Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

Jax

My phone buzzed with a number I didn’t recognize, and when I answered, a voice I didn’t really feel like hearing shouted at me.

“Is this that asshole Jaxen Ambrose?” Kit, Cleo’s friend and roommate, blared into the line. She barked over chatter and whirling machines, and my eyebrow lifted.

“Yeah, how’d you get this number, Kit?” I didn’t recall giving it to her, thought I’d remember.

“You gave to it to me, you asshole. Before we slept together?”

Oh, yeah. That was right. What started out as me trying to get her digits turned into us rolling around in her bed. I lounged back against my headboard. “What do you want? I’m trying to do homework.”

Honest for fucking once, and frankly, all I could do being stuck down here in Florida. I had to at least ride out the semester if I even wanted a chance of graduating from college in the spring. Even still, the possibility of transferring in the middle of my senior year to anywhere would be difficult. It was already hard enough coming in as a senior so trying to transfer second semester? Yeah, it’d be a son of a bitch.

Odds were, I’d ultimately be stuck at Bay Cove University. But at least, I’d be able to take advantage of the time. I’d gotten my own place on the other side of campus from her and Cleo. I’d found a nice apartment complex, and though I’d had to completely abandon my shit at the other place, it’d been worth it. I wasn’t trying to walk back up in that bitch.

Not that any of them would want to see me either.

I didn’t care so much about that part. Stepping back, for me, had just been easier. I hadn’t heard from either of the girls at this point, so I had a feeling the notion was shared. Truth be told, outside of my friends, I’d been lying pretty low on the social circuit. I’d finished out the weekend with them, a long, drawn-out weekend with awkward silences and judgmental eyes. After I’d come back and seen them, they’d allowed the ragging to go for the most part. What was done was done and what was said was said. I didn’t need to hear any more from them and they knew that.

Rick had been even more quiet, not that I cared. In fact, the only people I was personally related to who had reached out to me were my moms, and since they’d only asked how I was doing, I knew at least Rick wasn’t running his mouth to them. I wasn’t surprised. My biological mother, Sherry, had had zero contact with my dad after the divorce. Too much tension there.

That came with the territory when your husband cheated on you.

This had been widely known in my house growing up. That infidelity had come and pulled them apart. They may not have spoken to me about it personally, but they’d known I knew. I’d heard it, nothing but arguments in my house toward the end there. I’d heard the truth. I’d even walked in on that last one.

It’d been the last night my father stayed at the house.

He’d been gone the next day, disappearing completely from our lives. The next thing I’d known, the only contact I’d had with my dad was through the family courts. The judge had asked me who I wanted to stay with, my father pleading with his eyes across the court room. It was like he’d wanted me to choose him.

But why would I choose him when he hadn’t even chosen me?

He’d completely abandoned us, gone for nearly a year without contact. The next time I had seen him had been in the court and that’d been laughable that he could ever fathom I’d want anything to do with him. Because of him, I’d gotten to see my mother’s looks changed. How she used to smile, but suddenly was in her room crying for hours on end. I’d had to make dinner for her, take care of her, for what felt like months before she’d finally been able to get up and out of the bed. She hadn’t even been able to look at me most days, like the mere sight of my face reminded her of him. In the back of my mind, I think I’d known it did. Something akin to shame on her face every time she’d realized she had allowed those tears to spill in front of me.

Things had gotten a lot better when Mama came into our lives. She’d been able to pick Mom up, help her, help me help her. I’d just been a kid, and she’d been our saving grace. This family had healed because of her.

And how high and mighty my bio dad thought he was. Coming in and trying to be a dad to me now. I was in my fucking twenties, didn’t need a “dad” anymore, and when I had, he’d been nowhere insight.

Just like now.

Things got hard, and he bolted, but this time, I didn’t let it affect me. I enjoyed his radio silence and was biding my time. The semester would be over soon, then I could get the fuck out of this bitch.

“Right. You’re doing homework,” Kit said, calling me for some goddamn reason. “Anyway, you got a car?”

Another eyebrow lift, and I moved my textbook off my lap. “Why?”

“Obviously, need a ride.”

I smirked, lying back. “And you’re calling me? Go get yourself a ride share.”

“I would, but Cleo is out in the middle of fucking nowhere, and it’s just a lot easier if—”

“Wait. Wait. Hold up.” Cleo? I sat up. “What about Cleo and why is she out in the middle of nowhere needing a ride?”

“Because some asshole she went out with tonight left her there and I’d go get her myself but my car died. I’m also at work now and stuck. I tried all our other friends, but no one is answering their phones.”

“Where is she?” I was already up and out of the bed, jerking my shirt on. “Address now.”

If this girl couldn’t keep herself out of trouble for a fucking night. First she hopped into the ocean not knowing how to swim and then this.