Page 2 of My Secret Santa Dallas

A wild dog howled in the hills, and a stiff wind ruffled my hair. “Come on,” Warrick clapped my back. “Let’s find you a room.”

The house was not the quaint two-story, three-bedroom that I remembered. Warrick had made it three floors, and who knows how many rooms there are now. He opened a room in the attic, which held a double bed with an antique maple wood, a simple pencil post in a honey-brown satin finish, a crisp white duvet cover, and an antique quilt on the bottom.

The only other furniture in the room was a maple dresser opposite the bed, a matching bedside table, and an antique rocking chair piled with pillows.

Warrick looked over at me, obviously waiting to hear what I had to say. “This looks like four days of sleep. Thank you, Warrick.”

“Do you want to eat something?” he asked. “I can rustle up something. We just had dinner.”

“Slap some meat on bread with the fixings, and I’ll take a beer if you have one,” I nodded to the other door. “Bathroom?”

“Yeah,” Warrick said, peering at me. “Listen, I do want to know what brought you back home out of the blue, but I ain’t gonna push you. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

My throat felt thick, and my chest felt raw.

I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve this welcome.

Dropping the duffel at the foot of the bed, I sunk to the edge. “There is an explanation.”

“I know.”

“You’re deserving of one.”

He opened the window and shucked the curtains aside. “I know.”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “How can you be so welcoming to me, Ricko? I left you, Mom, and Dad in the middle of the night. I didn’t even return when they passed. Why— how can you be so welcoming when I have been the most selfish toward you, Mom, and Dad? I left here like a thief in the night. You should be blistering mad. You should have slammed the door in my face. Why— I don’t understand?—”

He was shaking his head. “You forgot that I left this place too? I felt the same way you felt, Dallas. I just didn’t have the balls to leave like you did. I knew if I had stayed here longer, I’d grow to resent it. And look what I got for it—” he kicked out a leg. “—a fuck ton of broken bones, iron plates in my legs, and a permanent limp.”

My jaw went tight. “Did they ever forgive me for it?”

“They did,” he said. “But we can talk about that tomorrow. You’ve been through enough shit for one day. Let memake you that sandwich, you take a bath, and we can talk tomorrow.”

I paused. “Your girl, Zoe, was it? How did that go?”

He laughed. “That is a long story. Another thing for you to learn tomorrow.”

While he left, I tugged a towel, some clean boxers, and some pants from my bag and left for the bathroom. Knowing my brother, if he were anything like Mama was, the vanity would have spare rags and soap in it. I was right. Snagging both, I stripped, stepped into the shower, and turned the heat on high.

When I stepped into the hot shower, I felt more pitiful than I had been in my life. No one knew what had happened to me that night I’d left the ranch, how I’d literally jumped from the frying pan into the goddamn furnace.

Heading to San Fran had tested me. It had sunk me into the worst parts of my life— but I’d thought I’d gotten above it— only to get kicked in the teeth.

And I thought I’d been pathetic then… haha. The joke was on me.

I used the soap to lather my hair and remembered a song I heard on social media lately—when I did check it, that is—all that work and what did it get me.

“Story of my fucking life.”

What did Warrick mean when he said that Mom and Dad actually forgave me for my dick move? Did he mean it, or was it something just to comfort me?

“You remember the hundreds of times you picked up the phone to call them but dropped it…” I reminded myself. “You were too chickenshit, and now it’s too late.”

As I turned around to rinse off my head, I tilted my head up to let the water rain over me. As dim as life felt— I knew I had a lot of hurdles ahead of me with Warrick andwith other people when word got around town that I was back home— perhaps this wasn’t a total loss.

Maybe something good could come out of it.

If there was one thing I knew and still know well, it was how to start over and start from the bottom.

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