A California Christmas

hands.
“No problem,” he said, relieving her of the burden of trying to finish that sentence. She didn’t seem to know where she was going with it, anyway.
“I’m really sorry,” she mumbled as though she’d caused him some terrible injury and escaped the kitchen as soon as she could.
He could hear her footfalls racing up the stairs as Aiyana and his two youngest brothers filed into the house with the rest of the groceries—Aiyana telling them they had only a half hour, at most, before they had to leave again. They were looking forward to playing a particular video game, so this was met with the type of groans one might expect from much younger boys.
“Give us an hour, at least,” Bentley, the youngest, a senior in high school, pleaded.
“Just one hour,” Liam chimed in. Two years older than Bentley, Liam was working and taking online classes instead of going to college because he’d injured his knee playing basketball and was getting an operation next month.
“No,” she said firmly. “We can’t miss this appointment.”
After setting down the bags in his hands, Dallas pulled their mother aside and lowered his voice so that it wouldn’t carry to the second level. “What was that all about?”
Aiyana didn’t respond right away. She was still preoccupied with his brothers. “You can’t start anything interactive where other players are depending on you. We don’t have time.”
“We’ll turn it off the second you say so,” Bentley promised, and they dumped the groceries they were carrying on the first horizontal surface they could find and rushed into the living room to turn on the Xbox.
“Mom?” Dallas prodded.
“What?” She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze before disengaging so that she could set her purse aside and put away the food.
Dallas could hear his brothers negotiating which video game to play, since they didn’t have time for the one they’d initially planned. Aiyana, Bentley and Liam had met him for breakfast as he came into town from Las Vegas, where he lived in the months he wasn’t rock climbing. They’d expected to go directly from there to Santa Barbara, so that he and his brothers could be fitted for tuxedos. Aiyana’s wedding was on the nineteenth, and every one of her eight adopted sons would be in the line. But the tuxedo place had called while they were eating and asked to reschedule for later in the day, so they’d done the weekly grocery shopping before they left town instead of waiting until they were on their way home. “What’s the deal?”
Confusion showed on Aiyana’s face, so he clarified. “Emery Bliss was in the kitchen when I came in.” He didn’t mention that she’d been wearing nothing except a faded Van Halen T-shirt and a pair of bikini briefs. It was obvious she hadn’t planned for anyone to walk in.
“Oh! You saw her?”
“Yes, I saw her.” Emery’s long blond hair had been mussed, as though she’d only recently climbed out of bed, and she hadn’t been wearing makeup, so it wasn’t only her state of undress that led him to believe she was staying at the house. “It looked to me as though she’s living here.”
“She is,” Aiyana said simply, and went back to unloading the groceries.
His mother didn’t volunteer the reason; she made him ask. “Why?”
“Why not?” she countered.
“Your wedding is less than two weeks away, for one.”
She waved off his words. “It’ll be fine. You’ll all be here, but Elijah and Gavin have their own houses these days. It won’t get crowded until the twins and Seth come home on the eighteenth. Even then, we should have plenty of room.”
“I wasn’t claiming there wouldn’t be enough room—just that...that we’ll be busy. We have a lot going on,” he added to shore up his argument.
A playful gleam entered her eyes. “What’s the matter? Does having her here make you uncomfortable?”
As innocent as his encounter with Emery had been, he wouldn’t soon forget seeing her ass in those panties, he knew that much. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Don’t start with that.”
“With what?”
“You know what. I don’t need you playing matchmaker.”
He’d wanted to take Emery to Senior Ball back in the day, and Aiyana knew that because she’d tried to help him come up with a clever way of inviting her. But even with his mother’s encouragement and the ideas they’d tossed around, he’d never gathered the nerve. He couldn’t imagine a wealthy girl from Topatopa Academy, a private school known for providing an elite education, would care to be seen with one of the “bad” boys from New Horizons. He couldn’t imagine her parents would be pleased to have her go out with him, either. And during the time he was dithering back and forth, she accepted an invitation to attend the public school’s prom with the best player on the McGregor football team—the running back, who was now in the pros. The McGregor prom was the night before New Horizons’ Senior Ball, so while the events didn’t directly conflict, he’d decided to spare her the trouble of trying to decide whether to attend two formal dances on the same weekend. There was no way he could follow a local hero. She’d be taking a huge step down.
Considering everything, he figured he’d saved himself some rejection by not asking her out ten years ago.
“I’m not playing matchmaker,” she said. “I admit that I like Emery. She’s a lovely person. And I wouldn’t mind if you were to finally fall in love—”
“Finally?” he broke in. “I’m only twenty-nine!”
She closed the refrigerator after putting away the bacon. “Someone has to get hold of you, get you to change your focus and settle down before you kill yourself. The idea of you rock climbing without any safety gear, any ropes...” She shook her head. “It keeps me up at night. But having Emery here has nothing to do with you. That poor girl. I’m just providing a safe haven for her until after the holidays.”
“Why would she need a