Having been around the Parkers as long as Ben had, he probably should have noticed when Charlie’s grades started slipping. But he hadn’t. They talked about many, many other things, but school – at least the academic side – was far enough down on the list that Ben was, for the most part, unaware of how low Charlie’s grades had fallen. He knew that she was smart, and capable of incredible things even without studying, but if he knew that she’d stopped doing any of it all together, he’d have probably been a little upset.
“All right, fine, when you’re a master computer CEO, then. Sitting on the top of your fifty story building and looking down at the rest of us,” he chuckled. “I’ll still have to hire someone because I can’t smack you myself. And that was the point.”
When Charlie handed Ben the bottle, he looked at her incredulously for a second, then realized that she merely wanted him to open it. “Midnight’s overrated anyway,” he said, peeling back the tinfoil coating that covered the cork and pointing it away from anything it could possibly break. Opening a champagne bottle wasn’t about strength anyway, so it was something he could actually do. It took him a second, but he popped the top and held it carefully so that it didn’t fizz over, handing it back to Charlie with a smirk.