Chapter 4

Then:

It was raining.

Cold and gloomy. Rey sat at her bay window watching the rain fall, a mug of tea warm in her hands. Beside her was Finn, wrapped in one of her fuzziest robes and drinking coffee from a mug he kept at her house.

"Look at us," he said. "Old married couple."

Rey laughed. Meeting Finn was a breath of fresh air. He was her closest, most trusted friend. After a few moments of comfortable silence, she cleared her throat.

"I'm going to leave Hux."

Still watching the outside world through her window, he nodded. "It's about time."

They continued the next hour with silent thoughts and background music. Rey spent it considering how she would leave Hux. Over the phone was out of the question.

She suspected Hux of cheating on her by this point and she couldn't find it within her to care very much. He was outside the country more often than in it, and the distance was making her witness his personality in a different light. Where she had found him misunderstood, she now saw him as bratty. If she was honest with herself, the longer she went without seeing Ben, the more she realized she missed him outside a platonic circumstance. And the longer she went without seeing Hux, the more she realized she didn't miss him very much.

Every tabloid had accused her of it. And she had denied it, swallowing her shame. She liked Ben. She thought of his body and his hands. She thought of the way he laughed, his dimples deep and smile toothy. She thought of Ben Ben Ben. How easily he fit into her home. How well he drove her car. How at ease he made her feel. Ben.

Without the pretense of Hux, she couldn't keep acting as though she didn't want things to change. As soon as Hux came back from the last leg of his tour, she was going to do it. She was going to break up with him. She was going to be free and she was going to stop lying to Ben about how she felt.

But things don't always unfold the way you expect.

Now:

Accepting her cowardice, Rey asked Ben to exit her discreetly, avoiding reporters altogether. She knew, on some level, he felt guilty over his part of their sordid romance online. A better man, to him probably, would have refused to continue working for her.

The ride home was uneventful and silent.

Rey didn't reach for the minibar and Ben didn't look away from the window. When the limo parked outside her home-no paparazzi, thankfully-he opened their door and helped her climb outside the way he had dozens of times. It was cold. She wanted to wrap her arms around herself but didn't want to let go of Ben's hand, so she-

"Here."

He wrapped his arm around her and somehow that was better than she could have ever imagined. She dreaded the remaining ten steps to her front porch.

"Thank you, Ben," she said, voice breathy.

They stopped on her porch, facing each other underneath her single, exposed light bulb the way they had many years ago. He was so handsome. And his eyes, so full of emotion she couldn't distinguish.

"Ben," she said. "Do you want to come in for some tea or something?"

"Actually, maybe whiskey isn't so bad."

She smiled and opened the door, heart racing inside her chest so loud she knew he could hear it

This was it.

Then:

Rey was at the farmer's market buying ingredients for a spicy italian sausage lasagna. There were territories she navigated now alone, knowing what to expect. Daytime was best. She could pretend that the idea of her becoming Bond didn't leave nerdy white men frothing at the mouth, calling for her blood. Dead or alive, just simply out of the picture.

Ben hadn't replied to any of her messages or calls for months, but that wouldn't derail her plans for tonight. Lasagna was Ben's favorite. She'd finally paid enough people to uncover Ben's address. She would show up with his favorite dish and grovel for his friendship if that's what it took. Anything for him to be back in her life.

It was a farmer's market. There weren't magazines lining a checkout counter the way they were at a grocery store. So it was an unhappy accident that she stopped to tie her shoe and saw it.

The headline: You can't shake this off like a catchy song.

Hux's face was beside four other women, all accusing him of giving them chlamydia. In too much shock to hide her face under a hat, Rey sat and read the article. Somehow, the evidence justifying her suspicions felt worse than she had expected.

He had pressured them into abandoning a condom. Pull out king, he called himself.

The words made her sick. The same ones he'd said to her, time and time again. Because he had convinced her not to use a condom - which only meant one thing. If he had given them chlamydia, reason stood that she had it too.

She cried out in the open, great heaving sobs that sounded loud to her own ears.

It was this image that circulated the internet within the hour. Her, without any make-up, sitting on a curb crying and clutching a trashy magazine that had announced her fiance's betrayal to the world. They had been broken up for months, but the public didn't know that yet. Two hours later and she'd become a meme that didn't fade until a week later.

She went home and didn't go outside for weeks.

A memory, when it happened:

It was the end of summer. The balmy weather left Rey's skin sticky. The wisps of hair around her face stuck to her forehead and the three buns didn't help alleviate the heat from the back of her neck. She and Ben had stopped for ice cream after she'd finished her interview at the Chateau Marmont. He was supposed to drop her off at home.

Spending time with Ben now, having planned to break up with Hux tomorrow when he landed, felt absolutely sinful. Every time he opened the door for her, she pictured him leaning down to kiss her. When he'd wiped ice cream from her nose, his touch left fire in its wake. She was impatient for that chance to have Ben.

