Boys

Shawn has a jolt of inspiration at the dinner table that night and retreats to his desk and laptop. After dinner Cory does dishes, Desdemona goes out to a movie with a group of friends and Cordelia sits on the couch tapping her foot and looking at her phone expectantly. When it finally rings she answers it instantly.

"Are you downstairs? Okay, I'll be right down." She hangs up, grabs her jacket off one of the kitchen table chairs and calls, "See you later Pop!" to Cory, who stops her with a soapy outstretched hand.

"Where you going Delia?" he asks wearily.

"Out," She replies sweetly.

"With?"

"You know, a friend."

"How about your friend comes up here first?"

Cordelia gives Cory a look he is getting used to from his teenage daughters and makes a call.

"Hi, actually I'm going to buzz you up-- my father wants to meet you."

There's a knock at the door in a couple of minutes and Cordelia opens it.

"Why don't you invite your friend in Delia?" Cory suggests.

A tall boy with black hair, a leather jacket and the ridiculous jeans that Cory keeps seeing kids wear walks through the front door and Cory drops the plate he's washing in the sink.

"Pop this is Dean, Dean this is my father."

Dean extends his hand to shake and Cory turns his head to the bedroom door and yells, "Honey?"

Shawn yells back "I'm working!"

"Your daughter is going out with a boy. In a leather jacket."

Shawn appears in the living room as though he was beamed there.

"Dad this is Dean," Cordelia sighs, red with embarrassment, turning up the volume on the disproving teenage girl look she's still giving Cory, "Dean this is my other father."

Cordelia turns redder and redder as Cory and Shawn make conversation with Dean, nearly purpling with embarrassment when Cory announces that Dean should know that he knows exactly what Dean thinks that jacket means and Shawn shushes his husband, before adding to Dean that he knows exactly what his own leather jacket meant in high school.

Shawn haggles Cordelia's curfew to midnight and she grudgingly accepts it.

"That one's my daughter?" Shawn asks after Cordelia is gone.

"Absolutely," Cory

"I don't know, she's the one going out with the guy in the jacket. Maybe you two have more in common than you think."

Shawn goes back to writing, and Cory reads a book on the couch, checking the clock every couple of pages until Shawn comes out to join him. They watch TV and Shawn assures Cory that Cordelia is a smart girl who can take care of herself and that they are eventually going to have to get over this "girls growing up" thing. Cordelia and Desdemona get back together at 11:00, both looking upset.

"You're both back before curfew on a Friday night?" Shawn asks, "What's wrong? Bad date?"

"No date," Cordelia responds.

"Dean went back home after he left here," Desdemona explains.

Cory and Shawn's eyes go buggy and they both gulp down guilt and start a simultaneous chorus of "Honey we're so sorry-we didn't mean-what can we do" But Cordelia cuts them off.

"Dean had a problem with the fact that we've got two fathers," She mumbles, "So I told him to go to hell and walked down to the coffee shop near the theater and waited for Desde."

"He's a fucktard," Desdemona assures Cordelia, "And everyone knows it. You should here some of the things Angelica says about him."

Language like that from Desdemona is nearly as rare as Cory and Shawn letting their daughters get away with language like that, but this time around they all just nod in agreement.

Cordelia and Desdemona both go wash their faces and go to their room. Cory leans his head into Shawn's shoulder and sighs. Shawn kisses his temple.

In the morning Cory finds his first grey hair, and jokes with Cordelia over breakfast that it's all her fault.

Next Installment: Maturity