When Rey first met Karé Kun, she came away understanding a little of what it must be like to have a big sister- if you had the kind of big sister who brings over hundreds of dollars' worth of free clothes and loves to do makeovers. But the Karé that showed up at Kylo's loft with a full entourage the day of the VMAs was a different beast than the one that dressed Rey for TRL.
This Karé is more like a military commander, with an array of beauty technicians as her dedicated troops, so well organized that at one point Rey had three working on her simultaneously.
For all the fuss, the final look is simple. A matte silk slip dress, ankle length and the exact color of the turquoise that's so ubiquitous in Rey's home state. The dress skims her body, a side slit allowing her to move freely and showcasing her right leg up to mid-thigh. Her only accessory is a black velvet ribbon choker with a silver star pendant, and her hair has been wrangled into three buns which cascade down the back of her head.
The hours of plucking and prodding and exfoliating are all worth it when she sees the look on Kylo's face. His mouth actually falls open as he looks her up and down.
And when she gets a good look at Kylo she is star struck, for the first time since she's known him. She thought she'd seen him in every state of dress and undress imaginable, but this is another level. She doesn't even know where to look, his body is so perfectly showcased.
Skin-tight black bondage pants show off the length of his legs and the beautiful shape of his thighs. His arms look incredible in the body hugging shirt, which is sheer, except for the cuffs and the high neck, and worn over a black tank. She cannot look at his chest in that tank for very long without wanting to get her hands underneath it, so she settles on his face.
He's wearing black eyeliner.
"Holy shit," she says, at the same time as Kylo. She vaguely hears a camera shutter click.
She walks over to him. "You look like you stepped out of a music video," she says when she reaches him.
"That's the plan." He leans over and whispers in her ear. "You look like my favorite daydream."
She pulls back and looks up at him, but right as she's about to speak, Hux clears his throat.
"Okay, kids. You'll have plenty of time to paw at each other later. The limo is downstairs with the rest of your band inside and they've been waiting long enough they probably have a good buzz going. You're in the third wave of arrivals. You'll do some band shots at the start, then the band will go in, followed by Kylo and Rey. They'll want some of both of you and of Kylo separately. Once that's done, everyone else will go inside while Kylo does his House of Style interview. Got it?"
"Yeah," Kylo says, still looking at Rey. She smirks at him and goes up on her toes to kiss him square on the mouth.
"Got it," she says, and wipes her lipstick off his mouth with her thumb.
"Alright, let's get moving," Hux says, ushering them out the door.
"Rey! Wait." Rey stops and Karé hands her a black leather motor cycle jacket. It's buttery soft with a modest number of zippers and chains. "This is mine so you have to give it back. I want you to contrast with your date but this ties you together without being too obvious or cheesy. Or at least I hope. We'll see how people react."
"Thank you," Rey says and gives Karé a hug. Despite running around like a whirlwind the last few hours she still smells like cinnamon and her hair is perfect.
"Have fun," Karé says, squeezing Rey. "There's nothing like your first red carpet."
"I don't know. I think the first one where I'm not someone's date might come close."
"You're probably right. Now go."
Downstairs, Kylo waits on the sidewalk, a black stretch limo behind him. Hux is waiting next to a town car for Lorna, who stayed behind in the loft to see the rest of the crew out.
Back home, some of the kids would get limos for prom, usually pooling their money and putting the maximum allowed amount of people in the car, but the one time Rey had gone, it had been in her date's car.
None of the limos she'd seen around Truth or Consequences were this new or shiny.
"You okay?" Kylo asks as Rey hesitates.
"Yeah, just — "
"First time?"
"Yes."
The driver opens the door and Kylo takes her hand to help her into the car, then ducks inside, sliding into the seat next to her. The car is upholstered in black leather and plush carpeting, with soft golden lighting glinting off the chrome trim.
It also smells like a bar at happy hour and feels almost as crowded.
She recognizes the man sitting to her left, though his round baby face looks about five years younger in person.
"Hi," he says, holding out his hand. "I'm Mikey."
"Rey." His hand is soft but not as sweaty as she figured it would be.
"And this is Derek, Banks, and Moff," Kylo says, gesturing to the three men on the opposite banquette. He gives Mikey a pointed look and the bassist sighs and moves across the aisle to squeeze in with the others, leaving the entire long seat to Rey and Kylo.
"It's closer to the bar, anyway," Mikey says, reaching for a decanter of whiskey.
All four of them look like they've had a good head start but they pass the bottle around anyway, sloshing more liquid into their glasses. Moff offers the bottle to Kylo but he shakes his head.
