Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

And as soon as I did…

Slap!

My face in another direction, the burn from her hand seared heat into my flesh. It happened so quick it took me a second to gather my bearings.

And the record stopped.

No arguments behind me now, no more of my friends going on about bullshit that really would be a nonissue in an hour. I knew these people, knew them well, and this fight was a fake one at best. They couldn’t stay mad at each other longer than a night. Really, it was laughable.

But whatever this was with Cleo was here and now, her hand shaking, and it was still in air. She’d actually hit me.

And she came down to do it again.

I got it this time, her wrist, and she tugged at me. “Cleo. What—”

She jerked away, her heels stumbling on the deck and her Rapunzel hair falling over her shoulders. She looked beautiful in her own quirky way, a dress with so many ruffles she drowned in them. They covered her neck like some Amish nun, completely gorgeous in the weirdest fucking way. I’d think more about it if she hadn’t tried to flee away from me, and in her stumble, she hit the yacht’s rails. I grabbed her.

“Let go!”

“No.” I tugged her back. “What’s wrong with you?”

She shoved me, shoved me so hard I might have fallen with her in my hands had I not been stable. I ensnared her wrists, pulling them down, and at this point, all the fighting behind me really had stopped.

My friends lingered on in the distance, watching us. More than one looked on the cusp of jumping in, but I held up a hand.

I shook her. “What’s wrong with you!”

Out of my arms when she jerked away, cringing. “Was it always a game? A sick fucking game?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This, you asshole!”

She shoved her phone in my face. I took it, and she let me look only to see myself.

To see us together.

It’d been the picture of us I’d taken on her phone. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, you don’t understand.” She nodded, nothing but sarcasm in the statement. She tossed her hand out. “Look who it was sent to.”

I read her messages, text messages back and forth from her mom and my dad. It was a group thread.

They’d gotten the picture?

“What the fuck?” I jerked my head up. “How the fuck did they get it?”

At this point, she appeared on the cusp of slapping me again, her eyes cold, and this time, she allowed her tears to fall. They blinked down, her cheeks red. “You’re so full of shit. Look at that last line.”

I did, instantly twitching.

Her mom accused… me, but before I could say anything, Cleo grabbed her phone.

She darted around me and I pushed between Knight and LJ to get to her. They’d had their girls, crisis averted as expected. They currently hugged them against them, confusion and shock on all their faces. Knight shook his head. “Buddy?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know what any of this fucking meant. I got the same looks from both Royal and December. They were holding hands so obviously they were good too. Royal looked on the cusp of saying something, but I had no time.

“Cleo.” I got her hand, managing to twist her around before she left the boat. She couldn’t leave. Not like this. “Cleo, you can’t honestly think this was me. I don’t even have that picture—”