A/N: Enjoy!

Obviously

Chapter 5: Open

Days passed and the red devil went away. There were little casualties. I only managed to make a mess of myself a couple of times. Thankfully. But those few times was enough for me to be completely embarrassed by it. One day, I was such a nervous wreck that I was surprised Ben didn't toss a toaster in the bath. Then, the same day and the next, I was in such an irritable mood that I got the feeling he was walking on egg shells the entirety of it. All three days, however, he ended up giving me a kiss, as the wish required. During my crying session, I'd actually received a couple of kisses. He kept it innocent enough, but always knew just when to place them. A forehead when I was feeling out of place and a burden to him. A cheek kiss when he knew I needed comedy relief. He even kissed my hand when he took his leave to make me smile. It obviously worked.

After that crisis, another couple of weeks passed fairly quickly. We'd gone to work and came right back to my apartment, as wished. We were following the rules. Even when I was a mess, I still managed to kiss his cheek good night and give him a hug. I'd thought that the hormones were making me feel so strongly about him, but the more I hugged him and gave him a quick kiss good night, the stronger the feelings became. I hated feeling so vulnerable. It was so easy to like him. I wasn't even sure if he felt the same as I did or if he was just a man of his word and doing what he agreed to.

I risked a glance over at him as he read on the couch in silence. Apparently, Mr. Solo wore glasses. Reading glasses, but glasses nonetheless. He looked adorable in them. I'd discovered quite a few things about him over the past few weeks. He wore reading glasses. His favorite colors were monotone colors, and sometimes red, if it was thrown in there tastefully. His favorite takeout was pizza. He worked as a mechanic at his dad's shop that he'd taken over once he died. He started living on his own when he was seventeen. The list went on. I returned the sentiment by telling him my favorites, too. He even went as far as to ask what my favorite flower was.

"Something on your mind, Sunny?" he teased with a small smirk my way from behind the pages.

I gave him a small smile and couldn't help but laugh. He'd started calling me Sunny, like sunshine because I was always smiling. He'd said to me, when I was in one of my hormonal crying fits, that whenever I walked into a room, I lit it up like the sun lit up the world with sunshine. I never would have guessed he could be so poetic, but there he was. "You're a lot different than I thought you'd be."

He quirked a brow at me and shut the book, sitting up in one motion. He perched his arms over his knees and leaned closer with that classic Solo grin I'd come to like so much. "And... what were you expecting, Rey?" He'd become more intense here recently. I couldn't place it, but whenever he said something a certain way or sat a certain way, my mind went places it shouldn't.

I don't know why the tone of his voice just now raised goosebumps on my arms. I don't think he meant to sound so... attractive... Maybe he did. Maybe I was broken. I gave him a lazy shrug with a smirk of my own. "Not this."

"Hm... to be fair... I don't show a lot of people this," he said with a roll of his eyes. He paused and looked at me again. "Whatever this is."

I laughed and smacked him with a pillow. "You put off the air of someone that doesn't want or need friends. Has anyone ever told you that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Nope. Never," he said sarcastically.

"Why do you put off that air?" He cringed a little at the question, though I don't know why. It was a simple enough question I thought. But maybe I'd touched a nerve. A raw nerve. "Are you afraid of letting people get close to you?" He remained silent, his eyes trained on mine as if a storm was brewing behind his dark eyes. I wish I knew what was happening in his head. He was still a mystery to me, but I was still wondering if I would ever get to know him. At the moment, he looked like a scared little boy as he tried to process his own emotions. At least, that's what it looked like he was trying to do. Was he reliving something he didn't want to? Should I distract him? Without thinking, I reached out and touched his hand. He flinched, but didn't make a move to pull away. "You can talk to me, Ben. I won't judge."

His eyes shifted. I saw the kindness in his eyes, but also the gratitude, and the reservation. It was then that I realized it was hard for him to open up. Maybe that was why he always put off that air. Because opening up to someone was vulnerability. Vulnerability that he wasn't sure he could handle. Sometimes, I wasn't sure if I could handle vulnerability with other people either. It was one thing to help someone through their issues, but it was a whole other situation to be helped through your own situation. "Jyn... did I ever tell you what her wish for me was?" he asked, looking down at our hands as he laced our fingers, my palm resting on his all of a sudden. I was so focused on him that I hadn't realized he'd flipped our hands.

"No... but if you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine," I teased, attempting to lighten the mood.

