Next Generation (Book 4)

Father First

|Paul's POV|

Things were getting back to normal. Jamie had her baby. Steph and I are officially grandparents of 2, with a 3rd on the way any day now. Bianca Anastasia, our first granddaughter. I'm sure she along with Izzy and Tyler's baby girl will give us all a run for our money. Thankfully, I'm granddad now and can spoil and leave the discipline up to their parents. I know my parents were heavily involved. I plan to do the same, to some extent. Still, after raising 6 kids, I'm ready to watch them grow into adulthood and parenthood and see exactly what I was talking about all these years.

Steph is out of town for the week and I'm home with the girls. I do a lot of my work in the area now and if I do go out of town it's either for vacation or just a few days. Nothing strenuous like it used to be.

I woke up for the day and got ready. Going downstairs, I saw the Vaughn was already up. She had her stuff laid out on the table.

"Morning," I said.

She jumped in her seat and looked over at me with a sly grin.

"Uh, hey daddy."

I raised my brow.

"So all this weekend when you were either training or out with your friends, none of your homework got done?"

"Huh?"

"Vaughn Evelyn..."

"Okay, okay. I was going to do it yesterday but then Franco squeezed me and Murphy into that kickboxing class and I couldn't pass it up. Then after he had time for a workout session and Murphy was down to stay with me so I went for it."

I sighed and took a seat next to her.

"Vaughn, this is the second time I've found you doing your homework on a Monday morning..."

"Yeah, but I get it done. Isn't that what matters."

"Right now, your top priority is school. That's what matters to me. I'm happy that you found something you love in physical fitness. You've been working hard at that and from what Shawn and Mark tell me, they sees a major improvements in the ring."

"See! All the hard work is paying off."

"You're missing my point. Wrestling, kickboxing, MMA training, none of that is more important than you making sure your grades are right. You need to shift your priorities. You are 15 with 2 years left in high school."

"You and mom told me I could train!"

"Lower your voice. I didn't say, stop training. I know you want to be a wrestler. Ever since you were little, it's all you've talked about. We fully support you in that. What did we tell you comes first though?"

"Education," she muttered.

"I can't hear you."

"An education."

"Exactly. So, get your school work done then everything else can come into play."

"You didn't go to college," she mumbled.

"What?"

"You didn't go to college. You became a wrestler. Why am I doing all this work if I'm not going to college."

I ran my fingers across my forehead to try and ease the headache that was forming. Vaughn had this thing in her head that just because she wasn't set on going to college that high school no longer mattered. She was in for a rude awakening to think that Steph and I were going to take anything less than her best.

"Vaughn, there's certain things we'll compromise with you on, your education isn't one of them."

"But you..."