Hello Sergeant (Bucky Barnes)

shopping

Sarah's POV

I could tell that James was uncomfortable in the mall. It was early enough in the day that it wasn't really crowded yet, but there were still a lot of people here. No one paid us any particular attention, we were just another group of college kids out shopping.

We went to American Eagle first and I found some jeans that I liked for James that were between Jace and Steve's sizes. I made Jace keep the sales guy busy while James tried them on and they fit, but not quite how they should, so I had the sales guy get the proper size for him. James nodded after he put on that pair, liking how they fit better.

I grabbed a button up shirt and a polo shirt in two sizes to see which fit he liked better and had him try them on. He didn't care for the looser fit ones, so I mentally noted that. Jace stayed with James while I grabbed a selection of shirts and had the sales guy get three more pairs of jeans in the same cut with slightly different washes. I showed the guys the shirts and they only vetoed one of them, but that one was my least favorite. I had Jace pick out some hoodies for James since he didn't have an opinion on them.

The sales guy tried to flirt with the guys while he rang us up, but Jace cut him off before it got weird, letting him know they weren't interested. James didn't say anything, but his expression stopped the guy quickly. James' eyes got big when he heard the total, but it wasn't a big deal to me. Tony had been griping about how I never let him buy me things, so I used the credit card he gave me a while back, thinking this should make him happy.

On our way to the next store, he asked, "Was that guy making a pass at me?"

I grinned at him as Jace laughed. "Yes, he was hitting on you - he thought you were really hot. FYI, it's okay to be openly gay now, James."

James looked at me like I was crazy, but didn't say anything more. We headed for the sporting goods store to get James some workout clothes. Steve's were large on him and Jace's would be too small, so I grabbed a bunch of Under Armor shirts and shorts and found some socks he liked.

Now that I knew James' jeans size, I knew what underwear would fit him. His face turned bright red when he realized what we were looking at and he refused to tell me his preference, so I grabbed one package of each style: brief, boxer and boxerbrief. He could tell me when he decided what he liked and I'd get more of that style later.

Jace ran our now quite large collection of bags out to my car while I took James to our last stop at the mall - the shoe store. James spent a while looking at the different kinds of shoes before going with the basic Adidas striped indoor soccer shoes. He also found a pair of running shoes that he liked when the sales guy brought out his size, opting to wear them out of the store.

I could tell that James was tired of shopping, so we took him to the food court, letting him pick what he wanted for lunch. He decided on a pretzel from Auntie Annie's, so I got us both regular pretzels with cheese and some cinnamon sugar bites for Jace. We sat down to eat our snack while James decided what he wanted to try next.

"Have you ever had sushi, James?"

"What is it?"

"Rice and vegetables with some seafood in the middle. You can try mine if you like."

"Sounds interesting. Don't know if I like it, but I'll try it."

"I'm getting tacos," Jace said. "I haven't had them in a long time. The ones at school suck."

"What is a taco?" James asked. Jace pointed at the food stand and James studied it for a bit. "I'll try one. If you like it, I probably will too."

 "Everyone loves tacos, James. I'll get you some of each kind." Jace handed James the last couple cinnamon bites for him to try and went to get his tacos.