Page 60 of Mimosa

Mims had found it while they were looking at their next jobs. He was proud of Haze wanting it, being it wasn’t easy to replicate a work like that. “What was the cup of water?”

“Oh. Well, I was doing another painting for myself. I need to start on this, but there’s time. It’s going to be about six months of staking out the place before we can even attempt it.”

Abs nodded. “Yeah, the security is tight, but it’s worth so much, it might be the last one we ever have to do.”

That made Mims sad. “I mean, we can still do things to help people. Right?”

“We’ll all have enough to help whoever we need, but with something like this? We’ll be out of the robbery business and we won’t have to worry about the BBC or anyone else,” Haze said. “Then we can just be a family.”

Abs was pulling clothes from the closet and holding them up to Mims, and each one landed on the bed.

“Don’t leave them there,” Haze warned.

“I won’t. None of these are right. Don’t you have a nice silk?”

“Silk is gay,” Mims told him.

“Silk is gay? No, it’s good taste.”

“That’s why it’s gay. A guy like my father would never wear silk,” he said. “And he’s got enough money to, but cotton and wool for him. Manly fabrics,” he spat while he looked through the closet and came out with a nice blue collared shirt with marbled blue and black buttons down the front. “This.”

“Ugh, that is so dull.”

“Exactly. I thought you wanted my words and not my looks.”

“Right. I forgot. That’s perfect. Now, jeans, not too tight, and a tie, maybe?”

“Sure, a tie. Do my hair, parted on the side and no product.”

Abs gagged and then commented, “Straight people. No flare, no fun at all.”

Cosmo came into Mims’s room while Abs was fixing his hair an hour before they were to leave. “You look straight. I guess that’s what we’re going for?”

Mims laughed at his T-shirt and jeans, which were his normal attire except for the weekends while they worked. Abs had gayed him up plenty for those nights. “You’re probably very happy.”

“I am. I may get a lot of tips with the clothes Abs has me in, but they’re not exactly comfortable.”

“Who needs comfort when they can look good?” Abs asked to no one in particular. “There. All set.”

Mims looked in the full length mirror on the inner door of his closet and sighed, “Ick. I do look straight. Man, I’d have never got a girlfriend.”

“None of us would,” Abs commented.

“Speak for yourself,” Cosmo said, lifting his t-shirt to show his six-pack abs in the mirror. “Girls love this shit.”

If their eyes could pop out and roll across the floor, Abs and Mims could roll them a little harder. Mims grabbed Cosmo’s hand and said, “Let’s go, lady killer.”

Chapter Seventeen

TheBajwahomewasin the mountains, in a little town called Georgetown. They’d moved from the suburb of Broomfield just before Mims was asked to leave home.

The drive was great, and Mims was happy Murphy had agreed to let them use his SUV. The vehicle was comfortable and Mims set his phone up to the radio so they could listen to mellow music on the way.

Cosmo drove, thankfully, because Mims was off in thought most of the drive. It was a beautiful drive, winding from the dense city to the comfort of the mountains rising on either side of them.

The homes grew bigger and more elaborate, but were much fewer and far between the farther they got from Denver. Mims had only lived there a short time, seven months, but he’d gone for long walks out to the forest, and sat on logs to daydream in the quiet and peaceful places surrounding their new home.

Oh, his father had been terribly proud to have moved to a place like that. Their modest home in Broomfield was nice, five bedrooms, big, but squeezed between other houses thatlooked so similar, most people had a hard time finding which house they were headed to. More than once, they’d have people knocking on their doors, expecting to find a date of theirs, or to deliver a pizza they hadn’t ordered.

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