Page 9 of Stars Like Confetti

Nightmare.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

He nodded against my chest. “Can I stay with you?”

“Of course you can,” I said without hesitation. “Let’s grab some clothes for tomorrow and get you back to bed.”

I helped Shea to the floor and went to his dresser, offering up a T-shirt and denim shorts. He nodded his approval, silently gesturing to something else in the drawer. “This?” I asked, picking up the bundle of blue fabric. Another bob of his head, and I added it to the pile, taking his hand to lead him back to my cabin, where Shea climbed into my bed instantly.

“Not so fast,” I said. He peered up at me, blue eyes shining in the moonlight. He was so fucking adorable that I wanted to climb into bed next to him and not move for the foreseeable future. But I was a caregiver. “Do you need to pee before you go back to sleep?”

Color rushed to Shea’s cheeks, but he shook his head. I narrowed my eyes, suspicious. He’d never been a good liar, and it didn’t take him long to squirm and tug at the front of his underwear. “That’s what I thought. Come on.”

After I’d helped him go, Shea hesitated on leaving the room, and I followed his attention to the changing table. “Do you want something else to sleep in?”

Silent, Shea slipped his hand from mine and disappeared from the room, returning with that bundle of blue fabric and offering it to me. I unfolded it, revealing a snap-crotch onesie. He glanced from the garment, to the changing table, and back to me. I raised the lanyard around my neck, offering him the tiny card with a traffic light on it. “Can I check in with you?”

He pointed to the green light, a finger on his other hand drifting to his mouth.

“Have you ever used diapers before?”

He shook his head.

“But you want to try one tonight?”

A nod, and Shea hooked his finger into one of my belt loops, using the leverage to tug me close. “With you.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. “We need to go over some ground rules first. Is that okay?”

Shea’s only response was raising his arms, then glancing pointedly to the table. That was a “yes” if I’d ever seen one. I hooked my arm underneath his butt and lifted him easily onto the table. I didn’t suffer through arm days at the gym for nothing. The giggle that came out of him was enough to make my heart skip a beat. “You’re so strong!”

“Well, Das have to be so they can lift their boys.”

Shea’s bright blue eyes peered up at me, cheeks turning a shade of rosy pink so precious that I brought a hand to it to feel its warmth. “Is that what I should call you? Da?”

“Only if you’re comfortable. I don’t want you to feel obligated to do anything because of our history, okay?”

He nodded again, and I helped him lay down, this time offering him a pacifier from beneath the table instead of his finger. With him sated, I launched into my spiel. “Now, just because you’re wearing a diaper doesn’t mean you need to use it. Some Littles like them for comfort. If you wake up and need to go, just tell me, okay? I’ll just as soon help you potty as I will change you.” Reaching beneath the table again, I grabbed one of the diapers and a tube of diaper cream. “Does your skin still bother you in the summer?”

Another nod. I tugged off Shea’s clothes, setting them aside. “I need you to tell me if you pee, okay? As soon as you can. I don’t want your skin bothering you because you sat in a wet diaper too long.”

Knowing that he was mostly nonverbal, I unfolded the diaper and showed him the dinosaur printed on the front. “He’ll disappear if you’re wet, okay? So you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to.” I offered Shea the picture of the traffic light again, and he pointed to the green. “Good boy.” The praise slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, but he didn’t seem upset by it. “Hips up.”

Shea moved pliantly under my instructions, wiggling and testing out the feel of the diaper as I slid it under his butt. I added some of the ointment to his thighs, right on the pink scars that I knew flared up in the heat. When I folded the front over and secured the velcro tapes, a contented sigh pressed around the pacifier in his mouth. Sleepy eyes peered down at the dinosaur, and he poked at it with a single finger and an amused laugh. I dressed him in the onesie he’d picked out and snapped it shut between his legs. “Come on, sweet boy,” I cooed, helping him sit up. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Chapter Five

Shea

I woke up the next morning fully aware of the—thankfully dry—padding between my legs. I was laying on Theo’s chest, and they still slept soundly beneath me. Sitting up, I removed the pacifier from my mouth and stretched over Theo to set it on the nightstand. I did need to go, but I was big and I thought that using a diaper for the first time should be something I did in Little space. Theo stirred as I climbed off the bed. “Want some help?”

I sighed with relief. Of course there was no pressure in their voice—there never was. They hadn’t even opened their eyes. “No, I can handle it.”

“Clothes are on the table. Take whatever you need.”

With that, they rolled onto their stomach and dozed off again. I snickered. Theo’s ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat had always made me jealous. With them fast asleep, I stood in the bathroom doorway and admired them for a moment. They’d kept on the sports bra from last night but stripped their denim cutoffs to sleep in the boy shorts they wore underneath. The blanket pooled around their hips—they’d always slept hot—giving me a view of the spans of their back, black and gray angel wings inked down their shoulders, large enough to disappear behind the blanket.

I had half a mind to ask them to shower with me. Hell they’d already seen me naked—both before and after my transition—but something in me stopped me from doing it. I changed, showered, and when I exited the bathroom, Theo was sitting up and scrolling on their phone. They offered me nothing more than a smile as they rose from the bed. “All finished?”