Chapter Text
The joke is that millennials don’t answer their phones or the doors, and the joke is true. Because why, in the age of texting, would anyone just… stop by? Not when it's so easy to give a heads up, to send a text, to wait for a reply, even if that reply is “actually I’ll be in and out all day, but please leave it on the porch!” ESPECIALLY when that isn’t true, Rey just doesn’t want to be disturbed.
It's her one day off, she just got out of the bathtub, she slathered herself with lotion and spritzed on a perfume sample she got with that special mascara she ordered from Sephora and she’s not wearing a bra. Everything is perfect.
So that’s how she would’ve answered a text, the millennial that she is. “I’m not around today!”
Except her friend Rose’s father in law didn’t send a text.
He just showed up.
She’s leaning against the edge of the counter, licking the last of the ice cream from a cold spoon when there’s a knock at the door. Her dog goes nuts, claws on the wood floor, bark bouncing off hallway walls. There’s a tiny window in the door, enough that she can make out the shape of the man, but worse than that, is the fact that he can see her, peering around the corner with the spoon in her mouth, and her baggy tank top, and her terry cloth towel shorts. There is no going back.
Niima is bouncing on her hind legs at the door knob, eager for Rey to open it. It’s chaos, this tiny moment, of opening the door and trying to grab Niima’s collar, but also making sure her tanktop doesn’t gap too much as she leans over to do that, and give away… well, everything. Her little braless body in her very at-home-only clothing, in front of someone she’s only met once or twice.
The moment is a failure. The second the door opens, Niima is out, jumping on Benjamin Solo, his longish salt and pepper hair hanging over his face as he tries to pet the over-excited Australian shepherd and get her collar before she — yup, there she goes.
“Goddammit!!” Rey shouts, running barefoot down the walk into the afternoon sun, her arms wrapped around herself to keep her untethered boobs from bouncing. She looks ridiculous, she knows. Who runs with their arms crossed? It’s so obvious and weird. “Niima!! Come on girl!” She pleads at the blue heeler who’s definitely not going to listen.
This never would've happened if Mr. Solo had just sent a text.
“Oh Rey, I’m sorry. I’ll get her.”
There’s no faux politeness, like “oh no, mister, I’m a confident modern woman, I’ll go running down the street to get my dog.” Instead, she lets him.
He’s surprisingly spry, for an old guy. Not that he is really that old, she guesses. Maybe in his mid 50s? He’s aged well. He’s still tall and strong looking. He moisturizes. Other than the gray streaks in his hair, and the little extra padding at his belly, he could pass as early 40s. When she met him once before, at Rose’s last birthday dinner, he had been wearing glasses. Like not cool glasses either. Old man glasses, which he used to read the menu. But the suit he had been wearing was… oof, yes. Very good. Rey still remembers it. No other man at that table was dressed so well.
She bounces on her heels on the hot concrete, arms still protectively crossed over her - okay they are her pajamas - her gaze cast far down the street when he sees him finally emerge from the side yard at the end of the block, awkwardly walking bent over, with his large hand holding Niima’s collar.
He’s smiling.
And then so is she.
“You did it!” Rey says when they’re close enough. “That’s the fastest anyone has ever caught her.”
“She almost outsmarted me,” he laughs. He doesn’t seem annoyed at all that he just ran around her neighborhood in the summer sun, chasing down her crazy dog. Again, it’s his fault, but still… she’d be cussing up a storm right now. And he’s not. He’s gently leading her little trotting, panting dog, back to Rey’s house, with a smile on his face.
“Please, come in for a glass of iced tea or a beer, it’s the least I can do,” she says apologetically, opening the screen door.
“I’ll take you up on that!” He follows Rey in, letting go of Niima only to have her trot around his feet, excited that her new buddy is still with her. “It’s hot out there.”
“Thank you for your help, Mr. Solo. She’s quick.” Rey opens the fridge and holds up a bottle of beer and a pitcher of iced tea. He points to the iced tea and takes a seat at the kitchen island bar.
“Oh geez, Rey, you’re making me feel like an old man, please - it’s Ben.”
