A/N: Thank you all for your reviews for the previous chapter. Reading them really made my day and I'm so grateful that you all are sticking with this story. :)
Jane felt as if she was trapped inside an '80s teen movie with no way out. She was never particularly close to Jessica's parents, although she did attend a few of their family events. Jane and Jessica would do the obligatory socializing with relatives and, after an hour or so, they'd go up to Jessica's room. That had become the norm with every girl she hooked up with; maybe a brief hello was exchanged with the parents before going up to a girl's room if they entered the house at all. Some girls preferred the backseat of Jane's car or the backseat of their own car in a secluded area. Before their first date, Jane already knew that wouldn't be her experience with Maura's parents. Although the Isles family lived in the upper-middle-class part of town, they didn't practice the type of detached parenting that Jane had always associated with that area. Kids like Cassidy, Sophie, Jessica, and her best friend Brad who lived just a couple of blocks away from Maura were practically unsupervised at all times and able to do whatever they wanted, but that was far from Maura's reality and it became even more evident for Jane as she sat at the kitchen table with Mr. Isles.
"I haven't had sex with your daughter, sir," Jane blurted out.
"This isn't that kind of talk," Mr. Isles responded. "I wish I could keep you from never touching her, but that's up to Maura, not me. Whatever happens, I don't wanna know about it. My wife is better with those kind of conversations."
"She talked to me and Maura before you got here, not about that, though. She talked to us about how you guys became a couple and how her dad treated you."
"He was a pill. To this day, I can't even put my arm around Connie without him saying something."
"I know the feeling," Jane said, absentmindedly.
"Oh, you do?"
Jane wanted to stand her ground, but her nervousness prevailed. "I'm sorry."
"I should be the one who's sorry," Mr. Isles told her, which still did nothing to ease Jane's nervousness. "I know you're a girl, but I brought you in here so we can have a man-to-man talk...even if you're not a man."
"Okay," Jane nervously replied. "What are we going to talk about?"
"Do you want a beer?"
"Uhh, I'm seventeen, sir. I don't drink."
"And you wouldn't be allowed to take my daughter out if you did," Mr. Isles said as he made his way to the refrigerator. He grabbed a beer for himself and a soda for Jane. Is everything going to be a test?
Jane opened her can of soda and watched as Mr. Isles opened his beer with a bottle opener that looked like it was even older than she was. "You keep a bottle opener on your keychain?"
"It's kind of a good luck charm," he informed her. "I bought this at a convenience store a few days before a party I went to in high school and it was at that party that I first kissed the woman who would someday become my wife. You know, we started out a lot like you and Maura."
The thought of him keeping that same bottle opener for almost thirty years made Jane smile. "Yeah, your wife told me and Maura how the girls treated her."
"That was the aftermath," Mr. Isles pointed out. "That's not how we started out. We had a series of misunderstandings like you and Maura have had."
"Like what? She didn't mention anything about baked goods like Maura did, did she?"
"I wish," Mr. Isles laughed. "Things with Mr. Atkins, her father, would have been a lot better." He took a sip of beer before beginning his story. "We have a two-year age difference, which means nothing now that we're forty-six and forty-four, but when we were in high school her father thought that was a huge age difference. I was seventeen and Connie was fifteen when we started dating. She didn't hang out with the popular crowd, so I never saw her at any parties or social events. I was friends with her brother and when I went to the Atkins house for the first time, I ended up spending time with her instead of her brother and the other guys from the team. I wondered how someone so beautiful didn't have a boyfriend and that's when one of my buddies warned me against asking her out. With an overprotective dad and two older brothers, there wasn't a single guy at school brave enough to ask her out, but I worked up the nerve and asked her out before I left and I felt like the luckiest guy alive when she said yes. I was supposed to pick her up that Friday night at seven so we could go see a movie. As soon as the school day ended, I went home to get ready. I washed my car, bought new cologne; I wanted everything to be perfect and then one of my buddies calls and asks if I could pick up some condoms for him because he was too embarrassed to buy them himself and some cheerleader he had the hots for was going to be at his party that night. I planned on going to the drugstore to buy them and then dropping them off at his place before I went to pick up Connie. What I didn't know was that Mr. Atkins was a pharmacist and he worked at that exact drugstore. When he saw me with the box of condoms, he asked, 'Aren't you the young man my little girl has a date with tonight? Surely, you know she's only fifteen and way too young for whatever you plan on doing with those.' I knew he wouldn't believe I was buying them for a friend, so I swore up and down that I wasn't going to use them on his daughter, but then he said, 'If you're not using them with her, who are you using them with? Are you cheating on her?' Then I made the mistake of saying, 'If Connie and I do anything, I want to make sure she's protected.'"
"No!"
"He lost it after that," Mr. Isles shook his head. "He made me call her from a payphone just outside of the drugstore so I could cancel our date."
