Luck (Patreon)

A St. Patrick's themed short story, commissioned by an anonymous Patron.

"Oh, look at this!" Jaime exclaimed, kneeling down in the grass.

"Yeah, whatever," her little sister, Elise, rolled her eyes.

"No, seriously!" Jaime told her. "Come on, stop being a pouty baby and look!"

It was, she knew, the wrong thing to say, but it had just slipped out. Elise was already annoyed that Jaime was there at all. "I'm too old for a babysitter!" she'd insisted to their mother.

"She's not babysitting you," their mom had said. "I don't want you going there on your own, that's all."

Elise had been skeptical, especially after Jaime had knocked on her bedroom door, her babysitting bag slung over her shoulder. "Why do you need that if you're not babysitting me?!" she'd grumbled.

"Because it's my biggest bag," Jaime had rolled her eyes. "Now, do you want to go or not?"

She knew the answer, just like she knew why the girl was so insistent on going to the park. The last time they'd been there as a family, Jaime had caught her staring at one of the groundskeepers, practically drooling... As much as she didn't want to encourage that, as it was weird to think of her baby sister having crushes on guys, she knew nothing would happen, especially if she was there to keep an eye on things.

And it looked as if the universe was trying to tell her she'd made the right call. She reached down and plucked the clover, holding it up to examine it, to confirm that she'd been right, and it did, indeed, have four leaves. "See?" she showed it to Elise. "If you hadn't been such a brat, you could have picked this, and then you would have gotten all the good luck! I think it was meant for you..."

Elise glowered at her, the sulk she'd fallen into after the last insult only intensifying. "Only babies believe in that stuff."

Jaime shrugged, tucking the clover into the pocket of her bag. She considered putting it into her hair, or behind her ear, to show it off more, but it was windy enough she didn't want to risk it blowing away. "Whatever you say," she replied. She didn't actually expect anything to happen; it was still cool to have found it, and on St. Patrick's Day of all days. "Where do you want to eat?"

She followed after Elise, watching with bemusement as the girl tried to find the exact table they'd been at last time, presumably thinking that if they'd seen the worker there once, he might come by again. She stayed quiet, letting Elise believe she didn't realize that was what was happening, and, after they'd taken their places at the picnic table, she dug into her bag, detaching the cooler compartment and setting it down on the table.

"See?" she teased, handing Elise a soda from it. "Aren't you glad I brought this bag now?" Elise sighed, ignored her, though she did open up the soda before Jaime could warn, "Wait a second!" To her surprise, despite them having just been walking, the soda gave no more than a hiss when the top popped open. She must have been walking more gently than she'd thought. She took her own soda, setting it down on the seat of the bench in front of her, and pulled on the tab...

Immediately, it exploded everywhere, sending soda spraying onto her, mostly her crotch. "Oh!" she squealed, hopping back, far too late, shivering as she felt the cool liquid soaking into her pants, and beyond.

Finally, she got a reaction from Elise, who giggled. "You look like you peed your pants," she pointed out.

"No, I...!" Jaime protested, glancing down at herself. "I kinda do," she admitted. She wrinkled her nose, tempted to wait and let it dry out in the sun. A lot of her clients brought their kids to this park, however, and if they saw her here, like this... "Well, it's no big deal," she spoke out loud to herself. "This is another good reason to have my bag. I always keep spare clothes in there."

"Yeah, for the kids," Elise snickered.

"Well, they're all very plain," Jaime huffed. You never knew what designs a charge would object to, so she didn't get too wild with them, usually. "So nobody will ever know." That didn't make it any less embarrassing that she could fit into at least some of them at her age, which was probably what Elise had found so amusing, but Jaime chose to ignore that. "There's a sandwich in the cooler if you're hungry. I'm going to go change."

"What, you're not going to make me come with you?" Elise raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not babysitting you," Jaime reminded her. She was getting some gas money from their mom, and it might have included a little extra, though they'd never referred to it specifically as babysitting, so she wasn't technically lying... "Just... Stay right here, okay?"

It wouldn't take long... The bathroom was close by, and she could be in, cleaned up, and out in no time, certainly before Elise could get into any trouble. She might - along with their mother - not be totally convinced that Elise was mature enough to go wandering around the park on her own, but there was nobody else around, so she trusted the girl to sit still for a minute or two.

Unfortunately, as she recalled only after she'd gone into the bathroom and locked the door behind herself, she'd taken most of her extra clothes out of the bag so she could fit the cooler compartment in it. She wasn't going to need them with Elise, after all... She hadn't even considered the possibility she'd need them for herself. The one thing she had that might fit her was a pleated, pink skirt, one that would be quite short on her. She might be able to make do on a normal day, however, there was just the right amount of wind to make her worry.

