Mal took Lonnie to her favorite place for brunch, and they were waiting in line while the girl was recording some B roll for her vlog and explaining her process to Lonnie. Usually, Mal would put her camera away and focus on talking with Lonnie, but the girl was eager to understand a typical day in Mal's life. So they spend the day walking around, with Mal showing Lonnie different places and recording their reactions and some extracts of their conversations to introduce Lonnie to her followers. Both girls were having such a great time that they even failed to notice that it was getting late until it was close to eleven; Lonnie asked Mal to stay that night in the house so they could go out the next day early to visit more places. At first, Mal was ready to decline the invitation; she had just arrived at the city that day, and she wanted to make sure that her landlord checked on her bathroom ceiling, but Lonnie's excitement won over her, and she agreed.
"When they made their way to the house, everything was dark, and Mal assumed Ben was out with his friends until they got to the second floor and a light coming from a door in the corner caught her attention. Lonnie then walked toward the door and knocked a couple of times; the door soon opened, and Ben appeared, now dressed in a shirt and plaid pants smiling at the girl and asking her how her day went. Mal cleared her throat so the boy would see her, and Ben turned for a second, his expression show shocked, and the next, he was smiling at her.
Then Lonnie told Ben that their day was great, and Mal would be staying there that night because they were planning to go out the next day early. The boy smiled, got bigger, and told Lonnie that he would take the air mattress out for Mal to sleep. Both girls tried to tell him that it wasn't necessary, but Ben assured them that it wouldn't take long, and he made his way to another room that Mal assumed was vacant, and soon enough, the air mattress was ready for her to sleep. The entire time the girls shared with him stories about their day until everything was ready, and after bringing some extra sheets, Ben said his goodbye and went back to his room.
Lonnie gave Mal a pair of pj's for her to change, and both girls went to sleep. Even though they planned on waking up early to go out, both overslept and didn't make their way out of the room until ten. When they made their way downstairs, Ben was eating scrambled eggs and looking over what Mal assumed were blueprints. After saying good morning, he showed the girls where he had saved some breakfast for them, and Mal asked him if he could lend her a charger for her phone. Ben went up to his room while both girls sat down to eat their food; when he joined them back, he put Mal's phone to charge and was about to take away the prints, but she stopped him asking him what he was looking at when they came down earlier.
They start talking about his plans for the day when suddenly Mal's phone came alive with multiple alerts making the girl practically jump out of her seat, wondering what was going on. Yesterday her phone died minutes after they made it to brunch, but she forgot to try to find a place to charge it. Ben and Lonnie exchanged looks, wondering if it was normal for Mal to receive that amount of messages until the girl cursed and started calling someone on her phone. The friends decided to give her space and made their way to the living room to wait for the girl to finish her call, hoping nothing terrible had happened.
Almost half an hour later, Lonnie went upstairs to use the bathroom, and a couple of minutes after, Mal made her way into the living room, looking distraught. Ben went to her side, asking her if she was ok, just for the girl to shake her head and start to tear up. The boy's first instinct was to hug her and saw he did, hoping that he wasn't overstepping and making her uncomfortable, but his worries were gone when Mal instantly hugged him back, muttering how her life was a mess.
It took her a couple of minutes to calm down and tell Ben that her landlord had texted and called her yesterday after her phone was dead to inform her that he could not check her apartment due to some issues on other properties, but he was going to do it today. However, early this morning, the upstairs neighbor who arrived from a trip called the landlord because his apartment was flooding because of a broken pipe. The landlord cut the water and went to her apartment to see the damaged and found it completely flooded with a massive hole in her living room/kitchen ceiling and water coming down like rain. Basically, her apartment was a pool now, and most of her things were ruined by the water. The landlord assured her that he had already cut the electricity, so it was safe for her to see the damage.
Ben told her to change so they could see what they could salvage before the water continued to destroy her belongings. Mal nodded and went on to tell Lonnie what happened and change, when the girls made their way downstairs Ben was ready waiting for them with his car full of all the plastic containers he could find around the house. After thanking him, the three made their way to her building and soon found themselves following the noise of what they assumed were the machines vacuuming the water out of the girl's apartment.
The apartment was a mess the rugs and furniture were mostly ruined apparently, the "water" that came from the ceiling wasn't exactly clean so the smell alone was making them sick. So, while Ben focused on seeing if the electronics were salvageable, most of them seemed to have a short circuit when the water reached the outlets; the girls focused on seeing what clothes and furniture Mal's be safe. To Mal's relief, her clothes were mainly saved because they were on hangers, and also, her backup disks that were stored on the top of her closet were also ok. Her shoes, however, were done, and so most of her books that she used to keep on a pile next to her bed now that she was getting ready to build a bookcase
Mal went to talk to her landlord while Ben and Lonnie moved her things to the boy's car; when they came back for the second load of boxes, they saw the girl crying in the middle of her apartment. Lonnie went to hug her new friend, asking her what happened, and Mal shared with them that the landlord told her that his insurance was not going to cover all of her items if she didn't have the receipts for the purchase and cost of each item, most of the furniture she owned for several years although they were in perfect shape the receipts were long gone. Also, he had informed her that the damage the apartment sustained was going to make it unliveable for a couple of months at least, so she needed to find another place to live. The only "good news" he had for her was that he wasn't going to charge her for that month; however, her security deposit was gone because she "failed to inform" him about the damage on time, which was ludicrous.