On the outside, Kylo's posture is almost languid, his arm draped around Rey and his long legs stretched out across the aisle. But as she leans into him, she can feel how tense he really is, contempt rolling from him as he takes up as much space as possible in the car.
As the car pulls out and heads uptown, Rey quietly observes Kylo and his band. She's never seen arouond with anyone that isn't working for him in some capacity.
With the other four, there's the usual amount of crude ribbing that guys love to engage in, but otherwise they all truly seem to like each other, and despite their outrageous clothes and hair (there's enough pomade and gel among them to keep Redken in business) they also all seemed relatively…normal.
"So, Rey," Banks says. "You're from New Mexico?"
"Yeah. How did you know that?"
"We all read that People article," Derek says.
"It was soooo sweet," Banks chimes in.
"Yeah Kylo," Mikey says. "Didn't know you had it in you. Glad you finally got past the talking stage with a girl."
"Why, Michael? Does it give you hope you'll get past the staring with your tongue out stage some day?"
Banks and Moff crack up at this, and even Derek cracks a smile. Banks leans across the aisle to high five Kylo, but he's left hanging.
"Asshole," Banks mutters as he slumps back.
"So, um, you guys are recording soon?" Rey asks.
"Yeah," Moff says. "If this fucker ever signs off on a start date."
As the other guys complain about Kylo's hesitation, Rey looks at him. He'd recently talked about the recording as though it were a given, but the guys are talking like Kylo is a holdout.
"I still don't see why Kylo gets to bring a date to this thing and we don't."
"Who were you gonna bring, Mikey?" Banks asks.
"Hey man, there's plenty of chicks who wanna be seen here tonight and are sitting at home."
"Yeah but they'd have to be seen with you," Kylo says.
"Fuck all y'all," Mikey says as the other guys laugh. "Just fuck off."
He falls silent, nursing his drink and staring at the floor.
"Where are you from, Mikey?" Rey asks.
"Oh just a little place in—"
Kylo jumps in. "If there's a bright center of the universe, Mikey's town is where it's farthest from."
"Oh, I thought that was my hometown." Rey says.
"The New Mexico desert at least has beautiful scenery," Kylo says. "Trust me. We had to go visit everyone's home town for a big magazine article a couple of years ago and Pigeon Fuck, Tennessee or whatever looks like the asshole of a coal mine."
Rey stops gives up on drawing Mikey back into the conversation. There's no point to it if Kylo is going ot keep insulting him.
Ahsoka's voice pops into her head, from a conversation they had when Rey was fifteen and had a crush on a guy named Teedo in her English class. The guy was an asshole to pretty much everyone, but when he and Rey were paired up for an assignment, he was kind to her. Ahsoka had pulled her aside after one of their study session at the Sacred Song.
"I know it feels good to be the only one he's nice to, but be careful. That's never a good thing."
Teedo had been expelled from school before they finished the project, and Rey never found out if Ahsoka's warning was correct. He lived way out near the county line and didn't have a car so after a few phone calls the romance fizzled out. They'd never done anything more than make out behind the gym.
Her relationship with Kylo has largely been formed in private, which is probably normal, except that by this point a lot of couples might have spent more time hanging out with friends.
Not that either of them have many friends. Which could be a problem in and of itself.
She shakes her head. This is not the time to start falling down those kind of mental rabbit holes. It'll only send her thoughts spiraling into a doomsday scenario. They're pulling up in front of Lincoln Center and there's way too much to absorb outside to get stuck inside her head.
The car stops in front of a wide staircase covered in red carpet, but the driver doesn't open the door right away. When he does open the door, Hux and Lorna are waiting. The guys all get out and Lorna and an assistant begin adjusting everyone's clothes. The assistant even pulls out a lint roller and starts going to town on the guys, who are all dressed in black. Lorna has Rey turn around so she can inspect her for wrinkles, then tells her to take off her jacket and that she'll hold it until they get inside.
The whole time, the fans held behind barricades across the street are going crazy.
Lorna and Rey stay to one side as the Knights pose for photos by the limo, then follow them up the steps. The whole band poses for several more minutes at the top of the stairs, then the Knights head toward the building as Kylo stops to pose alone. They're about halfway up the carpet when Lorna sends Rey to pose with Kylo. He wraps his arm around her immediately, which is a relief not just for the sense of security but because the air has turned chilly now that the sun has lowered behind the tallest buildings.
