Page 15 of Glitter

Silence filled the space while I waited for him to get his thoughts into order.

He rolled his head from side to side before hauling himself up to a seated position with a groan. He opened his eyes and turned slightly so he could look at me properly. “My boss knows what’s been going on with Travis, but his hands are largely tied with reporting him because of the connections Travis has within Eckersley’s. A couple of weeks ago, he suggested looking for ways to get proof of what Travis was doing through unofficial channels.”

Sitting up, I raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. This sounded promising. At the very least, Blue had his manager in his corner. It also meant that there were other avenues that we could explore if the glitter bomb either failed or I couldn’t get it to work because of the size limitations.

“Amy and I chatted about what we could do for days afterwards,” he continued. “The obvious solution would be to taint the food, so management could cross reference the dates of my complaints with the days he had to leave work early.”

I nodded and took a sip of water while I waited for him to continue. It made logical sense and was the solution that most people used when lunches were stolen in an office environment. If this had been going on for a while, I was surprised Blue hadn’t done this already.

“The only issue is that there’s no regularity to when Travis will take the food. If he took it every day, it would be a simple enough fix: coat the food in food grade mineral oil and sit back and wait for the metaphorical fireworks. But if I can’t predict when he’s going to steal it, I’d be wasting my lunch for nothing.”

My brow furrowed. That raised some concerns, but they weren’t insurmountable.

“The other obvious option is to taint the food with chili flakes, but I’m not someone who can eat really super-spicy food, so again, unnecessary food wastage.”

I hummed as I took in his words, crossing off options in my mind of things that might be a suitable alternative to the glitter bomb.

“Another option is to use common ingredients that might induce an allergic reaction,” he said, but then he frowned. “But as my boss pointed out when we had our most recent chat, that could end up killing Travis. As much as I hate the man, I don’t want him to end up dead or hurt enough to go to the hospital.”

“Fair enough,” I murmured, taking another sip of water.

“Amy and I were still trying to come up with a workable solution that would also give us the proof we needed that it was him doing it when you suggested using a glitter bomb.” He tilted his head to the side as he pursed his lips. “It’s a fantastic solution, but again, we have no way of knowing when he’s goingto take my food. On the days we try it, I’d have to find an alternative for my lunch, considering I wouldn’t have access to my lunchbox for that day.”

I waved a hand in the air, dismissing his concern. “Don’t worry about your meals. We can find ways of smuggling your lunch in on trial days. We’d just have to make sure Travis wasn’t in the lunchroom when we planted your lunchbox.”

Idly, I wondered if simply not using Blue’s lunchbox at all would be enough to stop Travis, instead using a generic paper bag with someone else’s name on it. At the very least, it would be a reasonable alternative for when we tried the glitter bomb.

Unfortunately, all of this would only affect the food issue. Travis assaulting Blue once led me to believe that it was highly possible that it would happen again, especially if Travis couldn’t steal Blue’s lunch anymore. I suspected that solving the food issue would only win one battle out of a much larger war.

“Come on, let me show you what I’ve come up with so far.” I stood up, motioning for Blue to follow me back inside, grabbing the empty plates as I went.

After putting all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I led him over to the dining table, where I had a shoebox set up with a small prototype installed. I picked it up and gave it to Blue. “Here you go. Open what’s inside the box.”

His wide eyes gleamed at me as he tried to stifle a grin. “I won’t break anything, will I?”

I chuckled. “I don’t think you will, but if you do, it wouldn’t take long to fix. This is just a prototype.”

“Okay…” he said tentatively, his hands trembling slightly. He weighed the box in his hands. “It’s not very heavy, is it?”

Smiling, I shook my head. That was by purposeful design.

Chewing his bottom lip enough to make me worry he was going to draw blood, he set the box down on the table in front of him and lifted the lid carefully.

Nothing happened. He let out a breath and laughed to himself. “Oh, there’s somethinginthe box.”

“Yup,” I said, grinning. “That’s what I want you to open, but open it in the shoebox, please.”

His eyes shot to mine with a small amount of alarm. “Oh, okay…”

He looked down to study the small lunchbox that I’d purchased from the local grocery store to experiment with to get a working prototype. It was a little larger than his, so I’d need to make some adjustments, but I wanted to see his honest reaction to this before I took it any further.

Ever so carefully, he reached into the shoebox and lifted the lid of the lunchbox inside. As soon as it cleared the base, glitter shot out, swirling around the lunchbox and coating the inside of the shoebox in glitter. If he had opened it outside of the shoebox, he’d now be covered in the stuff.

He burst out laughing. “Oh, my God! This is fantastic!”

I grinned at his enthusiasm and sat down, motioning for him to sit down next to me. “Go on, lift the lid. Take a look inside.”

Before he sat, he lifted the lid and stared at the contraption inside the lunchbox. A small air pump was rigged under a bowl that was still rotating, trying to spread the glitter that no longer lay inside it. Next to the bowl, there were two plastic dowels that had popped up when the lid was removed. He pressed one of them to see it retract back into the casing that held the bowl.

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