Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

So confused as I looked at her, I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”

Silence next to me, no words on her end and Mama reached behind me to squeeze her wife’s shoulders.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mama said, sounding like she was almost coaching. “It’s okay.”

Mom’s jaw moved, and beside her, Dad huffed.

“You don’t have to do this, Sherry,” he said, his expression hard. “I told you we don’t have to do this.”

“But we do, Rick.” She faced him, her brow wrinkled. She touched a hand to the table. “You see what he’s done. We’re both hurting him.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, exchanging glances across the table. No one seemed to want to look at me. At least, not directly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Mom laced her fingers. “Rick told me about your conversations. About your hurt. But not until this whole thing with your stepsister did I realize how bad it was. Your hate for him.”

My stomach fucking twisted, jostling and shit like I was on a roller coaster.

Mom swung her gaze at me. “That’s what that all was about, right? What it all boiled down to?”

I said nothing, more complicated than that so I said nothing. Maybe a long time ago, I would have owned up to that shit—hell, preached it from the rafters. I’d screwed my father by literally screwing his stepdaughter. I would have been proud of it, gloating it.

That was if that fact remained true.

So many things weren’t what they were anymore and I cuffed my arms.

Mom touched my arm. “Baby, I haven’t been telling you the truth.”

I looked at her, frowning.

Mom wet her lips. “I let you believe something that isn’t true.”

“We both did,” Dad stated, his gaze once again averting. “And really, we don’t have to do this.”

“Not ‘doing this’ is what started all this.” Mom put her hands out. “Not doing this is hurting our son, and I’m not going to make him suffer anymore. Not for things I’ve done. Not on my watch.”

“Mom?” Emotion in my voice that surprised me. I couldn’t even fucking fathom how this woman could ever possibly hurt me. Even when I was mad at her over some trivial shit, she’d never truly hurt me. Never had. She could never.

“Jaxen, your father never cheated on me,” she said, her eyes so sad. “It was me, me the whole time who was unfaithful to him.”

Chapter Thirty

Jax

A pin fucking dropping could have been heard, nothing in that goddamn room. I caught a look of my father in that moment.

But he looked sadder than my mom.

In fact, visibly sadder, like none of this shit should be happening. None of it should be.

None of it.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, gritted. “Why are you saying this?”

“I’m saying it because it’s true. It was me who cheated on your dad.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Me and your father left this family because of that.”

I didn’t understand. What she was telling me was complete bullshit. “But I heard…”

“You heard wrong.” Again, looking at me. She touched my face. “And I let you believe that because I was angry. I was angry at your father for just leaving us. For leaving you? It was the wrong thing to do on my end, and something I never should have done.”