Chapter Text
Rey was running late for her shift at Maz’s again, as usual. She’d just finished up her shift at the other little coffee joint she worked at, a built in cafe at the bottom of a shiny, modern corporate building, but her day of grinding up coffee beans was long from over. How else was she supposed to afford food, rent, and online classes?
Just one last semester and she’d finally have the degree in engineering that she had always dreamed of. Until then— until she could get a job that she truly enjoyed and adored— Rey had to serve millionaires and hipsters coffee day in and day out. Though the corporate building wasn’t too bad, in all honesty.
Majority of the employees who came for their overpriced bean juice snapped their orders to her while on a phone call, avoiding as much interaction as possible, but they typically left hefy tips that Rey wasn’t complaining about. In time, she’d even grown to know the regulars.
One, an orange haired man with a pinched face, always ordered a flat white coffee at precisely 7 in the morning. Another, a tall woman with a serious blonde haircut and stern expression, only drank vanilla lattes. Not even iced. Rey shivered at the thought sometimes, but did her best to let it go.
And then there was him.
The one who towered a good foot and some inches over her, dressed in sharp suits, flashy watches, and sleek shoes that oozed the word expensive. His hair was long, but styled perfectly every single day so that the long, inky locks covered his ears and never went past half of his neck. Rey often wondered what kind of thousand-dollar-product he used in that gorgeous mane of his.
He was always on the phone when he came at six in the morning, always the first one to arrive, and always sounding like his day had just been ruined for the millionth time. He never smiled, never had a friendly expression, and never did more than state, “Black coffee,” to her before grabbing it and leaving as soon as she handed it to him.
Did it suck he didn’t tip? Yes. And did it suck that his only words to her ever were ‘black coffee’ when she wished he would just come up to her and ask how her day was going so far? Absolutely.
But Rey just smiled appropriately to him anyway every single morning and handed him the cup that had already been made before he even entered the building. Sometimes, when she worked the early shift at Maz’s and the late shift at First Order Associates, she saw him leave just past midnight when she was closing down.
Her mind always asked the same question when that happened: did he ever sleep?
It wasn’t like it really mattered, though. Rey was a beyond broke college student who mainly survived on ramen and a quarter tank of gas, and he was some millionaire investment banker who said ‘black coffee’ once a day to her.
Today, however, Rey was running late to the better of her coffee jobs due to the fact Tallie had forgotten she had a shift after Rey. Leave it to Tallie to forget about the one job she had. If there was a single person who probably had it worse than Rey, it was Tallie. But that was a story for another day.
So Rey found herself scurrying out of the modern building in the direction of her shitbox of a car, a golden chipped thing situated between Audis and BMWs and Mercedes and Land Rovers. And, by the way they parked as far away from her Honda as possible while remaining in their lines, Rey knew they wanted nothing to do with her car.
They certainly didn’t want to be dinged up by it, anyway.
But of course, things happen, and Rey was late to her shift at 2:33 pm on a Monday. “I’m so going to get fired this time,” Rey whined as she dug into her satchel for her keys and finally pulled them out with a triumphant breath. She clicked the unlock button as she headed for her car and tried not to pay attention to the McLaren parked beside her.
Another fancy car, no surprise. That is, until she opened her door just a little too excitedly to get away… right into the shiny black side of the sports car. For a second, Rey just stared at the door still pressed into the paint of the car that cost more than her entire life, her breath frozen in her lungs.
She swallowed, scared to see what exactly the aftermath was the moment she pulled her door away from the McLaren’s body. But she was late for work, so she hesitantly pulled her Honda door away and whimpered out loud at the sight.
Not only had she dented it, she’d chipped off some of the black paint as well. “Oh my god… I can’t… I can’t fucking afford to…” Rey trailed off as she stared at the damage and licked her lips. Okay, she’d hit some millionaire’s car. They could afford to fix it themselves then, no problem.
They’d probably be pissed about it for a day or two, but they’d ultimately find a shop that could fix it in an hour if they flashed the right money, and then they’d be right back to normal, if not a little more wary of cheap cars.
That didn’t mean Rey couldn’t leave a note behind to convey her deepest apologies. Fuck it, she was already late anyway. Rey dove into her car and tossed her satchel into the passenger’s side before tugging open the usually stuck glove box to peer inside.
Much to her relief, an old napkin with a small grease stain and an old black pen rested at the bottom of the otherwise cluttered box. She yanked both of them out and scribbled to write her apology note into the napkin, using the top of her car as a backboard for clear writing.
In the end, Rey only jotted down one sentence before tucking it under the McLaren’s left windshield wiper before clambering into her car and pulling away.
The note read:
sorry i hit ur car :(
Rey pulled up to Maz’s only ten minutes later, now nearly 30 minutes late, with her heart still racing from the damage she’d caused. Note to self, open the car door slower next time. “There you are! I was beginning to worry you forgot you had a shift today!” Maz called from over the counter once Rey entered the cozy cafe.
