Nothing between them has changed since Christmas, and yet all at once it feels as if everything is different.
The air is clear now, the great mystery solved, but its only left Rey with more questions than answers. She'd always thought that knowing the truth would bring her some sort of satisfaction, a closure of sorts, but she's further from that now than she's ever been.
It turns out that those old episodes of G.I. Joe she'd watched at a former foster home had been right: knowing really is half the battle.
The other half is trying to figure out what to do with that knowledge.
It was easier in some ways, when she thought he'd left because he wasn't interested in her, when she thought he left because he was just that sort of asshole. She imagined he'd been expecting her to be the type of girl Poe had chased after before Kaydel had come along; Blonde, busty, easy. A one-night stand and no more.
She hadn't imagined he thought she was out of his league, or that he'd regretted any of it.
It was an unfortunate missed opportunity, a ridiculous misunderstanding, but perhaps it was also fate.
Perhaps it was for the best.
There is a bit of her that has never healed from her abandonment, an ugly piece that knows no one is ever a permanent fixture. Her parents went away, fosters came and went, Poe and Kay are gone.
Apart from Finn and Rose, Ben is all she has left. She couldn't bear to do anything to damage the delicate balance they've finally reached. They are approaching a friendship now, and without family around, having friends has always been something she's cherished more than anything. She doesn't want to mess that up.
Not to mention, it happened so long ago that he's probably over it anyway. She allows herself to believe that she is too, that his admission hadn't stirred up anything inside of her.
She has a date with someone else tomorrow, after all.
"Don't you think it's a little odd that the love doctor didn't ask you out for New Year's Eve?" Finn wonders, while they're working to put the finishing touches on a large cupcake order.
"No," Rey answers, amused and rolling her eyes at Finn's nickname for Sam. "Why?"
"I don't know, New Year's Eve just seems more romantic doesn't it?"
It does, but it doesn't really matter. "He's a doctor," she says with a shrug, "Maybe he's working."
Finn doesn't seem convinced, but relents. "Maybe. How are you rolling in the New Year tonight, then?"
"Warm in my bed I hope" she answers with a smile, focusing on decorating clocks made of white fondant to use as cupcake toppers. She's never been one for partying. Kay had dragged her out a few times in college, but it wasn't something she really liked to spend her time doing. "You?"
"Rose and I are going to her sisters, she's having a party at her place. You should come."
Rey shakes her head, "No way Jose. I'm too exhausted. I probably won't even make it to midnight." It isn't even an excuse, since Beebee came into her life, Rey finds herself tired most of the time. "Besides, it wouldn't be fair to Ben if I made plans on such short notice."
"Ah," Finn says, spooning more icing into his piping bag. "So, I take it things are still going well with you two?"
She nods. She's told Finn and Rose pretty much everything about her situation with Ben. They were there to help cheer her up the day after he ditched her, and to listen to her vent every time she'd seen him over the months that followed. Now, they listen to her talk about him like none of it ever happened.
The only thing she hasn't mentioned is what Ben told her on Christmas, and that's because she's trying not to think about it so much. There is no use thinking of the could have been's or the what ifs. None of which will ever be.
"Yeah," she answers Finn, concentrating as she adds small numbers to the clocks. "Things are going great."
And for the most part, they are. They have schedules and routines, and they bicker far less. Rey really has nothing to complain about, strange as it is. Ben makes her life easier in so many ways.
And more difficult in other, very private ones.
There are things he does that spring on her sometimes, and it reminds her of the pop a weasel game at the arcade. She smashes one weasel down and then another jumps out, faster than she can keep up. It happens when she catches Ben smiling at Beebee, and her brain gets stuck thinking about how handsome he is when he does that, how his smile changes his whole face.
It also happens when he leaves the shower, smelling strongly of what she assumes is some scientifically crafted body wash that somehow, combined with the look of his still wet hair and the plain white t-shirt he wears to bed, makes him exude sexiness. Even if he's just watching Doc McStuffins on the sofa with Beebee.
And sometimes it happens because he's watching Doc McStuffins on the sofa with Beebee.
He's all height and muscle and a scowl most of the time, but it melts Rey when she sees him wrapped around Beebee's tiny finger. Perhaps it's primitive, a side effect of evolution engraved in her biology that makes her like the way he looks with a kid.
Or maybe it's just that he looks so good doing anything.
Regardless, all of these instances and so many others have begun to build a certain tension in her. A tension that she often ends up carrying to her bed at night, and in the dark, tries desperately to relieve. It's become as much a routine as everything else in her life, the predictable nightly ritual of shoving her fingers into her panties to clumsily work herself to a peak, while her other hand covers her mouth to muffle the sounds she makes, to stop his name from spilling out.
