chick magnet
It’s subtle when it starts. So subtle, in fact, that it takes Jamie a little while to notice that anything is happening at all.
One day, Dani is helping a woman in the shop who has a baby in her arms, pulled from the stroller tucked to the side so as to stay out of the way of other customers. It’s a cute kid, really—big, blue eyes filled with the innocent wonder of a brand-new human; frothy brown hair fluffed on its head. Jamie thinks it’s a boy, but it’s hard to tell. Eventually, she’s able to get a glimpse of the words on his onesie and then she knows for sure.
Chick Magnet.
Jamie’s eye roll almost gives her a headache.
She’s so annoyed by it that it takes her another minute to look at her girlfriend, who is cooing and fussing over the baby. Jamie’s near the back of the shop and not very close, but she can just make out the questions that Dani is asking the baby’s mother.
How old is he?
What’s his name?
Isn’t he just the sweetest thing?
And then the mother is offering the baby out and Dani is taking him, tucking him into her arms and bobbing him up and down a little. She speaks to him in this soft, high-pitched voice that Jamie’s never heard before, smiling so widely it looks like her cheeks could split from it.
She’s a vision—one that can still steal Jamie’s breath away even after six years together. When she looks up and catches Jamie’s eyes, she picks up the baby’s tiny fist and uses it to wave at her. Jamie’s heart flips. Squeezes.
Dani’s expression is bright and happy. Overjoyed, in fact. And it’s cute, but Jamie doesn’t necessarily think anything of it. Not then.
_________
As if some magic gate has opened after that first one, babies start popping up everywhere. Not just in their shop, but on the street, in their apartment complex, in the bread aisle of the grocery store, at every restaurant they visit.
Burlington isn’t a small city, no, but Jamie can’t help wondering if there’d been something in the water a year or more ago that resulted in the literal baby boom. And they’re cute, sure. Most of them like to catch Jamie’s eyes when she’s near and make strange faces at her, giggling when she mimics them.
She always finds Dani looking at her in amused wonder whenever she stops, her eyes shimmering with an idea only half-formed. Not ready to be unleashed quite yet.
_________
They’re at Sears when it happens, wandering around the looping store, trying to find the towel section. It’s a Monday morning—one of the days their shop is closed—and the store is fairly empty, but Jamie has seen at least two strollers with squirming, happy babies already.
Dani’s eyes had lingered on them for a beat too long and Jamie is starting to suspect that she should ask about that, but she hasn’t quite gathered the courage yet. Instead, she just holds Dani’s hand, their fingers tangled together with loose familiarity, as she lets herself be led around the store.
She’s so zoned out thinking about it all that she almost doesn’t notice when Dani comes to a stop and lets go of her, drifting away towards a rack of clothes. Once she does notice, Jamie’s saliva thickens in her throat, making her next swallow difficult.
They’re in the baby section. Dani is fussing with a rack of baby clothes.
“Oh my god, look how cute this is,” she says, and she picks up a hanger to show to Jamie.
It’s a pair of tiny overalls, a little flannel tucked into it. Jamie knows immediately why it’s caught Dani’s eyes and she feels heat blooming up her neck and across her face.
“Pretty cute,” she agrees.
Dani nods, still grinning down at it and then sets it back on the rack. After another moment of sifting through the clothes, she gasps, jaw dropping open in delight.
“What?” Jamie asks. She’s still standing out in the main aisle like a jerk, so she steps forward to stand beside Dani.
A green and white striped onesie. A tiny, blue triceratops on the chest.
Dani is holding it like it’s made of gold.
“I love this,” she says, almost like she’s admitting it to herself rather than to her wife.
And maybe it’s silly to be scared of the possibilities, but Jamie can’t help it. She’s had her own experiences with children too young to take care of themselves, and it hadn’t necessarily gone well. This was all with the added bonus of having never considered the ability to have any sort of family at all. As with most things, though, being with Dani continues to challenge her expectations in the best of ways.
Forcing herself to be brave, Jamie takes a deep breath and then says, “Dani, are you...Have you thought about it?” Dani looks up at her, eyes kind and questioning, waiting for something more specific. “Us,” Jamie says next. “Having a kid, or…”
Or what ?
She’s not certain.
But at least she’s gone and said it. Finally.
For all of her completely unsubtle pining, Dani still looks caught off guard by the question.
“I—” she starts, but she has to stop to clear her throat. “I mean...Is that...something you’d want?”
And fuck the past. Fuck it to hell because, “Yes. I...Yeah, I think I’d want that. With you.”
Dani is silent for a long moment. She’s still holding the onesie and that look of acute wonderment has yet to fade from her expression. This time, it’s fixed on Jamie’s face, looking her over as if searching for some sign of uncertainty that doesn’t exist.
“I want that with you, too,” she says finally, walking the words gently towards Jamie with a careful tone.
The jittery bump of Jamie’s pulse softens and she feels her cheeks stretch to accommodate her smile. “Really?” she asks.
Dani nods frantically. “Yes,” she says. “Really, really.”
Jamie moves forward, as if to kiss Dani, but stops when she notices an employee up in the toddler section straightening a display. There’s time for a kiss later. For more, too. For now, she just thrusts her hand out and Dani takes it with a lovely, little laugh, so they can shake on it.
“Do you want to…” Jamie begins. “I don’t really know how we’d—”
“We can figure it out,” Dani tells her. Like Jamie, she can’t seem to stop grinning either.
They can. They have time.
Jamie imagines the two of them at home, Dani happy and beaming, hands resting on her swollen belly while Jamie talks to it—their child. She imagines Dani in a hospital bed, a sleepy bundle in her arms and Jamie tucked into her side, marveling at the tiny human they’ve made. She imagines a house with a yard and a tiny tot roaming around it with Dani’s nose and Dani’s eyes, stumbling and playing and calling them both, “Mom.”
It’s quite a thought, really. They all are.
Something she never considered having.
They’re still holding hands like they’re concluding a business meeting and the whole thing is so ridiculous, so utopian that Jamie can’t stop laughing.
“I really want to kiss you right now,” she says, still shaking Dani’s hand, and Dani laughs.
“I want that, too.”
Jamie glances over Dani’s shoulder where the employee is still working, his back to them. Coming up the aisle is another young couple pushing a stroller, too fascinated with each other and their child to bother looking at either of them.
“Fuck it,” Jamie mutters and then she leans in and presses her lips to her wife’s, wrapping her arms around her neck to deepen it.
Dani sighs against her lips, pulling her closer, and kisses her back.
It only lasts a moment or two before they pull away, but they have all the time in the world. For it. For more .
“I love you,” Jamie says, resting one of her hands on Dani’s stomach through her sweater.
Ever the mind-reader, Dani beams, covering Jamie’s hand with her own. She says, “I love you, too.”
..