Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 69 (Patreon)

“Jamie!” Mel picked him up and gave him a hug. Jamie liked the way she smelled and felt. She intended just a quick hug, but Jamie saw no reason to let her go and wrapped his legs around her, and suddenly she was holding him and too nice to set him down. Amanda watched, knowing exactly what he was doing. She was just glad there was someone besides herself and her mom that Jamie didn’t just feel comfortable being held by but actually wanted to be held by. She thought it was cute, the move he pulled to turn a hug into a ride; it seemed a sign Jamie was getting more comfortable being a little, just a bit. Plus, Amanda didn’t mind taking a break from carrying him.

Amanda had called Mel the night before and made plans with her just to give Jamie something to do that would get him out of his own head. He had come home from daycare not unhappy but quiet and contemplative. He ended up on Becky’s bed leaning against her while she worked on her lesson plan. He just needed some mom time, and Rebecca was thrilled to provide it. She felt a little guilty. She hated to see Jamie unhappy or hurting or not feeling well, but she liked how affectionate and clingy he was being. The remembrance of those quiet times when Amanda was very young and would be content just to be with her, quietly leaning against her or wrapped in her arms, were part of what made her want a little in the first place, the chance to have those golden moments again. And better, since Jamie had arrived, Amanda was being more affectionate too.

Becky wondered if on some level Amanda wasn’t a little jealous. She certainly saw envy in Amanda’s eyes sometimes on those rare occasions when Jamie would want to snuggle with Rebecca instead of her, though Rebecca assumed that was usually because she was jealous of her getting time with Jamie, not of Jamie getting time with Rebecca.

Glad to see him wanting to spend time with their mom, Amanda would be gladder to see him smiling again. She knew Jamie had a crush on Mel and thought the only thing he could enjoy more than an afternoon with herself was an afternoon with both of them.

“I hear you’re going shopping with us today,” Mel said to Jamie.

“So do I. What are we shopping for?”

“Stuff.” Jamie wasn’t a big fan of shopping, and he’d always been a typical guy shopper; he went shopping for things he wanted or needed, but he knew what that was before he left the house. He envisioned an afternoon sitting in the stroller outside dressing rooms.

“Where are we going for our ‘stuff’?”

“The mall.”

They rode in Amanda’s car because it had the car seat. Jamie brought his earphones, anticipating he’d be bored, but he was glad to be with Manda and Mel. As ridiculous as the thought was, being with them made him feel younger. He could just as easily feel like a retiree who went to daycare, but being with two college students helped him to feel young, something he’d never been accused of being in spirit. He liked to listen to them talk about class; he missed that, getting to spend whole days just learning, picking up new skills. And just being young, which Jamie had been compelled to give up much sooner than most.

Jamie never did enjoy malls. Crowded, bright, and full of stuff to buy that never seemed like it was made for him. Jamie used to walk past the better stores in the mall wondering if he’d ever be able to afford anything that fit well or felt good the way he assumed the more attractive people in the world felt in their clothes. But most of all, he hated parking at the mall, even when he wasn’t the one driving. It that he couldn’t see much outside the car; it kept his parking spot radar from flipping on.

Once inside, with Jamie in his stroller, the trio headed straight into a women’s store, and as expected Jamie found himself sitting in his stroller wondering how long this would take. He put in his headphones and watched the world go mute. The sound of hangers scraping against racks; salespeople asking if they were finding everything alright; other patrons talking; another little in his own stroller looking completely content, and therefore Jamie could tell, regressed to the point of infancy. Even a toddler-aged little would be fussing as the bigs went through different sizes, colors, fabrics, patterns, fits, and lengths. And they hadn’t even made it past tee shirts yet.

Though he didn’t care for shopping, Jamie would have felt it a good compromise to shop for some guy stuff too. Saws (though Jamie had never sawed anything), car parts (though he didn’t know anything about cars), ratchet sets (he didn’t have anything to ratchet), or at least some sports stuff (that he’d have no one to play with).

Still day dreaming about guy stuff they could shop for (beef?), Jamie chilled as they wheeled him to another store, exactly like the last but with a different name. In-store retail seemed to be doing better here than back home.

The one novelty of the mall were teenagers. Working in the stores, wandering the corridors. He had seen infants and toddlers and a few kids, but no one older. It felt a little like being back at the zoo, seeing a whole other species. That’s how Jamie used to explain teenagers to parents and teachers who didn’t get them: for a few years, people turn into some other species that looks vaguely like the rest of us but needs more food, more sleep, and more love than they let on. The trick to understanding teenagers, Jamie knew, was they were wired to be more likely to interpret others as aggressive; needed to push boundaries to find their own identity separate from their family; and could vacillate between acting like adults and like children within the space of a sentence. Jamie had only gotten to do the first of those in his own teen years.

