Page 12 of Mimosa

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Murphy demanded. “Did one of those cops do something to him?”

Laughing, Cosmo said, “Yeah, one sure did.”

“Stop. He’s very handsome, but he’s not my type.”

“Who? That Sonny asshole?”

“He’s not an asshole anymore than you are,” Cosmo said. “You’re just on opposite sides of the same bad coin.”

“If you’re defending him, Cosmo, you’re on the wrong side.”

Cosmo sat right in his seat and faced the windshield. “Murph, he’s not a bad guy. Taran told me something about him, and…well, it’s bad, and it’s the reason he became what he became, and it wasn’t to bust people like us. It was to bust the bad guys, the really bad guys. Dirty cops, like those in the BBC.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mims sat forward as much as he could with the belt across him.

“His dad is dead because of dirty cops. He swore he’d never let that happen to other kids, so…”

“Wow. Fuck, I was a prick! You couldn’t tell me?”

“Taran texted me while we were sitting there, so I wouldn’t help you attack him.”

“Oh, fuck,” Murphy said.

What he said, Mims felt.

It was hard enough for Mims, having a full family where most of them wanted nothing to do with him, and even those that did, couldn’t say anything, because their father would disown or divorce them.

To actually lose a father that terrible way…

“How the hell could I know?”

“You couldn’t. I couldn’t. That’s why Taran told me. So, I guess when we see him in the pub, I can’t send him a Hot Shot.”

Mims laughed as he saw Cosmo’s reaction. “You’d give him an overdose? Murphy!”

“Not that kind of hot shot, you idiot. It’s a shot with about two hairs wide of Jose Cuervo and the rest is habanero hot sauce and a tippy top of Bacardi 151 lit on fire.”

“What the fuck…?”

Mims had seen it given once, and only once, to a guy that had dated Goldie and fucked him over. Abs, while Goldie was in the bathroom, gave it to the guy and they all laughed while he ran outside into the snow to try to cool down.

“Abs invented it, and it’s only been given three times in our entire tenure there, but it makes them think about ever coming back.”

“I should say so.” Cosmo shook his head to clear the imagined image, then turned his head back to Mims. “Anyway, I’m telling the guys you’ll be his…pretend…boyfriend.”

“I have a boyfriend!”

“Oh, right. I forgot,” Cosmo said then he and Murphy exchanged a skeptical look.

“Assholes,” he whispered to himself and was glad when Murphy put on some music so the discussion could be finally done.

He was in his room, the sun coming through the orange curtains giving the entire room an orange splash of color. He brought the phone to his ear after calling his sister, one of the few of his entire sixty plus member family that still spoke to him.

“Ali? How are you, baby?”

He truly did love his sister, Nadia. “I’m…I’m okay. How are you and the kids?”

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