"So you cancelled and then called her back a few minutes later to explain?"
"I'd like to tell you that's what happened, but I was too afraid of her dad to explain anything to her, so I just went to the party instead. I saw her brother there and, even though he's my friend, he looked like he wanted to kick my ass for being at that party instead of being on a date with his sister. I told him what happened, he punched me in the arm for even liking his sister in the first place, told me he'll break my face if I break her heart, and then he went home to pick her up and bring her to the party. We stayed for about half an hour because she knew a lot of the girls didn't want her there after they saw me kiss her. Her parents thought she was with her brother and, it was still early enough to go on a date, but she wanted to go somewhere secluded so we could be alone."
"She did or you did?" Jane asked him.
"She did," Mr. Isles insisted. "It turns out she had brought some uhh...protection...for us to use just in case…"
"I get what you mean," Jane said to spare him the embarrassment.
"She had never even kissed another guy before me," Mr. Isles continued. "I told her she wasn't ready and we should wait until she's at least sixteen, maybe after her Sweet Sixteen party or prom night or some special occasion. We hadn't even officially gone on a date yet. That's when she told me she hates all this overprotective male bullshit, pardon my language. She was treated like some fragile little princess by her dad and her brothers; she didn't want that from me, too. I had been with a lot of girls and Connie wanted to know what made her different from them―why some guys are quick to sleep with some girls and protect others. What makes some girls a one-night stand while others are girlfriend material? She asked why guys are expected to be virile while girls are expected to remain virgins until they're married. I didn't have an answer for her, so I just listened and she told me the only person who could tell a girl or a woman when she's ready is herself. If I wanted to be her boyfriend, I'd have to treat her as an equal, and I know she passed those words onto Maura."
"Sounds right," Jane smiled.
"I agreed with her, but at that time I didn't think I'd someday have a daughter who'd become a teenager and think the way she does," Mr. Isles smirked. "Now I'm becoming less like the guy I was in high school and more like Mr. Atkins."
"Is this a cautionary tale, sir?" Jane asked.
"I'm just saying after nearly thirty years I finally understand my father-in-law and, maybe in another thirty years, you'll understand, too, when you have a daughter who brings home some guy or girl with one thing on their mind and realize it's the same thing that your daughter wants, too, and it's up to you to protect her from that."
"That's not all I want from her," Jane said before realizing she had worded that wrong. "I mean that's not what I want at all."
"Jane, don't bullshit me. As much as I'd like to think of Maura as some perfect angel, I know she isn't. I wish it was possible for her to stay that same six-year-old girl who wanted me to play Candyland with her and read her stories every night, but she's in her own world now and I'm not a part of it the way my wife is and, in a way, I'm glad there's certain things I'm not going to know. No matter what she tells her mom, she's going to tell you even more, so that's why I wanted to have this talk. I want you to protect her."
"What?" Jane asked in disbelief. "What about what your wife said about overprotective men? I'm not a guy, but that's kinda the same thing, right?"
"Protect her without her knowing you're protecting her. I know what's happening to her is because she's going out with you. The same thing happened to Connie, so you need to do what I did with her and make it all worthwhile. Just stay close to her. Take her out on dates. Let her wear your jacket. Hold her hand at school―nothing more than holding her hand or you'll never see my daughter again. If everyone sees that you're not backing down, that you're being tough and not taking any shit from them, they'll eventually just leave Maura alone and move onto talking about some guy who got drunk and made an ass of himself at a party that weekend or some couple that just broke up. It's high school; things become old news fast. Just be tough, Sport. Man up―or, in your case, woman up." Sport? I guess that's a good sign.
"Yeah," Jane nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."
"I know she's my daughter, but she's your girl," Mr. Isles pointed out. "You have to protect her and prove to her why you're worth all of this."
I walked two miles in the snow. I guess that's a start.
"Can Maura and I go up to her room so we could talk this out in private?"
"Not in this lifetime," Mr. Isles said before chugging the last of his beer. "But I'll let you two spend the rest of the afternoon together in the living room. Connie is probably upstairs in her office, but I'll be in our room, our room that is close to the stairs, and I'll have the door open which means I'll be able to hear everything, so don't even think about trying anything with Maura or letting Maura try anything with you."
"Yes, sir," Jane responded, just as frightened as she had been at the start of their talk.
Jane knew she hadn't gotten anywhere with Mr. Isles and he was no closer to easing up on her than his father-in-law was to easing up on him, but she finally understood where he was coming from even if the thought of having another talk with him scared the hell out of her.
She had the entire afternoon with Maura and, because Mrs. Isles still had their phones, she hoped to get Maura's mind off of the girls at school so they could enjoy their first snow day together. I wonder if she'd be up for Netflix in a blanket fort.
