Page 5 of Mimosa (Murphy's Pub #2)

Chapter Five

The pizza was the best in the city and they had a good time together. There was a hot waiter that asked Hippy for a date, and Goldie picked the pepperoni off Mims’s slice, but gave him a kiss in trade.

When they got home, Abs pulled him into his room and shut the door. “How was Hippy?”

Mims was surprised at the answer. “He was…he was fine. Why?”

“I don’t know for sure. You know Hippy doesn’t talk about his dating or love life like most of the rest of us do, but he’s been…weird.”

They sat on Mims’s bed and Mims thought it over and remembered how distant he’d been of late. “Yeah, he’s almost, well, grumpy. A hot waiter was all over him but he turned him down. That was a little weird.”

“I think it’s Cosmo.”

As he cocked his head, he thought over when Cosmo first came into their little group. Cosmo was against getting too close to any of them, for fear of the family they could mean to him. It was all because of his childhood.

His mother had terrible post-partum depression, and one day, when Cosmo and his father had run an errand, his mother killed his siblings and herself. Cosmo was the one who found them.

Everyone knew the history and understood, but that didn’t mean they trusted him right off the bat. Most of them gave him a shot, but Hippy was the holdout.

He was less than cordial to Cosmo for months.

“Hippy has come around. They’re always together now, and Hippy’s even dragging him along to his blues clubs.”

“That’s what I mean. I think…I think he likes Cosmo.”

“Cosmo has a boyfriend,” he gasped, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, well, when did that ever stop someone from falling for someone else? Sometimes, well, it can’t be helped! I just know it’s going to end badly, and I’m afraid.”

Mims scooted closer to Abs and set his arm around the other man’s shoulders. He was stick thin and tiny, like Mims, only Abs was as blond as a person could get and whiter than snow. It fit well with his emo/goth persona.

“Abs, if he is, he’s not going to actually do anything about it.”

“What if he does? What if Cosmo rejects him, and, well, I’d expect him to, because he’s crazy about Taran.”

“We cannot start worrying right now. I don’t think he’s going to try for him. Maybe he’ll wait and see if Cosmo and Taran split, or maybe he’s going to try and be rejected. If so, we have to be there for them both. Promise?”

Abs lay his head on Mims’s shoulder and whispered, “Of course.”

“Good. Now, can I tell you my dilemma?”

“You’re hot for the other cop. I swear, are we all going to fall for cops? That’s dangerous, but, gotta say, sexy.”

Mims should have known that Abs would know. There were few secrets allowed to be kept at the pub. “He’s pretty.”

“Pretty like me and you or pretty like…Cosmo and Goldie?”

Cosmo and Goldie were their muscle men. They both loved working out almost as much as anything else they liked doing, if not more. “Kind of…in between? I mean, he’s not this huge ripped guy, like Goldie, but he’s a little bigger than Cosmo. He’s lean and firm, you can tell.”

“He’s also got brown hair, I hear?”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s not gray haired and ready for the nursing home.”

Mims laughed. They all got endless enjoyment from teasing him about his taste for older men. “Well, yeah, that’s why he’s nice to look at but he’s not for me.”

“God, Mims. That is just wrong.” Abs moved off Mims and then made Mims face him. “Maybe it’s good he’s closer to your age. Maybe that’s what you need.”

“I can’t help who I like, Abs.”

“Yeah, you can. Take a chance on someone who isn’t married and in the closet except for when he’s fucking you.”

Mims wanted to take offense to what Abs was saying, but he was right. They were all right. He wanted to be happy, to find a guy that could be with him in public, where they had a chance of being together for more than fucking once a week.

After Abs left his room, Mims called the latest old man he was enamored with, only to get his voicemail. Again.

He sent a text, telling him that he would wait one more day for a call, then he’d say goodbye. It was a text he was used to sending.

And, like so many, he didn’t get the call the following day, or the day after that, so he blocked and deleted the number from his phone, and decided to get on with his life.