When he dropped her off at her house, she leaned into the car to invite him to the beach next weekend, strictly as friends and not employer and employee, when she staggered at the sight of Hux crossing her front lawn. His arms were stretched wide open.

"Honey," he called out, his accent-much more smoother and prim than hers-grating her every nerve, "I'm home! Tell me how much you missed me!"

She screeched as he lifted her off the ground and swung her in a circle.

"Let me down, you buffoon!" When he did as she asked, she smoothed down her dress and muttered, "You never show me much affection unless Ben is around."

Throwing an arm around her neck to kiss the top of her head, he said, "Well, how else will he know who you belong to?"

That afternoon dragged out the way a horror movie lingered on a dark corner seconds before a jump scare. Hux was there. And Ben was there. The threads in her plan were loose and she was grasping at them to prevent any more damage. She didn't want to end her relationship in front of Ben. But she didn't want to be alone with Hux.

So she insisted she needed Ben, that more and more fanboys were sending her threats, and she didn't feel safe without a bodyguard. It was a horrible plan, really, but she just couldn't make heads or tails of what to do.

In the end, Huz insisted they go to Malibu for sushi. For the most part, Rey was silent.

Three months on a tour that hadn't yet finished. She used to be excited at seeing him come home or going to visit a venue. Now, he was a distant figure that didn't fit into her daily routine. Los Angeles are huge and clustered, and when he was there, she felt cornered and tied to a post she didn't recognize. With the knowledge that she could finally end things, she felt restless in his presence. Desperate to get away from him.

So when he described his band's next album, she just wanted to roll her eyes and literally run away. The First Order was not necessarily a boy band, but each bandmate had a following of fans who wore shirts with hashtags and their names on it. And #TeamHux fans always made her aware of their hatred for her.

"You guys should just post a poll on your site and let your fangirls choose the title," said Rey.

He shoved her. Lightly enough for her to barely stumble but with enough force to make her stop and look at him.

"Hux," she said. "Are you seriously offended?"

"Sod off, Rey. You don't see me criticizing your boring ass movies."

They were out in public. People walked around them, some obviously recognizing who they were.

"Excuse me? It's called a joke."

Hux's hand didn't even touch her. Like slow motion, she saw him pull his hand back the way people did when they punched someone. Objectively, she knew what that meant. But in the space of that long drawn out second, she looked at him in confusion. Never before had he-

Ben leapt between them. He grabbed Hux's wrist and with frightening efficiency, twisted it until there was a loud crack. The snap of bone made her flinch. All she could do was stare, vaguely aware of the commotion around them.

"I'll kill you!" Hux collapsed onto the ground, screaming and cradling his hand to his chest. "You're fucking done for, you got that? You're fucking dead. Your life is over."

The sound of sirens broke her trance. There were police officers around them and suddenly, Ben was thrown against the nearest car, his hands behind his back.

"Ben!" she yelled, pushing her way forward, looking from face to face of all the officers surrounding them. "No, leave him alone! He wasn't-he wasn't-"

"Ma'am," one of them had told her, grabbing her upper arms. "You need to let us do our jobs."

"He was defending me," Rey said, struggling to look for Ben, to meet his eyes. "You need to let go of him."

In the end, Hux was a famous and powerful figure, and Ben was nobody but a bodyguard. A background figure. Rey had given them the business card to her lawyer, but she later heard that Ben had rejected the offer. After that, absolute silence - from Ben, from the company he worked for, lawyers, the police. Short of hiring a private investigator, there was no way for Rey to contact Ben.

That day, Hux had gone straight to the hospital, then to the airport. Nothing could derail the second half of his tour.

That day, Rey hadn't gone to the hospital. She also hadn't seen Hux even get boarded into an ambulance. She hadn't texted him. Feeling no need to do so, she'd gone on with her life without the infamous bad boy Hux. The prepaid tickets to visit his venues in Italy and Japan went ignored. She didn't break up with him the way she had planned, yet it was enough.

To be perfectly honest, those months were the loneliest of Rey's life. Not because Hux hadn't bothered to text or call her, but because it was Ben who cut off all ties with her.

Now:

If he recognized his lost sweater from over two years ago, he didn't say anything. In this house that he had spent countless hours in, he kicked off his shoes and tossed his jacket onto her unused piano. Loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves.

"Finn told me you're starting a nonprofit," he said, pouring a splash of coke into his whiskey.

"Does Finn tell you a lot of things?"

He took her glass and topped it off with coke. When he handed it back, he let their fingertips touch. "Finn pretends he's not a mediator for whatever this is."

She broke eye contact and stared at the glass in her hand. This was really happening. This dangerous dance they've been entangled in for years was finally going to implode.

"I thought you lived on Springdale," she said.

"I do."

She thought of the cottage by the sea that she couldn't picture him in. Something she herself would have liked years ago, small and cozy and close to the sand. A lifetime of walking barefoot. "You don't live by Santa Monica pier, by the muscle beach?"