She's tried to imagine it's someone else touching her, various crushes both old and new, Dr. Sam, George Clooney, Channing Tatum. It's always the idea of Ben that brings her to completion.
And he's always there the next morning, having coffee in the kitchen when she brings Beebee down for breakfast. His long, thick fingers wrapped around his coffee mug making her blush and feel guilty. He has no idea what living with him does to her. She's never masturbated this much in her entire life.
"Something's bothering you," Finn points out, and Rey nearly chokes.
"No, I'm just..." thinking about my roommate finger fucking me, "Tired."
"If you say so" He isn't buying it. He's been working with her for years, and they spend nearly every day together, of course he can see through a lie.
Still, she isn't about to tell him the truth.
"Why don't you go help Rose up front?" she suggests, an obvious hint that she wants to drop it. "I can take over here. I know how much you hate piping."
Finn sighs heavily, but nods. "Whatever is on your mind, you can talk to me if you need to, you know. I'm always here for you."
Rey smiles, full of gratitude, and gives him a hug, "Thanks Finn. It's just...it's something I need to work out myself."
She can't get any closer to the truth than that.
"Alright." Finn sounds disappointed, but he doesn't push. "Good luck Rey."
She'll definitely need it.
When he isn't watching a game, working, or taking care of Beebee, Ben reads.
With reading glasses.
Ones with square shaped lenses in thick black frames.
He's reading when Rey comes downstairs after her bath. She hesitates for a moment near the arch entryway of the sitting room, unsure if she should interrupt him. He seems to sense her though, closes his book and turns towards her. "Hey, what's up?"
Those glasses jam her brain, perched on his long nose, making him look like he's older and in charge of arranging books at a library or something "I-"
Now she can't stop imagining him as a librarian and she's sure that imagery will be circling back later, when she's alone in her room. "I just wanted to tell you Happy New Year."
"Oh," Ben says, frowning at the clock on the wall. It's still two hours until midnight. "Are you going to sleep?"
"No." Sleep is not exactly what she had planned. "I just...you were reading, so I was going to go upstairs and watch a movie so I wouldn't bother you." He doesn't exactly have his own room, he's still sleeping on the pull-out sofa, so she tries to give him his space in the evening.
"You're not bothering me," he tells her earnestly, removing his glasses and setting them on the side table with his book. Rey glances at the title, The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft.
That doesn't really surprise her.
"I was actually thinking of watching a movie, too. We can watch one together, if you want."
That does surprise her.
They haven't ever really hung out alone, without Beebee. Aside from the time they'd gone to get dinner together, but even that hadn't exactly been voluntary since it'd been his mother's idea.
"Sure okay," she finds herself saying, and then there is a brief deliberation about what to watch while they browse through the options on Netflix. They settle for Jurassic World. Ben choses it because he was a fan of the other movies as a kid. Rey never watched them, but it seems a safe choice to her because it doesn't look over the top romantic. It would be very awkward to have to sit through a romcom or something.
She offers to make snacks while he sets up the movie, and then they are on the sofa together, in the dark, a big bowl of popcorn separating them.
It's not so bad, Rey thinks. It's quite nice. Friends do this all the time, and she is happy they can do these things together now, that they aren't still at each other's throats all of the time.
There is of course, that deep, tiny part of her brain that can't help but wonder how Ben feels about it. Is it awkward to him? He doesn't seem uncomfortable. If anything, he seems relaxed, his feet are on the ottoman, a cold beer in one hand and the other full of popcorn.
Rey is curled up on her side of the sofa, also with a cold beer in one hand and popcorn in the other, and she muses that this must be the most platonic, literal version of Netflix and Chill ever.
Which is a good way to bring in the New Year, she decides, with a new friendship.
They make comments here and there about the movie, things like 'what the fuck is that kid doing?' and 'don't go in there you idiot, it's obviously a death trap', but otherwise they watch in relative silence, with only the sound of munching popcorn between them.
Then, Rey's hand goes for the bowl at the same time Ben's does, and it's such a cliché moment, but no less real for it. Their hands touch, their eyes meet, some sort of recognition passes between them, a sort acknowledgment of 'we are touching each other and it's weird but I like it.'
It almost feels electric, his warm palm against the top of her hand. His eyes fall on her lips for a moment, she can almost swear he leans in a centimeter or two closer.
Then, he pulls his hand away, straightens, and the moment is over.
Dissolving just like her interest in the movie.
Because now, now she can't focus on it to save her life. Now she can't quiet the sirens blaring in her head, the flashing red lights and her panicked inner voice asking 'what in the fuck was that?'
Ben doesn't reach for popcorn again, and Rey doesn't either, so the bowl still sits between them half full when the movie is over. Ben flicks the lamp on the side table back on, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow.
"That was...a disappointment," he says, and Rey swallows.
He's talking about the movie, isn't he?
