Page 4 of Mimosa (Murphy's Pub #2)

Chapter Four

The little office was as dull as drying paint, but the men were worse, except for Taran, Mims thought. Taran was a handsome man, especially his crazy bright blue eyes. Cosmo greeted him with a nod, although Mims knew he’d rather kiss the guy.

The two other men were introduced by Taran to Murphy, Cosmo and Mims quickly. “This is Camp, as you all know, and the other gentleman is Martin Sanderson, who everyone calls Sandy.” Then, Mims almost fell over when he saw a new man coming into the room.

The guy was so gorgeous, Mims knew he’d be unlikely able to speak to him. Dark tan skin, dark eyes, medium brown hair that was on the side of darker than lighter, brushed back from his face, and what a face.

He reminded Mims of Haze, but he was definitely not Haze. If anything, Mims thought he was more handsome than his best friend, but he felt disloyal even thinking that.

“This is Santiago Aguilar, but everyone calls him Sonny.”

When he moved to Mims after shaking hands with Murphy and Cosmo, his eyes locked onto Mims’s and he smiled warmly. “I’ve seen your picture. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Unable to say a word, Mims felt the smile that curled on his lips, and knew it was goofy.

When Sonny went back to Murphy and started to talk to him, Cosmo sidled up next to him and whispered, “What the heck is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“You looked like you swallowed a whole lemon.”

“What? Are you serious?”

He was humiliated, and in front of a guy that he could look at every minute of every day for about a hundred years.

“Everyone, thanks for being here,” Taran said to the group as Camp grabbed the white plastic chairs from the main area and took them into one of the offices, and they were asked to gather in there for their meeting.

Cosmo grabbed Mims’s hand and whispered, “You’re fine. And you’re here for a reason. I’m right here, and so is Murph.”

“Thanks.”

The office wasn’t huge, but they fit and the three took seats while the four cops stood, the hot one, Sonny, pacing behind the others as he started the meeting. “This group is bad, and they do know about you, but all it is for now is them keeping their eyes out for you messing in their interests.”

“Will we know what those are, so we don’t clash with them until…well, until we’re all ready for that? If we ever even have to?” Murphy asked.

Camp answered, “With Sonny and Sandy being undercover in the BBC, they will hopefully get more than even we can get on them. We’ve collected a lot, but not on the group as a whole. Members only and not all of them. The head of the snake, he’s clean. We want him, so, we’re completely pooling our information, our resources, and we’ve made our own joint task force.”

“I thought you had one,” Murphy said.

“We do, but this…is better. The task force is for show. The police, well, we have no idea who all is in this BBC. So, the task force is in play, sure, but this one? It’s the real deal.”

“And these police officers,” Murphy said as he nodded to Sandy and Sonny. “They’re inside the group. How am I guaranteed that they aren’t really double agents or whatever it would be called?”

Mims watched Sonny’s eyes flash with pure fury. He slowly turned and walked to the desk, sitting on the corner as he glared hatefully at Murphy. “I’m not going to take offense to that because you don’t know me. Let’s just say that I have more dogs in this race than you do. I loathe dirty cops. They took a lot from me and my family. I don’t give a fuck if you don’t trust me. I’m not sure I trust you. You’re a crew of fucking thieves.”

Cosmo stopped Murphy from going off, and Mims knew that was a good move. Murphy’s temper didn’t flare often, but anyone speaking about his family, well, that was the one thing that could do it. “How about we calm down and work together? We’re crooks, sure, but you’re snitches for your own people. I met a cop inside, one that got busted by your IA people. He was just pocketing a little cash to help with his sick wife. He was in prison, and in gen-pop to boot. He was brutalized, all for trying to help his family, so no use trying to act like you’re one of the good guys. Maybe there just aren’t any good guys left, and we’re all just trying to be the lesser of all the evils out there.”

Mims nodded but looked right at Sonny. “Maybe we’re all good guys.”

Sonny gave him a little smile, then moved his eyes to Cosmo. “Okay, sure. It’s…okay, I get it. We are going to have to trust each other. That’s hard, sure, but…I’ll try, if you all do.”