“No, no! Tallie ran late to her shift at the other place so then I was late and it was just a mess. Won’t happen again, Maz, sorry,” Rey quickly apologized as she rounded the cafe’s counter and grabbed the only available apron left. The rusty nails beaten into the wall beside the coffee pots would most likely stear anyone away, but Rey didn’t mind one bit.
She simply grabbed the apron, slung it around her neck, then got to work as she pushed the car incident to the back of her mind for the rest of the day.
*****
“You don’t look too good,” Finn told her as soon as she entered their apartment. Rey just huffed and tossed her keys into the bowl at their front door before flopping down onto the couch and burying her head into her hands. Her shift at Maz’s had been brutal, to be truthful, and the car incident itched at the back of her brain.
Did First Order Associates have cameras in their parking lot? Rey had never looked before. She really hoped whoever she dinged up was just the sort of rich person to swear and bitch about it for a while, then ultimately get it fixed and move on with life.
The last thing she wanted was some big shot investment banker marching up to her stand the next morning and demanding she fork up the money to fix it. Rey quickly made a note to self to look up how much the average paint and dent repair for a McLaren was later.
“Work was hell and I may or may not have slammed my door into the side of a millionaire’s car…” Rey grumbled into her palms. Finn quickly sat up on the other end of their leather seating and grabbed her wrists so that he could look her in the eyes. Even he looked mortified at what she told him.
“You hit a millionaire’s car? Peanut, you know you can’t afford to fix that! What kind of car was it?” he gasped as Rey whimpered and shook her head in morose understanding.
“It… it was a McLaren. A 720s Spider, to be exact… It’s a three hundred thousand dollar car, Finn. I looked it up during a bathroom break and it’s fucking nice. I can’t believe I hit it,” she muttered. God, it was a nice car. With scissor doors, a twin turbocharged V8 engine, and a top speed of 212 miles per hour, it was a monster of a supercar.
And she’d scraped off its paint and dented it.
Finn reached out slowly, seeming to understand just how much stress she was under because of the incident, then tried to soothe her with, “Well, who knows? Maybe they’ll just fix it themselves and none will be the wiser?” Rey nodded along to that idea only because it was the one she was hoping on the most.
But if First Order Associates did have cameras, and if someone was pissed off enough to demand the tape, and if they inevitably hunted her down to the little coffee shop on the first floor, Rey was in deep shit. “I think I’m going to go take a bath. It’s been a long day and I have to be up at 5 tomorrow for my 6 am shift,” she whispered.
Rey stood up on suddenly numb legs and blinked in the direction of her bedroom. She really hoped it was cheap to fix that sort of issue, but she’d only know once she grabbed her phone and looked it up.
Finn leaned back on the couch, watching her go, but quickly called out, “Let me know if you need anything! Shit…” Shit was right. Rey closed the bedroom door behind her dragging feet and leaned against it once she was alone and away from her roommate.
Rey loved Finn more than anything, they’d practically grown up together in the foster care system, but he tended to get just as worked up about her situations as she did sometimes. The last thing she needed was someone reminding her she’d damaged a sports car today.
With a huff and a click of her cold bedroom door, Rey padded towards the bathroom and turned the silver handle of the bathtub to the red tape mark that was just a little past the warm area. She was very particular about the temperature of her water, sue her.
As she stripped off her coffee smelling work clothes, grimacing at the sight of more yellow stains on her white shirt, Rey couldn’t help but glance at the phone that tumbled out of her back jeans pocket. It was like it was demanding to be held and looked through.
“Fine. Fucking fine, okay ?” she growled out to the square piece of technology. Rey swiped its cool and heavy surface off of the floor before stomping back to the bathtub and easing herself inside of its perfectly hot water. Hell, maybe she’d even allow herself some of the bubble bath that had left a sticky residue around its bottom.
Sure, why not? She deserved it, didn’t she? If she was going to be a broke woman if she was found, then she might as well indulge in the small luxury while she could.
Rey was used to not having many luxuries, so it wasn’t like it would truly be a big blow, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy them. It had taken her a year or so after she and Finn left the foster care system and took out loans for online schooling to purchase something that wasn’t a necessity.
In truth, the first thing she’d ever bought that wasn’t really needed was a candle. And it was in a scent she actually liked. Rey had always been a sucker for the kinds of sickly sweet candles that made her room smell like she’d been baking inside of it.
But she might have to say goodbye to her sugar scents for a while as well as she opened up Safari and typed in: cost to fix a scratch and dent on a mclaren. The internet chugged for a second and Rey nervously bit her thumb nail until an article titled almost exactly what she wanted to look for popped up.
Cost to Repair a Scratch on a McLaren 650s.
