Page 66 of Mimosa

“I’m prettier than you and Cosmo. I should be wifed-up.”

Goldie groaned and said, “I told you, Abs, if we’re both single when we’re forty, we’ll hitch.”

“Forty. I will be long past my prime.”

Murphy threw one of the bright orange pillows at him. “Fuck off, Abs.”

“You are married, so you don’t need to be pretty anymore.”

Eazy giggled himself silly, and Murphy threatened to take sex off the table.

“Right, like you could go without for more than a week.”

There in the comfort of his home, with his true family, Mims discovered he’d never been happier. Sure, his father was aboutto die, and that broke his heart in ways he hadn’t suspected, but the looming specter of death had caused…regret? Well, something that had given him a little more hindsight than he’d ever had.

But, seeing that a father could change, even a little, he could finally see Murphy as a father figure. The father he’d truly needed all those years. Not the old men that wanted him for fun and never for anything serious.

Paps was his dad, and all the other men his brothers. He had all the love in the world in that pub.

When he woke in the morning, Daiq batted his door open and jumped on his bed. “Hey! What are you doing?” Daiq didn’t answer, of course, but moved under Mims’s blankets to curled up next to his hip. “Okay, well, good morning to you, too.”

Cosmo peeked inside the door and asked, “Is he in here?”

“He’s right here,” Mims said, pointing. “See the lump that isn’t me?”

Laughing, Cosmo came into the room, his face flushed. “He’s been all over the place this morning. I don’t think he remembers that he has one daddy and a ton of uncles.”

“He’s spoiled, so he searches for the one that will spoil him most at any given time.”

Cosmo sat on his bed, and the dip in the mattress made Daiq get up, turn around and curl right back up against him again. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m…good. I feel what, you know, people talk about a weight being lifted. I feel that. I didn’t even know there was a weight on me, but man, I feel lighter, like I went on some lemon juice, cayenne pepper fast or something.”

“You’ve never done that.”

“Yeah, I sure did. I lost ten pounds and gained them back in just over a week when I started eating again.”

Cosmo chuckled and said, “Well, I’m glad you’re in a good place, honey, but you know what comes next, right?”

“Yeah,” he said in a whisper. “He, uh, dies. I’m not ready for that.”

“We never are, from what I’ve seen in memes and sad videos on social media.”

Mims closed his eyes and confessed, “It’s going to suck, but…it was going to happen sometime. Shit, I’ve wished for it a bunch.”

“Don’t be one of those idiots who think they’ve got special powers, and you caused this. More likely it was his meanness that ate away at him.”

Mims laughed as he shook his head, absently petting Daiq under the blankets. “No, of course not. He’d have died much faster and much more painfully, like with a million boils festering all over him.”

“Right,” Cosmo said. “So?”

“Well, I don’t know how I’ll feel when he’s gone. But I do know one thing. I’ve got all of you to help me through it.”

“You sure do. Listen, when His Majesty comes out from the blankets, could you bring him into the room? He can’t just wander all over all the time. I’m afraid he’ll get out one of the doors.”

“I will. For now, he’s fine. He’s good company.”

As soon as Cosmo left, Daiq came out, meowing quietly at Mims. “So, you were just waiting for him to leave. I get it.”

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