Page 21 of Mimosa

“Okay, well, maybe we’ll do that. You are off Sunday, right?”

Mims nodded again.

“How about we go for a drive. Instead of just talking about it, we should, I don’t know, experience it. It would make it more real to us.”

“Sure,” Mims said, then looked at him again. His skin was dark, but his cheeks were darker with the blush he’d suddenly gotten. “That would be cool.”

“Mims…if you think this is going to be too real, will that bother you?”

“We won’t let it be real,” he said, and tried to sound so determined, but the words nearly became whispers by the end of the short statement.

Sonny laughed at that and said, “Sure. We will be strong, no matter how attracted we are to one another.”

Mims sighed and said, “Okay. We’ll be strong.”

When he left, Taran came into the office. “I thought you were taking him back to the pub.”

“Murphy came for him. They are headed to Costco to do some shopping and Mims wanted to go along.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Ready for tonight?”

Sonny got off the couch and started to pace, only his pacing was much slower than usual. “Pretending to like him, you mean?”

“Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “If it makes you feel better, I couldn’t pretend with Liam, I mean, Cosmo. I fell for him fast. These guys weren’t just chosen because they are good at their secret jobs. They’re also pretty special besides that.”

“Yeah,” he said as he stopped. “I get that.”

“Mims is not only cute, but he’s very sweet. When his family booted him, he took it hard. Murphy and the others, giving him another family, it saved him.”

“That’s why he likes old guys, to replace that father figure.”

Taran nodded and came into the room, sitting on the abandoned sofa. “I don’t get it, though. He’s got a replacement in Murphy. He calls Murphy, Paps.”

Sonny joined him on the couch and said, “That’s probably it. I’d bet all the money in my wallet that he’d never in his life call his real father something so flippant as Paps.”

“What are you saying?”

“Murphy is more of a…an uncle. What he’s looking for is a strong, strict father figure. Someone set in their old ways and unmoved to sweetness and light.”

Taran sighed, “Well, shit.” Then his voice grew purposeful. “Maybe if someone wanted to keep him, hold onto him, they’d…be that. Strict and strong.”

After cutting his eyes to then away from Taran, he snarked, “Gee, Mr. Brilliant Federal Agent, what could you mean by that?”

“Use your cuffs on him,” Taran said, then got up and left the room while Sonny laughed.

“What a fuckhead.”

Chapter Seven

Thenightwascomingon fast and Mims stood in front of his mirror after each change of clothes, scowling. “I look like a…shit, I don’t even know.”

He took out his phone and called Abs. As soon as his friend answered, Mims whined, “I cannot find anything to wear, and I want to look good tonight.”

“Be right there,” he said and ended the call.

Abs truly loved making people look their best.

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