“We can eat here? It’s allowed?” asked Hana. She had followed Victor to the baseball field, and there was no one present, so she feared that it was off-limits unless there was prior approval.

“Yeah, but no one really knows ‘cause the school wants it that way or else there’d be garbage lying around.” He pointed to a bench. “Let’s sit here.” He sat down and prompted her to do the same.

Hana paused. Sitting would mean that she had agreed or had intended on having lunch with him, but she had no plans on doing so. But if she did not sit when he asked, wouldn’t that offend him? She would rather take the less risky route of the two and sat on the bench. She handed him the lunchbox. “Here’s to make up for it.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad it happened.”

“Because of your diet?”

He shook his head. “I can eat lunch with you.”

*

The gang without Hana munched on their lunch except for Logan.

Logan kept his eyes above the heads of his friends, looking left and right.

“Not hungry?” asked Jake to him.

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“My slave.”

Hailey smirked. “You shouldn’t. That girl ain’t coming.”

“Why?”

“She’s having a lunch date with Victor.”

“I thought she only made him food and will come back.”

“Oh, you know? Aren’t they the cutest?”

“She’s not a good match for him.”

“Shut up. I think they are. We should get them together. Or maybe we don’t have to do anything.”

“Why’s that?” questioned Jake. “You usually push for Hana’s nonexistent love-life to exist.”

“True, but this one doesn’t need my help. If he asked her for lunch alone, that’s already a sign that he likes her and is acting on it.”

“Alone?” shouted a worried Logan. “They’re alone?”

“Yeah. Why would he want to have lunch with us or with his friends when he can do it alone with her?”

“And what’s it got to do with you?” asked Jake to Logan.

Hailey nodded, agreeing with Jake.

Logan composed himself. “Nothing. J-just surprised that man-girl could even charm someone.” He looked down at his lunch.

He wasn’t hungry anymore.

There was no one to fight him for his food.

*

“Lunch with me?” Hana backed away without knowing. In her mind, Hailey’s words came back and haunted her. She feared that she would have to spend her lunch break with Victor.

“Isn’t that why you prepared just one so we can share?” he asked, eyeing the lunchbox.

Hana had to clarify her intentions. “Oh, no. I-I have my own. I followed you because I—” She saw him laughed.

“Sorry, I was teasing you.”

She breathed out, relieved. “You can tease people too?”

He made a face. “You thought I couldn’t?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, you’re a hardworking, self-dedicating guy who gives your one-hundred-ten percent in anything you do.” She looked away to the baseball field. “Every time I see you at practice, you play baseball like it’s the real game. At the real game, you play like you’re in the league. You’re passionate in every—” she turned to face him when she noticed that she should say these words directly to him. However, something surprising stopped her.

He had lean in for a kiss, and it landed at the corner of her lips. He immediately pulled away. “Sorry.” He flashed her an awkward smile. “I-I was going for your cheek, but you turned around.”

She touched her cheek.

“I-I wanted to kiss you…but…”

Hana backed away once again.

He bit his lower lip and looked at her properly. “I like you.”

*

It was after school, and the gang met up without Hana because she had work in the library for her community service program. She wouldn’t be finished until later, so she would be coming home late, and that meant Logan would be picking Lucas by himself. The gang passed by Coach Tang, and he initiated a conversation.

“Yo, brats. You guys got the address?”

They nodded.

“I got an Uber to pick you guys up at Jake’s place, so y’all can meet up and go from there. That sounds fine?”

The friends nodded again.

“Y’all know it’s gonna be a sleepover too, right?”

They nodded again.

“Is it me, or am I miscounting heads again?”

“Hana’s not here. She’s got community service,” answered Logan, who wasn’t in high spirits, and he hadn’t been since lunch break. He then gasped. “Shoot, I gotta pick up Lucas!” He ran without his friends.

“Who’s Lucas?”

“A cousin of his,” lied Hailey.

“Speaking of Hana,” continued Coach Tang, “was she with Victor today by any chance?”

