Page 119 of Whisper Sweet Nothings
“What? No. I’m not proposing to Winnie. But I did want to talk to you about Winnie.”
“Okay.”
Well, now she had me fumbling over my own thoughts. I thought Winnie and me being together was going to be a big discussion, but she thought I was proposing, so this was not going the way I’d expected.
“I, er, I like Winnie,” I said.
“I like my Winnie, too.”
“I guess I’m saying that I like Winnie more than a friend.” I tucked her hair behind her ears as I looked at her.
“But you don’t want to marry Winnie?”
“Well, we aren’t talking about marriage.” I cleared my throat. “I’m saying that right now, I’d like to date Winnie.”
“Oh. I thought you and my Winnie were dating.”
“You did?”
“What does ‘dating’ mean, Daddy?”
“It means that you want to spend time with someone. That you want to be with them all the time.”
Her brows cinched together. “You spend lots of time with Winnie, right?”
“I guess I do.” I sighed. I clearly sucked at this.
“Hello? Are you guys up?” Winnie called out from the kitchen.
Thank goodness. She’d be better at this than I was.
“Yep. Come on back. We’re just talking about you.”
“You’re talking about me, huh?” Winnie said as she walked in dressed in a pair of gray joggers and a matching sweater. Her hair was in a ponytail, her face free of makeup. She was stunning.
I patted the bed. “Yep. Come on in.”
“Daddy’s telling me that he likes you, but he doesn’t want to marry you.” Melody frowned, and my eyes bulged out of my head.
“No. No. No. That’s not what I said.” I cleared my throat. “I said that I liked you, and Melody asked if I was proposing. And I said no, obviously, but that I’d like to date you. And she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.”
Winnie didn’t appear offended in the slightest. She just chuckled and turned to face Melody. “Tell me what you are confused about.”
“Uncle Bridger is prosing to Emilia, but Daddy said he isn’t prosing to you. He wants to spend time with you. But I don’t know why he’s telling me that, ’cause he spends time with you every day.” Melody shrugged, giving me this goofy look like I had three heads.
“That does sound very confusing,” Winnie said with a smile, and she ran her fingers over Melody’s cheek. “So Daddy and I have been friends for a while now, but we realized our feelings are deeper than friendship. We told each other last night that we both have these deeper feelings for one another, and we thought we could start dating, and make it official.”
A wide grin spread across Melody’s face. “Daddy wants you to be his girlfriend?”
Didn’t I say something similar, and I got no reaction?
“Yes. I’d like that,” I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes that nothing I said made sense to my daughter, while everything Winnie said was golden.
“Right. And it just means that we’ll continue spending lots of time together, and we won’t date anyone else.” Winnie smiled.
“But he’s not prosing to you?” she asked again.
Since when did she want me to get married so badly?
