Little Maxie

Chapter 50

When Max woke up, he was still little, and when he saw Brad looking down on him, leaning against the top bar of the crib, he cooed happily up at the man holding his arms up.

"Braddy, up," Max demanded, smiling happily when the caregiver lowered the bar and picked him up.

"Are we too small for walking again?" the man asked, amused, but Maxie shook his head.

"Like this," the little shyly confessed. Brad smiled and hugged him tightly before putting him on the bed to get his diaper changed.

"It's okay to like this," Brad said, poking Max's nose, which made the little go cross-eyed a little trying to catch the finger, but it was already long gone, "now let's see if we got a wet or a messy diaper,"

"Not messy," Maxie said, and Brad saw that it was true, but it was very wet. Wiping the area clean, Brad applied the usual salve, much to the protests of Max, and then put a new diaper on him, before closing the sleeper again.

They would need to leave in a couple of hours, and then Max needed to wear his red bull outfit, but Brad didn't want to risk getting it dirty. Besides, Max seemed more than comfortable in the sleeper.

Maxie was big enough to walk around, and that's what he did. Walking around the hotel room and following Brad as closely as he could, often bumping in the caregiver when he suddenly stopped and when the man looked at him, he always smiled, going in for a hug, squishing Bunny between the two.

Brad chuckled at the behaviour, and continued to set the table, doing his best to not stumble over Max, who was making it nearly impossible. Still, Brad didn't ask him to move or get out of the way, thinking that Max was being too cute and he didn't need someone telling him to get out of the way now.

Breakfast went well enough, Max old enough to feed himself, even if he was eating with his fingers, and Brad just cleaning him up afterwards. He gave the little some paper and pencils while he cleaned up the rest of the breakfast and was glad to see Max hesitantly reach for it.

"What are you drawing?" Brad asked when everything was cleaned up, hanging over Maxie, who looked up at him with big eyes, trying to hide his drawing.

"Nothing," Maxie hurriedly said, trying to put it on the underside of the pile of papers, making Brad frown.

"This doesn't look like nothing," Brad said, reaching out for the paper, and seeing Max nervous stare at him when he looked it over, "it's a race car,"

"It's a bad race car," Max said, "made it ugly,"

"No, it's very nicely drawn," Brad said, looking at the mishappen and uneven looking car that Max had drawn, "you even got the Red bull log on it,"

"It's ugly," Max said again, pulling it from Brad's hands and crumpled it in a ball before Brad could react.

"Oh, Maxie!" Brad said, panicked, pulling the ball back from his hands, "your pretty drawing,"

"Is not," Maxie said again, getting agitated, "shouldn't be drawing. Waste of time,"

"No, it isn't," Brad said, sitting himself down, and putting down a blank paper in front of Max and than himself, "let's both make a drawing,"

Max looked at him, his eyes wide, but Brad didn't react to the look. Instead, he grabbed a pencil and started to draw, and he was glad to see Max hesitantly reach out for one as well, following Brad's example. He did turn to look at Brad every so often, as if he needed to reassure himself that it was okay.

"Look at that," Brad said, looking over at Max's page, "such a pretty bunny,"

"Is my bunny," Maxie said shyly handing Brad the drawing, "I gave it a ribbon,"