“Victor? Victor Hall?”

Coach nodded. “Yeah, from my team.”

“Yeah, they had lunch together.”

“Oh.” It was an ‘oh’ that implied he knew something, and it got the friends’ interest.

“Saw something, Coach?” asked Jake.

“I won’t say anything ‘til I see you brats this weekend.” He walked away, happy that he left the kids hanging.

*

Logan got to the daycare and asked for his son.

The receptionist pointed to Lucas playing with the toys in the nursery center.

He walked to the center of the room and stopped. He didn’t know what else to do. He knew he should pick him up, but it was always Hana who did everything while he watched from afar.

“Logan? Where’s Hana?” asked one of the staffs. She was a lady in her early fifties. She was the manager of the daycare center. She was the first person Logan and Hana talked to when they visited the center and enrolled Lucas. She knew a little bit about their situation.

He told them of Hana’s whereabouts and then hesitated to ask for help. He didn’t know how or what to ask specifically.

“Here for Lucas?”

He nodded. But he didn’t budge.

“Would you like for me to help you?”

Logan turned shy. “Yes. Can you take him out of there for me?”

“Sure, no problem.” She picked him up and handed him to an anxious Logan, who successfully and safely received Lucas. “I’ll gather his stuff for you.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Jewel.”

She returned with Lucas’s bag of belongings. “I’ve always wanted to ask you, son, if you don’t mind, but why did you agree to this when you didn’t have to be his father?”

Logan looked down at Lucas. “I couldn’t let her do this by herself.”

“And why’s that? Even before Lucas was enrolled here, she knew exactly what kind of daycare she wanted for him and ensured that our services would provide the best for him. Most parents don’t think that much when it comes to daycare. I think she could’ve handled being a single mother herself, though, I’m not saying she doesn’t need you or that she should be one.”

“No, you’re right. She can handle being a single mother, but I’m the opposite of her. She grew up and was surrounded by laughter, and I guess you can say I grew up in the opposite environment. It was in a big house where no one comes and goes, and then it makes you question what family is when you see your parents come to the place called home once in a blue moon.” He hugged Lucas, a first for him. “She fears losing love for kids.” He paused. “I fear losing a family.”

*

“I’m home,” said Hana as she opened the door.

No one welcomed her. No one was in the living room. The kitchen light was on, and she checked, but there was no sight of her friend or her son. She feared that her friend may have forgotten to pick up her son, so she called the daycare center.

They confirmed that Logan had picked up Lucas three hours ago.

She wondered where the boys would be. She checked every room downstairs—the garage, the laundry room, and the bathroom.

No sight of them.

She went upstairs and did the same—his bedroom, the bathroom, the guest room, and her room.

She smiled.

There they were, on her bed, asleep.

She tiptoed to the side of the bed and watched them.

Logan had a hand over Lucas, who was on his side and was snuggled closely beside his dad.

The view was too beautiful for her, and she couldn’t let this chance go. She took off her shoes and her jacket and hopped onto the bed and joined them. She looked back and forth at them and quietly said, “Good night, my little family.”

About a good thirty seconds later, Logan peeked open an eye. He had pretended to sleep after he woke up to Hana’s shout downstairs. He had wanted to surprise her but missed his chance. He raised his head to get a good look at Hana, who had quickly succumbed to sleep. He laughed to himself.

Then he looked at the boy in between them.

Maybe the brat wasn’t so bad after all.

Sure, the baby wasn’t theirs. Sure, they weren’t a couple. Sure, they were a virtual family. But despite all this ‘virtual-ness,’ everything at this moment felt so right and so real. He liked the feeling of being with his son and waiting for his wife to come home. He liked the feeling that while waiting, he and his son would get tired and then fall asleep. He liked the feeling of falling asleep and waking up to the sound of his wife’s voice. What he loved was when his wife joined them on the same bed.

It was all a good virtual…reality.

He closed his eyes.

He was satisfied.

