Modern day au.

His neighbor was going to be the death of him. He just knew it, could feel it. That spunky girl next door was out to get him. She was. Hux told him he was just being paranoid, and maybe he was, but Ben has solid evidence. Really. He does.

Only slightly feeling like a creepy stalker, Ben started ticking off all the totally legitimate reasons why.

One, her music. It was ridiculously loud, even more so on the days where he just wanted to work and needed the quiet. (Ben ignores the fact that he noticed she has quite the obsession with top 2000s hits. And that she has a nice voice when she actually tries singing along.)

Two, her dog always somehow escapes into his apartment at exactly 7:45 a.m on Tuesdays when he's leaving for work. So she has to run into his personal space to chase it down. (He doesn't think about how it doesn't bother him as much as it should, or that she has nice pyjamas. Red's a nice color on her.)

Three, she's always bumping into him when he's trying to get his mail. Like, actually bumping, and she looks up at him with those stupidly pretty hazel eyes and stutters out an apology. Every day. And it's adorable. (He's not even going to justify that one.)

So, yes, laying out all the facts, Ben has an insanely big problem with his neighbor.

He has a fucking crush on her. This, he reasoned, was not how things were supposed to go.

And because of said crush, he is standing outside his apartment door at 7:43 a.m. on Tuesday, waiting for the chase he knows is about to start.

"This is stupid," Ben mutters, shifting his weight from one foot to another. He sighs and checks his watch. 7:45 a.m. Just on time.

As always, the muffled barking comes into play, and the door next to him opens with a small creak. A blur of orange and white rushes out of the apartment towards his, but Ben crouches down and catches the dog before it can even try to enter. The tiny corgi squirms in his arms, but Ben refuses to let go, even when he hears hurried footsteps and an all too familiar voice.

"BB!" Ben lifts himself off the floor still holding the dog, BB, as the girl stops in front of him. "Oh," she stammers, "uh, hi."

"Hello," he replies, straight faced. "I believe this is yours." BB barks.

"Um, yes. He is." She reaches out to take the animal from him. "Thank you, uh." She pauses.

"Ben. And it's no problem," Ben says as he looks down and smooths out his suit jacket, strands of dog hair covering it.

"I-I'm sorry about your jacket. BB does tend to shed a lot."

"Really, it's fine. I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to hold him." He looks up. "Although…"

"Although what?"

"You could make it up to me by telling me your name." Ben smirks. "And by going out to dinner with me Friday."

Her eyes widened slightly before a smile graced her features. "I'm Rey," she laughed. "And what time?"