Isn't he?
"It was good, I thought," she ventures fairly, "Owen was funny and the special effects were nice."
"I guess so," he concedes, "It wasn't as cool as the original though."
"I've never seen the original," Rey admits. The number of movies she's seen is lacking greatly.
"We'll have to watch it sometime, then." He folds his arms, legs still kicked up on the ottoman, eyes fixed on his feet and not looking at her. "If you want."
"I'd like that." She'd like it more than she's willing to admit. "Maybe we could have a movie night once a week, watch something grown up for a change. I'm so over the Disney Channel."
Ben does look at her now, and she thinks she sees a brief flicker of shock in his expression. She did just suggest they spend more time together. He probably hadn't expected that. "I think that's a good idea," he says, and she feels relieved that he hadn't shot it down. "I'm starting to understand why Hux despises The Wiggles so much. I've had the fucking Wonder Pet's theme song stuck in my head all week."
Rey laughs a little, "Poor you. That's the worst."
"Tell me about it," Ben agrees, leaning his head back against the cushions. Rey's fingers twitch with the urge to brush his hair back.
"Hey, it's officially the New Year," she points out, looking at the clock. It's past midnight, but neither of them noticed. "Have you got any resolutions? I never bother to make them because I never stick to them."
Ben laughs softly and shakes his head. "I don't really make them either."
A quiet moment passes and then he asks, "Have you given any thought to what you want to do? About staying here?"
She has. Loads.
And she's been wondering the same about him, if he was considering it. Neither of them has officially moved in to this place. Rey grabs clothes and certain items from her apartment when she needs them, but most of her stuff is still there. She's had the utilities cut off but otherwise she's still paying the rent.
As far as she knows, Ben has been doing the same. He doesn't even have a place to keep his things, if he decides to stay.
"I'd like to stay," she tells him, "It's what they wanted, and I'd never be able to afford something like this for Beebee on my own. What about you?"
"I'd like to stay too," he answers, "But I hate this place. It's like a mausoleum in here. Their things are everywhere and that," Ben says, pointing to a painting of a grinning cowboy that hangs over the fireplace, "I really hate that. I feel like it watches me while I sleep."
"It is pretty creepy," Rey agrees. It was Poe's idea to put it there, she remembers that Kay hated it too. "I guess if we're going to live here, we have to stop tip toeing around like they're coming back." She tries to swallow her sadness down, but it sticks in her throat and makes her voice quiver. "They aren't coming back."
Ben is quiet for a moment, considering her, and she can't help the tears that sneak out of her eyes, much as she tries to fight them. This is how she's been for most of December, fine one moment and crying the next.
Ben reaches out with his hand and wipes a tear from her cheek, the action startling and unexpected, but nice. "It'll work out," he assures her, his hand still on her face, his eyes locked on hers, sure and intent. "It's going to be alright."
Rey nods, sniffling, her face tingling where he's touching her. He's so certain about it that it's hard not to believe him.
"Sorry," she mumbles, "You're right, I just...It's still hard, sometimes."
"I know. It's okay," he replies quietly, and then he's wrapping an arm around her shoulders, leaning them both back against the sofa. There are no words for the moment, nothing to lessen the ache or the pain of missing someone you'll never see again. But from here, with Ben's arm around her and her head on his chest, things feel hopeful. For the first time in a while, Rey feels content. She hopes he feels it too.
Ben has taken Beebee to visit his parents, and Rose has come and gone to help Rey get ready for her date, giving her a few quiet moments in the house alone, before Sam arrives.
In these moments, she realizes that she isn't looking forward to this date at all. She could chalk it up to nerves being the reason for her dread, but she knows that it goes a bit deeper than that.
She isn't ready for this yet. Her best friends died only a month ago, and so much of her life has changed in that time that she doesn't even feel like the same person anymore.
Before, the idea of this date had been exciting to her.
Before, Sam had been what she wanted.
That doesn't feel right to her now.
She doesn't want to look too closely at why that is.
The doorbell rings on time, and Sam is there, brilliant smile and rugged good looks. His light brown hair is combed back, not under a hat. He tells her she looks beautiful first thing, doesn't blink at her stupidly.
When they get to his car—not a motorcycle—he opens the door for her, and he's actually made plans, he knows where they are going. He was anticipating this. He wanted this.
She tries to want it too, she really does.
They make small talk in the car. Rey finds out that Sam works in Atlanta but lives forty-five minutes away. He's an ophthalmologist, he has a thick Georgia accent and tells her he was born and raised here.
Rey doesn't get into her backstory so much. She clearly didn't come from Georgia, though she's been here long enough that her English accent is fading. He wonders how she came to be in the states, and she tells him she has family here.
It's not entirely a lie. Poe, Kaydel and Beebee were her family.
