A California Christmas (Silver Springs #7) - Brenda Novak Page 0,128
flooded his room. He’d gone to bed early, but he still wasn’t happy to be awakened. He assumed they were excited to celebrate Christmas, to eat and open presents, but he couldn’t gather much enthusiasm for any of that. Not this year. He just wanted to get back to the person he’d been before meeting Emery—happy to know, with his sponsorship, that he had the opportunity of a lifetime and could, if he decided to, tackle the most famous climbs in Europe in the next few months.
“Let me sleep,” he grumbled. “I’ll get up in a couple of hours.”
“But our present won’t wait that long,” Liam said, his voice filled with excitement.
Dallas couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. He figured his family would give him a sweater, a football or maybe some new climbing gear, as usual—all things he would like and be grateful for but also things that could easily wait until he was ready to get up. “How old are we now?”
“Don’t be a Scrooge,” Seth said, and then it occurred to Dallas how odd it was to have Seth in his room—not just Ryan, Taylor, Liam and Bentley. What the heck was Seth doing up this early, trying to drag him out of bed? Seth was more reserved and withdrawn than the others; this wasn’t like him.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he threw his legs over the side and sat up. “I know it’s Christmas, and you’re excited, but this is the first time you’ve all descended on my room at once.” Normally, Aiyana would call down to tell him to come up. Or one of his younger brothers would fetch him—not all who were currently staying in the house.
“We got you something we think you’re really going to like,” Bentley announced. He and most of Dallas’s other brothers were bare chested and wearing sweat bottoms. That, together with their hair standing up and going every which way, served as a testament to the fact that they’d just rolled out of their own beds. They must’ve set an alarm for this and gathered upstairs before coming down. But why?
“Or maybe you won’t like it,” Ryan said. “I told them that if you wanted to be with Emery you wouldn’t have let her go. You know what you’re doing. Who would give up the opportunity you’ve got? You’re going to be rich and famous. But even Seth thought Mom was right.”
Dallas felt his eyebrows come together as he looked from face to face. Climbing and being with Emery wasn’t really as mutually exclusive as he’d made it sound, but he was glad he’d sold Ryan, at least. “What does this have to do with Emery?”
Aiyana stepped forward and handed him a sheet of paper. “Merry Christmas,” she said. “From all of us.”
There wasn’t enough light streaming in from the hall to be able to read what was on it. “What is this?”
Taylor snapped on the light. “Take a look.”
Dallas had to cover his eyes for a second, but once they adjusted he could see that he was holding a boarding pass—and when he read the fine print he understood it was for a flight to Boston that left Los Angeles today at noon. “You bought me a plane ticket?”
“We bought you a second chance to decide,” Seth said.
Dallas wasn’t sure how to feel about this, whether he was relieved because he now had the opportunity to take off and go after Emery, which was what he’d wanted to do since she left, or irritated that those he loved seemed to be undermining his attempt to resist something he wasn’t capable of managing. “Because I made the wrong decision the first time?”
“If I had to answer that solely by the way you’ve behaved since she left, yes,” Seth said.
“This just enables you to reconsider,” Aiyana explained, softening his answer. “In case you regret your decision. Even if you don’t, you could always go to Boston to see Emery—just for a visit.”
Apparently his mother didn’t understand a mere visit was out of the question. He couldn’t go to Boston only to tell Emery that he hadn’t changed his mind.
“I know climbing is important to you,” Cal said. “But I don’t know anything more fulfilling than finding someone to love, who loves you back and makes you happy.”
“Even if I decide to try to have a relationship with her, we don’t know that it will last,” Dallas said, giving them the argument he’d used on himself so often.