Page 35 of Glitter

“Fuck no, on both counts.” Travis sounded truly offended; a sneer in his voice was plain to hear. “You know I never bring my lunch. That shit’s beneath me.”

My adrenaline spiked as I realized I knew what was about to unfold over the next half hour or so. I swiped at my phone, minimized all my open apps, and searched for the voice recording tool I used occasionally to record notes for work. I switched it on and gradually lifted my phone closer to my face like I was trying to decipher something on my screen, when in actual fact I was trying to get a good recording of Travis incriminating himself.

“And fuck off on having a girlfriend. I’ve had it up to fucking here with those whiny ass bitches who believe they have more than one brain cell to rub together and assume that they can think for themselves. Until I find one who can take a fucking order the way she’s supposed to, I’ll stick to hookup apps where I can fuck ‘em and run. Saves them the heartache of falling in love with me.” He laughed.

I frowned and pressed my lips together until they hurt. Yeah, Travis was an absolute gem of a man.

His colleague laughed along with Travis, although not as loudly, and in a slightly confused manner. “But if you didn’t bring your own lunch, what’s waiting for you in the lunchroom?”

Travis laughed louder. “Oh, man. Have I not told you about this yet?”

“Told me what?”

“It’s a fucking riot!” Travis said, his voice growing more and more enthusiastic with every horrific sentence he uttered. “I’ve got the sweetest deal! There’s this slut who brings lunch every day, and it’s the tastiest shit I’ve ever eaten.”

“Dude,” his friend said lowly, drawing the word out. “You eat other people’s lunches?”

Travis laughed. “No, man! Just this one bitch. You’d understand if you tasted his food.”

“His? What the fuck, dude!”

“Oh, don’t sound so offended,” Travis said, waving his hand and dismissing his colleague’s concern. “He dresses like a fucking woman. All. The. Fucking. Time. Makeup, earrings, heels, the works. The cunt deserves it. If he wants to act and dress like a fucking whore, then he can be treated like one.” He laughed again, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. “And it’s not like I eat the food every day, although I totally could. I’m not a monster.”

I clenched my teeth so hard that it wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest if they snapped. Not a monster? What a joke. I glanced up at the floor display above the doors. Two more stops and we’d reach the level where the lunchroom was. I wouldn’t need three guesses to know where Travis was headed.

“I don’t know, man. Haven’t you ever heard the stories of lunches being dosed with laxatives or Carolina Reaper chillies? Why take the chance?”

“Nah, he wouldn’t fucking dare do that. I’ve been doing it for months and the food’s never been tainted. Not once. But if it had, he’d be in for a world of fucking pain. I’ll tell you that much for free.”

Silence fell between the two of them, presumably because his colleague didn’t know how to respond to Travis. I certainly didn’t. The man was abhorrent.

Soon enough, we arrived on level fifteen with a ding and an automated recording letting us know. The doors slid open, and Travis and his colleague stepped through.

Even though I’d been heading for the next floor up, I followed. Something told me I needed to film what was undoubtedly going to happen.

I stopped the voice recording and sent it to the cloud so I wouldn’t lose it and continued to the lunchroom.

Travis sent his colleague on while he ducked into the restroom.

I let out a deep breath. This would give me enough time to get myself situated in the lunchroom before he got there. If I had my phone up like I was reading when he walked in, he’d never expect me to be recording him. That was if he even registered my presence at all.

I tossed up the idea of texting Blue a heads up but ultimately decided against it. There was no guarantee that Travis would follow through with his plan, and hedefinitelywouldn’t if he saw Blue in the lunchroom.

Nope, it was simpler if Blue didn’t know until he got the automated alert on his phone that the glitter bomb had been activated.

Though I did shoot a quick text to my boss, Thomas, telling him I’d been delayed and that I’d be back as soon as I could. He replied almost immediately with an okay, next to a sly winky face emoji, an eggplant, and some raindrops. I wasn’t all that surprised by his simple acceptance as I rarely needed to step away from the office outside of my lunch hour, but the emojis he’d added made me wonder if he thought I’d gone out to meet someone. He’d been thrilled with me leaving work on time over the past week and had asked probing questions more than once about my plans for each evening.

Subtle, he was not.

Nor was he being very professional, but I’d live with that if it meant an end to Blue being bullied.

I followed Travis’s colleague into the lunchroom, then hovered around the sink to fill a glass with water until he’d chosen a table. Once he’d settled, I made my way to a table that had a clear line of sight to both the fridges and the table Travis would eventually sit down at.

Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned forward and held my phone up near my face with one hand to make it look like I was reading something, swiping at my screen periodically to make it look like I was flipping pages.

What I was actually doing was playing with my camera until I had the angle I needed and the video app ready to start when Travis walked in.

And then I waited.

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