His smile fell. "That was Han's property before he passed away. Technically, I own it. But I don't live there."

His gaze was unflinching. Rey nodded at the unspoken questioning hanging between them. "I looked for you. Hired a P.I. and that's all he could find. Ben, why didn't you tell me they fired you?"

He laughed, no humor in it. "One of two things was going to happen, Rey. You were either going to hate me for what I did to your fiancee or you were going to realize that I would do anything for you. I wasn't ready for you to see how much I am yours. I have loved you in the background for so long, I couldn't bare it for you to finally acknowledge it, only to reject it."

"And now?"

"Now? Now it's time to move on. I can't live like this anymore."

Then:

The hateful thing about California was it had no business baring its cheerful weather when the cemetery was full of sweaty, mournful people surrounding a closed basket. Rey tried her best to appear respectful in her sleeveless black dress and heels. Clothes wrinkled and hair greasy, but she was there. She came alone but saw Finn in the crowd, so she joined him.

They only nodded in greeting.

Rey recognized a few faces from past family events. They gave her vague hellos and moved on, greeting Ben and his mother before taking a seat around the casket.

Rey embraced Ben the moment she saw him. She repeated the gesture for Leia.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't make it to the memorial last night. If there's anything I can do, please let me know, anything you need, don't hesitate. I am so sorry for your loss."

Ben looked at her skeptically. "How did you get here?"

"I took an uber."

"You're supposed to be in Greece."

"Yeah, but I came." She hadn't even thought about it. When Finn called her, she had gotten on the train to the airport, bought a flight with three stops (and bought the black dress on a layover in Canada), and then tossed her clothes into the trash at LAX and ordered an uber, wearing her dress. She hadn't slept in twenty-four hours.

"Why would you come?"

"Ben," warned Leia.

Rey shifted under the heat of his look, which was growing angrier by the second.

"But why would you come? Han isn't your family. We're not your family. You didn't have to inconvenience your perfectly scheduled itinerary just to visit a dead negligent alcoholic."

His words scratched the deepest insecurities she hid. "Ben, I love and respect your family and I am here to pay my respects to you, your mom, and the memory of Han."

"You mean to reminisce about the affair you had with my dad."

"Ben!" Leia hissed.

Without acknowledging his words, Rey turned to Leia and gave her a tight smile. "I'm going to find a seat with Finn. I won't keep you from everyone. Please, let me know if there's anything I can do.

Halfway through the ceremony, Rey noticed Ben drop his head into his hands, his shoulders moving. She stood and ignored all the eyes that shot to her. She sat beside Ben and wrapped an arm around his back, resting her head on his shoulder. She rubbed small circles on his back.

That night she drove him home and spent those dark hours with him, stroking his hair until he fell asleep. Eventually the jet lag and sleep deprivation overpowered her and she laid in his arms.

Rey spent that weekend at Ben's house. When she had left Greece, she hadn't packed a bag or carried any essentials, so she wore Ben's clothing. Old T-shirts and workout pants. On the second day he found his mother's leggings and an ex's sweater. All ill-fitting but clothes were clothes and though she brushed her teeth with toothpaste and a finger, she had no complaints.

They cooked and watched TV, and when Ben cried, Rey never hesitated in providing the comfort of her touch. They lived wordlessly-inside a bubble Rey struggled to leave. She spent four days inside that house before leaving, returning to Greece only by threat of a million dollar fine for abandoning set. She lied. Said her own father had died. The production company gave her those handful of days but not a single one more.

Ben drove her to the airport and when he parked outside her terminal, they looked at one another awkwardly. As if they knew they'd crossed a line.

Before he could say anything, Rey kissed his cheek and thanked him for the ride. She left for Greece with a tear stained shoulder and regret deep in her belly.

Ben. This time when she returned, she was ready to confront the feelings she kept hidden. The feelings that all involved Ben.

A memory:

Han was a shameless flirt. Still handsome at his old age, Rey recognized the appeal that Leia had fallen for time and time again through-from Ben's retelling-their tumultuous marriage. She only met him a handful of times, but she liked him very much.

"Dad," snapped Ben, glaring at him. "knock it off or we're leaving."

Han leaned even closer to Rey and loudly whispered, "I don't know why the kid is getting angry with me. You're not even his girlfriend."

They both looked at Ben and laughed at his expense.

"She has a fiancee," spat Ben.

Rey didn't know why she was laughing so hard, but Han's teasing was so infectious she couldn't help but join the mutiny against Ben.

"Come on," she said. "Hux is on tour a lot. I can have a little side action with Mr. Silver Fox over here and besides, according to TMZ, I have a daddy complex."

Han roared. "Oh, I like this girl, Ben. You should make her your girlfriend before I make her your stepmom."

"Disgusting old man," muttered Ben, who waved them away and continued rifling through boxes of his childhood belongings. They were at his mother's house for dinner and Ben had insisted he had a collection of old Pokemon cards that would make Rey lose her mind.