A/N: I do apologize for the extensive amount of time that has passed since I've updated! But here you go...I hope you like.
She takes off the stranger's shirt, holding it in her hands, wondering what on earth she's going to do about it. If she ran back now, she might just possibly be able to catch him at the pool, if he hadn't left yet. Of course, that would then cause tremendous amounts of awkwardness and she'd run the risk of Maz waking up or someone else seeing her perusing town at midnight. She flops onto her bed, stomach down, and grunts into the comforter. She thinks about her own shirt and decides very quickly that she can live without it. Hopefully the skinny dipping stranger doesn't mind missing his either. Maybe she can have Maz drop it off to the lost and found at the pool. The only problem being that Maz will question where she got the shirt and why it needs to go back to the pool.
"Ahhg." she moans as she rolls over onto her back. She lifts the shirt up above her and stares at it. Nothing terribly significant about it; just a simple black t-shirt. She notices the faint smell of a cologne on it and thinks it smells rather nice, actually. "Fuuuuck." she breathes out. Why things like this happen to her, she will forever wonder. She wads it up and tosses it across the room. It lands on her suitcase. She crawls up and under her comforter, content to sleep away the stupidity of the night.
Rey speeds down the long stretch of highway connecting Jakku and D'Quar with her music pumping, singing right along to it. Maz saw her off this morning with a few tears and many hugs. While she is thankful for Maz and all she's done for her, Rey is thrilled to finally be out on her own, forging her own path, her own destiny. She's excited about starting this new chapter in her life and curious to see what it holds in store for her. Her phone buzzes so she turns down her music before picking up. She rolls her eyes but smiles when she sees whose calling.
"Hello, Finn." She sing-songs into the phone.
"Dude, where are you? You're missing like all the fun." From the background noise and the slight slur in his voice, Rey assumes he's at a party. Whoever is throwing a party at eleven o'clock in the morning is definitely the kind of person Finn would know.
"I'm driving now. Probably about three hours out."
"Okay, well hurry up because Poe is throwing the best back to school party every." Rey does not who this Poe guy is but decides it better not to ask. "And there's this girl. Rey, I think she might be the one."
She chuckles to herself. Finn says that about pretty much any girl he finds attractive. He's like a little puppy, chasing everything that moves and becoming enthralled by it until the next shinny thing comes along. "Yeah, and what's her name?"
"Well…everyone calls her Plasma so I don't really know her real name." he replies, despondently.
"Mhmm." Her smile widens at his huff of annoyance.
"Just get your scrawny ass here quickly." He commands.
"Yes, sir, Finn, sir." She says in a mocking tone.
"Jerk." He bits off, with absolutely no anger in his voice to back him up. He and Rey are too close for him to get offended so easily.
"Bitch." She retorts. "I'll be there as soon as I can, Finn. Don't cause too much trouble without me."
"You got it boss." He says before hanging up. Rey smiles to herself as she sets her phone down and turns up her music again. She and Finn met when Rey started high school. While Finn was a year ahead of her, Rey was usually the more mature of the two. He was pretty much her only friend throughout high-school. Rey was quiet, guarded, and tended to enjoy her own company more than going out with groups of people. Finn, on the other hand, loved to go out and have insane amounts of crazy fun and Rey loved him for it. He helped her come out of herself, to not take herself so seriously. She's changed in the four years since meeting Finn and is grateful to him for that change. The girl who accidentally knocked him in the face with her locker door is not the girl who's headed towards her dream collage, her dream career. That girl would not have done half the things she's done in the past year alone. Like skinny dipping in the public pool. And now Rey's face heats up with the memory of last night. She will never get over the embarrassment that it caused her and can only be thankful that no one was there to see it. Well except the dude but he doesn't matter. Not like they know each other. All in all, it could have been a lot worse. She hears a loud bang before her car starts shaking.
"Shit!" she curses, letting the car slow down before turning off to the side of the road. She gets out and checks out the blown tire. She gives it a kick but is thankful that it's not as bad as it could have been. She moves to her trunk and pushes aside her things so she can grab the spare and jack. As she fits the jack under the car, a vehicle pulls up behind her. It's a sleek, black car and kind of reminds her of the Batmobile. The man that steps out is just as dark and sleek as his car. His black hair falls just above his shoulders and she notices just how tall he is. He's wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans, and Converse. She smiles to herself at his choice of footwear and stands to meet him.