Murphy winked at him and Mims smiled shyly, but soon he was looking right back at Sonny.

“How is this gonna work?” Cosmo asked. “Taran went undercover, hitting on me.”

“I won’t be hitting on anyone, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m volunteering to be the one to watch your group, which means I’ll be hanging around the pub a lot, reporting back to the BBC.”

Sonny’s eyes met his as he was saying it, and Mims got the chills.

“Okay, well, what will you be reporting? It’s not like we have schematics sitting around on the bar.” Murphy pointed out.

“When you’re at the pub, when you’re not, if you’re wearing new jewelry, if you’re driving new cars. A mere observer. Maybe I’ll get to know some of you, make you trust me, and then report that back. Whatever I can do.”

“Same as I was going to do, if I hadn’t just come clean like I did. We need to pretend like he’s any other guy there. Just a customer.”

“Unless,” Cosmo began. “Well, unless he pretends to fall for one of the bartenders too. That would be great for your bosses, right?”

Sonny’s eyes locked with Mims. “Yeah. They know I’m gay, and almost didn’t invite me in, but then they thought it would be useful.”

Cosmo side-eyed Mims the second Sonny looked away from him. “Um, maybe Haze or Hippy would like to pretend to be your…you know, boyfriend.”

Mims’s jaw dropped, and Murphy laughed. “I think Mims might want the job.”

“If…if I didn’t have a boyfriend, I could,” he said weakly.

Sonny held up both hands and said, “We can figure that stuff later. For now, we wanted to meet to let you know that these feds aren’t the only ones you can count on.”

Murphy asked about their safety, and Sandy explained, “They know nothing real about you all yet. They simply know you steal the things they’d like to steal, but boosting cars and diamonds isn’t their big source of income. I think they simply want someone to keep an eye on you. They likely figure that if you want to make real money, you’ll start doing some of the terrible crap they are. You know, pimping and drugs. Maybe they think you pimp your bartenders out, and that would be encroaching on their turf.”

“Well, I need to know for sure if they target us in other ways. My children will be taken out of there and protected. I won’t let them be bait, or any of my guys.”

“I’m okay with being bait,” Cosmo said. “I can take care of myself, and some of the others are too. Hippy’s showing us how to use guns, how to fight with knives, whatever, but if the heat turns up anymore than them keeping a pair of eyes on us…we need to know.”

Mims knew Cosmo meant him and Abs, the two smallest and least likely to get into a knife fight. Well, it was true, but Mims wouldn’t stand around and let his family be hurt. “I’ll…I’ll do what I have to, you know, too.”

“I’m sure you will,” Sonny said, smiling.

Chills and sweats at once. Mims was having a reaction to the guy that he wasn’t used to.

Sonny was too young, and he was a cop. Two things that were far from his wish list when it came to boyfriend material. Still, whenever those dark eyes locked with his, he couldn’t form words or breathe.

“Well, we can iron out the details soon enough,” Murphy said, and Mims was glad of it. He didn’t want to be pushed to agree to pretend to be the guy’s boyfriend. He feared he’d fall for the guy and that never turned out well.

The old men he dated, well, he’d never been truly hurt by them. He went in fully expecting them to break his heart, so he was prepared. A guy like Sonny, well, the pull to him, he feared that too much. It might feel too real and his heart couldn’t take a rejection like that.

“I think,” Cosmo started, waving his hand in front of him to indicate all the cops, “this is the perfect amount of people that know about this. I mean, it’s a lot already. Too many people and the secret would be out. We’re small targets for them now, but if we become bigger targets, the kids and others in the pub would have to leave, and I think most of us would be nervous about doing the shows with the big crowds. There’s too much risk.”

“You all are risking a lot stealing. Don’t you worry about the kids if you get caught?” Sonny answered Cosmo, even as he glared at Murphy.

Murphy wasn’t one to back down to anyone. “I have contingencies that I won’t be discussing with you. Besides, my sister is already set to be their guardian if something unfortunate happens to their fathers. Is that enough for you?”

“Your sister is every bit as guilty as you are,” Sonny grunted.

“Prove it, snitch,” Murphy said with a smile.

