Page 10 of Brock’s Lost Lunchbox

I doubted that.

“I want something sweet.” Abbott stuck his bottom lip out.

He needed a daddy and bad. He so easily slipped into his little role that I feared without a daddy protecting him, he might end up giving too much control to someone he met in passing.

“I’ve got you.” I bounced up and ran to my belongings. I raced back with my lunchbox and opened it.

“Whoa! There are so many kinds of candies!” Sammy grabbed a ring pop.

I’d stopped at a candy store that described itself as an old-fashioned candy counter but was so much more than that. They had the jars of individually wrapped candies, which was where I picked out most of these, but they also had a wall of candies from all around the world. It was the coolest shop ever and happened to be on the way here. It wasn’t homemade pizza dough good, but it was a fun contribution nonetheless.

We ate far too much candy as we watched our last movie, a live-action version of a cartoon I used to watch as a kid. It was ridiculous and over the top and the perfect way to end our night.

“Last call, and I’m zipping it up.”

“Wait!” Sammy jumped up and ran to the bedroom where our things were, returning with a small paper bag. “I almost forgot. This is for you.”

He handed it to me, and I reached in and pulled out a small star-shaped thing. It looked important, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

“Thanks?”

“You have no idea what it is, do you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“It’s to put in your lunchbox. That way, if it gets lost, you can use your phone to find it. The star is just a case around it to make it cute.”

I turned it in my hand. Now that I knew the star was a case, it made more sense.

“What made you think of this?” I hadn’t considered it before, but now that I had it, it gave me a calm that had been missing since the reality I almost lost it forever set in.

“I didn’t. Will gave it to me to pass along to you.”

“And you don’t mind your daddy giving another boy gifts?” Abbott asked.

He got some side-eye from Sammy that had me second-guessing the being from Will thing.

Abbott mouthed, “Sorry.”

But then again, he never said it was from Will, did he? Just that Will gave it to him to give to me. Come to think of it, the entire thing was weird.

Could it be from Zeph? No. That was wishful thinking. Or was it?

Zeph knew I lost my lunchbox and how much it meant to me. Will was my connection to Zeph. It could be possible.

If it was him, that meant he was thinking of me too, right? He was the one to reassure me when I freaked out thinking of all the things that might’ve happened to my lunchbox if he hadn’t found it or if I’d lost it anywhere else.

I attached it to my lunchbox, happy that it would be safer for it and still wanting to know how it came to be in my possession. I considered pushing Sammy more, and had it just been the two of us, I might’ve. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t want to put him in a bad position, especially since Abbott was already in judgy land, although I suspected it was less him being judgy and more him thinking about someone from his past.

“See? Now it’s getting-lost proof.”

Not that I’d mind losing it again if it meant Zeph found it for me.

It wasn’t until Sammy and I were getting into our cars later that night that I got the nerve to ask him if it was Zeph. He pretended to zip his lip. I needed a better answer than that and resorted to the age-old truth serum, tickling. He eventually admitted it came from him and that the daddy had an extra one and thought it would work well for me but didn’t want it to be from him.

I doubted he had a star one lying around. But then again, maybe he did, and I was wanting it to be more than it was.

Please don’t be that.