How I Met My College Buds - Part II

Ben finally spotted a familiar face in the crowd. This being his second class period, he had already gone through the disappointment of being a loner in a crowd of engineering students, and he hoped that Calculus would be a different story. He slid into a seat next to his friend, Ryan Hill, and the two exchanged greetings. An unfamiliar face leaned over from the other side of Ryan.
“Are you, Ben Coder?” He asked.
“Yes, I am.” Ben replied, his mind racing about the identity of the stranger.
“I’m Grant. I know the Quartos, and they told me to look for you.”

* * *

“Hey Paul, can you help me with this?”
It was a common thing to hear in the mechy [mechanical engineer] corner. Up on the second floor with a great view of the campus, the mechies could always be found doing homework, reading up in their textbooks, or chatting in a few minutes break.
Paul was the “resident genius”. He was a year ahead of most of the other mechies, and was always willing to help explain a foreign concept to the freshman. What’s more, he was good at it.
Paul left a conversation and came over to the table to help the helpless student. Suddenly, Ben looked up.
“Paul, did you do track with Coach Frank Schmidt?” He asked.
Paul raised an eyebrow, “Yeah… a long time ago.” He said slowly.

* * *

Ben decided to risk it. He was potentially setting himself up for failure, but he was getting enough push from home he decided to try it. After class was over, Ben walked over to the quiet Jonathan.
“So… I hear you had dinner with the Cashes last night.” Ben queried, referencing an event that he’d heard from “the sisters”.
“Yeah… do you know them?” Jonathan asked.

So in the end, Jonathan Spafford was not the “Other Jonathan”, the Airsoft Squad Leader turned out to be as good at engineering as he was at airsoft, and Paul will be designing real space probes one day.