He gave me a grin. "Deal." He paused for a few moments after that, as if trying to decide how or what to tell me. Would he tell it all? Or would he withhold some things? I wasn't even sure if I would be completely open with him on my wish either, but I knew I needed to be. "When she pulled me outside in the hallway, she told me that her wish for me... was to be happy. I wasn't sure what she meant by that at the time."

"And now?"

He snickered and shook his head. "I think I'm getting closer to understanding," he said with a smirk. His eyes were focused on mine with such an intensity that I felt my heart skip. "She told me that I needed to watch out for you, like I had that night. That I needed to be your someone. How I needed to pay attention to you and... get over myself," he snickered.

"What does that mean?"

He grinned and reached out to move a piece of hair from my face, gently tucking it behind my ear. It was such an... intimate gesture. One that I wasn't sure how to read. Was he dropping a hint, or was he finding a way to distract himself? Or was he stalling for time? Maybe an out of place hair drove him batty. "I have an aversion to relationships, Rey."

I couldn't help but scoff at that. "You and me both."

"Because of that aversion... I tend to push people away. I don't want anyone to get close to me, just like I don't want to get close to them. To... you." My chest squeezed at that. The ache that one statement caused was unreal. I'd forced him into uncomfortable situations several times. He was just doing damage control this whole time. Uncomfortably. My eyes stung as I resisted the tears that threatened to fall. How could I have not noticed that? Why was I so selfish? I'd completely misread him this whole time. He probably thinks I'm the biggest idiot ever. Had he caught on to me having some form of affection for him? Had he politely tried to shut it down without crushing me entirely? Had he missed the signs? Had he ignored them? The more I questioned myself, the harder it was to breathe.

"I'm sorry..." I breathed, unable to look at him. I just stared at our hands, which I'd tried to disentangle, but he held firm. Was it out of guilt? I had no clue what was happening. It was as if my whole world shattered like broken glass from that one statement. He hadn't wanted to get close to anyone, let alone me. But I'd gotten close to him. As close as he would let me. I'd forced him to get close to me. Did he resent me? Was I an annoyance to him?

I felt his hand on my cheek, gently lifting my head to look at him. His face was a few inches away from mine when our eyes met. It was a respectable distance, but it was also an intimate distance. I didn't know whether to pull away and retreat or to let him do whatever he was doing. "I didn't want to get close to you, but... I'm glad I did."

A gasp forced its way through me without my consent, my eyes widening as my brain struggled to process that. He was for real. There was no way this was a game or a dream. He was being legitimate. I finally smiled at him, playfully kissing his nose. "Me, too."

He gave me a grin. "So..." he said as he retreated, releasing my face and sitting back a little. "What was Jyn's wish for you?"

I shrugged. "Pretty much the same thing. She wants me to be happy, and no matter what, I need to be honest with you. About everything."

"Meaning?" he asked, quirking a brow.

"Meaning... if I start to have feelings about anything in particular, I need to express them and not hide them."

"Feelings about anything?" he asked. I made the mistake of looking at his face. He had such an intense grin on his face. One that promised either a lifetime of teasing, or a lifetime of affection.

"Anything." I swallowed hard. My lips became dry all of a sudden. Why was I so nervous? It wasn't like he was going to jump me or anything. ...right?

"So... if I ask you your feelings on anything, you'll tell me," he clarified. I shrugged, attempting to be nonchalant. "All right, Sunny. Let's start off small. We'll play a game."

"What kind of game?" I asked skeptically.

He gave me a grin. "Well... have you ever played poker?"

I shrank at the question. I had, but I was terrible. My face always gave me away. "Not successfully..."

He chuckled at that. "Well... how about we play a game? If I win, we go back to my place and continue this little game. If you win... your choice."

I bit my lip nervously. "Haven't we had enough games with the whole Poe thing?"

"Yes, but I don't play dirty like he does. We'll play a practice hand. Then we'll do the real one and go from there. Sound all right?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "And... what game will we continue at your place if I lose?"

"Simple game of truth, dare or drink."

As interesting as that sounded, I had a feeling I'd be on the losing end of that game. But it was tempting to see what I could learn from him, too. "Fine."

He gave me a toothy grin that time and my heart melted. "Great. I'll get the cards." He stood quickly and retrieved them off of the bookshelf. As he made his way back, he was already emptying the box and shuffling them. He took his place back on the couch and dealt the hand of five cards a piece. "All right. So look at your hand. Your goal is to get your hand to beat my hand. You can discard as many cards as you want, only once, and draw that number of cards from the deck."

