Beautiful Brute: A Stepbrother College Romance (Court University Book 3)

by Eden O'Neill

  Jaxen: I don’t expect you to talk to me. You haven’t been, so you probably won’t, but I got to tell you something. I know you’ll at least read this so that’s why I’m sending it as a text instead of just calling you. I hope you’ll respond.

  The messages buzzed in one after the other, long and I tapped a finger to navigate to my text messages screen.

  Jaxen: Something happened last night. Something big that completely fucked with my head. I basically found out everyone’s been lying to me. My mothers. Rick.

  Dad?

  Jaxen: And this lie basically made me blow up my life. It made me try to punish Rick for something he didn’t even really do. As it turns out, my biological mom had actually done the thing I thought he had. He’d been lying to me, he said, to protect me and my life as I knew it.

  My thoughts traveled back to those last conversations with all of us, how my adoptive father had said he needed to keep something from Jaxen. That he couldn’t take something away from him. He’d been so adamant about it. Like there was no other way.

  Jaxen: I thought I’d be more angry finding all this out, but honestly, I was just tired. I was tired of hating my father. I was tired of pain. He, my moms, and I talked a lot after they all fessed up. Fuck, my mothers were losing it. Tears everywhere by the end, and Rick got emotional too. He flew all the way over to my moms’ place just to hash this out, and I was glad he did. I was glad we all didn’t have to do this anymore, this shit thing, and I actually got to talk a lot with Rick. Just us. It was good for us. It was good.

  Oh my gosh.

  Jaxen: Anyway, why this relates to you was I royally messed up. I fucked up. I was operating by a lot of false information. Things I felt Rick did to me, and I punished you for them. I wanted to hurt you, hate you for a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with you. My issues were with my father, and I took it out on you, easier than just being a decent fucking human being, which is actually who Rick Fairchild turned out to be. It makes sense because of who you are, the kid he did end up raising, but you’re more than just a decent fucking human being. You’re everything.

  Everything…

  Jaxen: I don’t have words for how good you are, Girl Scout. Not good at this shit at all. I just know you’re too good for me, and I don’t blame you for not believing me that night. I gave you more than one reason not to in the past, a million reasons. I’m a screwup who fucked with the only pure thing I had in my life. The only thing that wasn’t pain, the only thing that wasn’t lies. I thought you were playing me all this time. But really, I was the one who ended up playing myself.

  My throat constricted, breathing while trying to navigate the road. I shouldn’t be reading these while driving, for many reasons.

  Jaxen: What I’m basically trying to say and that I’m terrible at is I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m even more sorry that I can’t, in good faith, have you. You’re better than me. So much better and deserve a hell of a lot more than a shit human being with all this fucking baggage. I hate what I did to you. I hate that I destroyed your ability to trust, but what I hate the most is that I had the fucking nerve to fall in love with you. Which I did, Girl Scout. So fucking hard I can’t even see straight, and it’s so shitty because I’m the worst for you. I can’t ask you to choose me. I’m not the one good girls choose. Not if they want to remain whole on the other side.

  Tears in my eyes on this end, that he actually felt that way about himself, that he didn’t feel good enough.

  Jaxen: I’m not expecting anything from this. In fact, I expect nothing from you. I’ve already taken enough.

  He had no more texts message bubbles after that, and even though I shouldn’t have behind the wheel, I picked up my phone off the seat. He couldn’t not know how I felt. He couldn’t continue to think he wasn’t good enough.

  My thumbs on the screen, I texted him back.

  Me: You’re not taking anything from me. You never could. Jaxen, I love—

  A car honked before I could send, and I jerked my gaze to the road. I’d veered into another lane, and I dropped my phone to put both hands on the wheel.

  The minivan screeched beside me, dodging onto the shoulder and when I checked to see if they were okay, I failed to realize traffic had slowed in front of me.

  I jerked the wheel left, which skidded me into the third lane.

  The impact hit immediately.

  Crunched on my side, my car in a roll as I tumbled and was impacted again from the back.

  The hits continued, again and again at all sides. It was as if this was a game of pinball and my station wagon was the ball. Cars weren’t able to stop in time, hitting me from all sides as the glass shattered all around me.

  I think I was screaming. I think I was crying. I honestly didn’t know.

  I just knew when it all finally… gratefully went dark.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Jax

  Rick and I showed up at the hospital together, coming at this thing together. His wife Maggie had called him early this morning.

  Cleo had been in an accident.

  She’d been trying to get to the hospital herself since it happened while Cleo had been driving back to school. Because of that, Maggie didn’t have too many details, but the urgency in her voice told of her fear. She said the hospital hadn’t told her much, but that she needed to get there asap.

  Rick and I had both been on the next flight.

  We’d gone together, and I hadn’t asked if I could go or should. I just went. I was going to go.

  We arrived there together.

  Rick gratefully knew his way around the place. He’d been there a time or two through community work so new exactly where the ED was. He gave a little information to the front desk, and they told him where to go from there. We found Maggie right away, by herself with a clipboard in her hands. She’d been thumbing through about a million cards on her lap.

