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full name: Benjamin Alexander Grant.
nickname(s): Benji, Ben.
date of birth & age: July 1, 1978 & 38.
birthplace: Manhattan, New York.
raised in: Pennington, New Jersey.
current residence: Manhattan, New York.
heritage: Italian-American.
orientation: Heterosexual.
marital status: Divorced, Single.
children: Skye Arielle Grant.
family: Ryan Grant, Maria Grant née Cipriani, Name Name.
education: Hopewell Elementary School, The Pennington School, The College of New Jersey
occupation: Literary Agent with Foundry Literature + Media.

misc.

» Benjamin has smoked off and on since middle school. At first, he'd steal a cigarette here and there from the packs that his dad would leave laying around. As he got older, he'd get people to buy them for him, or bum off of friends. Now that he's a father himself, he's tried to quit countless times, and has managed to do so for a few months at a time, but he's learned the hard way that it's a habit that's truly difficult to break.
» He is almost obsessively organized with everything in his life. To-do lists (and lists of all other varieties) are made for everything in his life, appointments and meetings are listed in multiple calendars and on his phone, clothes are arranged in the closet by type and color, and there's a container or shelf or drawer for almost everything else.
» Benjamin married his high school girlfriend after years of them being on and off when she got pregnant at their parents' insistence. Neither of them were ready for marriage (or a child) at the time, and that ultimately led to the downfall of their relationship when the constant fighting proved to be too much for them to deal with.
» Despite not being ready for children when he was surprised by the unexpected pregnancy of his ex-wife, Benjamin and Skye are like two peas in a pod, and he spoils her more than her mother wishes he would. It's his attempt at making up for not being as much a part of her life as he wishes and wants to be because of the custody arrangement he and her mother have.
» The extent of his cooking abilities is toast, microwaved dinners, and breakfast foods. His dinners are usually provided by someone else or take-out (Chinese and pizza being the most typical fare of choice), and he often jokes about singlehandedly keeping Seamless in business.
» Listens to a lot of Stevie Wonder, and can often be seen bobbing his head along to Stevie's music at all times. Classical music is another favorite, and a genre that Skye appreciates just as much (if not more) than he does.
» Toes the line of professionalism a lot when it comes to Hadley. Their work relationship is, of course, important to him. But, when it comes to sexual tension, there's only so much one person can take.

ooc.

journal & aim: ~gben & tbd.
played by: Jeremy Renner.
writing: Threads in third person storybook only, customs are preferred.
contact: Here! Comments are screened. PMs are also more than welcome for any questions, issues, plots you may have.
credits: Credit ~kayce for this layout!


biography.

Ryan and Maria Grant had never planned on having more than one child. In fact, when they learned of her second pregnancy, they briefly considered terminating it. One child, they'd thought at the time, was more than they could handle, and two would likely push them to their breaking points. Something stopped them from moving forward with that option, and they've never been able to put a finger on what that was, but they couldn't have been more happy for it. Benjamin Alexander Grant, unexpected as he may have been, was a breath of fresh air in their lives, and even though they'd had their reservations early on in the pregnancy, his birth completely changed those feelings of trepidation. They couldn't imagine their lives without him, and just like they'd done with his older sister, fell immediately and completely in love with the little boy.

Growing up, Benjamin was quiet and withdrawn. His parents attributed this to the fact that his sister was his exact opposite, and proved difficult to compete with when it came to getting attention of her parents, grandparents, and peers alike. He never seemed to resent her for that, though. In fact, it almost seemed as if he preferred it that way. And, as he got older and started spending more time with family and friends, it became quite obvious why. If there was one thing Benjamin was good at, too good at, it was getting himself and everyone around him into trouble. Sometimes it was over silly things, like stealing newspapers from driveways, and other times it was something a little more serious, like vandalism. This didn't concern his parents very much, nor did it really concern anyone else. Boys will be boys, after all, and that was what they chalked it up to because, in other ways, Benjamin had quite the brilliant mind.

In time, Ryan and Maria realized that "quiet and withdrawn" translated to "questioning and instrospective." As they observed him, in the moments where he was alone, they realized he had quite the thirst for knowledge and picked up on things much quicker than most his peers of the same age. So, after much thought and discussions with his teachers and the administration of the elemtentary school he'd been attending, they decided to try and provide him with something a little more challenging in the way of a private boarding school. At first, Benjamin had been resistant to the idea of being singled out, but with a little bit of convincing (and a little bit of bribery), he gave in. To say that he flourished in the new atmosphere would've been an understatement, but it was the simplest way to describe it. He didn't feel the need to constantly compete with his sister any longer, and so his focus moved to where it belonged: school. That's not to say he wasn't still a trouble maker, but what young boy isn't?

