A California Christmas (Silver Springs #7) - Brenda Novak Page 0,54
and teachers would come, too.
“It’s Saturday night, Ma!” Liam complained. “And Jake is throwing a Christmas party. We don’t want to miss it.”
“That’s important,” Cal said. “You should go. After all, this is only our wedding, something that will happen just once in a lifetime.”
Emery smiled when he shot her a grin.
“I’m excited about the wedding,” Liam said, taking his words at face value instead of the sarcastic way they were intended—probably to reassure Cal, just in case he was feeling a bit of disappointment. “But the people who come don’t need to take home mugs of hot chocolate mix. They probably have a big can of it from Costco in their pantry like we do.”
“We still have to make them,” Aiyana insisted.
“Why?” Bentley pressed.
“To thank everyone for coming.” She rolled her eyes. “Guys don’t get it,” she said to Emery. “To them, this is wasted effort.”
“Hey, hey,” Dallas complained. “Watch yourself. I’m cooperating. I’ve done more of these things than you have. I must be close to a hundred by now.”
It was obvious he’d done far less than that, but Aiyana didn’t call him out.
“And I’ve done at least—” Cal frowned at what he’d accomplished “—ten in the same amount of time.”
They all laughed as Emery stepped over some discarded boxes to reach the stairs. “I can help. Just let me go put my purse away and change.”
“Now that Emery’s available, can we can take off?” Liam asked his mother.
“Why not?” Emery heard Aiyana reply in exasperation. “I’m going to have to retie all of yours, anyway.”
“What’s wrong with mine?” Liam demanded, a scowl in his voice.
“You can’t see how sad those bows are?”
Emery chuckled as she scaled the stairs, closed her door and stripped off the sweater and pants she’d worn to work.
Once she had on her sweats, she returned to the living room but only Aiyana, Cal and Dallas were there. “Liam and Bentley left already?”
Aiyana rolled her eyes. “They had one foot out the door when we started.”
“At least you still got us,” Cal said, trying to be helpful, but his response made Emery laugh again because she couldn’t tell whether he’d finished even three more while she was changing.
“I’m picking up speed,” Dallas announced.
Emery took Liam’s place instead of Bentley’s when she sat cross-legged on the floor simply because it was farther from Dallas. “Let me show you how it’s done,” she joked.
For the next few hours, they tied and loaded mugs into boxes, then moved the boxes into Cal’s truck, Dallas’s van and Aiyana’s trunk.
“Okay. That will have to be enough for one night,” Dallas said. “Eli just texted me. My sisters-in-law are making and freezing the potatoes for the wedding, so I promised Eli and Gavin I’d meet them at the Blue Suede Shoe once they got the kids to bed.”
“We have almost three hundred,” Aiyana said, finishing up her count. “That should be enough.”
“Good. I’ll see you in the morning.” Dallas bent to drop a kiss on his mother’s cheek before turning to Emery. “Would you like to come along?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll probably just...go to bed.”
“Why not get out for a while?” Aiyana asked. “Relax and have some fun with people your own age? It might be a nice break from spending every night in your bedroom.”
She’d just been to LA with Dallas, and they’d made love on the beach, so she hadn’t been spending every night in her room. But she wasn’t about to point that out. Aiyana was mostly right—since she’d come to Silver Springs she’d scarcely left the house. “I’m still reluctant to be seen in public,” she admitted. She’d managed to get through the day at Sugar Mama without anyone drawing the connection between her and the sex video, but maybe that was because no one had looked at her too closely. They were too busy celebrating the holidays and being dazzled by the cute shop and delicious offerings.
And no one would expect someone involved in such a big scandal to be working in a small-town cookie store.
“Everything went smoothly when we went to Santa Barbara and LA,” Dallas pointed out. “And you were in town all day today. Did anyone say anything that upset you?”
“No.”
“Then come. You have to start living again at some point.”
“You’ll be with your brothers,” she said. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You won’t be intruding. We could use another person for darts and pool. If you come, we won’t have to recruit anyone else.”