Calvin was playing his guitar -- playing chords and trying to remember all that theory that he'd mostly ignored when learning to play the guitar. But the secret to making a song sound better was probably in there somewhere. When he heard the doorbell he stopped playing and put his guitar down carefully, then rushed down the stairs just in case Karl took it in his head to answer the door. But the door to Karl's study was closed tightly, like it usually was these days. Calvin walked by quietly and opened the front door, smiling when he saw Emily.
"You made it," he said, welcoming her in and leading the way up to his room. He seemed a little tense until he shut the door behind the two of them. Even with his mom gone out, the house outside of his room seemed like a battleground, and he couldn't help expecting an ambush however silly that expectation might be.
"You didn't want anything to drink, did you?" he asked belatedly. That would require going down to the kitchen.