Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Star Wars, especially not the characters, which are the only things I think I played with in this story today. Rating is for the very mildest of language.
1 APRIL FOOL
by Maloreiy
Rey's in a bit of a mood when she pulls into the parking lot of the Super Saver grocery store. April Fool's Day is supposed to be fun, but some people are just too mean.
She'd just barely avoided being doused with water from her asshole of a neighbor this morning. After that narrow escape, she'd showed up at work after staying up all night to prepare a last-minute report that was due at today's meeting, only to find out the report and the meeting were just a prank.
She'd laughed with everyone else, but she was actually irritated because she'd worked really hard on that report. Now she's got a hundred pages of useless material in her folder, bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, a wet shoe that was the only part of her that her neighbor's bucket of water had reached, and an empty refrigerator because she'd been so busy thinking about that report she'd forgotten to pick up the groceries.
She snags a parking spot closest to the front of the Super Saver, pulling through so she's facing outward, and notices another car pull up to the spot in front of her.
There's nothing remarkable about the car itself, other than it being late-model and rather expensive. It's just a plain sedan, four doors, black with black trim, probably worth three times her annual salary. The kind of car driven by a discreet CEO who makes a lot of money, but doesn't necessarily spend it all on his car.
What stands out, though, is the hot pink poster board taped to the back of the car. It's carefully positioned so as not to cover up the license plate, and so that none of the edges peek out above the trunk or along the side. Unless the driver is looking at the back of his car, he'll never know it's there.
That's obviously the intent of the sign, because the sign says, 'Honk! Act like you know me! My name is Ben!' There's a little smiley face and an 'April Fool's!' along the bottom.
Rey laughs when she sees it, because that's the type of wholesome, harmless prank that April Fool's Day should be about. Some honking, some confusion, but no one gets hurt, or wet, or has to stay up all night stressing about their job.
She's still laughing when she sees the mountain of a man that gets out of the car, but the laugh catches in her throat. He's tall, very tall, and dressed in a suit and tie, as she'd expected.
As she watches him unfold from the vehicle that is clearly too small for him, he unbuttons his suit jacket. His dress shirt is pulled tightly across broad shoulders, and the waistcoat fits snugly enough to strain a bit when he throws the jacket back into the car.
The fancy car, the expensive suit casually tossed aside, the leather shoes that are probably Italian—it should all seem so urbane, refined. But the effect is the opposite. He wears money like a weapon, a warrior with a veneer of civilization.
She doesn't know why both of those things appeal to her so much. When she was young, she dreamed about what it was like to have so much money you could just casually wear it on yourself without worrying someone was going to steal it from you. As she got older, her dreams got more realistic, and turned into cars that got you where you wanted to go on the first try, and clothing that kept you warm in hard winters.
She doesn't dream so much of things she can't have anymore. But sometimes she still sees nice things and drools, wondering.
She isn't sure if it's the car or the clothes. Or maybe it's the man.
He casts a glance back her direction, as if he can feel her eyes on him, and she looks down quickly, pretending to be occupied getting her purse. But even with that quick moment, she'd glimpsed dark, unruly hair framing a serious-looking face.
Rey instinctively understands the need of the mystery prankster to play this particular joke on this particular man. He is...intimidating, and she doubts anyone ever greets him spontaneously.
Before she has time to think twice, she's scrambling out of her car to follow him into the grocery store.
She grabs a shopping cart from the corral, and enters about a minute behind him.
He's stopped his own cart at the deli counter just inside the entrance, pointing at something inside the glass case.
"No. The other one."
The service employee has a look of long-suffering on his face, and he puts the selection back and grabs the one beside it.
The man in the suit—Ben, if the sign is correct—snaps at him again.
"No. NO. Are you even capable of looking at where I'm pointing?"
A temper to match the sense of entitlement, Rey thinks. She's not going to regret playing a prank on him at all. He might even deserve some water in one of his expensive probably-Italian shoes, but that's outside the scope of this prank.
The service employee is finally grabbing the correct selection, and Rey quietly sneaks up.
