two - age eleven

"Dad, we need to talk."

The statement actually made Len cough uncomfortably a few times, mostly because typically if someone told him that 'they needed to talk,' his immediate reaction would be something along the lines of 'Are you breaking up with me?' Which, obviously, was not appropriate father-daughter conversation. "Uh, okay," he said, looking at her in the passenger seat for a second before turning his attention back to the road. "Shoot."

"I think you need to get out of the house more," Tori replied, folding her hands in her lap for added No-Nonsense effect.

"I wasn't aware that I spent an unhealthy amount of time in the house," he laughed (because he didn't, and his daughter usually said he wasn't home often enough. Tori, apparently, was impossible to please.)

"Well, you don't, and usually, I feel very neglected. But! As you know, I'm having a sleepover this weekend. And my sleepover is the first one of the whole year -- meaning, you know, the first one as middle schoolers. Which means you can't like... be at home."

"Are you worried about me embarrassing you? Because I think I am hardly the most embarrassing of parents."

"Of course not, since most people think you're my super hot older brother," the tween said, visibly gagging at the thought and making some noise of disgust, "But you still can't like. You know, be there. And take Mike with you."

"I'm not letting a bunch of eleven-year-olds run around my house unsupervised," Len reminded her pointedly, furrowing his brow at the thought.

"We won't be unsupervised. Toby will be there."

"Why is it okay for Toby to be around and not me or Mike?"

"Because you two don't ever, um, you know."

"What? No, I don't know."

"Stop doing that."

"That?"

"That! It! Don't make me say it, it's so awkward!" she cried, burying her face in her hands and turning bright red.

"Oh. Oh. Um--"

"It's fine," she snapped, before Len could make things any worse (because this reminded her of the time they had The Talk and she just wanted to die of embarrassment because she really didn't need her dad to talk about how, like, awesome sex was or whatever, because that's just weird. It was bad enough she had three parents that still hadn't hit 30, never mind three not-30 parents who were like... radicals.) "But you're really loud and, you know, I'm used to it, but my friends won't be. And don't even say something like, 'oh, don't worry Tori, we'll be good' because I know that you have this weird inability to not-fight and then not-do-it. You just can't. And Toby'll be a really good chaperone, anyway. He's responsible."

"Yeah." There was no arguing with that -- partially because Len was mortified at actually having to talk to his eleven-year-old (or being talked at, he supposed) about his sex habits. "Um, okay. Um. I'll look for hotels. For the weekend. I guess."

"Okay! Thanks, Daddy!" she smiled, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he pulled up to the school and she unbuckled her seatbelt. "I'm really glad we had this conversation. And while you're there, get a massage or something. You seem tense," she grinned, opening the door and swinging her backpack strap over her shoulder while she climbed out of the car.

"Yeah, yeah, have a nice day," he called as she closed the door, driving off and pulling out his phone. "Mike?" he began once he heard an answer on the opposite end, "We're being kicked out for the weekend."