  “Maggie!” Rick picked up the pace right away, me flanking him. He waved right at Maggie, and the woman appeared on the cusp of tears.

  Oh, God.

  I couldn’t think upon seeing that, not letting myself. We didn’t know anything, and it’d be foolish to panic. Not yet until we knew anything.

  “Rick. Oh my God.” Literal tears pushed through my stepmom’s eyelashes. She squeezed on Rick, trembling. “Thank God, you’re here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t…”

  “It’s okay,” he said, pulling back, and I had to give it to him.

  He kept his shit together better than me.

  Because seeing Maggie like that, in goddamn tears and fucking panicked to hell, I wanted to lose my shit. But for his wife, he kept cool, holding her.

  “What’s going on? What do they know?” he asked. Again, I was admiring the shit out of this man. I never would have thought that not even twenty-four hours ago. So much had changed, and here I stood in awe of him now. He held her face. “Just breathe. Talk to me.”

  She did, forcing it out through quivering lips. After a nod, she appeared to have composed herself enough to speak.

  “She’d been driving back to school,” she started. “Collided with several cars. She rolled and… God, Rick. I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me much more than that. Just that it was bad, and they needed to do surgery. I’ve been filling out these papers all morning, and I…”

  “That’s all right.” He took the clipboard from her, again completely calm aside from a wrinkle of worry between the eyes. My father no doubt had a fury going on inside him right now, but he’d checked himself. He nodded. “Let me do this. I’ll go find out more information.”

  “Please. Dear God. My baby.”

  “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to figure this out.”

  She nodded, bowing her head and letting him kiss her. After that, he grabbed me. “Can you stay with her while I…”

  He probably could have asked me just shy of anything in that moment. I would do anything.

  Keep your shit together.


  “Of course,” I said. “Yeah. Of course, fine.”

  Not nearly as stable as his, my voice, but it appeared to be good enough to let him go. He squeezed Maggie’s hand, kissing it before moving off into the ED somewhere. The place basically had people falling out of the windows it was so busy.

  “Do you need anything?” I managed to ask my stepmother, fighting to keep my voice as level as my dad’s. “I can get you coffee.”

  They had a machine by reception. It wasn’t Starbucks, but I was sure it would help.

  As if in a daze, Maggie looked at me, nodding, but before I left, she touched my shoulder.

  “She’d been trying to get to campus, Jaxen,” she said, her eyes glistening. “She’d been trying to get to you. We know you didn’t send that picture.”

  They did…

  And she what?

  Cleo was trying to get to me?

  Maggie’s lips parted. “The person who did confessed to Cleo. A local boy. Lawson Richards? Said he spotted you at a club and sent the text from your phone.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised? Fuck.

  “Anyway, Cleo told me how she felt about you,” she stated, causing my heart to race. “I’m just so sorry that all this happened. So quickly, we believed that you could do such a thing to her. That you would take advantage of her?”

  I had, in many ways I had. I’d given that girl enough reasons for a lifetime not to have anything to do with me.

  “She told you about us?” I asked, my stepmom nodding. “What did she say?”

  I couldn’t believe that, that she’d been trying to get to me. It didn’t make sense.

  Cleo told me how she felt about you…

  “Just that you mean a lot to her,” she said, blinking down more tears. “The police said it’d been you she was texting when…”

  I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think…

  And squeezing my arm, my stepmother didn’t finish. She just took her seat, on the cusp of falling apart in her hands. She hugged her arms, dropping her gaze to the floor. But in that silence, I heard the words loud and clear. Cleo had been rushing to get to me. Cleo had been texting me.

  Cleo was in here because of me.

  *

  My own coffee went cold as I waited, ignoring my cracked phone as it blew up in my pocket. I’d heard from basically all my friends, my moms multiple times. Outside of telling them I’d gotten here okay, I answered none of them. I was too busy battling the war consuming my brain. That I’d been the reason my stepsister was here, that I was the reason our parents currently didn’t know anything about her state and we were all left in gut-rupturing fear of the unknown. Rick had come back multiple times after turning in Cleo’s paperwork. But each time, no information. He checked every hour on the hour, but eventually, decided his time was better spent with his wife.

  He currently held her hand now, rubbing it with a far off look in his eyes. I was responsible for that.

  I guessed I really had ruined his life.

  I ruined both him and his wife, a shell of the people they’d been before I’d made it into their lives, and Cleo? God, Cleo was somewhere in this hospital now possibly fighting for her goddamn life. That was me. This one was on me.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild?”

  It was like their number was up, a golden ticket arriving that was both desired and unwanted when a doctor in blue scrubs with a kind smile appeared in front of my dad and Cleo’s mom.

  The pair stood on autopilot.

  “Yes. Yes, that’s us,” Rick said, “Do you have an update about our daughter?”

  I stood too, as if I could. As if I had the right. Despite that, I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know she was okay.

  I needed to know I hadn’t lost her.

  I did that, and I could walk away, let her live her life. She’d live a safe life, a happy life, but before, I had to have that one thing. Selfish, I knew.