Amanda and Mel were looking through pants a few feet to his right, and on his left a little further was a group of teens, boys and girls. He decided to attempt an experiment. He put his headphones away, always jarring, the return to the audible world with that humming coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. He put his pacifier in and made a show of a big yawn. He waited a moment, and then did it again, catching the eye of a teenage girl who smiled at him. He waved. She came over.

“Was you waving at me? Hmm? Was you waving at me, cutie pie?” Jamie laughed around his pacifier, which she took as encouragement to continue. “Yes you was. Just a friendly little fella, is that it? Is that who you are?” Jamie laughed again, amused at his own power to reduce her to baby babble and sort of pleased to have someone think he was cute enough to baby babble at.

“What’s going on, Jamie,” Amanda asked, noticing this girl so close to Jamie. He said nothing and the girl straightened up.

“O, he just gave me a wave, and I had to come over to see if he was as cute close up as he was from over there.”

“O,” Amanda responded in surprise, looking at Jamie. He winked at her.

The girl turned toward her friends and gushed, “He winks! You guys, you have got to come and see this adorable little!” Another girl and a boy came over. He repeated his trick for the two of them.

The girl squeeed; the guy smiled at Jamie and joked to his friends, “I think he’s got something in his eye.” The girl who walked over playfully slapped him on the arm.

Mel walked over and mouthed, What’s up, to Amanda, who shrugged back, No clue.

Jamie winked at the boy with his other eye and grinned. He laughed in response, admitting, “Okay, he’s cute,” while the girls awwwed together.

Jamie chuckled at the boy, thinking I just make it look easy. Amanda excused them, and they moved on to the next store with all three teens waving at him.

When they were out of ear shot, Amanda asked, “What the heck was that?!?”

Jamie took his pacifier out and couldn’t stop himself laughing as he replied, “An experiment. I just wondered what would happen.” It made Mel laugh, and that gave Jamie that funny feeling in his tummy again; he loved her laugh. “Uh, where to next,” he asked.

“I thought we’d look around for you for a bit. You only have a few fall outfits.”

“Ooo,” Mel said, “This’ll be fun!”

The first store they went into was done up all in primary colors like daycare, but bigger. Almost everything in the little boy section had a bear, a ball, a boat, or a truck on it.

“Anything you like,” Mel asked.

“I’m not sure this is Jamie’s style,” Amanda said.

“Well,” Jamie said, “Turning in his seat to get a good look at everything, “Sorta ... nah.”

“What? Don’t be shy just because I’m here,” Mel said.

Jamie was eyeing a pair of overalls. “I ... kinda like those.” Overalls are functional, and Jamie saw the appeal considering he’d be spending so much time outdoors at daycare.

Amanda’s eyes went up when she followed his finger to where he was pointing. She rolled him across to the little girls’ section. “These,” she asked, surprised, taking a pair of purple overalls off a rack.

“I like purple,” Jamie answered. He had hardly anything to wear that would be deemed appropriate for a man back home anyway, and he wasn’t back home, and he liked purple. “Think they’ll fit,” he asked.

“Maybe if we get them a couple sizes up,” Amanda said, taking them off the rack and observing the size. “They have a bunny on the butt,” she said as a warning. “You good with that?”

Jamie shrugged and said he was. Not very different from the blue pairs with bears on the butt in the other section. The observation made Jamie realize what a stupid distinction people back home, and apparently here, made between boy clothes and girl clothes.

“Let’s go try on a few pair.” Amanda pulled three sizes from the rack, and the three of them went into a dressing room together. Now Jamie blushed, with Mel about to see him pants-less. The second pair fit. “We’ll have to hem them for you.”

“They look good on you,” Mel added. They paid and moved on to the next store.

“You have these cartoons here,” Jamie asked, looking at the merchandise.

“What cartoons?”

Jamie pointed at Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and a teenage mutant ninja turtle and Superman and Spiderman and Mickey Mouse stuffies in the bins. “They’re all cartoon characters back home.”

“Really?” Jamie explained they came from different cartoons, though he assured her Superman would beat Spiderman and Bugs Bunny would beat them both, so long as he didn’t have to go through Albuquerque to get to the fight.

“You like anything in here? We do need get you some PJs for cooler weather.” So Jamie would spend many evenings dressed as Michelangelo, the turtle rather than the genius.

“What about these?” Mel held up a pair of Bugs Bunny underwear. Jamie got a stressed look on his face. Why would she suggest underwear unless she knew the truth?

“Uh ...”

“Those are pretty cute,” Amanda agreed. She held them up and handed them to Jamie.

He inspected them for a moment. “The inside is waterproof.”

“Diaper covers are supposed to be waterproof. They wouldn’t help very much if they weren’t, silly,” Mel responded. Jamie did like the way they looked and felt; it would be nice if on the many occasions he wasn’t wearing pants he didn’t have his usually wet diaper exposed. He picked out a few with cartoons and a few without.

