Ben honestly didn’t know how he’d found the time. Between work and school and his college courses, social time was hard to come by. But, he’d asked if the manager could cover for him – he’d been relying too much on Calvin’s help in covering shifts, especially since Calvin was dealing with so much on his own – and thankfully he’d been able to find a few hours. It would have been hard to let Grace down. He’d been doing enough of that lately.
He heard the knock on his door and turned around from where he’d just finished sending in his rewrite of his architectural theory midterm. He’d failed the initial (when he’d written it, it had been another on the ever-growing list of things he’d had to do), but thankfully, his work for the rest of the semester had been so solid that the professor had allowed him to rewrite it. It saved him from actually having to tell anyone, or having to admit to overexerting himself. This time, it had been infinitely better. Ben walked to the door, opening it and smiling at his baby sister. “Give me a minute to put my shoes on, okay?” he offered, leaving the door open so she could come in. No, Ben wasn’t that ‘stay out of my room’ brother. More like the ‘always knock, please’ brother. “Any idea where you want to go?”