With careful, precise driving, she just barely brushes her cart against Ben's as she passes—the rubber on the corners of the cart making for a tiny bounce. Nothing significant, just the accidental bump of another grocery patron. It causes him to look at her, though, automatically evaluating danger of whoever is in his space.
And in the moment those dark eyes connect with hers, she beams up at him and says, "Oh, hey Ben!"
She waves, as if they've known each other forever, and then continues onwards, stopping a few feet away to check out the cheese display even though she doesn't need any cheese.
She doesn't have to look behind her to know that he's staring at her, wondering how in the world she knows his name.
Rey has to fight off a grin, forcing her face to look casual. Just another day at the store, and would you look at the price of that brie? She doesn't eat brie, but she's heard some things, and always assumed it would be a lot more expensive than that.
She picks it up, pretending to consider the price, and casually, so casually, looks up like she's staring into space wondering what she's going to make with brie.
Ben is still waiting at the counter pointing out whatever the employee is doing wrong while packaging it up for him. His eyes dart over to her more than once, though. His face is all sharp and interesting angles, fascinating imperfections, drawn down into a stormy frown.
She should feel threatened by the way his eyes narrow at her like she's an enemy, but she doesn't. Instead, she feels something akin to power. The not-knowing must be the tiniest little prickle under his skin, and that's enough for Rey to feel satisfied that she'd pulled off her fair share of the prank.
She catches his eye and waves at him again, pleased when his eyes get the slightest shadow of doubt in them.
She decides to get the brie after all. The big bear of a man in the ridiculously fitted couture suit is giving her fancy ideas, and though she might not be able to afford lobster and caviar or whatever else he's surely getting, she can get the brie.
As she rolls away to another aisle, she thinks he's watching her, and she permits herself a giggle once she rounds the corner.
The grocery store is big, but not so big that they can avoid each other entirely without trying. So she shouldn't be surprised when she looks up and finds they are in the same aisle again.
She shouldn't be surprised, but she is. Because he's right next to her, and he's much taller than she'd expected him to be. He towers over her.
His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing muscled forearms, and the tiny box of pasta in his hands is dwarfed by his long fingers. He seems to be reading the ingredients on the box, his hair down in his eyes, so he hasn't noticed her yet.
She can see ten other boxes of pasta in the cart already, and she makes a sound of amusement.
He looks up then, and does a double-take when he realizes it's her.
This close, she can feel the intensity in his gaze. His eyes are so dark, they're almost black, and suddenly having all of his attention on her is disorienting. Like he's big enough to bend gravity around him.
She shakes off the feeling of the earth shifting under her feet, and keeps her smile light. "Still eating way too much pasta, I see." She gestures at his boxes as she reaches over to the shelf, grabbing a package of penne for herself.
"And how is that your business?" he snaps at her.
He doesn't deny that they know each other, though, and that little hilarity is enough to let his irritated tones roll right off of her.
She deliberately ignores the question and then makes sure to say his name again. "It's a good thing you burn all of those carbs off in workouts, Ben. I wish I had your discipline." Looking down sadly at the penne, she tosses it in the basket. "Just one box for me."
She's guessing about the workouts, because no one can have forearms and shoulders like that without putting a little effort into it. It would be horrifically unfair, if so, and she likes to think the universe makes sense most of the time.
His dark brows furrow a tiny bit, clearly wondering how she knows so much about him, and she congratulates herself on guessing accurately. He makes sounds of general agreement that makes Rey think he's not paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth, since he'd just snapped at her.
She laughs to herself and pushes her cart in the opposite direction than he's going.
She's at the edge of the cereal aisle when she sees him again. His cart curves like it's going to turn down the same aisle when it suddenly changes direction to continue past. Ben pretends like he doesn't see her, clearly trying to avoid another awkward conversation with the girl that seems to know him.
She grins his direction, as his eyes shoot awkwardly towards her, and she doesn't pass up the opportunity to make him more uncomfortable.
"Ben, you're not trying to avoid me, are you?"
"Of course not," he says, lying through his teeth.