Again.

The weekend was approaching and the guys met in the basement to practice their routines. Oh, a lot of it was off the cuff, improv for the masses, but they still practiced choreographed moves to wow the crowd at least a few times a night.

Hippy was the best juggler, and when Mims got to the basement, he was indeed tossing three bottles around like it was no harder than tossing only one.

Cosmo was looking on, smiling and clapping. After the conversation with Abs, Mims decided to watch them closer, and seeing that, well, he worried.

“Cosmo, how’s Taran?”

“He’s great. Thanks for asking.”

The response from Cosmo came as Hippy dropped one of the bottles, and it thumped hard on the yoga mats that were set around him for just such a purpose. His mood immediately turned sour.

And Mims’s mood wasn’t boosted either. Abs was likely right. Hippy had a thing for Cosmo.

Goldie came into the room with a flourish and said, “I have the best idea for tomorrow night. On Fridays, we’re always a little out of practice, even with these sessions. Bartending once during the week makes us slow on the draw. So, how about we get some dance moves going. Four at a time dance on the bar while the two left behind handles the orders and we switch off all night?”

Mims asked, “That’s great, Goldie, but it’s Thursday. How are we going to learn dance moves in a day?”

“Well, maybe not for this weekend, but from now on. They love when we dance on the bar, but if we had choreographed moves, it would be even better. We do that here and there, but every time we’re up on the bar? That would wow the fuck out of them.”

Abs came in during the last of his speech and confessed to Mims, “He told me this already. I think it’s a great idea.”

“Only if I can stay behind the bar.”

“Mims, you dance well.”

“Yeah, but keeping up with all of you? Eh, I don’t know.”

Cosmo was much more excited. “I have two left feet, but if the moves were simple enough, I can go along.”

“Great, great! We can practice normally today, but next week, we can spend an hour a night getting some moves down.”

Murphy came into the room and pointed to the bookcase. “We need a meeting before we start practice, guys.”

Mims’s stomach sank to his feet. “Why, Paps?”

“Trouble.”

They gathered into the meeting room and Murphy closed the door behind them as they took their normal seats. Scowling, Murphy walked slowly around the table to get to the head of it, where he didn’t sit, but stood hands in fists, knuckles knocking on the surface.

“We got word that the IA cop, Santiago Aguilar, is going to be at the pub every weekend night, and possibly more.”

Cosmo sighed and said, “Is that all?”

“Cosmo, listen, it’s good we know he’s on our…well, mostly on our side. What it means to me, though, is that we are most definitely on their radar, and we’re more worrisome to them than the feds and cops first thought.

“Having someone here to watch us and infiltrate us, well, it means they are keeping eyes on us. And we will not know if that Sonny character and his partner are the only ones they’re sending. That was the word from Taran, who just called me with the news. That means extra precaution on all your parts. We do not talk about any of this unless it’s right here, in this room. Not in your rooms, with boyfriends, nothing. Cosmo, that goes for you and Taran,” he said, and Mims’s eyes went right to Hippy. Ducking his head, he looked away from Murphy and his scowl was more pronounced than Murphy’s.

“We don’t, Murph. We don’t know where we might be bugged. If at all, but, you know, never be too cautious.”

“Good. The rest of us, do we get it?”

All nodded and a few verbally agreed. Goldie asked, “Murphy, how long do we…I don’t know, watch our Ps and Qs?”

“Always!”

“I mean for this. We all know if we’re caught what it means. I mean, well, being on watch for these fuckers?”

“I guess the feds and cops will have to tell us that.”

“Not if we have our own guy in there,” Goldie suggested. “Why can’t one of us infiltrate them? Why is it that we’re always having to be so appeasing and let them come into our lives?”

Murphy hollered, “And chance one of you are even in more danger? Fuck no, Goldie!”

Haze disagreed. “Murph, listen, we’re being accommodating because it will serve us, but if we were smart, we’d do our own invading.”

