Trey couldn't help but smile. He kind of wanted to hold the little guy again already. "Boy."
"Have you seen him?"
"Yeah, I was there when he was born." He purposely left out the fainting part. "He looks like his father."
"Niiiice," she said.
Trey laughed. "Got a thing for Sinclair?"
"Oh my God, the man is delicious."
Couldn't argue with that. Trey happened to agree.
"When I said my band broke up over a kid, I didn't mean that Sinners would break up."
She touched his arm and that electric sensation he'd felt earlier snaked across his skin again.
"Brian won't let us down," Trey said. "Still, things are … changing."
"Is that bad?"
"In some ways, yeah, but in others … " Trey sighed. "I guess things can't stay the same forever."
"Thank God," she said. Her grayish-blue eyes turned skyward. "I thought I was going to be serving coffee for the rest of my life."
"Is that what you do for a living?"
"Pssh, no. I'm the rhythm guitarist for fucking Exodus End. Don't you know anything?"
She tilted her head at him and shook her head. She was so genuinely beautiful it took his breath away. He grinned. "Congratulations. How long have you been playing?"
"Three years."
Trey almost swallowed his tongue. "You learned to play like that in three years?"
"I played cello before I picked up the guitar, but yeah."
"What are you-some kind of prodigy?"
She shrugged. "I've won a contest or two."
"Do you still play cello?"
"I played for my dad, not myself. He's a music teacher. He started me on violin young, but as soon as I could hold a cello properly I switched."
"Was he strict?"
She laughed. "Not exactly. I just liked to make him happy. There wasn't much joy in his life after my mom divorced him. He still has all the programs, certificates, ribbons, and trophies from my competitions hanging all over his den. I need to call him and let him know I'm going on tour with Exodus End." She laughed. "He's so going to hate it."
"I'd think it would make him proud."
She talked out of the side of her mouth as if disclosing a great secret. "He despises rock 'n' roll. It led to the great rebellion of my teen years and me moving out here to Los Angeles on my twenty-first birthday. Growing up, he wouldn't let me listen to anything but classical music."
"My mom was the same way but with folk music." Trey attempted to suppress a shudder. He still had nightmares about being forced to play "Kumbaya" for all eternity in his personal hell.
"How long have you been playing?" she asked.
He was almost embarrassed to say. "Uh, fifteen years or so." More like eighteen, but who was counting?
"I love your sound," she said. "You complement Brian as if he was your soul mate."
"And you play just like him."
She blushed. Damn, he wanted to kiss her again. She was tough for a woman, yet there was something sweet about her. The combination stirred something within him. The fact that she played guitar like the man he'd loved for over a decade stirred him even more.
"Who's Ethan?" he asked. If she said he was her boyfriend, Trey was going to break his own rule about interfering in other people's relationships. He wanted this woman. His typical take-em-or-leave-em feelings for the opposite sex did not apply in this case.
"My best friend," she said.
"Only friends?" Messing up a romantic relationship where the partners were best friends would bother him even more, but he'd still give it a go because there was something unique about this woman. Something he wanted to identify, to get to know, to understand.
"Well, we used to date," she said, "but … uh, let's just say I wasn't enough for him."
Not enough for him? Was the guy a moron? "You're kidding, right?"
"Ethan's great. Really. Too bad he likes men. I caught him fucking some guy in my shower. Talk about a shock to the system. Especially since I'd stripped off all my clothes to join him."
Trey lowered his eyes. He wondered if homosexuality bothered her. He tended to be very open about his bisexual nature, but he'd sworn off men that morning, so it was no longer applicable. Right? Somehow he didn't think that line of logic would fly with Reagan, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
"You aren't some kind of homophobe, are you?" she asked.