Page 14 of Mimosa

“I am not,” he protested, though it was a very weak protest. “I have a boyfriend!”

“Okay, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

“I’m not mad. I’m just…”

“Done,” Hippy finished for him. “I get it. The dating scene in this city sucks. Not one reliable man in the entire place.”

Goldie laughed as he agreed, “Not one.”

“You guys are great at spreading the doom and gloom,” Haze said. “I mean, there are good guys. Murphy found one, Cosmo did.”

Goldie said, “Three out of eight of us. I don’t like the odds.”

Hippy mumbled, “Unless we’re in love with each other, like Eazy and Murph.”

“I couldn’t,” Mims said, but Haze disagreed.

“I could, but it’s true, it would change things. Think of your best friends turning into your boyfriend, and then it doesn’t work. Bam, the family is broken. I can see why Murph made the rule, even if he was the one who broke it.”

Mims saw Hippy’s eyes, and they were staring off into the city. He got a feeling but pushed it away. He was too afraid that his family would break apart.

“There’s our ride,” Haze said as he nodded to the white Suburban.

Mims took a still Hippy by the hand. “Come on. We can pretend we’re together tonight.”

“Best date I’ve had in ages, baby doll.”

Chapter Five

Thepizzawasthebest in the city and they had a good time together. There was a hot waiter that asked Hippy for a date, and Goldie picked the pepperoni off Mims’s slice, but gave him a kiss in trade.

When they got home, Abs pulled him into his room and shut the door. “How was Hippy?”

Mims was surprised at the answer. “He was…he was fine. Why?”

“I don’t know for sure. You know Hippy doesn’t talk about his dating or love life like most of the rest of us do, but he’s been…weird.”

They sat on Mims’s bed and Mims thought it over and remembered how distant he’d been of late. “Yeah, he’s almost, well, grumpy. A hot waiter was all over him but he turned him down. That was a little weird.”

“I think it’s Cosmo.”

As he cocked his head, he thought over when Cosmo first came into their little group. Cosmo was against getting too close to anyof them, for fear of the family they could mean to him. It was all because of his childhood.

His mother had terrible post-partum depression, and one day, when Cosmo and his father had run an errand, his mother killed his siblings and herself. Cosmo was the one who found them.

Everyone knew the history and understood, but that didn’t mean they trusted him right off the bat. Most of them gave him a shot, but Hippy was the holdout.

He was less than cordial to Cosmo for months.

“Hippy has come around. They’re always together now, and Hippy’s even dragging him along to his blues clubs.”

“That’s what I mean. I think…I think he likes Cosmo.”

“Cosmo has a boyfriend,” he gasped, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, well, when did that ever stop someone from falling for someone else? Sometimes, well, it can’t be helped! I just know it’s going to end badly, and I’m afraid.”

Mims scooted closer to Abs and set his arm around the other man’s shoulders. He was stick thin and tiny, like Mims, only Abs was as blond as a person could get and whiter than snow. It fit well with his emo/goth persona.

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