Double Time (Sinners on Tour 5)

“Did you get plane tickets already?” Trey asked.

“Your brother’s jet is meeting us at the airstrip. It’s already on its way. Should be landing by the time we get there.”

“So Dare’s coming with?”

“Nope. Just you and me.”

Alone on a private jet. Trey was pretty sure they wouldn’t be initiating each other into the mile high club. Bummer.

By the time they reached the hospital four hours later, Brian was in a panic. When Trey hesitated on the threshold of Myrna’s delivery and recovery room, Brian grabbed his arm and hauled him inside.

“I didn’t miss it, did I?” Brian asked the doctor who was between Myrna’s legs with his bloody surgical gloves trying to ease a black-haired head out of something Trey wished he had never ever seen. Oh f**k. That had to hurt.

Trey’s eyelids fluttered, the floor disappeared from beneath him, and everything went black.

The squall of a baby and the declaration, “It’s a boy!” flittered around Trey’s semiconscious mind. That and some strange ammonia smell just beneath his nose.

“Come on, gorgeous,” a soft feminine voice said nearby. “Open your eyes for me. The messy part is all over now.”

Trey regained full consciousness with a sudden intake of breath. He instinctively knocked the offensive smelling salts from beneath his nose and sat up.

“There, he’s back with us,” someone said from the opposite side of the room. The doctor maybe? Trey couldn’t get his eyes to focus.

“Did I pass out?” Trey asked.

“Out like a light, buddy,” Brian said from beside Myrna’s bed. He chuckled much too gleefully.

“You cannot tell anyone about this,” Trey said, struggling to climb to his feet. He leaned his back against a wall to steady himself. He hated hospitals. He’d spent far too many hours in them as a child, including one entire summer when his father had been serving his residency and his mother had decided to ride a bicycle across the country. Just the smell of a hospital made his skin crawl.

“Yeah right,” Brian said. “I’m having T-shirts made. I wanted to wait to cut the cord, but you refused to wake up in time to watch.”

Trey’s stomach did a summersault. Cut the cord? Yuck. “Sorry I missed it.” Not.

“That’s okay. I got it on film.”

“Great…” Trey ducked his head to hide his crinkled nose.

A stunning brunette dressed in pink scrubs bent down to enter Trey’s field of vision. She stroked his hair out of his face. The slim brows over her striking blue eyes drew together in concern. “Feeling better now?”

He grinned at her and she flushed. “I think I’ll live,” he said.

Her hand slid to the back of his head. “You bumped your head.” Her fingers found the scar that ran beneath his hair in a wide arch over his left ear. She traced the ridge with her index finger. “What’s this?”

Trey captured her hand in his and pulled it away from his scalp. “Old war injury.” If getting hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat during a bar fight could be considered war. That little incident had landed him in a hospital for days. Not one of his better memories. “You have really pretty eyes,” he told the nurse, still holding her hand.

Her breath caught, pupils dilated slightly as she focused on his interested gaze. “Thank you,” she whispered, lowering her lashes to hide her deep blue eyes.

Trey released her hand and she sagged against the wall. He turned his attention to the bed, glad a blue drape cloth concealed whatever the doctor was doing between Myrna’s legs. Trey was pretty sure the doc was giving Myrna stitches and he did not want to know why that was necessary.

“So where’s this baby we’ve been waiting to see for nine months now?” Trey asked.

Brian waved him over to the bed. Trey approached cautiously. Myrna looked exhausted, and he knew better than to tick her off. He was prepared to make a run for it, if necessary. Brian wrapped an arm around Trey’s shoulders and they gazed down at the bundle in Myrna’s arms. A miniature, red-faced Brian jabbed his fist in his mouth and sucked earnestly. Trey’s heart skipped a beat before melting inside his chest. Brian’s son was the most perfect thing Trey had ever seen in his entire life.

Brian scooped up the baby and handed him to Trey. Trey drew his little body against his chest and stared down at him in breathless awe.

“We named him Malcolm Trey,” Myrna said. “After Brian’s father. And, well, you.”

Trey tore his gaze from the small wonder to gape at Myrna. “Me? Why would you name him after me?”

She smiled. “It seemed appropriate to name him after the two most important men in Brian’s life.”

“We want you to be his godfather,” Brian said.

“I…” Trey was honored, but he wasn’t an appropriate godfather. He was scarcely responsible enough to take care of himself. How could they ever expect him to be responsible enough to care for their child? “I don’t think…”

The baby in his arms gurgled, and Trey looked down to find him staring up at him with unfocused brown eyes. His father’s eyes. Brian’s eyes. Brian had made this. This perfect, beautiful little person.

Brian was a father.

Trey glanced at Brian and the enormity of it all stole his breath. Brian didn’t notice Trey. He only had eyes for his son. His pride in the little guy was tangible.

Trey turned his attention to the baby in his arms. He stroked Malcolm’s cheek and then touched his tiny hand, fascinated with his tiny fingers. His tiny fingernails. Tiny knuckles. Everything so tiny. Malcolm gripped Trey’s finger with surprising strength. “You’re going to be a master guitarist like your daddy someday,” Trey told him.

Malcolm scrunched up his face and Trey laughed, totally enamored with Brian’s son. The son born from the love Brian shared with his wife, Myrna. The son Trey could have never given Brian no matter how much he loved him. Trey took a steadying breath, kissed the baby’s forehead, and handed Malcolm back to his father. “Here. I’ll probably break him or something.”

“Good-lookin’ kid, ain’t he?” Brian pressed a kiss to Malcolm’s temple.

“Of course,” Myrna said, love shining in her hazel eyes as she stared up at her husband and son. “He looks like his father.”

“He has your lips,” Brian said.

“And your hair.”