Brock’s Lost Lunchbox (Found by Daddy #21)

Chapter One

Brock

Two years.

I worked my ass off for two years to get this promotion.

I was the first one in each morning, the last one out every night.

And then at home, I’d pull up my laptop and keep going.

I was on a mission, and if succeeding meant I lost sleep and time with friends, so be it.

It would all be worth it in the end. At least, that was what I told myself every time I thought about giving up.

Just over a year in, Linda retired, and I was sure I was a shoo-in. I thought wrong. The hiring team said they, really needed me in my current position. They tried to sound like it was a compliment. It wasn’t. They saw me working the jobs of two people and didn’t want that to end.

My initial reaction was to slow down. If I wasn’t indispensable, they’d move me along, right?

But my stomach churned at the idea of my coworkers thinking I was a slacker.

That was 100 percent a me issue. They probably wouldn’t notice, but that didn’t stop it from being the motivation I needed to continue to push forward.

I doubled down. The senior project-management staff was very boomer heavy and all but Barry, would be retiring in the next few years. Eventually, I’d get moved up. Right?

And once I did, my work-home balance would be better. Better, as in it would exist. I’d worked with Barry for a handful of years now, and that man did nothing half the day. While I could never be a slug at work like Barry, slowing down felt blissful.

The last six months before my promotion had been extremely rough.

I’d lost a person in my department and had to pick up their work while doing mine.

Most days, it felt like I was getting nowhere and at lightning speed.

If I didn’t receive the next retirement position, I would seriously consider finding a new company.

I hated that idea. Starting over always stank.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to go down that path. George retired. I interviewed, and, unlike last time, I was offered the job. My job title went from project manager to senior project manager and my life was going to finally slow down.

Except it didn’t. I’d completely misread Barry.

His nonchalant, work-is-easy facade was just that—a facade.

Unlike me, he didn’t put in all his effort during the day in the hopes of sleeping at night.

Nope. He was slow and steady nearly eighteen hours a day.

When he told me that, I wanted to hug the guy.

That was unsustainable and I refused to be a second Barry.

I was going to figure out a way to make this all happen on the clock or die trying. And it was starting to look like the dying part was inevitable, because I wasn’t succeeding. My old schedule was easy peasy compared to this one.

The one thing that helped me most when I got stressed at work was being a little. I loved hanging out with other littles, simply playing, ignoring all responsibilities, and just having fun. And it had been far too long since I’d done so.

My little friends still invited me. Sammy had texted me just yesterday asking me to come. I told him I would as soon as I hit this deadline. Problem was, there was always another one right after.

I missed being little with my friends.

I missed Chained.

I missed Ms. Lily and the way she always made me feel special for coming in.

I missed the crafts, especially the stickers and the glitter. I could be happy for hours just putting stickers on things. And who didn’t love glitter?

I missed knocking over block towers my friends built or having them knock mine over.

I missed it all and was starting to get whiny about it, which meant I needed to get my priorities straight before I ended up sick. I’d been there, done that before, and it was the worst.

There were some parts of being little I managed to hold on to despite my schedule.

Dino nuggies lived on my grocery list instead of the regular ones, and I paired them with mac and cheese on lazy nights.

But that was more playful than little, when I had to do all the cooking and the cleaning that went along with it.

It didn’t allow me to shut off my brain and just exist in a happy realm where it was fine for me not to think about deadlines or messages that were waiting for me, where I could just relax.

No decisions. No responsibilities. Just playing or reading or watching a silly cartoon.

I nearly told Sammy I’d come last time he texted. But then I got a notification of some paperwork filed incorrectly by one of the people under me. The responsible working adult in me couldn’t drop everything so I could go play with my friend.

Would things be different if I had a daddy of my own? Probably. I could go to sleep, snuggled in his arms. Even with my intense schedule, I could manage that. That wouldn’t be fair to a daddy, though. They deserved someone who had time for them. Right now, that wasn’t me.

I hit send on my email informing my boss the current project was submitted. I leaned back and waited for the notification it had been received and opened. I learned the hard way to take a screenshot of that the second it came in.

My phone buzzed. It was Sammy, wanting to talk about a new little event Chained had announced. He sent message after message, not waiting for me to respond between them. He was far too excited for what appeared to be a typical gathering for the club.

Sammy asked me, Are you coming with us, Brock?

I want to.

It was as honest an answer as I could give them.

He never pushed. He understood my goal to keep climbing up currently came first. He didn’t love it for me, but he got it.

Lately, I hadn’t been loving it for me, either.

The notification I’d been waiting for came in, and I screenshotted it and put my away message up to go get lunch.

The staff room was going to be empty. It wasn’t afternoon break yet, and official lunchtime was over. It was a shame because I could use some peopling today.

I grabbed my space-themed lunchbox from the fridge and pulled out my tuna sandwich.

When I first started working here, people gave me some side-eye over my lunchbox.

There was no denying it had been designed for a child.

As a rule, I didn’t hide who I was, and that I was little, but work wasn’t the place for that conversation.

Instead, I told them I’d snagged it on clearance, which I had.

That wasn’t why I bought it, but they didn’t need to know that.

I was halfway through my lunch when my notifications started exploding again. I initially thought it was my group chat. But, no, it was another fire at work.

Lunch was over. I put my sandwich back in the tray and my lunchbox in the fridge and went to deal with the catastrophe my intern had accidentally created. I couldn’t be mad at him, but I wished I had time to finish my food.

It looked like a half-eaten tuna fish sandwich for dinner tonight.

Thanks to the misfiled documents I had to hunt down, it was another late night for me. When I got home, I pulled out the rest of my sandwich and scarfed it down as I put on water for instant noodles. It was hardly the dinner of champions, but it was going to have to do.

“Where did you come from?” I pulled a piece of glitter off the top of my sandwich container. “Did you come to visit me specifically, or was it from someone at work?” I didn’t recognize the color, but it made me smile to see it.

I threw on my footie jams, turned on my favorite cartoon, and ate my instant noodles as I tried to sink into my little space. It didn’t work. It never did.

Next time, I needed to suck it up and just go straight to Chained. I’d be exhausted in the morning, getting there so late at night, but at least I’d have some little time. I really needed it.