Page 40 of Mimosa

“Be yourself. Act. You dance and act behind the bar every weekend. You’re not really interested in all the men you flirt with, at least I’d hope not.”

“I’m not,” he said with a laugh.

“Okay, well, you can act. Pretend this is just a family picnic. Sure, it’s a bunch of cops, but pretend they’re my family. Pretend you’re meeting the folks for the first time. You’ll be nervous but not in the same way.”

Mims perked and breathed, “Yeah. I can do that!”

“I know you can. And I’ll be there, by your side.”

That was the topping on the pie. “I’m glad of that most of all.”

Sonny was so gorgeous, Mims could barely look at him without melting. His profile while driving was sexy, just as he was facing Mims. His thick wrists, big hands, muscled forearms all showed nicely as he drove the truck, and when he’d turn his head to throw a smile Mims’s way, it was riveting.

“How are you single?”

Barking a laugh, Sonny asked, “Me?”

“No, the other guy in the truck.”

Sonny shook his head and answered, “Well, I fuck, or I did, but I didn’t think I had time for a guy around more than a night or two. Now I feel differently. I think I forgot that a man needs more to fight for than revenge. That’s fighting for the past. It’s better to fight for the future.”

That made Mims speechless.

Sonny reached over and squeezed his leg. “Want a future with me, maybe?”

Coyly, Mims said, “Yeah. Maybe.”

Sonny licked over his lips and turned as soon as he pulled up to a stoplight. “Baby, it’s gonna be tough getting rid of me, if you don’t want a future with me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Mims felt that in his heart, a warmth and joy that he couldn’t explain, at first.

Then, when it came to him, he felt like crying. Someone that wasn’t going to throw him away. Someone…that wanted him enough that he would fight to keep him. That was the opposite of all the men in his life, except for the men at the pub. Finally, a man he could fall in love with that wanted him enough to fight.

It meant everything to Mims.

“We’re almost there, Mims. Now, I’m calling you Mims, though I’m sure they either know or will soon know your real name. They’ll ask me, and I’ll tell them you only divulged your nickname. They don’t know we’re…as together as we are. They think we just started to kind of date.”

“It’s mostly true.”

“Yeah, true, but…yeah. It’s true,” he said, laughing. “We’re almost there, in the lion’s den. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Chapter Twelve

TheLion’sDen,Chapter…whateverit would be.

Mims always thought that if someone wanted to write a book about his life, he’d want to name the chapter heads.

The Lion’s Den would not only be amazing for a chapter title, but it was exactly how he felt. Like he was some Roman guy, at the gates of the colosseum, ready to head in and face the hungry lions.

Yes, that was how he felt, but he was with his own gladiator, and Sonny was bigger and stronger in his eyes than all the lions in the world.

They parked in front of a house near Westminster in a residential neighborhood that was built in the sixties. All the homes were brick, a mix of blonde and red brick, and they all looked similar but the owners had added to them so they were no longer carbon copies.

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