He leaned in close, and I thought it was to kiss my cheek. He did do that, but he also whispered in my ear, “I like it too. We should play more often.”
I was down for that.
Sadly, the fun needed to end. We both had things we needed to get done during the day, and we weren’t able to spend as much time together as I wanted to. But after my bath, he let me have some milk from my favorite source of all and then cooked us up some fried eggs and toast. It wasn’t fancy, but somehow managed to still be perfect.
When he had to leave, I wasn’t quite ready to let him go, but he had a big order to get ready, and I had an appointment to get my hair cut.
And so, with a lingering kiss, we parted ways.
Before I got settled for my day, I got a text asking me to brunch on Sunday. No playing games, no letting days go by before we talked. He just put it out there, and I appreciated it. I’d barely hit send on my acceptance when the phone started ringing.
It was Jeff, my nosy bestie.
Of course it was.
9
PATRICK
Allen and I had been dating for a while now, and things were going great. While we’d talked about having Little/Daddy time, and he’d slipped into it a few times when I gave him a bath or when he was having some evening milk, that was as far as we went. We hadn’t actually had a full-on play date yet.
Today, that was going to change. We both had the afternoon and evening free and decided it would be a perfect opportunity to just chill at home and be Little. We decided that Allen’s house would be best because he had his Little things there.
Even though it wasn’t a space where I knew where everything was, I could fudge it enough not to have to pull him out of that space to find what I needed. But to make sure of that, I came prepared. I had a huge reusable grocery bag from the warehouse supply store, and in it, I had a bunch of Little food, a new sippy cup I bought that I thought he’d like. It had bees on it to sort of coordinate with his stuffie, Mr. Bees. I also had some bath toys I hadn’t shown him yet. If I had an inkling we might us it, into the bag it went. I even had an adorable waffle maker if we decided to wake to a morning of Little fun. It made car-shaped waffles,and I wasn’t sure exactly how great they’d turn out, because oftentimes the packages looked better than the results, but it was going to be fun either way.
On the way there, I had a last-minute idea.
I stopped at the local bookstore and asked the woman behind the help desk for some picture books about bees. I must have tapped into one of her true loves because she didn’t even need to look them up. Instead, she told me to follow her and then pulled one after another, giving me a lowdown of each one and who they were best for. I couldn’t decide and ended up leaving with four.
When I arrived at Allen’s, he was already at the door, swinging it open before I even knocked.
“Were you waiting for me?”
He stepped aside, and I walked in.
“I’m so excited, Daddy! I can’t wait to play today!” It was then that I noticed he was holding Mr. Bees. “I didn’t get dressed because I didn’t know what you wanted me to wear, but I have outfits on the bed because I thought, well, maybe we could do a bath first. Unless you don’t want to do a bath, then maybe we could do something else first.” He was talking a mile a minute.
I set the bag down and put my hands on his shoulders. “Deep breaths, sweet boy, deep breaths. We don’t need to rush anything, and you don’t need to worry. Daddy will take it from here.”
He looked up at me with his big eyes and slowly nodded. “I’m just really happy, Daddy. Really, really happy.”
“I know. I know, sweetheart, and Daddy’s happy too. How about you let me put the groceries away, and then I’ll see what you laid out to wear, and we can go from there?”
“I’ll sit on the couch, Daddy.”
I kissed the top of his head. “Be sure to tell Mr. Bees that we’re gonna have a fun day.”
He bounded off, and I put the clothes away, set the plates and cups where I could easily find them, and brought the bath toys straight into the bathroom, checking out the clothing he’d laid out along the way. On the bed sat a regular set of pajamas that were covered in teddy bears, a onesie paired with some short shorts and some knee-highs, and there was a bee suit that looked like it could double as pajamas if he wanted. Unless he had a preference, that was the way I was going. I couldn’t wait to see him all dressed like a bee.
I went out and sat beside him. He crawled right onto my lap, snuggling in close. “It was really hard waiting for you.”
“I see that. Should we get you in the tubby and dressed and start our day?”
“Okay.” But he pulled his bottom lip in with his teeth and stared up at me instead of getting up. “Could I have some milkies first?”
“If that’s what you want. I didn’t know if you would prefer to wait until after you had your Little clothes on.”
He scrunched his face up as if he was thinking really hard and then gave a single nod. “That would be better.”
