Page 6 of Mimosa (Murphy's Pub #2)

Chapter Six

The lights were too bright, but he was used to that. Sonny didn’t sleep a lot, and when he was without sleep, lights were too bright, things tasted funny and he couldn’t get a hard on, but he rarely used his dick anymore. Since becoming a cop, he didn’t seem to have the time.

Thinking about that brought Sonny’s mind straight to the pretty little thing that had come to the meeting. The one that didn’t say much, but had the prettiest brown eyes Sonny had ever seen.

Some kind of Middle Eastern, he was. Sonny figured either Iranian or Pakistani. That creamy brown skin that was just a shade or two darker than his own, and that nice, long nose that looked regal on the pretty face.

Sonny sat drinking his fifth cup of coffee , having been up since three that morning, and that was after lying down at midnight.

His phone rang and he wondered who the hell it was that early, but he should have known. It was Sandy.

“What?” he grunted as he answered the phone.

“Good morning to you, too, darling.”

“Fuck off. What do you want?”

“Well, the agents of the federal government called me this morning, and they’re all a-flutter.”

Sonny and Sandy, they sounded like an eighties singing duet. He could see them in shoulder pads and glitter, doing dance numbers on some weekend show. “Would you just talk normally?”

“You’re no fun. I thought gay dudes would have more flare. You’re very boring. Anyway, we’re meeting up with them this morning. Are you available at nine?”

Sandy was a morning person, and a fucking afternoon person too. Sonny was neither. “Fine. What is this about?”

“I’ll know when you do. See you at the office.”

“The office. Right.”

He walked to the board in his apartment, the one in the bedroom, where he place tapestries over it to hide it, worried about unexpected visits from the BBC guys. He took down the pictures, maps and other items tack by tack. Moving it all to the office they were using worried him, but keeping it where he lived was just stupid. At any time, someone could find it and he’d likely be found in that very room with a big hole through the cranium.

When he got to the office, he found he was the first one there, and he walked up the stairs that was flanked on both sides by puke green tile walls and paint that had been white once but was yellowed and gross looking.

Setting himself up in one of the little offices on the second floor, he sat on the metal desk surface after wiping it off with a rag.

It was exactly like he’d had it at home. It should be, he’d memorized it, looking it over day and night since the entire thing started.

The big players had their pictures on the board. Franklyn Monroe was at the very top, the biggest picture there. That was because he was the biggest target. If he ever had to settle with busting a few of them and one wasn’t him, he’d walk away and retire very, very early.

Franklyn was the one calling the shots. He was the one that started the group buying and selling human beings. He was the one that hurt the prostitutes with drugs, threats and pain before he let his men have their way with them.

He was the one running drugs that were flown in on cargo planes.

Not to say that those under him were innocent. Far from it. In fact, Sonny had had dreams of busting them all and as they were all standing with their hands cuffed behind their backs, the ceiling caved in and crushed them all, saving the taxpayers several lengthy trials.

“Sonny?” Sandy called from the doorway.

“Yeah. I’m here, I’m ready.”

“They’re downstairs,” he said as he slowly walked into the room and looked over the graph on the wall. “Jesus. I almost forget how big this is.”

“Seeping into other states, other countries, becoming almost too big to take down without more cropping up from those we missed.”

“This is…it’s a lot, man. We’re going to miss a few. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. I know,” Sonny gritted. “What I’m afraid of more is that Franklyn isn’t really the top dog.”

They’d talked about it at length before, and both knew it was not only possible but probable that there were people with more power that were pocketing a lot of the proceeds.

“If that’s the case, Sand, we are gonna be at this for years instead of months.”

“I got nowhere to be, but you might,” he said cryptically. “Come on downstairs. Camp filled me in a little, and…well, it’s interesting.”

The four of them sat around the main office and Sonny patiently listened to the scheme, and it seemed they knew his reaction before he made it, judging from their reticence.

Taran spoke, cutting his eyes to and away from Sonny like he was watching a tennis match until, at last, he set his eyes firmly on him to see his actual reaction.

“Does the guy have a death wish?”

That was the only satisfaction he gave them for suspecting him to go off. Actually, he thought it was a great idea. It would make him seem more dedicated to the BBC. Though, it would put the pub into direct fire.

“That’s it?” Taran asked in astonishment.

“What? It’s a good plan. I walk into a BBC barbeque with a member of the enemy party, or one of them, of the many, anyway, and that makes me more credible.”

“Or it’ll make you look like a traitor,” Campbell commented.

“Not really. A lot of UCs make a…connection to the people they’re trying to infiltrate. If I go to Franklyn or one of his right handers and tell them I am fucking one of the pub boys, and can get information from him on their next jobs…well…”

“And, well, if you don’t come up with the right one?”

