It wasn’t that he waited up for her. Not exactly.
It was just that he could never quite fully sleep until he knew they were all where they were supposed to be.
So when he heard the car engine as it came into the drive, the click of the front door and the pad of her footsteps on the stairs, he breathed a little easier.
With practiced ease, he shifted Pam gently from where she lay against his chest and slipped out of bed, padding quietly across the room.
Her door was closed and he knocked softly, not wanting to wake the twins, whose rooms were right across the hall from Cece’s.
“Come in,” she called.
When he opened the door, he was hit by a smell he remembered from… let’s just say his college days. And maybe his twenties. And possibly after that as well.
“I swear,” Cece said, seeing his recognition, “I didn’t smoke. A lot of people had joints at the party, but I didn’t. The smoke just stank up my clothes.”
He nodded, believing her. Cecelia was no perfect child, but she was honest, and she didn’t try to hide things from her parents.
For the most part.
But Jim was aware that while she was almost certainly telling the truth about why she smelled like a Grateful Dead concert, she was definitely trying to pull one over on him with the way she was striking a seemingly casual pose, her head tilted to the left and her hand conspicuously covering the side of her neck.
He raised an eyebrow.
“What?” she asked, playing ignorant.
He shook his head.
“Neck hurt?”
Fortunately, she had the grace to blush as she removed her hand, revealing a fairly sizeable red and purple bruise near the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
Yeah, not something he needed to see. Jim considered himself a reasonable father and a progressive man. He was willing to admit that his daughters would probably get kissed.
Some day.
Like their wedding days.
When they were in their thirties.
That was perfectly reasonable, right?
He sighed. “I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me you were attacked by a band of vampires on your way home?”
Cece bit her lip and shuffled her feet, her hand moving back up to cover the mark. “Nothing else happened, I swear.”
“You’re doing an awful lot of swearing tonight, Cee,” he remarked, raising his eyebrows at her.
“I know, I know,” she said quickly, her voice rising in pitch a bit. “But seriously, I didn’t smoke and I didn’t…gah… you know… just trust me, Dad.”
“I do trust you,” he acknowledged. “It’s those idiot boys…”
Cece rolled her eyes and sighed in loud exasperation. “They’re not idiots, Daddy!”
Now it was his turn to execute a perfect eye roll. “Yes, they are,” he informed her. “I was one once upon a time. I remember.”
And again. He was really afraid her eyes would get stuck one day.
“Look,” he said, wanting more than anything to not have this talk, “if you’re going to be having-” he hesitated at the word - “sex-”
“Ew.”
“Then you need to be-”
“Oh god, stop,” Cece demanded, looking ill and waving her hands frantically. “I’m not, I’m not, I promise. I never have.”
Well, thank goodness for small favors.
But still…
“Good,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “That’s…that’s good. But if you do, and you shouldn’t, until you’re much older and in a committed relationship, you have to be safe and-”
“Dad, seriously,” she begged. “Mom had this talk with me like a million years ago. And there’s condom signs at school. Look, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I don’t want a baby or some disease. And I don’t want to have to have an abortion like Ava. Okay, just please trust me?”
He nodded. “I do, Cee,” he sighed. “I just want you to be careful. You can have the best intentions, but you’re young and sometimes that means you can make stupid mistakes or be careless and I just-”
She laughed.
“What?”
“You’re one to talk about careless mistakes,” she accused. “I was born, what, four months after you and Mom got married?”
“We were adults.”
“And I’ll be an adult in six months.”
Jim shook his head. “No, no you will not be. Being an adult is so much more than just turning 18. Trust me, you will not be an adult in six months. You won’t be an adult in six years.” He sighed. “It’s late. Just… be careful, okay? And cover that up tomorrow. You need to set a good example for Natalie.”
Cece gaped, aghast.
“Me, set a good example?” she demanded, her voice rising. “We could hear you and Mom in her studio when we came home from the movies last week. Maybe you should set a good example.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t have a point, it was that there were times Jim felt it his right to play the Dad card, and this was one of them.
“Hey,” he whispered loudly. “I’m the parent, you‘re the child. I’ll worry about my own conduct, thank you.”
Cece rolled her eyes. “I’m not a little kid, Dad.”
He regarded her, at nearly 2:30 in the morning, standing in front of him wearing tight jeans with a low cut halter top, her wavy hair in a messy twist and way too much makeup. He looked at the bite mark on her neck and smelled the pot on her clothes, and he wondered where the hell the time had gone.
“I know,” he sighed. “Quit reminding me.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Pop quiz: What '80s sitcom featured an episode about a father's daughter with a similar "affliction" to Cece's here?
I think father-of-teenage-girl-Jim is very much based on my own father, only Jim doesn't have my dad's temper.
One chapter left to go...
I think father-of-teenage-girl-Jim is very much based on my own father, only Jim doesn't have my dad's temper.
One chapter left to go...
Chapter End Notes:
Every father's daughter is a virgin, right? About 12 years ago,my dad found my birth control pills (which were for CRAMPS!) and when I told him what they were, his head literally snapped back. I thought he was going to have to be hospitalized.