She's not fooled. The tips of his ears have turned pink, and she's thrilled to find this one little thing that makes him less intimidating, more mortal.
"Well, that's good. Or I'd start to think you don't like me." Knowing that's too much of an opening, she adds, "Or even remember me. You remember me, right?"
He's trapped, embarrassed. "Of course I know who you are."
She doesn't know why he won't just say outright that he has no idea who she is. Maybe his fancy manners are more ingrained than that. Maybe he thinks she's someone important and is afraid to insult her.
His ears aren't just pink anymore, they're bright red. The ruffled hair hides most of it, and she guesses that's why he keeps his hair so long. It's not very intimidating, or professional, to blush all the way up to your ears.
She smiles up at those ears, and lays another trap for him. "So it's just that you don't like me, then?" She deliberately turns back to the cereal. "I see."
There's a moment of frustrated silence behind her, followed by, "I didn't—I said I wasn't trying to avoid you!"
"Of course, Ben." She doesn't look back at him, even when she hears him stomping off to another aisle, because she's afraid if she sees his face all petulant she's going to burst into laughter.
He must feel particularly embarrassed after that, because the next time they meet, he speaks first.
She's trying to decide between two melons, rolling them both up next to each other and then trying to compare them. She knocks on them with her fists, and listens, as if she can hear something in the dull thud that returns to her.
"The one on the left," Ben says, from behind her.
His deep voice is unexpected, and she feels it like a tingle all the way down her spine. She turns to see him looking at her, and notes that his ears are back to being slightly pink.
His eyes are different, a tiny bit lighter. He's gotten control of his temper in the minutes since she's seen him last. The advice he's offering is sincere.
She looks up into his face, wondering, and his eyes never waver from hers.
Curious, she asks, "Why?"
"What?" Her question takes him off guard.
She watches as his ears deepen to the red. He'd been staring at her face as she stared at his eyes.
She's wondering why he's approaching her and talking to her, but that seems too silly to ask. So she goes with the other obvious answer.
"Why the one on the left?" she clarifies, rolling the rejected melon farther back into the pile. She hefts the one Ben had indicated, and looks at it closely, trying to see what he sees, and trying not to look into the eyes that are pulling at her.
Ben parks his cart alongside hers, and then reaches over and gingerly grabs the melon out of her hands. It seems tiny and weightless when he holds it, and for a second, she imagines him shooting it across the produce section like a basketball.
She wonders if he plays basketball. That would explain the forearms.
"The lines here, the webbing, come from the pollination." She's mesmerized by the way his fingers trace the brown striations. It seems too gentle for a man of his size, and it makes goosebumps rise on her skin. "These dots," he points out dark marks, "are sugar dots. It means it'll be sweet."
Unbidden, she has images of touching the beauty marks that dot his face with her fingers, and wonders if they'd be sweet, too.
Shocked at herself, she just nods and takes the melon from him, their fingers brushing in passing. The goosebumps get stronger.
"Thanks, Ben," she manages. "Rosie—you remember Rose?—asked me to bring a fruit salad to dinner, and I thought I'd try something more than just the berries I usually do." She neglects to say that he's the reason she seems to have a desire for trying fancier, bolder things today.
He frowns at her words, the lines appearing in his forehead in a way that makes her fingertips itch to smooth them out. "If you haven't done it before, chopping up a melon isn't that easy. The rind is thick, the shape is awkward and liable to roll off the chopping board. Literally anything smaller would be much safer. Apples. Pears. You can chop a banana with a spoon."
He reaches over like he's going to take the melon back from her.
Cute. Is that concern? For her? She's apparently not cleared for melon-safety.
She thinks her own ears might be turning pink now, and fights back a different kind of grin.
Is this what it would it be like to have a big, strong man concerned about her? She tries not to sigh. More wishful thinking that she gave up a long time ago. She knows how to be strong enough for herself.
Ben's not wrong about the melon, though. And now that he points it out, she realizes she probably doesn't even have a knife that can tackle the problem. But hell if she's going to leave behind the melon he especially picked out. She doesn't even weigh it to find the price, she's definitely taking this one home.