“What?” he said as he started to pace wildly. “There are twenty thousand things in this city worth stealing. Pick three they aren’t truly going after, have that Ali kid hack a few things, pretend it’s in play, and the BBC gets there first. It’s perfect.”

“ Ali? So, you did your research. All I’ve ever called any of them is by their code names,” Taran said. “Even my own boyfriend.”

“Did you really think I’d get involved with them without the research?”

Taran just smiled at him. “So, you know all their names?”

“I have them written down, yeah.”

Camp coughed, then whispered, “Written down, not memorized.”

“I hate you fucking feds,” he said, then laughed a little as he stopped his pacing. “So, he’s cute, okay? I’m a cop, but I’m human!”

Sandy defended him. Well, kind of. “If that was a hot blond that I had to pretend to date for the love of my job, well, I would somehow push through. Sonny will, uh, you know, do his job.”

“Sandy, you can go fuck yourself.”

That evening, Taran drove Mims to see him, so they could get their stories straight. Taran took a walk outside the office building while Mims and Sonny sat on the broken sofa in an upstairs office. Not the one he had his graph in, however. He didn’t trust anyone outside of the LEOs to see that yet.

“I mean, if anything looks dangerous, past, well, the obvious danger, I’ll get you out of there. I’m going to tell them you know nothing of the BBC and you’re all just bartenders who thieve now and then.”

“It’s true, though, except for knowing about them,” Mims said, keeping his eyes on some spot on the floor in front of him. “Hippy’s giving me some weapons, you know, not guns, that can help me get away if I need to.”

“Good,” he said, and Mims turned his head at last, looking Sonny in the eye.

“Yeah. It is. Not that, well, I don’t trust you, but I don’t know you very well.”

“I am here right now to change that, at least enough that we can pass as dating. I’ll be at the club tonight. The heads of the organization were fine with it, and when I tell them I actually have one of you on the hook, they’ll be happy. The thing is, we have to pretend to not know each other tonight, but we’ll flirt with each other.”

“You flirt? I can’t picture it,” he said with a little nervous laugh.

Sonny had to smile at that. “Yeah, I’m out of practice. If I’m talking to you, or…I don’t know, looking at you, consider it flirting.”

“Okay. I guess I can work with that.”

Sonny saw that up close as they were, he was even prettier. He had flecks of pure gold in that dark brown of his eyes, and his little smile was so lovely, Sonny felt himself pulled to the guy. “I’ll try to…I don’t know, get better at it.”

“I’m not worried. This is all…pretend, right?”

Their eyes locked as they were, he couldn’t get away from the guy’s question.

For him…the way he felt just being close to Ali Bajwa, or Mims, as everyone called him, well, he didn’t think of it as pretend at all. “We’re acting like we’re attracted to one another for right now, and for my part, no, I don’t have to pretend. You’re…you’re a sexy thing. I guess that’s why you work the job you do.”

“Great tips,” he whispered, then ducked his head. “Yeah, you’re handsome too. You’re just too young for me.” That nervous laughter came again before he confessed, “The other guys tease me because I go for older men.”

“I’m older.”

“Not that much,” he said and rubbed his hands over his jeans. “But…I think you’re sexy too.”

“Then it shouldn’t be hard to pretend we’re attracted. Once we’re supposed to be dating, though, I’ll have to kiss you, you know, if someone is watching,” he said and he could barely breathe, so the statement came out on that breathless voice.

Mims moved a little closer and said, “Should we, uh…practice that too?”

As his eyes slid closed, Sonny could say nothing, but managed a hummed, “Mmhm,” as he felt lips pressed to his in a slow, first way.

Mims’s lips were warm, almost hot, and his breath was even hotter as he breathed out from lips that were parted as they separated.

It was a second in time, of the millions of seconds of a man’s life, but somehow, that lone second in all the others seemed to stretch out so long that it engulfed half his life.

He opened his eyes to see Mims opening his. Those gold-flecked eyes were almost black as his pupils took over, and he was still as beautiful.

“Damn,” Mims said. “I forgot what it’s like to kiss a guy who had full lips.”

“Like the thin-lipped, huh?”

“No, but older men, their lips are…less than they were in their younger days.”

Sonny chuckled darkly. “Maybe it’s time to date some younger men.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” he whispered, then ducked his head. “I, uh, guess we should talk about…other things, like…where we go when we are on a date.”

“Dinner? Dancing?”

Mims smiled again, and nodded without looking at him. “I guess, sure, but I kind of get enough dancing at work.”

“A nice walk around the park? Maybe a drive to the mountains?”

Sighing, Mims said, “Yeah.”

“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.”