Especially since her undies were soaked, too. Not only would it be mortifying to have her skirt blow up and show off that wet spot, they were sticky and uncomfortable, and there was no way she was going to spend the whole trip to the park in them. She could have tried to wash them in the sink, dry them out with the hand dryer... That would take way too long, though, and even if nobody else wanted into the bathroom in that time, she didn't want to leave Elise outside on her own while she waited.

She did carry spare underwear in her bag, of course, and she had been positive a pair or two had to be in there despite the purge to make space for their lunch. No matter how much she dug, all she could find was a Pull-Up. "You've got to be kidding me," she groaned. They would be better than nothing, or her wet panties... But not by much.

She found herself rooting for them not fitting, even though that would mean having to find some other solution, or going back outside in clothes that made it look like she'd wet herself. The Pull-Ups slid right on, fitting her as well as they did any of her charges that were actually in potty training. They felt so strange, compared to her thin, cotton panties, so thick, so childish... She didn't want to leave the bathroom in them, yet she knew she had no choice.

She stuffed her wet clothes into one of the plastic bags she kept in her bag for just such an occasion and, taking a deep breath, ventured outside, making a bee-line for the picnic table, wanting to get there and sit down as quickly as she could.

Almost as soon as she stepped out the door, a gust of wind came, blowing her skirt up. She squeaked, shoving it down, her eyes darting over to Elise, who she saw had her phone out, aimed in her direction. She cursed under her breath, face warming as she shuffled over to the table.

There was no way, she reassured herself, Elise could have gotten her phone up and snapped a picture in the time it had taken for her to lower her skirt... She glanced back, and saw the groundskeeper there, emptying out garbage cans, letting out a sigh of relief. Maybe the clover had given her some luck after all... He wasn't even staring back, so he might have missed her little display, too.

She was feeling confident enough by the time she sat down to tease, "So, what are you taking pictures of?"

"Oh, you know... The pretty scenery," Elise shrugged, blushing, but clearly in a much better mood now.

"Really?" Jaime smirked. "Why don't you let me see?"

Elise squirmed on the bench for a moment, trying, as inconspicuously as possible, to open up the picture and expand it to get rid of the guy in it, only for her eyes to widen, a grin to spread across her face.

"Sure," she said, turning her phone around. "What about this? Isn't this nice?" Jaime's heart began to thump more loudly in her chest, her head spinning as she saw herself there, skirt in the air, wearing what was very obviously a Pull-Up underneath. "I think I might send this to mom right now... I bet she'd appreciate it. Maybe then she'd see that I'm not the immature one who needs to be babysat."

"Elise, no!" Jaime shook her head. "Y-You don't understand! I-I didn't...!"

At the very least, Jaime thought, Elise was no longer enraptured by the worker, having found something more interesting to do here at the park. "No, I get it," she giggled. "You insist on still treating me like a kid, so let's play a game." She tapped a finger on her chin, pretending to think. "I know! Why don't we play house? You're the baby."

"Elise!" Jaime whined, kicking her feet in frustration.

"So fussy!" Elise mocked. "I bet I know why... You're a baby, not a toddler! You need to be in diapers!"

"Elise, no!" Jaime whimpered. She would have assumed, minutes ago, that she'd never fit into a diaper, but after her experience with the Pull-Ups... "I-I don't have any, anyway! I took all my spares out of my bag!"

"That's all right," Elise told her, hopping up from her seat and grabbing Jaime by the hand. "I remember they had a vending machine for them in the bathroom."

"Elise, no!" Jaime sniffled, getting dragged back to the bathroom, feeling very much like they'd switched roles, like she was the younger sister all of the sudden. "I-It's always broken! I've tried so many times when I bring kids here, and it never works!"

That didn't stop Elise, who marched Jaime right next to the machine, digging into her pocket, where she happened to have just the right amount of change. "You're wasting your money!" Jaime warned her. "I don't know how many quarters I lost to this thing before I..."

Elise ignored her, kept popping coins into the vender. Jaime tried to calm down, reminding herself that she wasn't bluffing, that in all her time coming to this park, she'd never once seen it work...

And then, to her surprise, Elise pushed the button, and a plastic-wrapped package tumbled out. Jaime watched in horror as her little sister unwrapped it, revealing the tiny bottles of everything they'd need, along with a diaper that, when she saw Elise unfold it, lay it out on the changing table she folded out from the wall, was definitely every bit as big as the Pull-Up she was wearing... That she could feel growing warm, a trickle of wetness escaping from her in fear when it dawned on her that, if she didn't want their mom to see her in Pull-Ups, she was going to have to let her sister diaper her, do whatever she wanted with her, right here in the middle of the park so many of her babysitting clients went to...

She tried, weakly, to hold her skirt down when Elise reached for it, but she felt the fabric slip out of her hands, revealing the damp trainers underneath to her delighted sister. "You know what?" Elise's eyes twinkled. "Maybe you were right... Maybe that clover's luck was meant for me after all."