"Smile and try not to get too confused when fifty people call your name," Kylo whispers. He'd given her a brief rundown before of how it works, so she tries to emulate him, head panning slowly left to right so they can give as many photographers the illusion of eye contact as possible. They move to the next mark, a small "x" made of tape, and do the same thing again, then on to the next mark. Rey clutches his hand as they walk, bright dots flashing in front of her eyes. She's so focused on not tripping that the stream of famous faces on the carpet barely registers.
Despite her earlier bravado, the thought of having to do this on her own some day is terrifying.
At the last mark they stop and Kylo does a brief on-camera interview with Tabitha Soren. Rey has no idea what she's supposed to do while they're talking, so she just looks at Kylo, hoping she doesn't look like a lovesick idiot. Tabitha does greet her by name and tells her she's looking forward to the album, and Rey mumbles something resembling a thank you before moving on.
They stop again near a tall platform set up near the entrance to the opera house, with a staircase leading to the top.
"Ms. Romijn-Stamos is ready for you," Hux says to Kylo. "Please tell me you remember what designer you're wearing?"
"It's Tommy Hilfiger, right?" Kylo says.
"He knows it's McQueen," Lorna says before Hux's head explodes. She shoots Kylo a death glare. "I think he even knows Rey is in D&G, if it comes up."
"Behave," Hux says. "I'll make sure Rey gets to her seat."
Kylo takes Rey's hand before Hux can lead her away. "No, I don't want her to have to go in there alone. Lorna can wait with her until I'm finished."
"Fine, let her stand out here in the cold. I'm taking my seat in the nosebleed section." Lorna hands him his ticket and he joins the crowd filtering inside.
"This shouldn't take long," Kylo tells Rey. "I'm a horrible interview."
"Okay," she says. He kisses her on the forehead and bounds up the stairs to the platform. They aren't standing far enough back to get a look at him once he's up top. Lorna gives Rey her jacket back and she slips it on gratefully.
"You and Kylo have better seats than the rest of them so it's probably better you aren't around when they find that out."
"They didn't seat them together?"
"Nope," Lorna says. "You guys are maybe seven rows back? Wherever the VIPs who aren't nominees or performers start. The band is way in the back, under the mezzanine so they're not even really in camera range. They're already pissed that they didn't get plus ones this year but I don't know what they expected."
"Is he usually given special treatment? I mean, I know he is but like, better treatment than the band?"
"He has his own tour bus, as of the last tour. They used to share two, but now the other four share those two and he's got his own. We get a lot of interview requests that are for just him, which is not that out of the ordinary. Interviews with more than three people can be chaotic. He gets more free clothing, and from better designers. When they went to shoot those commercials overseas Hux had to turn down a bunch that only wanted Kylo. To be honest I don't know why I wasn't told to book two limos tonight, except that they want to quash any breakup rumors. Even Snoke couldn't influence the seating arrangements, though. Hey, looks like he's done. That was quicker than I expected."
Kylo comes down the stairs and takes Rey's hand. "Thank you, Lorna," he says. "You coming to the after party?"
"Hell fucking no," she says. "I'm probably ducking out of the show early. I've gotta get you two up and to the airport tomorrow, close the loft, and fly out myself. I'm not doing that hungover with no sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
Lorna kisses Rey on the cheek and heads inside.
"You ready?" Kylo asks.
"Sure."
The wind whips her hair and dress as they walk past the fountain and into the lobby, which is all swirling staircases and more red carpet and chandeliers that resemble supernovas, with baubles and spikes of glass shooting from central spheres. Such an elegant place for such an eclectic group of people, most of whom would never have set foot inside these doors to see an opera.
After she checks her jacket Kylo pulls her into an alcove full of pay phones.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey yourself."
"I just wanted like, one minute alone with you." He loops his fingers around her pinkies and presses his forehead to hers. "You did great out there."
"Mmm," she sighs. "I felt like an accessory."
"Never." He bounces on his feet and groans. "Would it be bad if we just skipped the show? It'd be like prom. We go for photos and then ditch?"
"Lauryn Hill is performing. And Jay Z. No fucking way."
"Can we at least skip out on Greedo? He's opening."
"I don't want to miss the opening monologue."
"Yeah I guess it is your first time. Sure you don't want to make it really memorable and fuck against the wall here?"
"We're literally in public. Like, I just saw Lil Kim walk by."
"I don't think she'd mind."
"Maybe not, but I kind of want to follow her into the bathroom. Find out what kind of perfume she wears."
"Calm down, there, Buffalo Bill. Let's find our seats. There'll be plenty of time to mingle."
He drapes his arm around her as they slip back into the lobby. She catches a glimpse of the two of them in a mirror and there's a bright, shiny moment where she thinks that maybe this really is where she belongs.