Mims saw it all in his mind, the second before Abs looked over at him. “Mims?”

“What?”

Goldie growled, “Not Mims.”

“Why not?” Abs asked his best friend. “Just because we’re not musclebound guys, it doesn’t mean we’re weak.”

“No one said that,” Cosmo tried to assure. “But we’d be risking anyone we sent to do that.”

“Not if Mims was simply pretending to be dating that cop, Aguilar. Then, well, maybe he could bring Mims around the other members of the BBC, and they’d try to get stuff out of him, and in reality, he could actually get stuff from them.”

Mims didn’t think he could do it. “I’m not an actor.”

“What would you have to do, Mims? Pretend to be into the cop and go on dates with him, dates that would happen to bring you by places they frequent.”

Murphy’s jaw was dropped heavily, his eyes bugging out of his face before he finally found his power of speech again. “What the hell are you saying, Abs? Are you crazy?”

“Why? He could do it!”

“I don’t think I could, Abs,” Mims said.

“There! You heard it from him,” Murphy spat. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.”

Abs glanced over at him, then turned his head to Murphy full. “Fine. I’ll do it. Call that cop. I heard he’s yum, so it’s not like it would be a hardship to pretend to date him.”

The thought of that made Mims’s stomach hurt. “Abs?”

Abs turned quickly back to him and gave him a wink. “I can do it, you know, if you’re okay with me rubbing up on that cop.”

Haze whistled through his teeth. “Abs, you’re about to get shanked.”

They were all staring at him and he had no idea why. “What?”

“That look,” Murphy said. “Like you were ready to kill Abs for even suggesting it.”

Mims’s brows rose in surprise. “Really?”

Abs laughed and confessed, “I knew it would. What do you say?”

“I don’t have to…I mean, I’m not a fighter, per se.”

“I can set you up with some weapons, Mims,” Hippy offered. “Stuff that they’d never see coming.”

“Knife, maybe?” Mims asked.

“Yeah, but nothing they’d see you carrying until it was too late.”

Murphy slammed down a fist on the table. “Wait a goddamn minute! I have never once said that we’re doing this!”

Mims whispered, “Paps, I want to do something to help my family.”

Murphy melted, it was just that fast, that easy. “Mims, honey, do you understand how dangerous this could be?”

Knowing the danger, Mims nodded, but said, “It’s a little exciting, a little scary, and it’s something I want to do. I can’t stand the thought that you all do the dangerous stuff while I’m always behind the keyboard.”

Abs got up from his seat and came to sit on Mims’s lap, and Mims immediately felt his thighs being poked. “Bony ass!”

“But pretty.”

“Yes,” he said and kissed Abs on the lips.

“I haven’t okayed this,” Haze said, and Abs slipped off him, standing off to the side.

Mims turned toward him and said, “I love you so, so much, Haze, but no one can tell me no if I want to do something.”

“Babe, this is serious!”

“I know that. I’m not dumb.”

“Didn’t say you were, but…what if they hurt you? I’d have to kill them all.”

Cosmo piped in, “I’d help.”

“Me too,” Hippy said.

“We all would,” Murphy grumbled. “But all of you are about as stubborn as a drunk Irishman. I’m telling you, this isn’t a good idea.”

Haze was glowering at Mims, but it was done in love. After the meeting, when they were starting on tossing the practice bottles back and forth, Haze pulled Mims into the storage room.

“Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you did this so you could be with that…fucking cop and tell yourself it’s all pretend?”

Sometimes it was like Haze saw the places inside his heart that no one had ever bothered to contemplate. “Haze, I’m afraid, but not that much.”

Haze placed both hands on Mims’s face, cupping both cheeks lovingly. “If that mother fucker lets one thing happen to you, Ali, he’s going to hurt for the rest of his short life.”

“I know. I know how mad you’d be,” he whispered then lifted on the balls of his feet to kiss Haze’s cheek. “That’s for always worrying about me.”

“Well, that’s what family is for, babe.”