Milk For His Little (The Lactin Brotherhood #12)

1. Kasper

Chapter 1

Kasper

“Why did I stay out so late?” I fumbled with my keys at my apartment door.

I had left for work at six in the morning and somehow thought it was a great idea to stay out at The Naughty Nook until 2am. It was far too long of a day. I knew better, but I sounded like an old man, one who hadn’t had any fun in decades.

The key finally turned, and I stepped inside. I had to chuckle at myself for that, because while it was true—I did sound like an old man and not a 27-year-old professional—I was wearing a onesie underneath my sweatshirt, and the humor was not lost on me.

When my friend Liam asked me to go with him to The Nook, as we called it, to play in their new Little room, the responsible thing would have been to say no. I had a work project with a looming deadline and had been in the office for 12-plus hours every day. I needed sleep.

But also, I had been at work 12 hours every single day, and I needed to let go. If I had had a Daddy, he would have made sure that I was sleeping well, eating well, and taking time to just be. But I didn’t, and left to my own devices, self-care was an afterthought.

Liam and I had a great time, minus his one temper fit. The Daddy I had my eye on was there. He never seemed to notice me, but one day I was going to be brave and walk up to him and ask him to play. Of course, I had been saying that for two years and it still hadn’t happened yet.

The Nook got some new blocks that were shaped like different animals. They interconnected and towered really tall, if you wanted them to, but also scattered into a thousand pieces. Let’s face it, that was the fun of blocks—watching them topple over. We played for hours, and I hadn’t realized how long we’d been there until Liam said it was time to go.

Now that I was home, all I could think to do was get some sleep. I dropped my backpack on the chair I left at the door, toed off my shoes, and went into the bathroom to turn on the shower.

Normally, I got fully changed at the club, but I was too tired. I just threw my jeans and sweatshirt over my outfit and called it good. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but my Little clothes really helped me get into the right headspace, which meant changing out of them helped me get out of it as well. Now I was stuck in this limbo between the two. It wasn’t ideal.

I threw all my clothes in the hamper, climbed into the hot water, and washed the day away—and yeah, also some sugar from the sticky mess of the lollipops that Miss Becky, the woman who ran the Little room, had given us. Liam and I had gone there as playmates. He wasn’t a Daddy type, and I wasn’t a Daddy type. We hadn’t been looking for a Daddy; we just wanted to play. That didn’t mean I hadn’t noticed my crush, but that was different.

When you went into the Little room without a Daddy, Becky became the de facto caretaker. She didn’t scene or anything like that, but lollipops, stickers, reminding us to put our toys away—those kinds of things—that was her job. And we appreciated it because it let us seep into our Little headspace, at least a little while. We weren’t fully immersed, like we’d be if we had a true caregiver, but definitely more than if we were just hanging out.

My plan was to just throw on some boxer briefs and climb into bed, but as I reached my dresser, I realized I wasn’t quite done being Little. I threw on a pair of my thick, threadbare training underpants and my zipper pajamas, the ones with the feet on them. They were covered in dinosaurs, my favorite. When I climbed into bed, I grabbed my dinosaur stuffie—the very first Little thing I bought myself when I realized that this lifestyle made my stressful day job doable. I’d have burnt out long ago without it.

I snuggled in, grabbed my paci from the drawer, and sucked on it. What I really wanted was a bottle. I remembered being young and not wanting to give mine up, but as I got older, I developed a milk allergy. I tried juice in the bottle—it wasn’t the same. Might as well have been drinking from a cup. I also tried some of the milk alternatives, but as much as I wanted to like them, they were gross. Fine in coffee, sometimes—at least the oat milk was—but most of them had the wrong texture, the wrong flavor, and this little aftertaste that I didn’t enjoy.

Needing some noise to distract me from my own thoughts, I grabbed my phone and went to turn on some cartoons on YouTube. The first ad that came up caught all of my attention. It was for an app that helped connect people with milk donors. Obviously, this was a cartoon, and the intended audience was parents who needed milk for their kids, or so I thought.

The next scene was a bodybuilder talking about how much getting milk from men who lactate helped him achieve his goals. This ad wasn’t for moms of babies at all. This was geared toward athletic men. That was not me, but maybe… maybe the milk was.

I clicked the link, and it sent me down a rabbit hole—one filled with high-cost milk, all produced by men naturally. It wasn’t hormone-induced or some weird medical experiment. This was something that existed. I was only half aware that some men lactated. It hadn’t impacted me or anyone I knew, so I never focused on it. I guess I sort of assumed it was just leakage. Men didn’t fully produce milk, right? Only they did, and for the first time, I pieced how big a deal this was together.

It was 4 a.m. by the time I gave up my search. But when I closed my eyes to fall asleep with my paci in my mouth, I wondered, for the first time, if maybe, just maybe, a bottle might be in my future. It wasn’t like I didn’t make enough money to indulge, and if it tasted good, it could make my Little time so much better.