Beautiful Brute (Court University 3)

I was nothing but a show to this motherfucker, a way to add to his perfect family unit. He wanted me to be a part of the act.

And fuck did he play my ass.

“Sure,” I said, shouldering away. Getting my club, I putted the green. I tapped the ball right into the hole, having done this more than once. “Something he’d know if he remembered.”

The words came out, and I didn’t even try to stop them, seeing them all over everyone’s faces when I stood. I got the telltale disappointment from my friends, the biggest supporters in my corner. That’s why they’d come, to support me, but only I knew there was nothing to support. This sick fuck didn’t want anything to do with me.

If he did, I would have been enough.

A neck rub from my buddy Knight, and LJ, well, his eyes had flickered away entirely. It was only Royal that stared on, shaking his head, and Rick, my father’s jaw shifted a little. It was like he was finally starting to see the brevity of what he’d done, his absence.

And how I truly felt about it.

This whole thing had been a lie from the jump, and I’d failed when I let this guy get into my head. He’d called me last week at school, preaching about a weekend away, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I figured, what was the fucking point? I hated this guy.

But then my friends.

They’d been able to convince me of something else, show me the opportunity in the time. If my busy congressman of an absent father was taking an en

tire weekend away, taking the time to be with just me, then that meant something. It was something none of them ever had due to crap and fucked up happenstance with their own fathers. They said it would be worth it to spend time with him, but not for him, for me. They said to give it a chance and that they, my good friends, would come too. They’d even brought their girls, made it a whole trip. They’d literally dragged their ladies down and put a stop to their entire lives to be here with me, root for me.

What they hadn’t known was this was a losing game from the jump.

And I think everyone could see that now.

This cause with me and my bio dad was a lost one. A pointless one I should have never entertained. My friends had labored for nothing, brought their women down for nothing. Currently, all their girlfriends and Royal’s fiancee, December, were living it up at the resort. My boys had sacrificed time with them for this.

For this fucker.

A throat jump in Rick’s direction and a throat clear from Royal. He was trying to appease things, even now with the tension. Royal braced the back of my neck. “I’m sure he just forgot, Jax. It was a really long time ago,” he started, then frowned at me. “And we all look different. Are different.”

We weren’t that goddamn different, and the fact I had not one but three best friends? Yeah, that shit was hard to fucking forget. I went everywhere with these guys, and Royal himself was our goddamn neighbor when my dad had literally been living in our house. My mom and I hadn’t moved.

He should have remembered.

Hands slid into Rick’s pockets, his smile a faint one. “Yes, I must have forgotten. I’m sorry, son. This old memory of mine.”

He passed it off with laughter, but there were no jokes here and since he obviously didn’t know what to say, he tapped the air. “My apologies. To all you fellas. Really.”

“Completely not a big deal.” LJ raised his hand, his look passed to me. “Right, Jax. Not a big deal?”

“Of course, it’s not.” Knight on my other side. He slapped my shoulders. “Jax has always been the kidder.”

The wrong thing to say, completely. Especially when my dad did laugh, given the permission to, an out. He was given allowances once again to not know shit about me and my life, and I was tired of giving them.

I’d given him more than ten years.

Knight squeezed my shoulders as I checked myself once again, and Royal took the opportunity during my check to putt his own ball. Knight and LJ left to join him and Rick fucking Fairchild took the opportunity to come over to me.

He edged in, his smile still small. “I’m really sorry, son. I didn’t mean—”

“You don’t ever, do you?” I asked, point-blank. I got up in his face. “So tell me. What did you actually mean, Rick?”

“Jax.”

Royal hadn’t actually bent down to putt, standing there, and both LJ and Knight the same. They stood there, stood on watching my father and me.

I’d like to say Rick looked shocked by what I said, that it completely surprised him that I called him anything else but Dad. After all, that’s what I’d been calling him the entire time he’d been back in my life.