Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

It was like Dad didn’t want to make waves and Jax wasn’t trying to be the one to move them. Because of that, the pair were at a standstill, and before I knew it, dinner was over and Mom was urging me to help her with dessert in the kitchen. She’d ordered a lemon meringue pie earlier that day, I guessed, only store-bought because it was from my adoptive father’s favorite bakery. I offered just to get it myself, but surprisingly, she came with. This left two people who probably shouldn’t be in the same room by themselves, so the minute we got the pie plated, I rushed back to get it to them.

That was until my mom touched my hand.

“Help me with some of the dishes first, won’t you, love? So there’s not so many after we’re all done?” she asked, out of the blue.

I thought to protest, but Mom immediately headed over to the dishwasher and started loading. I frowned with the pie plates. “Shouldn’t we…”

“Give them a moment,” she said, like she knew. She jerked her head over to the dishwasher. “Rick and your stepbrother just need a minute. Just a minute.”

She said it like a mantra, like it was more so to herself. Though I wanted to listen to my mother—I mean, that was my mother—I wasn’t sure she was right on this.

Even still, I slid the pie plates on the kitchen island uneaten. I handed her the plates we’d gathered from the table before we came into the kitchen, but I wasn’t happy about it.

“Why do they need a moment?” I asked her after a beat. I was so completely tired of being left out of everything, like there was some big secret. Like everyone was on some big ride without me. “What’s going on with them? Why—”

“What’s going on is personal between them,” she said, sighing.

“But you know?”

She stopped her hand on the washer. “I know because he’s my husband.”

“So because you’re married I’m just, what? The kid?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, that’s what it feels like.”

A head shake. “Jax and your dad have a lot of history. A history that has nothing to do with either of us. I only know because we’re married.”

So she did know something. I figured as much. I handed her a dish. “Well, can you tell me what happened last weekend then?”

“Last weekend?”

I eyed her. I wasn’t stupid, and she needed to stop treating me like I was. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and it was insulting. “Before it started, Dad was acting completely different. Happy?” I shook my head. “Next thing I know, you guys were whispering about stuff.”

“We weren’t whispering.” Mom pulled a veil of hair off her brow. “We were discussing.”

“Discussing what?”

“An incident that happened on the golf course. An incident that happened between your dad and Jax.” Mom frowned. “He and Rick had some kind of disagreement. One that led to Jaxen walking off the course and leaving your father heartbroken.”

“Why?”

Mom placed her hand on my arm. “Rick was under the impression Jaxen was by no means okay when Jaxen initially came down here, but was open. Well, after the golf course…” Mom sighed. “Rick picked up some very heavy animosity on Jaxen’s end. Animosity toward him, and honestly, I don’t blame the kid. Not after what he thinks happened all those…” Waving the words away, she hugged her arms. “I just wish Rick would tell him the truth. Maybe he will now that they’re together.”

I opened my mouth to ask what truth.

A door slam stopped the thought.

A crash of glass followed, making both Mom and me jump. She rushed out of the kitchen, and I followed her.

Another slam rattled the house along the way, the front door this time, as Mom and I watched it shut. We both stopped on glass in the hall, and it didn’t take a scientist to realize where the glass in the hall had come from.

On the other side of the hall, the french doors to the dining room were flung open, the glass inside them completely shattered. Mom and I had closed them when we left.

And only one person was in the dining room now.

That person was my adoptive father, his hands closed into a fist. He rested his mouth against it, his expression completely crestfallen.