Page 65 of Her Silver Fox Firefighters
“Do Dax, Leo, and Beck know about the extent of your involvement?” He leans closer as he asks the question.
My face burns red and hot. I feel vulnerable, almost ready to crumble, as I realize how easy it was for him to read me the way he just did. I lower my gaze once more.
“I haven’t found the courage to tell them yet, not the nitty-gritty parts, anyway,” I admit. “I acknowledged and accepted my part of the blame, and they were so understanding, so forgiving. I’m not sure I’d hold up as a reliable witness in court, though.”
“Whatever happened, it’s in your past, Olivia. And knowing the guys as well as I do, I doubt it’ll even make a dent in your relationship.”
“Are you trying to reassure me?” I ask and chuckle nervously.
“It should come from you, not me, where they’re concerned,” he says, then takes a deep, decisive breath. “Alright. Let me see what I can work out with an outside DA. Jocelyn is out of the question.”
I scoff lightly. “Yeah, she’d much rather see me rot in prison.”
“It’s not her jurisdiction, anyway. I need a NY-based district attorney. All I can do is provide them with information and proof and make sure they do something with it,” Carlos replies. “A copy of that stick will go a long way, for sure.”
“Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Once you go over the contents of this drive, you won’t think too harshly of me.”
Carlos laughs out loud, then takes another bite of his chorizo and red cheddar panini, once again humming as the taste of mango chutney hits his tongue. “Goddamn, this is soul food at its best,” he says. “Listen, Olivia. I can’t think too harshly of you because I understand how manipulative people like Marcus can be. Jocelyn? Well, she’s got a nasty side, and I fell for it—bad. It almost ruined my friendship with the guys, so I get it. If anybody in this town gets you, it’s me.”
That’s one aspect of Carlos I haven’t had the chance to dig into. And while I’m all for hearing both sides of the story, Jocelyn is the last person I’d want to reach out to at this point.
“Tell me about her,” I say, “Jocelyn.”
“What did the guys tell you?” he asks, raising a curious eyebrow.
“Not much, to be honest, though I didn’t exactly drill them for information either. Like you said, the past should stay in the past. All I know is that Jocelyn cheated on them with you. Everything else I gathered from her behavior toward me.”
Carlos shakes his head slowly. Something tells me he is still disappointed in himself for having fallen for her. I recognize that look in his eyes. I saw it in myself not that long ago.
“It wasn’t right, and I knew it,” he admits. “I was aware of the polyamorous nature of the guys’ relationship with her, and I had also seen them around with Jocelyn more than enough times to put two and two together. Jocelyn was off-limits.”
“Yet you…”
“She has a charming way about her,” he says and chuckles dryly. “You don’t realize it’s all for show until it’s too late, until you’ve already given her what she wanted. I fell for her. Hard. The forbidden-fruit effect, I guess. I couldn’t look Dax, Beck or Leo in the eyes for a long time.”
“What happened then? Did she tell them?”
“No, I did.”
“Whoa.”
“For Jocelyn, it was all about the sex. For the guys, it was always way more than that. And I realized, right then and there, that Jocelyn didn’t care who got hurt in the process, as long as she got what she wanted,” Carlos replies. “It broke my heart, but I had to tell the guys, to warn them. And I had to come clean about my own dishonesty, as well. Their friendship mattered more.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I was a fool to think I might have an actual shot at a real relationship with Jocelyn,” he scoffs. “At least I opened my eyes at the right time. So I called the guys up, sat them down, bought them a whole lot of drinks, and explained everything. I had texts, some involving some pretty racy stuff, photos. I laid it all out and told them that it was over between us.”
“What did they say?”
I can almost picture my men sitting there, quiet and stoic, while Carlos explained what happened and their hearts shattered, their trust crumbling in real time. There’s no way to accurately describe the bitterness of betrayal. Poets, writers… some have been able to put it into words, but I’ve found nothing that comes close enough to explain that foul taste, the nasty flavor of pure disappointment, of anger, of hurt.
“They were angry, of course,” Carlos says. “Beck was close to using my face as a punching bag, but Leo talked some sense into him. I apologized profusely, promising I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to them one way or another. It was not my proudest moment, Olivia, I’ll tell you that. Eventually, we parted ways. We didn’t talk for a while, but we kept things civil.”
“And Jocelyn?”