  “I do,” the doctor said, and though her smile was kind, warm, it didn’t reassure. There was no false hope there, this kind smile the best she could give us. “I’m Dr. Fieldhouse. I’m the one who performed surgery on your daughter Cleo. She’s sustained some significant injuries. Do you know the details of the accident?”

  “Just that she was texting.” Cleo’s mom leaned into my dad, the man holding her close. She’d explained that detail to him too, and though neither of them had given me grief, it was all out there. We all knew why Cleo was here.

  Just find out if she’s okay, and you can let her go.

  I had to. There really was no world in which this girl and me should be together. I knew that now, everything I’d texted to her this morning stupid. My phone had died last night, which was the only reason I waited to do it today. I realized the device was dead this morning, charged it, and odds were, all those texts had been what she was trying to respond to today.

  God, I’m such a fucking idiot.

  All this shit really was coming in full circle, my breath a heavy one as I slid my hands inside my pockets and forced myself to listen.

  “She was,” the doctor said, frowning. “It was a pretty bad pile up. Cleo was hit from several angles.”

  “But is she okay?” Rick asked, rubbing Maggie’s arm. “My wife said she had to have surgery.”

  “She did, but there were no complications. In fact, Cleo’s doing quite well despite the extent of her injuries. She had a few broken ribs, a shoulder injury, and some cranial damage. The blow to her head was the most severe, but we were able to act quickly. She had some swelling to her brain, but we were able to release the pressure.”

  “Oh my God.” Maggie squeezed Rick’s side. “My child had brain surgery?”

  “She did, but the surgery was successful. We’ll have to monitor her overnight, of course, but we’re very hopeful she’s out of the dark there.”

  “Can we see her?” Maggie started to go that way, but the doctor held up her hands.

  “Normally, this is the point where, yes, we would say that, but there’s an issue that requires urgency, and that’s why I’ve come to speak with the family now.”

  “But you said you felt she was out of the dark,” Rick said. “I don’t understand.”

  “Regarding her head injury, yes.” Dr. Fieldhouse nodded. “But there are some internal injuries that hold our concern. More specifically, surrounding Cleo’s kidneys. She was impacted pretty severely on her left side, which has left the state of that kidney in pretty bad shape.”

  “How bad?” My stepmom bunched Rick’s shirt.

  The doctor sighed. “It’s destroyed I’m afraid. It’ll have to be removed.”

  “But she can function with one, right?” Rick asked, the first waver I’d heard in his voice. He’d kept it together, together completely through this whole thing. “People can function just fine with one.”

  “Again, normally.”

  “Normally?”

  The doctor’s expression shifted grave. “I was reviewing Cleo’s chart, and I see she has a history of poor kidney functioning. Her right one’s never been as strong as the left?”

  “She has a birth defect, yes,” Cleo’s mom said. “She’s had issues in the past, but keeps up on her doctor’s appointments. We’ve monitored the situation her whole life, and she’s never had an issue.”

  “That’s because she’s always had the left to overcompensate, but the right is having to work too hard now.”

  My stepmom paled. “What does that mean?”

  “It means your daughter will need a transplant, Mrs. Fairchild. And sooner rather than later. I’ve added her to the donor list, and though we hope to hear something, your daughter’s need is immediate and it is a long list.”

  Sickness at this point and now, my dad actually had to hold my stepmom up. She wavered in his arms.

  “What can we do?” My father had completely broken the wall. The dam of his strength had been nuked, and holding onto my stepmother was his only strength. He swayed too.

  Exce
pt he wasn’t the only one.

  I rocked behind them, my hands bunching in my pockets. I couldn’t see straight again, all this shit not real.

  “It’s at this point we ask the family,” the doctor stated. “Odds of a match are higher from a biological recipient.”

  “Of course.” Maggie pressed her hand to Rick’s chest. “I’ll be tested right away. Anything she needs.”

  “Can only family be tested?”

  I think the parents had been the only ones surprised when I opened my mouth.

  Because I sure wasn’t.

  The doctor mentioned all this shit, and all I was thinking was what did I have to do. How could they do this shit now, this test, and get this girl anything she needed. I started to step forward, but my dad grabbed me.

  “Son, you don’t have to—”

  “I know I don’t.” I faced the doctor. “If you’re not family, can you be tested?”

  “Of course,” Dr. Fieldhouse said, her smile light. “But it is a big decision. You need to be certain.”

  “And it’s major surgery, son.” Rick put his hands on my arms. “This isn’t just… It’s not something that can just be undone. Something could go wrong even. You could need—”

  “I don’t care.” And I didn’t. I just needed this shit to happen now. “Whatever she needs.”

  Tears in my stepmother’s eyes, not sure if they were a combination for myself, Cleo, or something else entirely. I just knew she took my hand, and suddenly, I was with her.

  Suddenly, I was with both of them.

  She squeezed my hand as Rick nodded as well. “I’d like to be tested as well,” he said, acknowledging me in that same sentence. “My son and I aren’t biologically related to Cleo, but that’s what we want.”

  I let him know that, nodding too, and then, the doctor was away, moving on to next steps. In her absence, I found arms around me.

  My stepmother.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, squeezing me. Pulling away, she touched my face. “Just God bless you.”