She hurriedly clicked on it and read through the few paragraphs until she finally found the answer to her aching question. ‘With only a scratch on one quarter panel, the cost was going to be $15,000 in order to have a paintless dent repair professional complete the repair and paint it.’
Rey nearly dropped the phone in the tub. To her, a lot of money to fix a regular everyday car was around $200. She’d expected the number to be around $800, $900 at the most. But oh, how she was wrong.
In the end, she simply set the phone down on the bath mat on the floor beside her tub and sank underneath the hot water, ignoring the hammering in her heart and the tears that disappeared without a trace.
*****
Rey had seriously contemplated calling in to her supervisor at First Order Associates to tell them she was ‘sick’ and couldn’t make it, but she gave in after a long internal debate and started to pull her clothes on for the day. Nothing like a tucked in white button up and basic blue jeans to try and convince rich people she was somewhat on her feet as well.
The drive to the corporate building was spent in silence, no radio on today, and the nerves in her stomach were making her nauseous. She decided to park in the back parking lot today instead of the front one, hoping that might also save her in the sense of prolonging her inevitable discovery.
Though she arrived at her usual time, twenty minutes early so she could make Mr. Mysterious Man’s black coffee and have it ready by the time he arrived, Rey found herself getting out of the car with ten minutes to spare this morning instead. He’d be grumpy about it, she knew that, but she was bound to be much more upset.
He could frankly suck it today.
Her key trembled in her hand as she unlocked the gate protecting the coffee nook, but she managed to push it up and into the ceiling without a second thought before rounding the counter and grabbing the black apron waiting for her on the wall.
Rey mindlessly cleaned off all of the equipment, started up the necessary machinery for the day, and pulled out the first bag of coffee beans to prepare for the predicted black coffee.
Sure enough, right on the dot as she pressed the ground coffee beans into a filter and got ready to pour hot water over the dark lump, the familiar sound of nice shoes clicked over the tile behind her. Surprisingly, his deep and sultry voice wasn’t prominent today. No phone call to sour his mood, then.
When they stopped at the counter and the clearing of a throat followed, an annoyed sound, Rey finally turned and offered him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, sir. Running a bit late today. Coffee will be up in less than a minute,” she informed as professionally as possible.
God, she hoped she didn’t sound exhausted. Sleep had, for the most part, evaded her last night. Stupid fucking McLaren and stupid fucking millionaires and stupid fucking lack of money. She huffed at the thought and turned back around to continue pouring the hot water.
“You look tired,” he said bluntly from behind her. Rey choked on her own air for a second, caught off guard by his rather straightforward statement. Who the hell just said that to people? Sure, she probably did look tired, but people often used the term tired as a synonym for bad or ugly when they didn’t want to hurt someone's feelings.
Well that fucking hurt.
“Thanks for the observation,” Rey grumbled, reaching for a white lid to the coffee cup and slapping it on top of his finished beverage. She whirled back around with a now less than pleasant expression and held it out to him with pointed eyes.
The man just raised an eyebrow at her amateurish reply, but he hesitantly took the cup anyway and reached for his wallet to grab his card. As he handed the black piece of plastic over to her, he questioned with dull amusement, “Do you always treat your customers this way?”
Rey ran an irritated hand through her hair and cursed the system for running slow today as she inserted his card into the white chip reader and waited. “That depends. My customers don’t usually tell me I look ‘tired’,” she shot back.
The computer finally processed the payment and Rey hit the print receipt button with a rather harsh bump of her finger. Of course, the system started to process the request once again. “It was just a statement,” he pointed out nonchalantly, as if his words hadn’t made her day just a fraction worse.
The receipt started to slowly sprout out of the tiny box beside the computer. “Well most women don’t enjoy it when a man tells them they look tired. Isn’t that crazy ?” Rey asked sarcastically, giving him eyes that feigned surprise.
The man just frowned and took a sip from his black coffee, narrowing his eyes at her while the tiny receipt machine chugged away until it finished. Rey ripped the flimsy piece of white paper off as soon as it was done and handed it back to him along with his card.
“Now, thank you and enjoy the rest of your day,” Rey finished saltily. The man set his coffee cup back down and pushed the black plastic into a thin slit in his wallet before pulling out a crisp bill and shoving it into the glass tip jar for the first time ever. Without another word, he turned away and stuffed the leather back into his pants.
“What the fuck…” Rey whispered, her eyes drifting down to the single 50 dollar bill jammed into the mason jar. People had been generous, but never that generous, and certainly not when they played a rather snide game of subtly telling one another off.
She simply huffed and turned back around to work on cleaning up before the next customer came along, every fibre of her hoping it wasn’t the person she’d hit.
*****
For the first time in a rather long time, Rey didn’t have to go to Maz’s after she finished her shift at First Order Associates. She’d handed everything off to Tallie when the sporadic woman came in and hung up her apron with a tired sigh and nothing else to say.
