Jeff Winger did not like this sensation. He did not like it at all.
He leaned forward in his favorite chair, the one he'd placed in a shadowed corner turned menacingly towards the front door, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands. Part of him wanted to cry, part of him wanted to rage, and the other part was still in shock that his life had come to this.
His precious, innocent, fourteen-year-old daughter was going on her first date.
If he thought yelling would solve it, he would have yelled. Manipulation and guilt had only gotten him in trouble. After all, he hadn't batted an eye when his sons started dating, he'd had it painfully pointed out for him. And Zachariah had been thirteen – thirteen! – at the time of said date, a full year younger than Caroline was right now.
Jeff had nearly started in on the "it's different for boys and girls", before his wife had given him her best formidable face and shut it down. But it was different, he thought again now. Their two sons were more like he had himself been as a teenager: cool, confident, smart. Jeff knew they could take care of themselves.
Caroline was the image of her mother, though. She was their baby, and Jeff's little princess. He'd been scared shitless when Annie had told them they were having a girl. After all, Jeff Winger knew women, but little girls… other than buying cookies from them, he never gave them much thought.
It had been a learning experience for all three of the Winger men. Suddenly this little squirming bundle of sunshine had come into their lives, and Jeff had no better idea than his young sons what to make of her. Annie had been quietly amused for the first few weeks, which quickly turned into exasperation the longer Jeff's wariness held.
After a few months, however, Jeff got used to his little delicate daughter, and quickly fell under her spell. Zach and Drew still complained good-naturedly about how tight Caroline had her father wound around her finger, and Jeff couldn't say anything to the contrary.
All she had to do was look at him with the big blue doe eyes she'd inherited from her mother, and he was sunk.
Unfortunately, the one area in which Caroline really took after him was her ruthless manipulation techniques (and her elfin nose, which had been a bane to him all his life, but worked on her more delicate features).
And that was why he was sitting in the shadows of his living room, awaiting the doorbell, dread curdling further in his stomach with every tick of the clock.
He felt a weight settle on the arm of his chair, then a gentle hand stroked his head. A little of his tension was eased, but he kept his face in his hands. "You know, I never had any sympathy for your father when we were on the other side of this situation. I feel a need to send him a bottle of my favorite Scotch and my heartfelt apologies."
Annie laughed and leaned into his shoulder. "At least this kid she's going out with is her own age. And his mother is chaperoning them."
Dropping his hands, Jeff exhaled, sat back, and pulled his wife into his lap. "But can we trust her? How do we know she'll keep an eye on them?"
"Jeff." Annie took his face in her hands and dropped a kiss on his lips. "We can trust her. And more importantly, we can trust Caroline. She's a good kid."
"I guess so," Jeff allowed. He smiled a little and hugged her to his chest, inhaling the soft floral fragrance of her dark brown hair. "We did a good job, didn't we, Mrs. Winger?"
"One son accepted to a real college far away from Greendale, one son about to get his driver's license, and one happy, well-adjusted, non-pill-popping daughter." She laughed up at him, her blue eyes dancing. "We did an excellent job."
"Greendale wasn't so bad," he admitted. "It brought us together." Jeff stroked a hand down her cheek and pulled her in for a small kiss. And like it usually did, that kiss led to one more, and one more, until they were so engrossed in each other, they didn't hear the doorbell or the clamoring of feet down the staircase.
They didn't hear anything until: "Gross!"
Startled, Jeff and Annie separated and turned as one to their daughter. "Try not to be too embarrassing," she pleaded, before running a hand over her hair and opening the door.
Jeff grinned and turned to his wife as they stood. "If we embarrass her, do you think the date will be cancelled?"
Annie slapped at his chest and shushed him before going to talk to the punk's mother. Jeff tried to be nonchalant as he sidled up to the foyer to inspect the male who dared to think he was good enough for Caroline Winger.
What he saw instead, was a skinny, obviously nervous thirteen-year-old who looked like he'd rather be anywhere than standing here staring at his date's father. But when the kid looked at Caroline, his face lit up, and though Jeff tried to find it, he didn't see anything other than admiration.
So he stood back, and waited while his wife made small talk with the boy's mom, and then he hugged his daughter, gave the boy one stern look for good measure, and waved them on their way.
"See?" Annie said turning back to him as he closed the door. She wrapped her arms around his midsection and leaned back to look up at him. "There was nothing to be nervous about."
"Not with this one," he agreed. "But someday, one of them is going to take her away from us." Running his hands up and down her back, he frowned. "When did we get so old?"
Annie gasped in mock outrage. "Speak for yourself! I'm hardly even into my forties, old man."
"Old man?" Jeff dipped lower and picked her up, carrying her toward the stairs. "That's not what you called me last night."
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, and started nuzzling his ear. "Guess what I found when I was looking for a purse for Caroline to borrow?"
"What's that?" he asked, concentrating very hard on not dropping her as they made it all the way up to their bedroom.
She squirmed down from his hold and leaned against the doorway with one hand on the knob, giving him a flirty smile. "My yellow cardigan."
Jeff felt his pulse trip. He had a lot of very good memories of that cardigan. "Oh, yeah?"
As an answer, Annie grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him into their room, closing and locking the door behind them.
Down the hall, two other doors opened as their sons raced down the hallway and out the door in mortified silence.
Safe in their mother's sedan as it pulled away from the house, Drew broke the quiet. "Why are they always doing that?"
Zach just shrugged helplessly and shook it off as he drove. "Just… don't think about it."