"How do I know what beats your hand?" I asked, looking at my cards.

He whipped out his phone, tapped a few times and turned it for me to look at. "There's the rankings. Ace high is the lowest you can get, and the highest is a Royal Flush with Ace to ten, all the same suit. Anything in between is here for reference. Take a minute and compare what you have to what's on the phone. Decide what you want to go for."

He sat back and waited patiently, rearranging his own hand as he did. I looked back down at my own hand and thought for a moment. I had two Jacks, one eight, and two threes. I looked back at his phone and scrolled through all the hands that were listed. I supposed I would go for a Full House. That was probably my best shot... I already had two pair, and if I got rid of the eight, I had a chance of getting another Jack or another eight. Either way, I had two pair, which wasn't really all that low. Having made my choice, I set his phone down, pulled the eight out of my hand, set it face down on the table and took another card from the deck. I blinked several times and smiled wide when I'd drawn the Jack I wanted.

I glanced over at him and heard him snicker. "Your poker face is terrible, Sunny. I see why you weren't ever successful." He pulled three cards from his hand, set them down, and grabbed three more. After rearranging his hand for a few moments, he looked up at me with a small smirk. "All right. Let's see them."

I hesitantly laid my hand down, showing him my successful Full House. He whistled and shook his head, laying his own hand down, revealing two pair. "I win?"

He grinned and nodded. "You win the practice round. Now is the real thing." He took up the cards and shuffled carefully, then dealt them again as before.

I watched him study his cards, his face blank, but intense. I realized I was staring and quickly went to collect my own cards. I looked at what was in my hand, rearranging everything as best I could. I reached for his phone to look at the reference again, but it had gone to sleep. "Your phone went to sleep. Can you..."

"Sure," he said as he quickly unlocked it then handed it back to me.

"Thanks." I went back to my cards, comparing with the reference. I didn't like any of this. However, the more I looked at it, I saw that I had the makings of a flush. It wouldn't be a royal flush, but it was a start. And it was better than discarding my whole hand on the hopes of getting something better randomly. I rearranged everything, setting the suit together. Two, Queen, Ten, all of diamonds. The other two, a Jack of spades and six of hearts, were discarded and I grabbed two more. I looked at the suit and smiled again when I realized I'd gotten two more diamonds; a four and a King. I looked up at him and saw him discard one card, drawing another. I felt quite proud of my hand, if I had to admit it. Hopefully I'd win. "Ready?" I asked when his eyes met mine.

He grinned and nodded. "What do you have?" I revealed my hand with a wide smile. "Nice. A flush." He then flicked his eyes back up at me with a mischievous grin that looked like it belonged on Poe. "Sorry, Sunny. I win. Four of a kind," he said as he showed me four sevens and a ten. "Looks like we go to my place."

I pouted, but shrugged. "Fine..." I breathed, but gave him a smile to show him I was playing. I put the cards on the table and went to my room to grab my bag that was still packed from the first time. I walked out just in time to see him looking at the bookshelf in silence. He'd seen my pictures. There was one of me and Rose on a hike in the mountains. There was another with Poe giving me a piggy back ride. There was one with Finn kissing my cheek and me making a funny face. I saw his eyes fixated on that one, as if he were trying to understand that one. "We never dated or anything. He actually didn't even kiss me. It was more like a raspberry," I laughed. "But pictures can be deceiving." I don't know why I felt the need to tell him that, but I laid it out for him.

He turned to look at me. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

We walked down the stairs of my apartment complex and I looked around with a small sigh. The night air was a bit chilly, but it was nice. It smelled fresh. Like a crisp winter night that threatened snowfall. I started to walk to the parking lot, Ben following behind me. "I'll drive," he said as he held his hand out for the keys in my hand. I set them in his hand, earning myself a smirk. He walked straight to the car, unlocked it and opened the door for me after popping the trunk. He took my bag as I stopped at the passenger side and stared at him in disbelief. Why was he so odd? I wasn't used to men doing anything for me. I practically had to fight Poe to let me pay for my own lunch sometimes. But Ben... I didn't feel the need to fight. "What?" he asked after shutting the trunk.

"What, what?"

"You're staring." I felt my face heat up as I stuck my tongue out at him. "Careful. With as cold as it is, your face may freeze that way. And then imagine what we'd have to do to thaw it," he teased with a wink.

"Ben Solo!" I shrieked, earning a laugh from inside the car. Who would have thought he was such a good flirt?!