“Mom! Say something. This isn’t fair. I’m not going to have sex with him!”
“You say that now, sweetie,” Everly says. “Let me talk to your father. Go to your room. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You aren’t going, young lady,” I use my deep, parental voice. The one that says, ‘do not fuck with me on this’.
Her bottom lip wiggles. Her eyes get wide with tears. She has her mother’s eyes, too. “Don’t you dare pull that on me. I know what you’re doing! This isn’t my first rodeo, Lila.”
But she doesn’t stop. Her eyes well with tears. She has the same dent in her chin as her mom and that starts to tremble. I bury my face in my hands and sigh. Why did I have to have a beautiful daughter? She looks just like her mom.
“If Jaxson was going on a date, you would just let him walk out the door, and that isn’t fair!”
“Honey, your brother is fourteen,” Everly points out, “and that isn’t true. We aren’t going to let your brother date until we agree on a dating age for you.”
“All my other friends are dating. This isn’t fair.”
“You know what else isn’t fair? Me in jail because of some asshole kid name Crowic,” I spit.
“He isn’t an asshole. He is in the marching band, and you’re being mean!” She stomps down the hall, dramatically of course, and slams the door. Awful music blares behind it. It’s her way of giving me the middle finger.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh, plopping down on the couch. “She is going to be the death of me.”
“You’re really hard on her, Rowan. She’s sixteen. All girls want to start dating at that age. She’s a good girl. She’s smart. If you do this, she will pull away, and then just date behind our backs. And then who knows what she will get into. Sex, drugs, prostitution. She will run away from home, and work as a sex slave, trying to pay rent because she has daddy issues.”
I grab the remote from my crazy wife’s hands. “Okay, no more Netflix documentaries for you. Crazy,” I mumble.
“Says the guy who won’t let our daughter go on a date with a kid in the marching band.”
I snort, tossing popcorn in my mouth. “Please, those marching band kids are the ones that push the most. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what that kid wants. I’ve been sixteen.”
“Oh, I know. I was there. Need I remind you. It was different for us, Rowan. We grew up together, we kind of always dated each other even when we weren’t dating. It was always us. You have to let the strings go, just a little, with Lila. I say she can date, but she has to text us every thirty minutes and be home by ten. And if she’s late, then she can’t see her boyfriend for a week.” Everly tosses a piece of popcorn in her mouth, crunching on the buttery goodness.
I sigh. She’s right. But that’s what I love about Everly. She always knows how to keep me in check.
I guess I’m just not ready to admit that my daughter is growing up. It’s so hard to believe. She’s almost getting to the age that Everly and I were, back before this all began.
“Besides,” Everly purrs, “maybe if she’s gone for a few hours we can get up to some trouble.”
Now that sounds like it’s worth it.
“Lila!” I call. I can practically see her eyes roll from my position here on the couch.
“What.” She stomps. “Why won’t you—”
“You can go out with Crowic tonight.”
Her mouth falls open. “R-really?”
“But! Your mother and I have some very strict rules. And if you break any one of these rules you are not leaving the house for a week, do you understand?”
Everly looks over at me, her eyebrows raised, knowing that I made her punishment harsher.
Lila’s eyes light up the same way her mother’s do. “I promise I won’t break the rules!”
“Good, now listen closely. No sex. No drinking. Keep your seatbelt on in the car. And I want you to text us every thirty minutes and be home no later than 10. Do we have a deal?”
Lila practically jumps up and down with joy. “Yes! Thank you, Dad!” She dashes forward and embraces me in a hug. Her honey brown hair—the exact same color of Everly’s shimmers softly. It just melts my heart.
“Don’t thank me, young lady. This was your mother’s idea.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she says, as she reaches down to give her a hug.
Everly kisses Lila on the forehead. “Go get ready. You don’t want to keep him waiting too long.”
Lila grins and dashes up to her bedroom.
“You’re a smart lady,” I grin, taking the bowl of popcorn away from Everly and setting it on the table. “It’s hot.” I settle over her and take her lips in a slow kiss.
Even all these years later, I love her more than I ever thought possible. And I want her more every damn day. If we could have more kids, we would, but Jaxson nearly killed Everly, and she had to have a hysterectomy. I told her I didn’t care if we couldn’t have more kids. She gave me two beautiful children that are perfect, and if we wanted more, we would adopt.
But two teenagers? That’s enough right now.
“Oh, yeah?” she grins, rubbing her foot down my leg and back up until it settles on my ass.
“Hell yeah, you’re so fucking hot, baby.” I grab her chin in my hand like I always do and plant a kiss on her. She always gets me so worked up. My cock is hard in my jeans as I settle between her legs.
She spreads them wider, diving her tongue in my mouth at the same