There are things she can't have, but this melon is not one of them.
"I'll figure it out," she says, settling the unwieldy, large fruit into the front of the cart like a bulbous baby. "Thanks again, Ben."
He nods, awkward, like he wants to say something more. But she's done with her shopping, and about done playing pretend with this man who seems to make her feel too much in too short a space of time.
As she is pushing her cart towards the register, he calls out, "Uh, tell Rose I said Hi."
She laughs and waves back at him. "Will do!"
And she does.
Later that night, as they're eating the fruit salad that looks like a huge mess, but is actually delicious because the melon is indeed very sweet, she tells Rose about the whole entire adventure. The other April Fool's Day pranks pale in comparison to this one.
"Oh my god, he sounds so hot," Rose says, fanning herself after Rey describes those damned rolled-up sleeves.
Her words make Rey pause for a second. Is Ben hot? He isn't what most people would probably call attractive. Especially since it's hard to get past the part where he looks like he could break you in two for looking at him the wrong way. But there's just...something about him. She thinks about those pink ears, that confused look on his face, and smiles to herself.
As Rose spoons more misshapen, vaguely trapezoidal, melon pieces into her mouth, she adds, "Well, it sounds like you think he's hot."
The color rushes to Rey's cheeks. That observation is much more accurate, and Rey tries to hide some of her embarrassment by sticking a strawberry into her mouth.
"It doesn't matter," she points out. "It's not like I'm ever going to see him again."
"Girl, you didn't even get his number? Or his…license plate?"
Rey rolls her eyes. "What would I do with his license plate? Have Finn track down his vehicle? That's crazy. It's…crazy to even think about." She doesn't mean just the license plate. She means everything.
"I just think you should have tried something. He did help you pick out a melon."
Rose is serious, but so is Rey.
She feels crazy just for thinking about him. It was nice for a minute, to have the attention of a man who felt so far out of her league. But she knows that his interest was only because he thought that he knew her. She'd baited him into talking to her. She'd wandered around the grocery store bumping into him on purpose.
If he really knew her, he wouldn't be remotely interested in someone from her background. She's the opposite of luxury cars, expensive clothing, and fancy food.
She still doesn't know what to do with the brie she bought.
Over the next few weeks, she thinks about Ben more than seems reasonable for a stranger that she'd only barely met, and even then only for the purpose of fulfilling someone else's prank.
But she can't seem to help herself. She even buys another melon at the grocery store, paying attention to the sugar lines that decorate the rind.
She wonders what happened to the prankster, and if Ben ever got him back. Sometimes, when she's in a bit of a bad mood, she wonders who else honked at him and got his attention. Who else did he turn those searing eyes on? Someone closer to his world, probably.
She tries not to look for him, or his car, telling herself not to be ridiculous.
So it comes as a surprise one day when she pulls into the same parking lot at the Super Saver, and sees a black car, with black trim, and a hot pink poster board on the back.
She thinks she's imagining it. It's been a month. May has set in already. Surely it's not the same car.
But she can't help herself, and she walks up to it. It's not only the same car, it's the same sign. The car is dirty like it hasn't been washed. The sign is the worse for wear, with some frayed edges, and what looks like significantly more tape than had been on it the first time. The words are faded, and there's water spots like it had gotten sprinkled on, but she can still make out the printing: 'My name is Ben!'
It's Ben, her Ben.
She puts a hand to her chest to still the sudden frantic beating of her heart. Not 'her' Ben, that's just silly.
She tells herself it's silly over and over again; but she can't deny that as she grabs her cart, she's looking for his tall frame.
When she finally finds him in the pasta section, he's not in a suit this time. Jeans and a flannel shirt, and his shaggy hair is curling longer over his ears than a month ago. She doesn't know why, but he seems more approachable this way, without those reminders of wealth and power.
She grins and shouts, "Ben!" And she's not really pretending to know him this time, because actually she does kind of know him.
He looks up at her, and the pasta box falls out of his hand. As she reaches him, she bends down to pick it up.
His eyes are just as intense as she remembers him. Everything about him is just as vivid, intense, disorienting—as she remembers.
