Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

But not soon enough.

Definitely silence on the line, almost eerily. I only made it worse because I had stopped in the middle of a sentence.

Dammit.

I wasn’t sure if I should mention anything about my adoptive father, let alone his birthday. They’d had some tension that weekend, a lot, and that’d been before Jax had fooled around with his near drowning. Dad had gone into the hall, and they’d been out there a long time. When he came back in, clearly my adoptive father had been heated.

Since I already had spoken the words about his birthday, though, I needed to finish the thought.

“It’s, um, Friday.” I cleared my throat. “His birthday. We usually do a thing.”

Making this worse, Cleo.

How did I know? Because I could hear a pin drop on the other side of the line. I actually checked to see if he was still on the call.

I cleared my throat again. “It’s not a huge thing, but it’s Friday.”

Did he know?

Did he care?

That was something I didn’t know, and it was no news to me that he and Rick had something going on. A big something that was bothering both of them. I’d seen that in spades last weekend.

Only more questions.

I wanted to ask Jax about them, but this wasn’t the time and…

He’d finally been starting to open up.

He was sharing himself, sharing with me.

“Jax?” I prompted. “You still there?”

“I am.”

A grit to his voice, confirming none of this awkwardness was in my head. I didn’t know what he’d do next. If he’d go off and revoke his invitation to hang with his friends or what, but I did know one thing.

I didn’t want him to leave.

In more than one way, I didn’t want him to return those walls that weren’t down by any means but at least could finally be touched without a burn. I wanted him to stay and not run from me.

“You should go on Friday,” I said, trying. “I mean, it’ll be a good time. Always is, and I want you there.”

I couldn’t speak for my dad, but I was sure he felt the same. I saw how he was when Jax had arrived. He wanted to be around for him.

He wanted him.

Easy to see when my adoptive father looked at him.

Jax still didn’t say anything, and even though I wanted to push, I didn’t. Pushing didn’t seem to be good with him.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll consider it,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he would at all. A clear discomfort in his voice when he cleared his own throat. “Anyway, thanks for the advice. About the blazer. I’ll do the black.”

Fuck.

“So, uh, Saturday,” he said. “I’ll give December your number. She’ll contact you.”

I started to open my mouth, but he was telling me he had to go. I couldn’t remember what he used as an excuse.