“You’re going to need some actual fall clothes too,” Amanda reminded them after they’d paid. They walked to the other end of the mall into an anchor store with ‘JJ Legume’ arching over the entrance. Jamie got stocked up on another pair of jeans, some flannel shirts and henleys, a pair of hiking boots, a jacket, gloves, wool socks, and a hat. He hoped they wouldn’t make him wear it all at once, else he’d look like Elmer Fudd.

“Hey, Amanda,” Mel said, waving her over to a different section. “What about this?”

“Uh, I think that’s a bit overboard.”

“Well, you know you’re gonna go on hikes with him at some point, and you know he’s going to get tired trying to keep up with you.”

Amanda made her thinking face and looked at Jamie. “What do you think?” Jamie hadn’t thought about it all; he was still getting used to being carried on her hip. The idea of being carried in a backpack was a step further, somehow, to being little.

“And look,” Mel pointed, “The harness part detaches so you can carry him front or back without the pack part.”

“Uh, I don’t really know,” Jamie said. “I don’t want to ask you to carry me places.”

Amanda laughed. “Buddy, you’re on my hip at least an hour a day. Why don’t we give it a try, and if we don’t like it, we can return it.”

“Ok. This isn’t too much, is it?”

“No, Mom told me to find some fall stuff for you. She made me promise to find an excuse to buy you something that would make you look like a pumpkin for Harvest Day, but we can tell her all we could find were gourds.”

“I’m good with,” Jamie said.

“Anyone hungry?”

They went to a restaurant near the entrance they came in at. It looked old, like it had held on to its spot even as bright and shiny chain restaurants came and went. It was the odd hour too far from lunch and too far from dinner for a crowd. Just one other table was seated. Amanda asked for a booster for Jamie, and the waitress responded by saying, “Ooh, we got a big boy here today.”

Jamie’s sly grin crept across his face again and caught Mel’s attention. He put his pacifier back in, and when the waitress came back with two glasses and one sippy cup, he waved at her. “Are you waving at me? Is you waving at me? Huh? Is da big boy waving at me? Did you go shoppin’ today?”

Mel and Amanda both turned away from the waitress to hold in their belly laughs. The waitress was too focused on Jamie to notice their bodies rocking.

When she was gone, Mel asked, “Is da big boy trying to impress me? Huh? Is dat what’chure doin’?” She tickled his chin and planted a kiss on his cheek. “’Cause it’s working.”

On their way home, Jamie found himself needing to do what he normally did that time of day. Getting better at not being ashamed of it, and knowing Mel wouldn’t think anything odd about it, he did it. When they arrived home, Mel got him out of his car seat. “Let’s go get those stinky pants changed,” she said.

Jamie hadn’t anticipated that; his ears turned red and his eyes got wide. Amanda hadn’t anticipated it either.

“You don’t have to do that, Mel,” she said as she stepped toward them with her arms out to take Jamie. Mel turned away just a bit.

“That’s okay. I got it,” she said casually.

“Jamie,” Amanda asked.

He looked from her to Mel and realized he didn’t mind. “It’s okay,” he said.

Mel got him on the table and started taking his shoes and shorts off. “I think someone was feeling a little bit littler today. Am I right?”

Jamie’s faced turned red again. “I guess.”

“You’re gonna look awfully stinkin’ cute in those clothes.”

“Thanks.”

“‘Thanks?’ Is that all I get?” Mel’s voice went up an octave, and she started to lightly tickle him. “Is that all I get from you? Huh? Is dat all from my widdle guy?” She blew a raspberry on his tummy, and Jamie couldn’t help but squeal and writhe. Mel went back to work, and Jamie relaxed, his body feeling heavier and lighter at the same time, feeling safe and warm and carefree and admired and ... little.

Amanda came in with the shopping bags as Mel was still cleaning his bottom. She wrinkled her nose. Somehow it always smelled worse when she wasn’t the one doing it. Mental fortitude for a dirty job, she supposed. She noted Jamie’s spaced-out expression.

“Thanks for taking care of that. Can’t say I don’t mind skipping one,” Amanda remarked as she set the bags down.

“Happy to.” Mel lowered his ankles back to the changing pad.

Amanda’s eyebrows jumped up in shock. “Uh ...” She stuttered, turning red.

“O, it’s not a big deal. Happens to boys during diaper changes all the time.”

Not to him it doesn’t, Amanda decided not to say. She wasn’t even sure Jamie noticed; he looked to be falling asleep.

“How about we put one of those new diaper covers on you, huh, Jamester?” He yawned; it was past his nap time. Mel got him into a new diaper and his new Bugs Bunny cover.

“He can go straight into the crib,” Amanda said, watching his eyelids sink.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“Any time, buddy.”

On the way out the door, Mel whispered to Amanda, “I think he has a crush on me.”

“Definitely,” Amanda said, keeping the worry out of her voice. Gonna have to talk to him about that.