Chapter 36
Waddling through the day
Devyn
I walked into the bedroom with Heston’s cup of tea to find him standing in front of the mirror, three shirts piled on the dresser, and him tugging at the one he was currently wearing, pulling it over his belly.
I loved this look on him, where the shirt was just a little too small and his belly was extra pronounced.
It had me wanting to take the shirt off and kiss every inch of his body, but I could tell from his face that he didn’t feel the same about the shirt.
“I brought you some tea,” I said.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, ignoring the mug in my hand and yanking the shirt from his body. Back to his dresser he went, digging through the drawers.
“Use one of mine.” Mine tended to be bigger than his. It would be easier if he wore the paternity shirts my father sent over, but they had buttons and my mate was not a fan of them.
“I think they’re all in my dresser.” He tossed another shirt out.
Early on, he decided that he would rather wear my shirts than paternity ones, and that was fine for a while. But he had reached the stage where they were no longer fitting him comfortably. It was time to call uncle and buy some new ones to do the job.
He grabbed another shirt and pulled it over his head. This one mostly covered his belly without too much tugging. It wasn’t going to fit for much longer, not in the way he wanted, but it seemed to appease him for the moment.
“Forget the tea. Let’s go shopping.”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” he grumbled. “Nothing that fits well enough.”
“Which is why we’re going shopping. We can get you clothes that do fit.”
He wasn’t overly pleased at the idea, but agreed when I told him it was next door to a baby store. As much as he didn’t like shopping for himself, he loved buying stuff for our little one.
The closest paternity store was only about twenty minutes from our house. By the time I pulled into the parking lot, Heston had resigned himself to getting some paternity clothes.
It wasn’t that he minded getting larger clothes, like some of the other omegas I knew.
He loved his changing body, knowing that it was becoming what it needed to be for our young.
To him the issue was the style of clothing available.
It was all “frilly”. For some reason, with paternity clothes, they always added collars and weird tucks in places to make it look like your belly wasn’t as large or to cinch the back up so the larger fabric was only in the front.
It was this odd combination of function and style that Heston was simply not into.
And honestly, he was right. A lot of it was pretty weird and over the top.
Either that or there were tees that made jokes about eating for two or rubbing his belly.
Nothing plain or cute, all filled with bad humor.
But despite all of that, he needed clothes that would fit him and this was probably his best bet.
“If we don’t see anything you like here, we’ll just go to the T-shirt store and get ones the next size up from mine.” It wouldn’t be ideal, because shortly they would need replacing too, but it was a compromise.
“The T-shirt store?” He looked at me like I lost my mind.
“Yeah, there’s a whole store that’s just tees. They have all the sports ones, TV ones, funny ones that are on trend, and they’ll even put your name on them.” And none that said to rub his belly for luck. Why was that a thing again?
“Fine.” He didn’t sound like he altogether believed me, but he unbuckled and got out of the car.
The paternity store was packed. They were having a sale, and apparently, it was one of a few they had all year. At least that was according to half the people wandering around, encouraging their partners to buy even more. It was cute to see all these growing families being so happy.
“What kind do you think you want? They have some nice sweaters.” I knew the button shirts were a no. He’d mocked those plenty of times.
“Yeah, maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.
My mate ended up finding some hoodies he liked. They would be good for the cold days, but there weren’t that many of them this time of year.
We wove through the store and he managed to find a few shirts, and a sweater. I tried to encourage him to get some pants too, but he said he didn’t want any of that “weird elastic around his belly”, and he was just gonna stick with his rubber band button trick.
We paid for our purchases and I had Heston wait for me as I tossed the clothes in the car. No need for him to waddle around more than necessary.
We had looked online to see what we wanted for the nursery and checked out a couple of box stores, but this one next to the paternity store was a mom-and-pop place and both of us were excited to see what they had.
The second we walked in, I could see how different it was.
It had sweet music playing, everything out on display instead of floor to ceiling boxes, and was organized beautifully.
“It looks like they have some great stuff here,” I grabbed his hand and intertwined our fingers.
“Maybe we can find what we need.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “I have a good feeling about this place.
I did too.
We walked around, looking at all the furniture first. They had dressers and changing tables and rocking chairs.
But what intrigued me the most was the array of cribs they stocked.
They had wooden ones, metal ones, and a bunch that changed into more practical furniture as the kids got older.
They even had a round one, but I didn’t see the use of that.
“Oh, I see you have good taste.” A salesman walked up to us. I had a feeling no matter what we were looking at, it showed we had good taste. Anything to make a sale.
“That collection is made by a local craftsman, each one done by hand.” He reached over, pulled up a flier and handed it to us.
“And depending upon the timing, he can also do some custom work. All of the information is there, and in stock, we have these three wood choices.” He tapped on the paper, “The rest would need to be custom ordered. He’s quite popular. ”
We thanked him, and after we strongly hinted, he went away.
“It looks like the crib turns into a bed,” I noted. “Do you like it?”
Heston walked around it in a circle. “Yeah, I really do. It’s got personality.”
“Then we should get it. Do you think it limits our themes?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It should be fine for either.”
We’d decided we were going to do a wolves or an artist theme for the nursery. Both were a bit on the nose, but we still loved them and depending on what we found, we might be able to combine them.
We wrote down the numbers of the different pieces that we wanted to give to the salesperson, and then wandered around the rest of the store, Heston still holding my hand as we moved from section to section.
I could see his excitement increase the more we explored. The initial hesitation he had about paternity clothes was fading away, replaced by a growing joy at picking out things for the nursery we were planning. It was infectious.
“Look at this,” I said, pulling a tiny onesie from the rack. “It has little wolf paw prints all over it. Perfect for our theme.”
Heston chuckled, “That’s adorable. I think they’ll love it.”
From there we went to the linens where we found sheets that had a beautiful forest pattern, some hooded towels with little wolf ears, and a rug, which was designed to look like an enchanted forest.
Next was the fun section: toys. Stopping at the stuffed animals, we found some wolves.
Our last stop was the area with the curtains and wall decals.
“We could piece something together to make a mural,” Heston leaned against my side. “Or we could hire an artist.” He side-eyed me. “You’re an artist.” He walked around to face me. “What about that?”
“Yes, you could hire me.”
“Oh, and what are your rates?” He looked up at me and licked his lips.
“Oh, you know, the normal: lots and lots of money or a sweet kiss.” I winked.
“Never mind,” He kissed my cheek then whispered in my ear, “I was offering to pay with things that are not what anybody would call sweet.” He nibbled on my ear lobe. “I was thinking of a more naughty payment.”
“I think an agreement could be made.” I rubbed my cheek against his.