After a minute, TJ permitted himself small smile, and patted the arms that embraced him.  He slowly sat back on the couch they shared.  Angie released her hug as he sat back, and leaned into his shoulder as he drew his arm up, and let the arm fall heavily around her shoulders.

“Wow, TJ!  Did you pack on another set of muscles while I was in San Francisco?” she exclaimed, surprised by the heaviness of his brawny arm.  ”Has Brom stepped up your weight-lifting program or something?”

He chuckled as he dropped a kiss on top of her hair.  Their friends looked at them smiling.

The group of teenagers was sitting around the converted basement of this townhouse on a Friday night before this spring’s long weekend, instead of leaving town for a quick break with their families, because TJ had called them together to finish their work on a proposal the group wanted to submit to a noted foundation. The foundation had announced a new focus on girls’ and women’s programs for the next five years, and had broadcasted a call for proposals to be considered for funding. The deadline was in two weeks.

The group planned to ask for a grant to finance a program they had put together that was intended to help sustain education programs for girls in conflict zones around the world.  TJ had organized the group for this task, and had been obsessing over its preparation. When he’d reviewed the work the group had done the past weekend, he thought he found holes in the group’s proposal and so had summoned them to the “study room” of this West Village townhouse.

TJ and Angie had been asked by a couple, who were close friends of their parents, to “house-sit” the townhouse, or check on the townhouse from time to time, while the women took a vacation to Nevis Island in the Caribbean.  Earlier that Friday morning TJ had asked permission from the two women who owned the townhouse to use the study room in the basement of the townhouse for their meetings.  Jules and Diane responded immediately, ”Of course, TJ.  Feel free to get what you need from the kitchen.  Remember the house rules, though…”

”Yes. No parties and we’ll clean up,” TJ said. Don’t worry.”

”We never have.  See you in two weeks!” Jules answered cheerfully.

The teenagers lounging in chairs and on the floor around the low-slung coffee table waited for TJ to speak, and a few started to grumble.  While they’d been putting the proposal together over the past month, working on it after school, they each privately groused amongst themselves that he’d sometimes been an unreasonable and hard-driving task-master.  Each had individually butted heads with him on the individual tasks they’d volunteered for under the project, even Angie.  But none had quit over any disagreements with TJ – they knew that he was just pushing them hard so that they’d be able to put together a proposal that would stand a viable chance of being funded.