Page 59 of Mimosa

“Food?” he asked in a whisper, unwilling to wake the cat.

“I’ll go get the bowls,” Abs offered then rushed off.

Cosmo had found the cat in an alley, three kids trying to catch him to hurt him. He’d rescued Daiq and he’d become part of his leverage for joining their crew. He wouldn’t join unless Daiq could join the family. No one had voted against that, and had since adopted him as a very important part of Murphy’s Pub.

He fell asleep with Daiq, and woke up with the cat nuzzling his chin. “Daiq, it’s too early.”

The purring got loud and the nuzzling continued.

“You want to eat. Damn that daddy of yours feeding you your can at seven every day. Doesn’t he know none of the rest of us wake up that early?”

Again, as if by cue, Cosmo came into the room, tiptoeing until he saw Mims’s eyes open.

“Sorry. He’s on a schedule.”

“It’s okay. That is the best way to get woke up in the whole world.”

Cosmo took the cat into his arms and kissed his little furry head. “Food time. So, Mims, when do you want to go?”

“About ten, if that’s okay.”

“I’ll be ready. Katie and Little Mick want Daiq for the day. He’s going to be so tired tonight.”

“Yeah, they run him. See you then.”

“See you. And Mims, it’s gonna be okay. I’ll make sure it is.”

He left after that and Mims settled into his pillow, unable to sleep a second longer. He grabbed his phone to find a text from Sonny.

I’ll be thinking of you all day. Call me when it’s all finished.

“Sure. If I’m not in jail.”

He took a long time getting ready, fighting with himself over what to wear so long that he finally called Abs for help.

Abs came in and spent ten minutes in his closet before he grabbed Mims’s hand and pulled him from his room. “Haze has the only conservative clothes that might fit you.”

“I don’t want to be overly conservative.”

“Yes, you do. Use your words, not your looks. If you wear a skirt in there, he won’t hear you.”

While what he said made sense, he was kind of counting on getting booted out on his ass for wearing pink or something to that affect.

At Haze’s door, Abs knocked and Haze was quick to answer, a cup of water in his hand that was full of a cloud of paint. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I need your closet.”

“Go ahead, I need to get some clean water.”

The moment they entered, they saw the entire room was pointed to one small piece of wood that looked like it was from the arc that Moses built.

“What the hell?”

“It’s the painting,” Haze said as he came back into the room. “Well, I haven’t started it yet. We’re doing another meeting tonight, just so you know. Goldie is excited about this one.”

“We all are,” Abs said. “I just didn’t know it was so tiny!”

“Yeah, isn’t it great! All that beauty on one tiny piece of wood. One tiny piece of wood worth over twenty million dollars and it’s right here, in Denver.”

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