“Because… Do I like to play? Absolutely. Is it more fun playing with others? Most of the time.” I was an odd little who sometimes just wanted to play by myself. Or maybe it wasn’t odd, but the few little friends I had over the years all acted as if it were. “But being up here, I don’t need to be little as much.”
Before, there were days I’d come home and being little was the only way to handle the stress of it all. That was no longer the case.
“Working in the office, having that stress… Getting away from that was really needed. There were stresses here—me not knowing how to do half the things I need to do, but YouTube helps. I still play, though. You saw my stuffie friends.”
“I did. Is that all of them?”
Had he peeked? Or maybe he was guessing?
“No, I have some in the closet too.”
“Is that because you need more places to keep them, or because you were hiding them from me?”
“Is it wrong to say both?”
“No, it’s not wrong if it’s the truth. I want you to always feel comfortable telling me anything.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “Did you want to play with me a little today?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“But?” he asked.
I took a big breath. He wanted honest and uncensored and I was about to give it to him.Please let me be making the right decision.
“But I’m afraid if I play with you, if I get little fully with you, that it’s gonna be too hard when you go.” I buried my face in his shoulder, embarrassed by what I’d just said and also terrified of his response.
“Oh, Nico. I understand exactly where you’re coming from. And honestly, now that I know you’re here, I can’t imagine a lifewhere I’m not here too, some of the time.” That qualifier hurt much more than it should. Of course he wasn’t going to move right in. What a ridiculous thing to be upset about. But it wasn’t as if we could control our feelings. “And maybe, eventually, more than some of the time. It’s a long commute, but weekends are definitely an option. That is, if you want to try something with me.”
I let go of his hand and moved so I was sitting across from him. This was too big of a conversation to have without fully seeing his face head-on. “When you say, ‘try something with you,’ you mean Daddy, or dating, or…”
“Everything, Nico. I mean everything. I’d want to be your daddy, but also your boyfriend, and I never want to lose our friendship. I’m a greedy Daddy. I want it all.”
“I want it all too, Daddy.”
And I didn’t know how that would look, but trying something was better than giving up before we started. “I mean, you don’t mind that I’m not too little, right, Daddy?”
We hadn’t spoken a lot about my little side yet, but if he wanted someone who needed diapers and bottles, that was great, but it wasn’t me. And by great, I meant it would be heartbreaking. But it was far better to know now than to discover later we weren’t compatible.
“I love to play and be taken care of, but I don’t need someone to do everything for me when I’m not big.”
“Honestly, if you had told me you weren’t little and that you just collected cute things, that wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker for me. Because yes, I do enjoy all those things, and, in a lot of ways, they’re part of my identity. But having you in my life is far more important than any of that.”
I straddled his leg, snuggled in close, and held him tightly. His arms came around me, holding me just as strongly.
“Can we just do this for a while?” I asked, sinking into his embrace.
“Absolutely, my sweet boy.”
And we did. I held on to him, breathing in his scent, feeling his warmth, listening to his breaths, just being. This was Pax, my Pax, and he was here in my place, the one where I was building my dream.
He hadn’t forgotten me. He still wanted me. How different things would have been if I had realized back then I had a shot with him. Maybe I’d have been a little braver, said more sooner. But I hadn’t, and maybe that was for the better because now, here we were, at a point where we were both able to talk so freely about things that really mattered to us.
I didn’t let go when I started speaking again. I wanted to stay like this forever. “Daddy? Can you tell me a story?”
“Of course. What kind of story would you like?”
“I want a happy story where, at the end, everybody is in love and living their best life. And maybe there could be a dragon. No. Definitely there needs to be a dragon.”
“I think I can do that.”