It was as a high school student at The Pennington School that Benjamin met the girl that would, one day, become his wife, the mother of his child and, eventually, his ex-wife. Their relationship was a volatile one from the start. Though there were never any physical altercations throughout the entire time they dated, both in high school and even after they graduated, the two were still like fire and ice. It was obvious to everyone around them that the age old adage of "opposites attract" certainly didn't apply to their relationship. Benjamin was too focused on his academics to give her the attention she craved, and she was far too clingy for his liking. Something, though, continued to bring them together over and over again despite the fact that they both knew they were better off as friends. As the years passed, and after they both graduated from high school and tried to move on with their lives, even the friendship that they could've had began to suffer because of their romantic (if one could even call what they had "romantic") liasions.

Somehow, despite the relationship troubles that Benjamin dealt with, he managed to graduate high school with a fairly solid GPA and was accepted at The College of New Jersey where he majored in English with a minor in Communication Studies. At the time, he didn't know what his future aspirations were, the choices just seemed to most sound to him. His days in college passed without much incident, or anything noteworthy. It was fairly typical, in fact. His first year was spent partying and slacking off, and the subsequent years were spent with his nose buried in one book or another as he tried to make up for traps that freshman year for any college student fell into. He did so successfully, and after tacking on a few extra years to go for his Bachelor and then Masters, Benjamin graduated from college with no job prospects and still no real idea on what it was he wanted to do with his life.

Because of that, Benjamin spent the year following the end of his college career traveling. It was the time he sorely needed to clear his head and try and truly figure out where it was he wanted to go with his life. It was a soul searching odyssey of sorts, and one that ended with him deciding to call things off with his on-again/off-again high school girlfriend for good, and moving back to New York. One out of two really wasn't so bad, though, as his attempts at ending their damaging relationship ended up the same way it always did: with the two of them in bed, a prelude to the screaming match that would ensue later before she left, slamming the door behind her and declaring that she would never be back. As was always the case, though, she returned months later (unsurprising) with news that she was pregnant and that Benjamin was the father. He was shocked. After all, she'd never gotten pregnant before and perhaps they'd gotten a little too secure in that to take the necessary precautions. That mattered little in the face of the news that, soon, he would be a father, and he did the only thing he knew of to do at the time: went back to his parents to tell them what had happened.

Three months later, the two were unhappily married and fighting more than ever before. This was due to the fact that not only were they now living together (though they didn't share a room), but also because of the drastic shift in hormones and the fact that neither of them got very much sleep on most nights. By the time Skye was born, on October 24, 2007, their constant fighting had reached a breaking point, and had resulted in D being banned from the delivery room per his wife's request. That was the final straw for him, and though he'd initially seen the benefits of bringing their daughter into the world with both parents together, he couldn't justify them staying married any longer. Divorce papers were filed a week after Skye's birth, and the ensuing custody battle left Benjamin a lot more worn down than any man should've been at his still relatively young age. Thankfully, the judge granted them shared custody. The year was split evenly between both parents until she was old enough for school. It wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for, but Benjamin knew it was the best he would be getting, and it granted him the opportunity to make as clean of a break as he could from the relationship with Skye's mother.

The news was met with little resistance from his family. They were happy for him, in fact, in the sense that they knew he really was trying to do the right thing - for himself and for their granddaughter. It was Skye and his job at Foundry Literary + Media that he focused on instead - throwing all his energy into both of those things to distract himself from the way he'd gone down a completely different path than he'd ever planned. He learned, as he rose through the ranks at the company, that a "clean break" was precisely what Benji needed, though. Since then, he's achieved a multitude of successes, and worked with some of the literary world's best, brightest, and most sought after authors. He's met people he never would have expected to meet, and become friends with more of them than he could have ever imagined. It's not perfect, not by any means. Being away from Skye more often than not is never easy for him to deal with, and new clients don't always pan out the way he wishes they would. But, if happiness is the goal, than it's one he's certainly achieved in the last eight years - and one he's sure he'll continue achieving in the years to come.


story lines.