slowly, crowding her, because I could not stand the distance between us. “And we’re not in the Army. So why are we still not talking about it?”

Chapter 10

Clear Enough?

Taz

“Why are you trying to ruin what we have?”

He was throwing a wrench into our perfectly curated friendship.

Of all the people in the world, he was the person closest to me. He was the person who would be by my side to the end, probably more so because we had fucked, and he stayed my friend. Men didn’t do that. Most men got their fix, then left. So I knew we were friends. Real friends. The kind that stayed.

So why was he trying to rip it all apart now?

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders and brought his face within inches of mine.

“I’m the guy, Taz,” he said, and I shook my head, confused at what he was trying to tell me. “I’m the guy you're with at the end of the story. I’m the guy you move in with, marry, get a dog, cat, hamster and goat with, and have kids with, if that’s what you want. I’m the guy. Not Riley. Me.”

There was that delicious insistence again. The one that commanded me to listen and believe. The one that told me I had no choice, like fate was pulling me to him. But I couldn’t let this happen. This thing between us wasn’t okay. It was a trap.

His words, his taste, the intensity of his eyes were the fucking bait, and the relationship was the trap I’d be stuck in. I wouldn’t do that again. I wouldn’t go through that a second time.

“What are you talking about?” I tried to push him away but he wouldn’t let me go. “You don’t want kids, and you’re never going to be tied down… that’s what you told everyone. Hell, that’s what you told Kristin and…”

“I was waiting for you.” His voice got quiet, but that fucking insistence didn’t let up. “It’s different with you, baby.”

Baby. Not Psycho or Pyro. Not even the more flattering nickname, Firefly. Baby.

It felt significant. Like we had reached a point of no return, and I had stepped over the line and didn’t realize it until I looked behind me.

“You’re so full of shit.” I reached down and found a plastic cup and threw it at his head. It bounced off harmlessly.

“No, Firefly. You’re the one that’s full of shit. I’ve been waiting. I keep waiting. But you could save me a shit ton of time, if you just got with the fucking program, and realize that I’m the guy.”

“Stop it.” My voice was barely a fucking whisper.

I could not believe he was ruining what we had.

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