Murphy rose from his chair and Sonny moved closer to him as they squared up to one another, and Mims was the one that stopped them that time. He got between them and said, “Enough, okay? Paps, Officer Sonny, whatever your name is, we shouldn’t be fighting each other.”

Sonny was close, and Mims smelled his cheap aftershave, but the thing was, it fit him. It was a scent of a working man, someone that put his heart and soul into his work. Or maybe that was in the man’s dark eyes. Narrowed in hatred for Murphy one moment, and widening, smiling, when they turned on him.

Taller than Mims, which wasn’t hard, Sonny cast his eyes down to look Mims in the eye. “Sorry. Just because I’m working with you all doesn’t mean I agree with what you do.”

“I’m a bartender and I do stuff on the computer.”

“Well, the rest of your crew does a lot more than that, and computer crimes are still crimes.” He was saying gruff things, and Mims could tell he wanted to sound that way too. He didn’t, however. His deep, sexy voice was warm and almost cheerful.

“I…know that, but…I try to work in the confines of the laws of this country and state,” he said flirtatiously.

“Do you?” he asked with a crooked smile and his eyes absolutely smoldered.

“Um, guys?” Sandy said near them. “Should we leave the two of you alone?”

Murphy pulled Mims away from Sonny and said, “One of my guys fucking a cop is already plenty, Mims.”

“Paps!”

Cosmo pulled him over and had him sit. While the others hammered out more of the details, Cosmo leaned over and whispered, “Are you into him?”

“Who wouldn’t be? He’s hot, but he’s not my type.”

“Yeah, he’s about fifty years too young. Maybe that makes him perfect for you.”

“You heard Paps. He…won’t let me.”

Cosmo laughed and said, “I doubt he’d deny you anything.”

Mims wasn’t so sure of that.

When they left, Sonny shook his hand and lingered there for a long moment. “I’ll, well, I’ll probably see you soon. When I first start going in, try to act like you don’t know me.”

“I don’t know you, but I know what you mean.”

Cosmo turned around from the front seat to speak to him on the way back to the pub. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Murphy demanded. “Did one of those cops do something to him?”

Laughing, Cosmo said, “Yeah, one sure did.”

“Stop. He’s very handsome, but he’s not my type.”

“Who? That Sonny asshole?”

“He’s not an asshole anymore than you are,” Cosmo said. “You’re just on opposite sides of the same bad coin.”

“If you’re defending him, Cosmo, you’re on the wrong side.”

Cosmo sat right in his seat and faced the windshield. “Murph, he’s not a bad guy. Taran told me something about him, and…well, it’s bad, and it’s the reason he became what he became, and it wasn’t to bust people like us. It was to bust the bad guys, the really bad guys. Dirty cops, like those in the BBC.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mims sat forward as much as he could with the belt across him.

“His dad is dead because of dirty cops. He swore he’d never let that happen to other kids, so…”

“Wow. Fuck, I was a prick! You couldn’t tell me?”

“Taran texted me while we were sitting there, so I wouldn’t help you attack him.”

“Oh, fuck,” Murphy said.

What he said, Mims felt.

It was hard enough for Mims, having a full family where most of them wanted nothing to do with him, and even those that did, couldn’t say anything, because their father would disown or divorce them.

To actually lose a father that terrible way…

“How the hell could I know?”

“You couldn’t. I couldn’t. That’s why Taran told me. So, I guess when we see him in the pub, I can’t send him a Hot Shot.”

Mims laughed as he saw Cosmo’s reaction. “You’d give him an overdose? Murphy!”

“Not that kind of hot shot, you idiot. It’s a shot with about two hairs wide of Jose Cuervo and the rest is habanero hot sauce and a tippy top of Bacardi 151 lit on fire.”

“What the fuck…?”

Mims had seen it given once, and only once, to a guy that had dated Goldie and fucked him over. Abs, while Goldie was in the bathroom, gave it to the guy and they all laughed while he ran outside into the snow to try to cool down.

“Abs invented it, and it’s only been given three times in our entire tenure there, but it makes them think about ever coming back.”