"Car trouble?" his voice is deep and throaty. It's a voice she finds familiar but shakes the feeling off. She'd certainly remember meeting him.
"Nothing I can't handle, thanks." she shrugs. While he's handsome as hell, the last thing she needs is some creeper trying to take advantage of her.
"Oh, I don't doubt it. Just checking to make sure everything was alright." he smiles at her and her stomach flips, in a good way.
"Yeah, not my first flat. Learned early on how to fix one."
He moves closer to her to inspect the tire. He's now standing right next to her and she can see how well his shirt hugs his chest muscles.
"Well, are you sure you don't need any help?" Rey's eyes shoot up to meet his when he speaks, her face heating up with the realization that she was openly staring at him. "I mean, the quicker we get your tire fixed, the quicker we can get out of this heat." She nods, a light breeze picks up and plays with the stagnate summer air. With that breeze comes a smell she knows very well. Her eyes widen in surprise and embarrassment. "Makes me want to go for a swim. What do you think?" the smirk that envelopes his face would make Rey clench her thighs together if it wasn't for the utter horrification she's feeling.
"You...the pool...oh god..." she stutters, unable to form a coherent sentence.
"Now, about this tire." he squats down, slides the jack underneath the car, and starts pumping it up, ignoring her embarrassment.
The sight of someone else fixing her tire, shakes Rey back into reality. "Hey, no, I can do that." Rey moves closer to him and squats next to him, ready to take over.
"Really, it's no trouble." He responds, his gaze fixated on the car, like she's nothing more than an irritating fly.
"Seriously, I know how to fix a damn tire. Not every girl is completely helpless when it comes to cars." she says hotly. She finds it absolutely repulsive when guys just assume that because she's a girl, she doesn't know how to do anything with a car except press the brake and gas adequately.
"Whoa, chill." He chuckles. "I never said you couldn't. I'm just trying to be gentlemanly."
She coughs into her hand, "Right. Sorry. Just not used to letting people do things for me."
"Well, now is always a good time to start." He finally looks up at her and she gulps. "I could help you will a lot, if you wanted me to." his heart-fluttering smirk returns in full force.
"I...I think the tire is good for now." she practically mumbles.
"Got it." he returns his attention to the tire and begins taking it off.
"I'm Rey, by the way." she offers after a few moments of silence.
"It is very nice to meet you, Rey by the way. I'm Ben, Ben Solo." he replies.
"Mmmm." she hums, leaning on her elbow watching him work and enjoying the view, when her head shoots up. "Wait, Solo like Professor Han Solo, the ex-smuggler, war hero?"
Ben huffs, "Yeah, he's kind of my dad."
"Holy shit!" she squeals. "Dude, I like adore you dad. He's like half the reason I'm going to D'Quar University."
"Talk about a mood killer." Ben mumbles under his breath.
"Like, you have no idea how much I've been inspired by him. He ran the Kessel run in fourteen parsecs!"
"Twelve." he corrects her, absentmindedly.
"Hmm?"
"He ran it in twelve parsecs." he waves a bolt at her.
"Oh, well, that's even better, right? He's like my hero."
"There, done." he stands, handing her the jack. "Sorry for fixing your tire."
She laughs, "Thank you. I appreciate it."
"Well, I guess I'll see you around, Rey." he stuffs his hands in his pockets.
"Yeah?"
"Well, yeah. I mean if you are going to D'Quar, then I'm sure we'll bump into each other at some point or another. I go there myself."
"Oh, awesome." she senses his unease and is unsure about what's caused it. He starts backing up towards his car.
"Yeah, I suppose." he gives her a little, one-fingered salute before opening his car door.
"But, I mean, we don't have to wait for some point or another, right?" she opens her back door and rummages through her backpack quickly. She pulls out a bit of paper and a pencil, scribbling down her number. "Just in case, you know, if you ever wanna go for another swim sometime." Her cheeks flush.
He takes the paper from her, "I will definitely keep that in mind." And she turns and walks back to her car. As she opens the door, he calls to her, "Oh, and I want my shirt back!"
