Page 41 of Glitter

The slightest tinge of pink heated his cheeks as the corners of Blue’s lips tipped up for a fraction of a second.

“Come on, angel,” I said softly, turning into him and cupping his cheek with my free hand, which he leaned into. I rose up on my toes to press my lips to his in a chaste kiss. “Let’s go home.”

“Okay,” he said, still quiet and nowhere near his usual effervescent self. He held the broken pieces of his phone out to me, his sad eyes staring into mine. “Do you think you’ll be able to fix this?”

Chewing on my bottom lip, I looked hard at the pieces. “I don’t know.”

He sniffled and hugged the pieces back into his chest.

“But I can try, okay?” I wrapped an arm around him and drew him to me, the jagged edges of the phone digging into my sternum. “We’ll make it work. I promise.”

He let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

With my arm still around his waist, I led him out of the lunchroom.

Amy followed us, telling us she’d clean up the glitter bomb and get Blue’s lunchbox back to him before she asked for my contact details. I rattled off my number and asked if she could gatherBlue’s belongings for us. She nodded and dashed off to their office.

“Henry?” Blue asked softly.

“Yes, angel?”

“Can we please go back to your place? I could really use some Sir Cattus snuggles right about now.”

“Of course, angel. That’s where I was planning on taking you, anyway.”

“Oh.” He sniffled again. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, angel. Anything at all.”

One Year Later...

Blue

“Areyousurejustbringing cornbread and apple pie is enough?” I called out to Henry from the kitchen as I removed said bread from the oven before popping the pie in. “It doesn’t feel like it will be…”

“They said if we brought anything else, they would book us in for a hearing and wellness check whether we agreed to it or not,” he called back from the patio, where he was packing up the latest gizmo that he’d been working on to show to Roman when we all caught up later at Henry’s parents’ for the Fourth of July fireworks.

It’d been a little over a year since I’d first met Roman and that fateful day when Travis finally got his comeuppance. True to Roman’s word, Travis had been bundled off to basic training by the end of the week, which he’d been forced to repeat because he’d failed the first time. Roman’s cousin Bradford, who was a high-ranking Lieutenant General stationed in the Middle East, then made sure Travis was given the option to enroll in either the laundry or cooking service fields. I didn’t know which one hepicked, but I couldn’t imagine he’d have been thrilled with either choice.

When I returned to work the following week, Henry and I had been called into Roman’s office for an official apology and to put everything that had happened on record. Roman and his HR team assured me that lessons had been learned, and they were implementing new and improved reporting avenues for victims of workplace bullying and harassment. They had asked me if I wanted to be involved in assisting them in that endeavor, but I’d told them I needed more time before I could give them an answer.

Six months later, and after I’d got to know Roman a hell of a lot better, he’d asked me again, and I’d agreed on the proviso that Eckersley’s would either create a not-for-profit shelter for misplaced LGBTQIA+ youths or provide a hefty ongoing annual donation to a local LGBTQIA+ charity that had helped me when I was younger.

Mostly, I was just joking around and trying to be obnoxious with him, presuming that he’d never agree to my terms. Instead, Roman had laughed at my outrageous demands and said he’d do both, as long as I split my working hours between my role in the cancer research center with a new advisory position to get the shelter up and running.

After surviving the coughing fit that he’d caused, I’d told him if he could get Amy to agree to the same dealandgrant Matthew funding for an additional employee to replace the hours that the department would lose by moving Amy and I across for a portion of our work week, he’d have himself a deal.

Amy had agreed, and Roman gave Matthew funding forfivenew employees.

Matthew was beside himself with the news and the research avenues he could now go down.

Roman had also been impressed by the way Henry had conducted himself in the lunchroom that fateful day, and when he found out Henry had been the one that created and built the glitter bomb, Roman had sat down with him for a full afternoon to chat, just the two of them. By the time the meeting had concluded, Roman had not only offered to become Henry’s mentor, but he was begging to look at Henry’s pet food dispenser to see if it was as good as I’d described in our initial meeting with HR.

Within months, Henry had signed a multi-million-dollar investment agreement with Roman, and although production hadn’t officially begun, all signs were pointing to a successful launch in the very near future.

As a byproduct of all the meetings that Henry and Roman had had in relation to the food dispenser, most of which had occurred outside of business hours and at either Roman’s mansion or at our humble home, we’d grown close to Roman’s immediate family and would often eat dinner together when we all could.

I smiled at the memory of Henry gifting me a key to his place within days of the glitter bomb doing its thing.

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