Recently our daughter Laena has been dating a lot. Sigh. She had a date lined up for last Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday morning.
Now she's gotten rid of most of the jerks, which is encouraging, but the sheer numbers, and her obvious talent for . . flirting, can at times be slightly disconcerting. To Mama, at least.
Last night she brought home a new guy from work. I'd gone over earlier, and met him, so I wasn't too annoyed by this fresh invasion, even thought they were running late. Charlie, on the other hand, as the 2 of them were walking up to the front porch, just glanced around the corner of the house, where he was working on something to do with the truck, glared for a moment in disdainful acknowledgement, and then disappeared. I was basically okay with that, since, as everyone knows, you can't have too many teenage boy deterrents/repellents in place, 'specially not with a little girl like ours. : )
Laena wanted to show this new kid her guitar. After they'd gone inside, I casually approached Charlie.
"You know, it might make a slightly better impression, might ease things up a little bit if you'd . . come over and shake hands or something. . . " I suggested tentatively.
"Oh."
He frowned. "Wasn't that the kid from. . Hollywood High?" He looked studious. "You know . . . um. . ." He paused, clearly unconcerned about the fact that he couldn't remember the Hollywood kid's name.
"Matt." I clarified.
"Yeah, Matt." He dismissed the whole conversation with his tone, and went back to working on the truck. Charlie can sometimes come across . . well, he strikes rather an intimidating presence. . with the prospective boyfriends anyway. . Well, with everyone actually. . . He emits fierceness. He can't help it. That's just who he is. I chuckle at the thought, while simultaneously defying anyone not to be intimidated by my 6 foot, muscle-bound, red-headed, scrappy beefcake of a man. Especially when he's standing there, in grease covered jeans and a tee shirt, wiping down a heavy piece of metal, next his dismantled truck, which clearly he tore apart with his bare hands. Good luck with that. : ) Hee hee hee.
Life is . . . really pretty good.
A few minutes later, after recruiting Tommy to round up Laena her 'friend', they all came back outside. I was sitting on the edge of the porch, bouncing the baby on my lap, Charlie calmly attacking some joint on the truck frame with a sledge hammer. . . Nothing too exciting.
Oh, I thought, I should do the right thing and introduce this poor kid to The Daddy Man. Help him out in his hour of need. . .
"Hey Charlie." He looked up. "This is. . . "
Ahhh, what was his name again. . . ? Chad, Zeke, Jake. . . ?
Eek. It wasn't coming to me. Stupidly, I jumped ahead.
"Hey Laena. Why don't you . . .introduce . . your friend. . to your Dad here. . ."
Ugh. What has happened to my short term memory?!
"Daddy", she chirped, in bouncy, boy mode, perfectly at ease. "This is Zach."
"Hi Zach." Charlie was now laying his side on the concrete, wrestling a large, twisted metal . . something, off of the frame of the truck. I think it was a huge bolt out of it's . . chosen position. Anyway, he didn't give poor Zach much . . of anything. He may have glanced in his direction. Certainly didn't meet him halfway. : ) And you can't really blame him. You don't want to make these young punks to. . comfortable. . don't want to give them any inkling of creative license . . with your daughter, for heaven's sake. Charlie's pretty much right on.
The thing was, this Zach kid was actually pretty unconcerned. Or at least he seemed to be . . fairly relaxed. Maybe he has a dad like Charlie. I don't know. But he turned out to be a pretty nice guy. Weird. He played with the little kids, made jokes with Tommy. . All in all, seemed . . basically at his ease. : ) All righty then.
Yeah, Laena likes hangin' with the boys. . . Not too surprising. She has 5 brothers. . .And I had 6. And a lot of friends. . . that were boys. Must be genetic.
Right now my favorites are Jacob, Zach, Diego, and Nathan. They're all talented, reasonably upstanding young men. We'll see what happens. Hopefully we've got a few years yet, until we have to call and reserve a reception hall. . . Or until she calls us from Vegas. . . Sigh, choke, sob, chuckle. We'll probably have some great stories to tell at her wedding. Deep sigh. But until then, I guess all we can do is enjoy the ride. : ) And pray that the boy she meets, is really good at. . . something.
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