Lonnie and Ben were shocked and appalled by this and wanted to say a couple of things to the landlord, but Mal stopped them, assuring them that she had other problems to take care of first. She needed to find a place to go and see that her electronics work correctly to continue to upload on time her brand deals and talk to her insurance company to present her own claimed.
"Well, don't worry about where to go; you can move in with us. I know you don't know as a lot, but the house is big enough for the three of us to live comfortably there, and you would have your own room and also space to take whatever we can salvage from here." Ben assured her, and before Mal could say anything, Lonnie was telling her that she should take the boy on her offer because they honestly wanted to help her.
Mal thanked both of them but told them that she was used to living alone, so she would prefer to look for her own place. Ben nodded but went on to tell her that she could look for her next place while living with them, and looking around her; the girl agreed that this was her best option. It took them a couple of hours to make an inventory of everything in the apartment and take video and photo evidence of the damage for Mal's claim for the insurance. After that, they took everything they could to Ben's house and put it in the garage to make sure that everything was clean before taking it inside the house.
Lonnie helped Mal with the laundry while Ben started checking her tv and different electronics. It took him a while, but he managed to make the tv, computer, and laptop work, but her vacuum, fan, and other small appliances were ruined. He made a note to coordinate their disposal after checking with Mal, who still found it hard to accept what happened to her dream home hours early.
"I know nothing that I say is going to help, but if you need anything, please let me know. For now how about we go upstairs, and I can show you the free rooms so you can choose which one you want for your room?." Mal tried to protest; she didn't want to stay there and impose on their lives, Ben assured her that she was welcome, and the way he looked at her while saying it made her feel warm inside. The boy showed her the rooms, and she fell in love with the one next to Ben's; it had a beautiful view of the back yard, or what would be the yard because it was a pile of wood and tools for now. The boy noticed Mal looking out of the window to his mess and felt embarrassed.
"Sorry for the mess; I can only work on projects on the weekends and some days off. I used to have all of that inside the house, but when Lonnie told me that she was moving in I moved everything outside in the back so she wouldn't feel like she was living in a construction zone. Sure, the lack of furniture doesn't help the homie feel, but I'm planning to get some soon." Mal assured him that she understood, her apartments were usually a mess while she did her redecoration projects in the rooms. Ben smiled and told her that he would love her input on some of his plans, and the girl smiled back, telling him that she would love to help him with that.
They didn't realize they were staring at each other until Lonnie came into the room, asking them if Mal was ready to choose a room. Ben blushed at the interruption and awkwardly rubbed his neck while avoiding Lonnie's gaze; Mal, however, blushed but told Lonnie that this was the room she was choosing. Together they moved the air mattress, and Ben installed her tv and brought the things that were ready to get inside the house to her room, promising the girl to try and find something that she could use as her desk. The one she had at the apartment was pretty much destroyed when the ceiling opened above it.
That night they all went to sleep early; a couple of hours later, Mal woke up and decided to go down in search of a glass of water. On her way up she noticed the blueprints Ben was reading in the morning on the kitchen table and decided to give them a look, soon the girl started to see what the boy was planning to do in the house and an idea came to her. Mal stayed up all night redrawing some things over the blueprints and planning some smaller projects on her iPad. When Ben went downstairs, ready to get to work hours later, he found Mal seated in front of the blueprints with a huge smile on her face and soft music playing on her iPad.
The boy cleared his throat, and Mal turned, smiling at him ready to share her work with Ben. "So, I got excited last night and made some changes to this."Ben smiled and took a couple of steps closer to her and immediately noticed the changes on the blueprints and was impressed by the amount of work Mal had done in what he assumed was a night. "Wow, that looks a thousand times better than it did last night."
Mal's smile grew bigger, and she was about to start explaining her plans when she noticed Ben was dressed formally and realized the boy was about to go to work. She apologized for taking time from his breakfast for the boy to tell her not to worry about that. "I'm sorry that I can't stay here and look over all these amazing changes you did, but if you are up for it we can talk about them when I come back tonight?".
Mal nodded and promised to have dinner ready for the three of them; just then, Lonnie made her way downstairs, telling Ben that she was ready for them to leave. The couple said their goodbyes to Mal leaving the girl to go back to her room and take a well-deserved nap, excited for her plan. In the end, maybe she could do another renovating series and at the same time help her new friends to make their dream home a reality. It took her a while to fall asleep because her mind continue to formulate plans of things she would like to add to her plans and projects before showing Ben, but in the end sleep came over her and she went to sleep with a smile on her face.