is, you did fine back then and I’m sure you’ll do fine now. There will be other times you have to watch your nephew, so you might as well start now. Plus, I really need your help. I’ve been hoping to land a gig like this and it may just be the opening I’ve been waiting for.”
Trey sighed. He really did want Carmen to go for her dreams and he knew firsthand that the set wasn’t a good place for infants. He recalled a time when his stepdad had been out of town and the babysitter had gotten sick. So his mom had been forced to bring him and a colicky Carmen on set for a movie she was shooting. It hadn’t been pretty.
His eyes landed back on Matthew’s adorable brown face and chubby baby cheeks. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll babysit M-dog for two weeks.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Carmen kissed Trey’s cheek before handing Matthew to him. “Thank you so much, big bro. I owe you big-time!”
“I plan on collecting, too,” he said with a laugh. His joke fell on deaf ears because Carmen was already halfway to the front door. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.” Ten minutes later, Trey was sorry he’d asked. It took no time for his home to go from the ultimate bachelor pad to a nursery straight out of an HGTV show.
“Carm, what is all this stuff?”
“This,” she said, waving her hands around everything she’d placed in his living room, “is everything you will need to turn Casa De Trey into Matty’s Baby Manor.”
Trey handed Matthew back to his sister as he tried not to freak out by all the paraphernalia scattered around. Baby swing. Baby mat. Baby carrier. Baby bathtub. Blankets. Stuffed animals. Pop-up crib. Diapers. Bottles. Pacifiers. His mind couldn’t even comprehend all the stuff needed to care for an infant.
“What in the world is all this?” he asked as he pointed to a mound of what appeared to be pieces of some type of toy.
Carmen smiled. “That’s Matty’s ExerSaucer.”
“His exer...what?”
“His ExerSaucer.” Carmen pulled out her phone with her free hand to show him a picture of Matthew sitting in one. “It’s like an activity center for babies. It helps keep him busy. I had to break it apart to get it in my car, but I figured you could put it back together.”
“Damn, Carmen. You might as well have brought over your entire house.”
“I tried,” she said with a laugh. “Also, even though Matty is a baby, try to limit the cursing around him. You never know what types of things babies pick up at a young age. And I also have a large tote bag that has his formula in it with instructions on scoops and how much water to add. His medicine is in there, too, as well as his Baby Bullet.”
Trey’s eyes widened. “Baby bullet? Do I even want to know what that is?”
“It’s what you will use to blend his baby food.” Carmen searched the floor until her eyes landed on a bin of baby food. “This bin should have all the food needed to blend your own recipes. Nothing too fancy. Just sweet peas. Mashed bananas. Stuff like that. It’s not enough for two weeks, but should be enough for a week. And it needs to be refrigerated.”
Trey lifted the bin and walked to the kitchen to place it in the refrigerator. He’d only agreed about twenty minutes ago, and already, he had to remind himself why he was doing this. Carmen’s phone rang, interrupting his thoughts.
“Oops, I forgot I had this call. I have to take this.” She rushed to Trey and handed him Matthew. “I’m going to miss my baby boy. Mama loves you,” she said to her son as she showered him with kisses before answering her phone.
“This is Carmen. Can you please hold for a moment?” She glanced at Trey. “Are you good? You know you can call me anytime. In the large tote, I also left detailed instructions on everything, so you should be okay. He’s already been fed tonight and I just changed him before we arrived. Tonight should be easy since he pretty much sleeps through the night. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
Carmen was already out the door before Trey could formulate a response. Once they were alone in his home, Trey glanced down at the wide-eyed baby in his arms, unsure if he should be more worried about babysitting Matthew or if Matthew should be worried about him being the babysitter.
“We’ll get through this, right, M-dog?” In response, Matthew blew a couple of spit bubbles before scrunching his forehead. “What does that face mean?” Trey asked, observing his nephew a little closer. “Are you agreeing with me?”
Matthew gurgled some more bubbles before he spit up and let out a loud wail.
“Oh, hell,” Trey yelled as the spit-up ran from Matthew’s mouth down to Trey’s hand. Acting fast, Trey grabbed one of the blankets Carmen had left and began wiping off the baby’s face.
Several minutes later, Trey still couldn’t get Matthew to stop bawling. “Could this night get any worse,” he said between the wails. On cue, his iPhone rang, displaying the last name he expected to see. Reginald Moore? What does he want?
Trey answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, this is Trey.”
“Trey, this is your father. I have both your brothers on the line as well.”
Trey pulled back to look at his phone as if it were contagious. “Max and Derek both?”
Each of his brothers greeted him. Trey rarely talked to his father and both brothers, so if they were all on the line, it had to be important.
“Trey, is that a baby in the background?” Reginald asked. Trey glanced down at Matthew, who was still crying.
“Yeah, I’m babysitting my nephew. Let me put you all on a brief hold.” Acting quickly on his feet, Trey managed to configure the pop-up crib with one hand and carefully place Matthew in the middle of the crib. As soon as he popped the pacifier into his nephew’s mouth, the crying stopped.
Thank goodness. Trey glanced back at his phone, which was still on hold. One problem down. One more left. He sat on his large plush armchair that was next to the crib before resuming the conversation. “Okay, I’m back. So, tell me...what’s the purpose of this call?”
He tried to leave the bitterness out of his voice, but it had been a long few months, and a call with his father never ended well.
Reginald cleared his throat. “Now that I have all of you on the phone, there’s something very important that I need your help with.” There was a slight pause before Reginald continued. “I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I would never do anything to hurt Prescott George, and I definitely did not do anything to the San Diego chapter. Granted, it was hard for me to accept that they would be named chapter of the year, but I would never stoop so low as to sabotage them. I gave Prescott George more than twenty-five years of my life, and as I’ve stated before, someone framed me.”
Trey squeezed the bridge of his nose as his father continued to voice his innocence. Prescott George—or the Millionaire Moguls, as they were informally known—was a prestigious, all-male national organization that was as powerful as it was discreet. Until six months ago, Reginald had been a respected board member of the LA chapter of Prescott George, where his sons were also members.
After