“And it isn’t that I’m not grateful, but…” she is trying to be polite, really, she is. Hopefully the iced tea offer soothes the bluntness of just plain asking him: “What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t you get a text from Rose?” There it is, finally. A TEXT. That would’ve been nice. “I’m bringing over that patio furniture from my grandmother’s house. We were going to get rid of it, but Rose said you were looking for a set for your deck? It’s out in the truck.”
“Oh! That’s amazing. She did not text me.”
“Good lord, I’m sorry. What a shock, to have your friend's father in law show up at your house completely unannounced.”
Rey is super aware of her bralessness, and the gentle smell of the perfume sample wafting off her sun-heated skin. If this was a porno, they’d be banging already, she can’t help the thought from springing to her head, and the blush that follows. If this was a chick flick, they’d flirt some more and fall in love. If this was real life, nothing would happen at all.
But then she notices his big hand around the glass, and the way his bottom lip is so, so luscious and yeah, Rose’s father in law is hot. He just is.
“That’s okay, you rescued my dog.”
“-That I let out in the first place.”
“True.”
“But I bring free furniture!”
“From YOUR grandmothers?” She asks suspiciously, words dangling between them.
“Hey, is that another old joke?” He laughs. “It’s tastefully vintage. High end! Luxury!”
“Is that how you describe yourself on your Our Time profile?”
“What’s Our Time?”
She stifles a laugh. “It’s a dating app.”
“I don’t think anyone on those sites wants a divorced dad.”
“It’s a dating app for older people. You’d fit right in!” She teases.
“Ah, there it is.”
“Just joking.”
“That I’d fit right in?”
“That you’d need a dating app.”
“I don’t know, I might. I’ve been out of the game a long time,” he says, shaking his head like the old man he is.
“Just go to a bar on 6th street. You’ll be… very successful.”
“Do you go to bars on 6th street?” he asks, a little sexy edge to his deep voice that makes Rey almost shiver. But then he catches himself. “I’m sorry, that’s inappropriate. Please forget I said that. I’m going to finish my tea and then go unload the truck. Where do you want me to put the furniture?”
“The deck in the back would be perfect. There’s a gate on the side. Do you want a hand?”
“No, no. I got it. Just tell me where you want everything to go so you don’t have to move it around yourself.”
–
She puts on a bra. While he’s unloading the furniture and bringing it around to the back. She dashes to her room and whips off her tank, snaps on an unimpressive nude-color cotton bra, and tee shirt that fits – no gaping neckline or torn hem or worn-soft, sheer patches.
He notices.
Like a gentleman, but still. His eyes drop quickly, lashes flutter for an instant, a light brow furrow.
He clears his throat. “Um, where do you want the large settee?”
The furniture is in great shape. It’s cute and quirky, but clearly expensive and timeless because of it. Rey would’ve never picked it, but that makes it almost better. Sometimes decisions are exhausting, and plus - this is free.
She directs Ben to where she thinks the furniture should go - a table and four chairs. A little sitting set. Some plant stands. A random square thing that she thinks is an outdoor umbrella base. Everything is metal, painted white, with bright yellow cushions, heavy. There’s sweat on his forehead and neck.
“Rose told me you bought this house at a rock bottom price because it needed so much work, and you fixed it up all by yourself.” He says, surveying the yard and the deck and the siding.
Rey nods, gaze following his. “Yeah, it’s been 3 years, and every time I turn around I see something else that needs to be done.”
“Still. You’ve done a good job. This is good work. You should be proud.”
It makes her tingle, the compliment, because she is proud. More proud than she ever lets on, and he is looking genuinely impressed. His hands are on his waist and he’s checking out the gutter that she painstakingly cleaned, painted, and remounted, and he’s admiring it, and her, and she has the briefest urge to grab his face and kiss him.
She wonders what he’d do.
“Thank you. It means a lot that you’ve noticed.”
He is looking at her now, intent dark eyes, his face kind and serious. “I notice.”
She’s blushing again. She can feel it in her cheeks, and her chest, and the warm little lift of muscles inside herself, her deepest self, where she’s waking up with interest in this man, and how he’s looking at her.