“I should say so.” Cosmo shook his head to clear the imagined image, then turned his head back to Mims. “Anyway, I’m telling the guys you’ll be his…pretend…boyfriend.”

“I have a boyfriend!”

“Oh, right. I forgot,” Cosmo said then he and Murphy exchanged a skeptical look.

“Assholes,” he whispered to himself and was glad when Murphy put on some music so the discussion could be finally done.

He was in his room, the sun coming through the orange curtains giving the entire room an orange splash of color. He brought the phone to his ear after calling his sister, one of the few of his entire sixty plus member family that still spoke to him.

“Ali? How are you, baby?”

He truly did love his sister, Nadia. “I’m…I’m okay. How are you and the kids?”

“The kids? They’re hellions, of course. Just like we were when we were little. And what’s this, okay? Why aren’t you better than okay?”

They were the closest in age of the six siblings. Their four older brothers were much older, the next one to them being seven years older than Nadia. By the time they were old enough to know what was going on, they were already an aunt and uncle.

“I’m okay. Why should I be better? At least I’m not worse.”

“Oh, Ali, my baby brother, you gave up an entire family to live your truth, and you can’t stop trying to find another father to replace the one you lost.”

Okay, so he loved her, but hated that she threw the truth at him all the time. “I didn’t call for a lecture, Nadia.”

“Then why did you call, Boojie?”

His old nickname. Yeah, he should have called anyone else. “To say hello to the person that will sit and talk to me for more than the time it takes to ask me if I’ve changed.”

“Oh, Ma. She can’t change, so I really wonder how she thinks other people will. Boojie, she’s just being loyal to her husband. That is how she was raised, and she fears going against him. But, she does ask about you all the time. She loves you. She just can’t…let Daddy know.”

“That sucks, Nadia. That sucks and you know it. Would you do that to one of your kids?”

“No, but I was raised in America. She wasn’t. She lived thirty seven years in a place that made their women cover from head to toe and walk behind their men. Do you think that’s easily shaken? And why are we on this again? Oh, and I never sit when I’m talking to you. I have three kids, I never sit.”

He finally cracked a smile. “You’re so abused.”

“Like you. How’s Murphy and those kids of his? God, they’re cute.”

He sat up proudly. “They’re even cuter than the last time you saw them. Katie acts like she’s forty, but Little Mick is just fun. I miss my niece and nephews though.”

“They miss you too. Come down next week and see us. Ma and Daddy are in Mexico, so Daddy can purchase some company for cheap. You know Daddy, always up for a good deal.”

“Yeah. I know Daddy. I gotta go, Sis. I love you.”

“Love you. And, Ali, call a little more often, or pick up when I call, huh?”

“I will,” he vowed, but he promised every time he did talk to her and then promptly dismissed it.

A knock came to his door just as he was laying on the bed on his stomach, ready to cry, or at the very least, sulk. Haze popped his head in and yelled, “Hey! Let’s go eat!”

“Where?”

“Pizza!”

There was one thing that could always pull Mims from his sulking. Pizza. “Fine.”

“Hurry up. Hip and Goldie are coming, and they’re already downstairs.”

His room was between Goldie’s and Hippy’s, right in the middle, and he liked that. He felt safe with them sleeping on either side of him.

The rest of his apartment, like their three bedrooms, was on the second floor, along with their mid-century modern style common area with the living room, dining area and kitchen. There was a door to get to the main part of Murphy’s apartment and stairs to get up to the third floor where Absinthe, Cosmo and Haze lived in rooms similar to the second floor.

One big happy family.

Absinthe was in the bar with the cat, Daiq, when Haze and Mims walked through to leave. Mims stopped to pet the cat and asked Absinthe if he wanted to go. “No, I have a date. Goldie’s bringing me half a small cheese pizza.”

“A date. Must be nice.”

“Your guy hasn’t called?”

After shaking his head, he left to the sidewalk out of the doors that were on the corner of the block. Haze grabbed his hand and held it while he stared at his phone screen. “Should be coming around the corner here in a couple minutes.”

Goldie sauntered over, giving Mims a kiss on the forehead. “Cosmo told us you were hot for someone.”

“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.”