John was pissed, to say the least. After a long week, he finally had Claire right where he wanted her: with her legs wrapped around his thighs and her pink lips soft against his temple.

He knew she had been awake when he heard her sigh lightly, and he also knew that if he moved fast, when the alarm went off in a few minutes, he could slam it into snooze without so much as a peep of protest from her. And although John loved his kids, sometimes he just wanted to wring their necks. But John wasn't his father's son, and so when Elise went screaming down the hall after her brother, he knew that he had missed his chance.

It wasn't as if sex with Claire was all he ever thought about. Sure, there was his ever-strong nicotine addiction, the daily calls from Shermer High complaining about one thing or another, a pain-in-the-ass client at work, or his weekly hang-outs with Coach Andy Clark and Dr. 'Big Bri' Johnson... but sex with Claire was becoming an increasingly rare thing in his life, and he wasn't happy about it.

And now he had the accusation that his precious first-born was sexting some punk named Daniel Krakowski? He could practically feel his blood boiling as he glared at his daughter, his trade-mark unblinking stare making her cower against the wall. John let both her and her brother go, glancing to where Johnny still clutched the bright pink flip-phone in his hands, his dark eyes wide under his father's gaze.

"Claire, you wanna get in on this?" John asked, pointing to the cellphone. But she was one step ahead of him, grabbing the offending device from Johnny's hands and flipping it open. There were a few beeps and his wife paled, slamming the phone shut in a hurry.

"You, young lady, are grounded!" she hissed, suddenly blushing almost as red as her hair.

"Aw, mom!" Elise complained. "It's not that big of a deal!"

"Not that big of a deal?" Claire repeated, her brown eyes narrowing. John smirked as he recognized his own glaring techniques on her pretty face. He had taught her well.

"But I'll miss Jake's party this weekend!" Elise shrieked, suddenly realizing her mother is serious.

"Well, isn't that just too bad? I guess you should've thought of that before... before... THIS!" Claire held up the phone, and John felt the urge to grab it and smash it into little bits with one of his biggest hammers from the garage. "Now both of you, get ready for school, and I don't even want to HEAR another sound out of either of you!"

"Yes, ma'am," Elise muttered.

Johnny didn't say anything, flipping his growing hair out of his eyes and shuffling back down the hall. John watched their retreating backs as the house once again goes silent, and Claire sighed, pocketing the cellphone.

"How bad was it?" John asked, his eyes on the rectangular shape in her robe pocket.

"Bad enough." She looked up at him, then stood on her tiptoes and gave him a brief kiss. "You can get rid of it later. You need a shower, I'll go wake up Henri."

John wasn't sure why exactly he had let her give two of his kids French names, but all she had to do was kiss him with those soft lips of hers or bat those brown eyes, and he would've let her name them almost anything. He watched with a smile as Claire's work was done for her, their eight-year-old son stumbling out of his room with a confused look on his young face.

He looked up at his mother, then over at his father, his brown eyes lighting up. "Hey, dad!" he chirped.

"Mornin, Kid. You ready for school yet? The bus'll be here soon."

"Sure, dad!" Henri scrambled back into his room and Claire laughed lightly, raising an eyebrow back at John. He sneered playfully at her before heading toward the bathroom, the irony of the light-hearted conversation with his son not lost on him.

..

The bathroom filled with steam from the shower, John wiped the moisture off the mirror with the palm of his hand. Claire was sure to scold him about it later. She always told him that it left marks when he did that, but he didn't see what the big deal was.

His reflection looked back at him in the mirror and he sighed at it, wondering if he should clip his beard today. He liked to keep it short, close to his skin, but the extra growth did keep his face warm against the bitter Chicago wind when he worked outside all day. John examined his face critically. There were a few extra lines around his eyes, and his jaw had filled out slightly, but other than that, he looked pretty much the same as he always did. Same large brown eyes, same hooked nose, same thin lips, same thick neck. Just shorter hair, parted off to the side a bit.

That and the fact that he needed glasses now. John hated the damn things, but he couldn't wear contacts, not with all the sawdust and dirt that was flying around all day. Elise always teased him about his retro-looking glasses, but their oblong circular shape somehow seemed at home on his nose and he despised the thought of having Claire drag him back to the optician's office to get another pair, so he had kept these ones.

There was a slam on the bathroom door. "DAAAAAD! Hurry up! The bus'll be here in 20 minutes and I have to straighten my hair!"

Who would've thought that with two boys, their main troublemaker would've been Elise, their red-headed, once-sweet-as-pie daughter?

John sighed as he opened the door, tying his robe shut before Elise comes barreling past him, face frantic. John couldn't help but frown at the amount of makeup she's wearing. He knew what the boys at school would think of her. Hell, he'd been 16 once, and he didn't like the thought of Elise hanging out with anyone similar to what he was like back then. To some degree, what he was still like.

"JOHNNNN! Hurry up! Hank called - apparently the City wants to talk to you about some new zoning regulations!" Claire called from downstairs, and John sighed. Somehow he had grown up in the past 20 years, and although he didn't regret it, he wasn't sure if it suited him.