When they met at Rose’s birthday party a year before, they’d been seated close to each other. Easy chit chat over fancy appetizers and cold cocktails. It hadn’t felt like flirting, it just felt like getting along with your friend’s father in law.
But now.
Well, Rey can see that that was the spark, the click, of that handsome man in his reading glasses and his impeccable suit and his strong hands, and the way he’s leaning just a little closer, just now, calmly, in the leafy shade of her deck. He smells amazing.
“You smell amazing,” he says softly.
“I was–” she swallows, “I was just thinking that about you.”
It feels like a secret, but special, like a surprise, when his warm fingers touch her wrist. Just gently, between his thumb and his index finger– they are so wide, her wrist so small. It’s clear now, what he’d do if she just kissed him.
So she does.
One minute she’s looking at his face, the fatherly openness of his expression, the dark twinkle in his eyes, and the next she’s pushing up on her bare toes and pressing her mouth to his.
He’s not startled. He’s the same as always, stalwart and strong. His arm doesn’t hesitate to wrap around her waist, the other hand cups her cheek with all the gentle patience in the world. Rey, on the other hand, feels like she’s unraveling. It’s too good, the way his mouth opens softly. It’s too nice how strong his grip is. How he’s anything but desperate, guiding her closer and deeper and kissing her with… elegance? Is that a word you can use to describe making out with someone? Rey doesn’t know, but that’s what it feels like.
Thoughts flash through her head like shifting sand. She can’t quite grab onto them. There’s a flash of regret, that she put a bra on, because she thinks she would’ve liked the feeling of her nipples against his chest. There’s a shock of urgency, that she needs more, that she’s aching, and he is so, so capable of taking care of her. There is shame, this is wrong, this is so so so wrong. She’s ecstatic, she’s horrified, she’s giddy, she’s incredibly, utterly turned on.
The kiss ends when puts his hands on her shoulders and so politely disentangles himself.
“Rey,” he begins, but she doesn’t want to hear it. She forces herself to laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Wow, sorry about that. I must be really thankful for the patio set.”
He’s watching her, and she can tell that lots of stuff is going through his mind too. He looks like he’s sorry, but also like he is contemplating throwing her over his shoulder and putting her in the empty truck and taking her home. But he doesn’t.
“I just don’t think…” he starts again.
She waves him off. “Of course, of course. I know. Won’t happen again. Won’t tell a soul. Thank you again, so much for the… um, stuff, and for catching Niima! For all of it, really, I guess.”
She’s babbling. He smiles kindly.
And then he’s leaving. A regretful wave as he pulls out of the driveway, and Rey waves back. Then she closes the front door firmly, thinking how maybe she needs to get little curtains for the window in the door. So this doesn’t happen again. Next time, when he might show up. Never again, most likely. But still.
What a weird day.
–
The next time she sees him is at Rose’s Christmas party, six months later. The house is filled with music and cocktail dresses and way, way too many fresh pine garlands, so many that the house smells more like a car air freshener and not a swanky party.
Rey is on the arm of her friend Finn, wearing a cute pair of platforms and an extremely short black babydoll dress with little puffy sleeves, when she sees him. He’s talking to a tall blonde woman, and he looks achingly perfect. Distinguished. And okay, old. Very very much older and accomplished and handsome and kind.
He catches her eye and he winks – winks – at her. Small smile. Pleasant and brief and that’s it. He returns to his conversation like there’s nothing, and never was. Like he didn’t once gently touch her skin in the dappled light of the afternoon sun through her grapevine trellis. Like he didn’t smell her perfume and taste her mouth.
Like he didn’t just leave after, and never call, or stop by, or god– text! -- again.
It’s okay, really. What happened was just the law of physics or attraction or summer afternoons or something. She didn’t tell Rose, and she knows he DEFINITELY didn’t tell Rose, and that is that.
The party lasts hours. The laughter is louder, the music is boisterous, people are drunker. She lost Finn to a very cute Latino about an hour back. Her feet are starting to hurt.
And then.
She feels him come up behind her. The shift of air, the weight of his presence.
“How are you?” He says in a low voice, not even looking at her. Nobody would know they were even speaking to each other, if they saw them.