She puts the pasta box into his cart. "Please don't tell me that you still haven't noticed that sign on the back of your car. After all this time."
A smile breaks slowly across his face, and Rey feels it like a warmth in her stomach. It's better than the frown by far. "Actually, I noticed it that first day when I went to put my groceries in the trunk. It was...very embarrassing."
She imagines it, and they share a laugh at his awkwardness. "Why in the world haven't you taken it down yet, then?"
The serious look is back on his face again, and he opens his mouth like he's going to say something and then shuts it again.
Rey tilts her head, looking up at him, waiting.
He runs a hand through his hair, and then finally breaks the silence. "I met a girl that day. She called me by my name, and I was so busy trying to figure out how she knew me, that it slipped my mind that I never got her name or her number."
His words seem suggestive, and Rey tries to ignore it, because if she listens to the words too closely she might get her hopes up. And she'd spent the better part of a month squashing those hopes very firmly down.
"After I thrashed Poe for the prank," he continues, and she surmises Poe is the one responsible for the pink poster board, "I told myself I'd leave it up until I found her again."
He's staring at her, and she can't look away.
One of the Super Saver employees goes by, broom in hand. "Hey, Ben!" He offers a friendly punch to the shoulder, and Ben takes it with a good-natured grimace.
When the employee is out of earshot, Ben says, "In other news, everyone knows who I am now. Even when I take the sign down, I'm not sure I can undo the damage that sign caused. Which means I should probably thrash Poe again."
She reaches for a box of pasta on the shelf, and looks down at it as she very casually, too casually, asks, "How long do you think it will be before you can take it down?"
He doesn't answer. And Rey can't handle the silence for long before she looks up at him to find him staring again.
He's waiting for her to look up at him, and when she does, he takes her box of pasta and tosses it in the cart for her. With nothing in her hands, she has no choice but to look at his face.
"If I can get your number, this time," he finally says, "that sign can come down today. And I can finally get my car washed, too."
She can't stop the grin that spreads across her face. She thinks she hears Rose's voice in her mind, whooping in delight. It takes her a second to respond. "Well, for the sake of everyone on the road, and your poor car, I think I can do that."
He smiles again, and it thrills her because this time she knows it's definitely for her. Is that crazy? It still feels crazy. She still feels crazy.
But she thinks…she thinks he feels it too. The same amount of crazy that had her buying melons and fantasizing about rolled-up sleeves, had him taping and re-taping weatherworn pink poster board to the back of his car.
And somehow that makes her feel less crazy.
His eyes are taking in the feelings that seem to flash across her face, and what he sees must satisfy him, because he says, "Maybe I won't thrash Poe after all."
He holds out his hand to her. It seems an awkward time for a handshake, but she takes it.
"Hi, I'm Ben," he says.
"I know. Everyone knows." She laughs and tugs a little on her hand, but to her surprise, he doesn't let it go. His hand is warm and firm, those long fingers wrapped around hers.
His voice is low when he says, "I was really, really hoping you would tell me your name now." A smile quirks at his lips. "So I can finally stop calling you Super Saver Girl."
She gets it then, and stops trying to get her hand back. "Rey, my name is Rey."
"I am very happy to finally meet you, Rey."
His smile then, and the look in his eyes, makes the thoughts fall right out of her head. So she says the first one that comes back. "Rose says Hi."
A/N: This story was inspired by a prank that a Facebook friend pulled on her husband, who happened to be named Ben. The picture she posted of the sign on his car inspired me to write this little one-shot.
Much thanks to my Alpha-reader, Kaarina Riddle, and to LumosLyra, who did the cover—without both of them, this spontaneous story wouldn't have been able to go from thought to reality to published work in such a record short time.
I feel like apologizing for the present-tense that I almost never usually use, and how too many sentences start with He and She. But it is what it is. I'm just happy to have written something new, and I hope to produce more stories in the weeks to come.
S&R: Constructive Reviews Welcome (CRW), which means all of your comments and opinions are welcome, including criticism, if you feel like offering any.