Page 43 of Mimosa

A giant green vase in the corner held yellow grass and cattails and there were plants here and there, along with other subtle green accents. He really was great at bringing the looks of rooms and people together.

Abs got into his closet, and at the very end, pulled a nice black shirt from the hanger.

It was a V-neck, soft cotton, long sleeved, and thankfully not a turtleneck. His neck was on fire from the sweater.

“I have some cream for that,” Abs said as he stripped off the shirt and let it fall to the ground. “Looks nasty.”

“I feel like I’ve been dipped in bees.”

Abs rubbed cream on his neck and shoulders while they both stressed together silently, thoughts of Mims in the snake pit were heavily on all their minds.

Abs was tinier than Mims, and looked much more fragile, but in reality, Mims was their pet. The entire place looked after him, and worried over him. They’d always worried over his choices in men, the obvious reasons he went for old men, but the new guy was different and made them all more anxious.

Abs finally brought it up in words rather than their furrowed brows. “Do you think…?”

“He’s okay. As much as I don’t particularly like Sonny, I’ve seen the way he looks at Mims. He’d have to be a great liar to pretend to care about someone like that.”

“He’s an undercover cop, Haze. They’re better than the best Shakespearean actors because their lives depend on their lies.”

“Yeah. I’ve thought of that too. What if he’s…what if he’s really one of them? If he’s putting on this show to…find out about us?”

“That’s a lot to do to find out about a group of thieves that only thieve once in a great while. Before Cosmo got here and we did the…you know, the car, we hadn’t done another for a very long time,” Abs reasoned.

“Make up your mind,” he said, laughing.

“I can’t! That’s why I’m worried. It could easily be either way.”

Haze got up and pulled Abs into his arms. “I know. I do know.”

Goldie stuck his head in the door. “Stop fucking around and let’s go.”

“Hold your horses,” Abs said to his best friend. “Haze is broken out in a rash.”

“Shit, that sucks, but we gotta go.”

“I’m getting my shirt on. I’ll be right down. Abs, go on ahead, I’m right behind you.”

Haze was worried, but he couldn’t let his worry for Mims get in his head while they had to keep their minds on the prize.

Maxfield Parrish was a great artist. One of Haze’s favorite, though Haze had about five hundred favorite artists. He’d loved art since he could remember.

For him, though, not many did fantasy as well as Parrish. His painting evoked feelings of whimsy, light, air, freedom and love. Haze’s favorite painting of Parrish’s was Air Castles.

In that painting was a young man sitting atop a cliff, a random tree branch extending over the cliff and into the air.

Bubbles around the young man in various sizes add to the lighter than air feeling the painting invokes. A mysterious castle shrouded in the clouds in the background gives way to the fantasy element that Parrish was famous for.

The palette of muted blues and various shades of grays and whites fulfills both the fantasy and breezy feeling of the painting. The more Haze looked at it, the more in love with it he became, but that wasn’t the painting he’d faked for the job.

That was Daybreak and it was nearly as exquisite in Haze’s mind. As he’d painted the two thick white columns and draped and wrapped clothing on the figure lying on the ground, he felt drawn to everything Grecian.

In fact, the entire time he’d painted the fake, he’d had a terrible craving for feta and olives. Testament to the vitality of Parrish’s work, he figured.

The cylindrical container with the strap in the van that Cosmo had boosted earlier that week, sat across his lap the moment he settled in the back on one of the wheel hubs. It was precious to him, but he would let it go, and his secret dream was that the man that had the original would never know.

A testament to his own skills.

When he recreated a painting, he was inside of the mind of the painter like no onlooker could ever be. The brushstrokes, every single one of them done with a purpose and love, and he could feel what the original painter felt the moment he set his brush to the canvas.

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