*

Logan batted his eyes opened with a groan. A blurry figure was in front of him.

“Hey, wake up.” It was Hana.

He stretched but quickly pulled back his arms when he remembered that the baby was beside him and was afraid he’d hit him. He looked down and saw that Lucas wasn’t on the bed with him. Instead, Lucas was on his back, already awake, at the other side of the bed. Logan sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry I slept here.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t wake you up anyway.”

He gasped and pulled the blanket over him. “You wanted to sleep with me? How could you have such thoughts like that about me?”

She playfully slapped him on the arm. “Who’d want to do anything to you?”

He laughed and dropped the blanket. “Who knows. Maybe you were secretly lusting over me because my angelic face tempted you.”

She laughed and aimed another attack at him, but he dodged, and she fell forward. He caught her, and they fell back onto the bed. Their weight made the mattress jump, making Lucas flew a small distance up in the air. The little boy found it fun and giggled.

But his parents didn’t.

In the process of their falling backward, Hana’s temple landed on Logan’s lips, and her body pressed against his. She was reminded of the kiss she had received from Victor and felt weirded out because she had compared the two. She pulled herself up and away from her friend. “Go get dressed,” she said to him to ease the awkwardness in the room.

He nodded and slid out of her bed to his room.

*

Logan and Hana had already dropped off Lucas at the daycare, so they were walked to school together. During their way, they discussed the text they saw this morning from Hugo.

“I think he should pick up the brat by five today,” said Logan.

“Why today?”

“We’re going early tomorrow, and I don’t think we’re gonna have the time to pack his stuff and give it to my brother when we’re getting ready ourselves.”

“Aww, so that means I can’t sleep with him for another night before we go?”

“Dude, it’s not like you’re gonna be gone forever.”

“But he’s a baby, and he might cry for me.”

“Well, it’s ‘bout time he gets some tough love.”

“You think your brother’s gonna be fine with him?”

Logan took a deep breath. “Hate to admit it, but we’re both bad with kids.”

“You know, I knew you aren’t good with them, but it turns out that your brother’s even worse.”

“I’m better than him?” He was pleased. “How so?”

“When I saw you and Lucas sleeping on my bed, you actually look like father and son.”

He stopped walking. He was reminded of his thoughts about their virtual family. “Do you think…we can ever be…like a real family?”

“Yeah, we can pass for one. Why?”

“Never mind.” He sounded as if he didn’t like her answer, as if she didn’t give him the answer he looked for.

She frowned. “No, tell me.”

He shook his head and walked quickly without her, making her try to catch up to him and force him to spill.

“Tell me, Logan!” She pulled on him and whined.

He had to keep himself from smiling. He loved it when she begged him because he found her childish way of begging him cute. How she’d soften up, touch him here and there, and attempted to please him was cute.

She jumped onto his back.

He grunted, angering her.

“Hey, what’s that sound for?” she said. “I’m not that big.”

He pretended to be in pain as he got lower on his knees. “I’m…losing…air!”

She wrapped a hand around his neck and tickled him. “Let me help you die faster!”

He stood up and tapped her hand while laughing. “I give up, I give up!”

She hopped back down, pleased with her revenge. Then she fixed his shirt. “I was too much, huh?”

He pulled her in closer by her waist and whispered, “Wanna be a widow already?”

She puffed her cheeks and looked away. “Better than being with you.”

He pinched her cheek, and they laughed. He then slid a hand over her shoulders, and they walked like that to school. They got to the school gate, and Hana scurried to the front without him, and he watched her.

His heart had been racing ever since she fixed his shirt for him. She had done it multiple times before, but this time was special. Seeing her up close made it worse too. He managed to play it casually, but his eyes wanted to shift down from the bridge of her nose to her lips. Now, as he watched her wave to him to go to her, he could only see her despite many of the students passing by them.

He was engrossed in her beautiful smile. Her hair danced in the wind. Her eyes shined like the sun behind her.

The view of his lovely wife calling out to him evoked a fuzzy feeling from within him.