Dad?

Fifteen

Their lips slammed together, full of passion and fire. "Wait. Wait!" Mary Margaret laughed, pulling away. "Is she definitely asleep?"
"Out like a light."
"She can't know. She need to think we've broken up. So she'll stop thinking the way she is or whatever."
"So she stops telling kids your her mommy?"
"Basically."
"Yeah yeah yeah. She won't wake up for another two and a half hours. Then she'll wake up from her first nightmare, and come and sleep in my bed with me. Waking me up three to four times in the night with bad dreams, and then finally at half past six in the morning to get me up."
"Wow."
"Like clockwork. Every day."
"Good." Mary Margaret smiled, kissing him again. "We have two hours together where we can actually be together."
They were sat on the sofa kissing when Emma turned up at the doorway with a triumph smile, wearing little dark pink pyjama shorts and a stripy light pink and white pyjama top, a stuffed dinosaur teddy in one hand, her blanket in the other. She was rarely parted from either of them. "I knew it!" She exclaimed triumphantly, making them both jump and pull apart guiltily.
"Emma! I thought you was asleep." David said both shocked and guilty.
"No, I just pretended to be. You're not good at lying. Every night for the past week there's been two wine glasses in the sink, double the amount of food missing because two people are eating it instead of one, and Miss Blanchard keeps forgetting her things. I found a packet of her pocket tissues, her little pocket mirror, and a hairbrush."
"You are one smart kid." David said in awe.
"Yep!"
"Well looks like we weren't quite as secretive as we thought." Mary Margaret whispered, blushing.
"It's okay Miss Blanchard. You need to keep it a secret because someone else probably want you to be their Princess, and you're being nice to them. So you don't hurt their feelings. I get it. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."
"T-Th-Thank you Emma." Mary Margaret stuttered in shock.
"You need to go back to bed." David said suddenly. "It's way past your bedtime."
"I want to stay up with you though. Please?"
David looked at Mary Margaret and she shrugged with a little smile. "Fine. But only for half an hour. Then Miss Blanchard will go home, and you will go to bed. And go to sleep for real."
"Oh-kayyyyy." She sighed, and slowly walked over and sat in between them on the sofa, but a lot closer to David.
"I've not met this one. Who is it?" Mary Margaret asked kindly to Emma, referring to her dinosaur.
"This is Boberta. It's a girl, even though Issac says it's a boy because she's a blue T-Rex. Girls can be blue T-Rex's too."
"Girls can be anything they want to be, just as much as boys." Mary Margaret smiled softly, offering her words of wisdom to Emma.
"Girls can't be a... They can't be a bail bonds man." Emma said pointedly.
David held back a laugh at the stubborn little girl. "No. No, I guess they can't. But they can be a bail bonds person. Or bail bonds woman."
"And a boy can't be... A boy can't be a actress."
"But they can be an actor. It's the same thing."
"No it's not."
"Emma, why don't you tell Mary Margaret more about Boberta." David said quickly, changing the subject.
"Boberta loves pizza and ice cream. So when I go to Granny's, Granny Lucas gives Boberta her own little plate with a little bit of food, and her own little glass of water. But she puts tomato ketchup in it because she's silly."
"And what do I say?" David prompted.
"Her teeth will rot! But she's a good dinosaur and brushes her teeth while David brushed my teeth at night. See!" Emma said proudly, thrusting the teddy into Mary Margarets face, and showing her the dinosaurs mouth, which was damp, and in some places had dry toothpaste on it. It smelt very strongly of mint, pizza, and washing up powder (even though it had very obviously never been washed before).
"Boberta can't come to school with me. David said its because she's too big and I can't take toys into lesson. But Boberta isn't a toy, she's my friend."
"Okay. Well, your David is right that you can't bring her to school. But we do have a book about dinosaurs at school. We can read it on Monday if you want."
"YES PLEASE!" Emma squealed excitedly.
"Okay, okay." Mary Margaret laughed.
"Well done. She's not going to shut up about that now." David muttered with a loving smile. Nearly an hour later, David carried Emma up into her bed, and covered her with her spotty duvet.
"Have sweet dreams Emma. And have sweet dreams Boberta. I hope you both dream of ice cream and pizza and candy floss."
As David kissed Emma's forehead, carrying on with his good night talk and ritual, Emma whispered, "you missed out dream of dinosaurs and unicorns. And dinicorns."
"How could I have forgot?" David smiled softly. "I hope you both have happy dreams of dinosaurs and unicorns and dinicorns."