“I’m fine. Great, actually,” she answers nonchalantly, finishing her drink.
“You look gorgeous tonight.” She feels a small tug on the hem of her dress, where he pinches the fabric between two fingers. “This is lovely.”
“I didn’t wear it for you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t even know you were going to be here.”
“I would never think so highly of myself as to assume someone as beautiful as you would dress any special way for someone like me.” Goddamnit, why does he have to say stuff like that? It just rolled off his tongue, all poetic and mature and shit. “But I was hoping you were going to be here.”
She pretends she didn’t hear what he said.
“Who’s your date? Someone you met at a bar on 6th street?”
“Ah, no. An old friend from high school, also recently divorced.”
“Cute,” she says cooly.
“Rey, are you angry with me?”
“Why would I be angry with you? I don’t even know you.”
“For last–”
And then she just walks away, in the middle of his sentence. She doesn’t know where she got the balls to do that, it’s so rude, but she just didn’t want to hear him even talk about what happened last summer, in that calm parental way, like it was just a silly little thing, and she’s just a silly little girl who might be having silly little feelings.
She just walks away, weaving through the party, to the bathroom, where she stares at her reflection for far too long, and scrolls on her phone, and then decides, with absolute finality, that she needs to leave this party before she consumes even one more glass of champagne and does something she regrets. She finds her coat in a pile on the guest bed, and slips out the front door without saying a single goodbye.
The winter night is bleak. There’s no snow, and so cold that everything smells the same, that dead freezer smell. She texts Finn that she was catching an uber home (“early day tomorrow!”) and stands in her heels at the curb, wrapped in her huge puffy jacket, waiting patiently for Jeff in the blue Mazda.
“Rey.”
Oh christ.
“Yes, Mr. Solo?” She’s going for polite – really, she is – but it just comes out sarcastic and bratty. Probably because of the way she rolls her eyes when she says it.
It happens all at once, in one flash. He grabs her and spins her and his hands close around her throat and his lips are on hers, and he’s mad. He’s fucking furious with her. His teeth close around her lip briefly before he sucks her tongue into his mouth, and his fingers claw into her hair, and he backs her up, walking her until her back hits the brick wall of the side of Rose’s front steps. It knocks the air from her lungs.
“I haven’t fucking stopped thinking about you since June,” he growls. That’s the only word for it. “Did you know I drive past your house whenever I can, just to catch a glimpse of you? That I look through Rose’s Instagram just for pictures of you? That I force myself not to call you or text you because you are young, and beautiful and absolutely off limits for an old man like me, but all I can think about is the way you smelled when you kissed me, and how soft your skin was, and your sweet, perfect little body in your kitchen in those little fucking pajamas..”
“Ben,” she gasps, as he bears all his weight into her. His words are hot in her ear, against her cheek. The breadth of his chest covers her and the hard bulge of his crotch pushes against her belly. She is on fire. “I didn’t know.”
“What are you so angry at me for, Rey? Say it. Say it.”
“You left. I wanted you, and you left.”
“I was trying to do what’s right. I was trying to be good,” he groans, bending his knees just enough that his erection is now at the juncture of her thighs.
“Please,” she whines, and he kisses her again, sucking the noise from her throat.
“Please what, Rey?” His hands have found her ass, slipped right under her short little dress to hotly palm the cold flesh.
“Don’t be good,” she’s begging now. “Come home with me.”
Jeff in the Mazda pulls up right on time.
In the end, they don’t even make it to her bedroom. They stumble in one door, and to the other, to let Niima out in the backyard before he pulls her apart on the hallway floor. Opens her, worships her, coaxes orgasms from her body.
Then they make it to her bed, where she rides him in the soft light of her bedside table. He can’t stop cooing about how perfect she is, how sexy, how tight, how strong. And there’s something to be said for that, for someone acknowledging the parts of you that you’re also proud of. Someone like Ben, who knows a thing or two, and so calmly shares it.
She laughs when he thanks her afterwards. And she dreams when she falls asleep in his big burly arms.
The truth is, he probably won’t remember to text her after this.
But she knows he’ll show up.