Page 37 of Mimosa

“He is. He’s like a real piece of shit. So, doing this, and helping someone out with the proceeds is even better than we thought. And, he’ll probably write it off as whatever and go buy another one for her,” Mims said.

“Well, boys, I think this is a go. Mims, just please, be careful.”

“I can help Hippy with the computer,” Ryan offered, and that made Mims relax more.

“Ryan, I forget you took those computer courses! Will you help him if he gets stuck on something? That’s all I really worry about. I know Hippy is good.”

“No worries,” Hippy said laughing. “I get it. If you were in charge of the weapons, I’d feel the same way.”

Murphy smiled around at his crew, pride glowing. “I can’t believe you are all so…good. I mean that in all senses of the word. You are risking a lot for less pay than normal because you all want to help someone’s family. I can’t tell you how that just…gets me.”

“We want to help people,” Abs said.

Cosmo, the one who’d prompted them to start helping people, he just beamed. “We do. It feels good.”

“It’s all because of you, Cosmo,” Mims said. “You saw that we could, and it’s already helped us in the neighborhood.”

It was true. They’d made friends of all the homeless, the discarded, and the self-proclaimed freaks that those in fancy cars drove by and looked down their noses at. They saw the bartenders or Murphy and his family, and they stopped them to shake their hands, tell them to have a good day.

“It’s good for a lot of reasons, reasons we hoped, and it’s happening,” Murphy said. “The word is spreading that if someone needs help that the cops and proper channels ignore, we are there. They know it, they’re going to come to us for favors and in turn, we’ll ask them the same, if and when we ever need it.”

“Godfather,” Hippy said, laughing.

“Shut up,” Murphy said with a smile. “If that’s what it takes in this world now, a world where the dirty cops outnumber the good, where the ones who are supposed to protect us don’t, well, we need to help each other.”

That got them all in the chest. Mims felt it and looked around the table to see they all felt it too.

Abs’s hand in his squeezed.

That gave him the courage he knew he needed.

“I’m…I’m still scared to be in the belly of the beast, but knowing that we are helping people by doing what we do, it’s going to make it easier. I just love you guys and I want you to be safe. Ryan, you and Hippy, you watch everything. Grow a few more eyes and have each set on each and every camera, and listen to the police scanner, all of it all at once. It’s hard.”

“I play video games too, Mims,” Ryan said with a smile. “I’m used to watching multiple things.”

Once the meeting ended, Abs helped him find an outfit to wear to the barbeque. “It’s gotta be toned down, which is hard for me. T-shirt, jeans, sneakers. Do you have those things?”

Mims pulled a pair of jeans off the hanger in his closet. “These are my jeans. I have three pairs, different colors.”

“Are any of them, you know, like blue? Blue jeans?”

“Teal! I have a teal pair,” he said rifling through his clothes.

Abs stared at the purple pants and sighed, “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

After finding one t-shirt that would work and nothing else, not even socks, Abs pulled him along to Murphy’s apartment, where he told Eazy the problem. Katie was right there, helping her father frost a cake. “Are you dressing like a boy?” she asked.

“We’re trying,” Abs told her, laughing.

“Boys wear ugly clothes,” she commented before dipping her finger in the chocolate frosting.

Eazy playfully smacked her hand. “Not yet, missy!”

“Daddy, I’m making sure it’s good.”

“You get the bowl.”

“By then it will be too late! The cake will be frosted.”

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