But the truth is that she came to Georgia to live with her grandma on her mother's side after she was dumped at a church in a poor town in south Yorkshire.
Her grandma died a year later, and Rey doesn't remember much about her, just that she always smelled of cigarettes and coffee, and left her a box full of creepy looking porcelain dolls.
She doesn't tell Sam any of that, though, wondering instead why he's parking them in an alley behind a brick building.
"It's a surprise," is the answer. It feels more like the start of an episode of Law and Order, where soon they'll find her body in that dumpster over there and John Munch will have something witty to say about it.
Instead, Sam leads them into the building. "Want to take a guess?"
"Um," Rey smiles, looking around. It's just a long hallway with a white tile floor and florescent lights overhead. She can smell food, though.
"Backstage at an Aerosmith concert?" She jokes. Sam laughs, "I'm not that cool."
"Mm, right," Rey says thoughtfully, "Justin Bieber, then?"
Sam shakes his head, grinning. "I'm at least cooler than that."
He pushes open a set of double doors, and Rey sees a kitchen in front of her, the smell of food overpowering and making her stomach flop excitedly. Funny, how its food giving her that reaction and not her date.
Sam is sweet, though, she can't deny that. He leads her to a table that's set up in the corner of the kitchen, draped with a gold tablecloth and a vase of red roses in the center of it.
"I have an in with the owner," he explains at her confused expression, pulling her chair for her. "We have more privacy back here."
"Wow," Rey blinks stunned. "This is very lovely."
Its thoughtful too really, and even though they're in the kitchen and there are sounds of cooking and people shuffling by every so often, it does feel more intimate than being in the front of the restaurant.
"Good evening," a man says in a tux says, bringing them a menu. Rey looks at the cover and realizes they're at Dexi Jet's. It's rumored to be the best restaurant in Atlanta, and one of the most costly.
She doesn't know what to order so she lets the waiter suggest something, and Sam doesn't even need to look at the menu to give his order. It makes Rey wonder how often he comes here.
"So, this arrangement with you and Ben," he says after a while of more small talk, pouring her some wine from the bottle the waiter brought. "How does it work?"
Rey thanks him, and takes a thoughtful sip before answering. "We live together," she searches his face for a reaction. Maybe that's a deal breaker? She can't tell. He looks serious but not bothered. "And we take care of Beebee."
"So, it's basically like a platonic marriage?"
Rey frowns, "Well, no. Not really," she answers. "It isn't like a marriage at all."
"It sounds like one. Living together, raising a kid together. It's basically the same as what I had with my ex-wife," Sam takes a sip of wine, "Even the absence of sex."
Rey winces. Had that been the cause of their divorce? Because if it's sex he's looking for with her, he isn't going to get it for a while, if at all.
Most likely the latter.
He seems to misread what her wince had been about. "There is an absence of sex between you two, isn't there?"
"Yes," Rey answers hurriedly, her cheeks feeling suddenly warm. "We're just friends."
Sam nods, pleased. "Good. Because if you and I end up in a relationship, I want to make sure he isn't going to be a problem."
Oh. Rey can offer him no reassurances in that regard. She's pretty sure Ben already is a problem, because she hasn't stopped thinking about him since they parted ways earlier. This entire date she's been comparing Sam to him, and it isn't fair to either of them she knows, but if she's honest with herself...Sam is falling short.
He's sweeter by leaps and bounds, thoughtful and mature. But he has an edge of cockiness that rubs Rey the wrong way, and he's probably not looking for what Rey can offer, or not offer, as it were.
Her phone rings just as food arrives, and Rey excuses herself to take the call. It's rude, but the call is from Ben, and she doubts he'd ever call her if it weren't an emergency.
"I'm really sorry for interrupting," he says when she answers, but he sounds a little shaky, scared. "I just wanted to let you know that Beebee has a fever, and it spiked pretty high. I called the doctor and she suggested I take her to the E.R. to be evaluated. I'm on my way there now."
"Shit," Rey says, suddenly flooded with panic. "God. I'll meet you there, okay?"
"No, Rey, you don't have to leave," he tries to sound reassuring, but she isn't buying it. He's worried, and it worries her. "My mom is with me. I'll keep you updated."
She rolls her eyes, "I'm not going to keep this stupid date going when you're taking Beebee to the hospital. You're going to Piedmont, right?" At Ben's confirmation, Rey says, "Be careful. I'll be there soon," and hangs up.
Sam seems disappointed that their date is over before it really ever began (her track record with dates is really not looking so hot) but he agrees to drive her to the hospital.
He offers to come in with her when they get there, but she declines and hurries inside. Beebee is sick, and Rey wants to focus on her and only her. She doesn't want to focus on anyone else right now.
And she doesn't really want to be in Sam's company anymore, either.
