Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

My face tugged out of her reach. “He left because of you?”

“And me, my love.” Mama reached for Mom’s shoulder behind me, squeezing. “He left because of us. Our affair.”

“You know your mama was my sous chef,” Mom said, squeezing Mama’s hand. “I… I fell in love. Fell in love with her. We started an affair, and it lasted for almost a year before your father found out.”

My whole body chilled, sobered. Mama had come into our lives right after Dad left.

Almost right after.

I hadn’t thought about the timing then, just a hurt kid who was mourning the loss of my father. He didn’t even call me.

He just fucking left.

He was here, and then he wasn’t so quickly, gone for almost a year before I saw him in the courts. He dragged my mom and me through all that custody shit, talking about how he wanted me to choose him.

I couldn’t breathe, my chest caving in. “Why would you do that? Why would you let me think that? That he didn’t…”

Want me.

Because that’s what I’d thought. He’d left so that’s what I thought. “Why would you let me think that he abandoned me?”

“Because I did, Jax.”

My father’s eyes clashing with mine, his hands folded on the table.

He nodded. “I did leave you, left you by leaving the situation. Thinking back, I know it was my pride.” His gaze escaped, almost shame there before it returned. “I was angry at your mom too, and it took almost a goddamn year before I got my head out of my ass enough to come back to you.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth then!” I shot. “Why make me think that it was you who ripped this family apart this whole goddamn time—”

“Because I played a part in it, Jax!”

His words ricocheted across the room, ping-ponging with mine.

He shook his head. “I left you for a year. And yes, you were okay in the end. But I did that, it was on me. I couldn’t deny what I did, that I ran from you and the situation. I left my son because I was angry with his mother. So when I did come back and found out she let you believe what you did, I didn’t make her correct it. How could I? I was guilty myself. It’d have been completely hypocritical of me.”

“But I needed you,” I admitted, hating that I was admitting that. My nostrils flared. “I didn’t think you fucking cared.”

“I did what I did because I cared,” he rasped, his voice so thick his throat worked. “You had a good thing going with your mom and her partner by the time I came back. You were happy. If I would have told you the truth, you would have resented me and her. The admittance would have completely imploded everything for you.”

But I would have had him.

And now, I knew they were both liars.

They were both full of bullshit, even Mama. She’d been the other woman, gone along with it.

Everything I knew was completely turned on its head, all the people I loved, trusted. In the end, I only had one real thing.

I’d blown that up too.

I fucked with Cleo, and she and her mom were the two people who didn’t have anything to do with this. She was the one piece of pure fucking light.

And so, I really was paying for my sins.

“We’re all to blame for this, Rick,” Mom stated, looking at my father. “We all imploded everything. Each of us in our own ways.”

Leaning forward, I laced my fingers, no words for any of them. Mom touched me, and though I wanted to draw back, I was just so tired. I was tired of hate.

I was tired in the darkness.