Tallie waved her off as the lunch hour rush of people came flooding in for their afternoon coffee, but Rey had managed to sneak a sugary frappuccino for herself before all of the coffee hungry zombies swarmed the first floor.
Rey sipped on her drink and rummaged through her satchel for her keys as she headed out of the glass doors built into the front of the building and entered into the warm summer air. Maybe she’d actually be able to talk a walk today, but she’d probably just end up on the couch watching Netflix as usual.
Another day, perhaps.
As she jogged down the steps leading up to the corporate building, a commotion to the left in the parking lot caught her attention. The man who drank black coffee first thing in the morning and took up all that space and called her tired today was on the phone, staring angrily at the side of his black McLaren.
Rey felt all of the color drain out of her face and the sweet frappuccino she’d made for herself slipped out of her hand when she froze on the sidewalk. In that time, Rey realized two things simultaneously. First, black coffee man was the owner of the McLaren. Second, she’d been the one to ruin his sportscar and he was still angry about it.
Without warning, his dark eyes landed on hers at the same time he yelled into the phone and held his hand out, palm up, to the dent and scratch like the person on the other end of the line would see it.
Rey squeaked and hurriedly jolted away from the uproar of black coffee man so she could speed walk to her car around back. “I’ll call you back, hey—!” his voice called out from behind her, obviously hanging up the call to focus on her sketchy behavior instead.
Shit, shit, shit.
Before Rey could even pick up her pace, a large hand wrapped around her arm and spun her around so she could now look up at the giant of a man who was looking at her with confused eyes. He was also slightly out of breath, not that Rey noticed or anything.
“Hey, I saw that back there. You okay? You wouldn’t happen to know who hit my car, do you? They left a shitty note yesterday, didn’t even give up any information,” he growled out. Was she red? She was definitely red. Fuck, she was so caught.
“I, uh, no. No, I didn’t see anything. I was just, er, startled by the commotion is all,” Rey managed to choke out. His severe eyes raked over her face and he pursed his unusually plush lips for a man while an anxious silence passed over them.
“You sound really fucking guilty,” he stated out of the blue. The wince that escaped Rey’s throat seemed to give enough away due to the fact he narrowed his eyes at her for the second time that day and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the back parking lot. “Let me walk you to your car,” he demanded.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”
“Lead the way,” he simply gritted out. Rey gulped and bit her bottom lip, slowly pivoting on her sneakers and heading in the direction of her shitty car at a glacial pace. “What’s your name?” he asked, his tone tight and sharp. Black coffee man was certainly not in the mood to play around right now.
“Rey Niima. You?” she replied, chastising herself for giving away her real name when it would become clear in a few moments that she’d been the one to hit him and leave the shitty note behind and dash. God, she was a fucking fool. A moron, if you will.
“Ben Solo,” was all he said as a response. Clipped and all business, he followed beside her with his eyes locked again on the parking lot filled with nice cars. And, of course, both of their gazes seemed to fall on the run down gold Honda parked in the back at the same time.
“Well, Ben, I, uh, need to get to my second shift of the day and I’m in a bit of a rush, so thank you for walking me to my car, but I really need to—”
“I’ve seen your car parked in the front parking lot every day for the past three years. It’s always the first car there before me. Any reason why you’re suddenly parking back here?” Ben interrogated. Rey hastily unlocked the car and tried to shuffle towards the door, but he noticed and slid himself between her and the driver’s side pathway.
Any other instance and Rey would be scared that a man as big as him wasn’t letting her leave. Was it bad she kinda found it hot?
He looked positively deadly in front of her with jet black eyes, downturned eyebrows, and a new scowl on the usually pretty mouth of his that snapped her out of her thoughts. Rey just barely whispered, “I felt like changing it up?” Her reply came out as more of a question though, and that seemed to solidify her fate.
“You hit my fucking car, didn’t you, Miss Niima?” Ben asked point blank. His gaze was unwavering and he folded giant arms across the wide expanse of his chest in determination and power. Rey bit down on her bottom lip once more, too afraid to tear away from his gaze, but she said nothing.
“Look, I can go to security and demand the video footage from yesterday for the parking lot and find out that way, or you can just tell me the truth right now and we can work something out,” he stated in exasperation.
If she told him to go to security and get the footage, she’d be able to escape and go home and quit her job and never come back here. It wouldn’t be that hard to find a new barista job, but… he knew her name now. And he looked like the kind of man that could easily track her down without a problem.
She was left with no choice then.
“I, uh… may or may not have… hit your really expensive sports car…” Rey admitted through slow and trailed off sentences. He nodded casually, clenching his jaw and looking down at the pavement for a second, clearly thinking, then clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth
“And you thought that leaving the note ‘sorry I hit ur car’ with the incorrect spelling of ‘your’ followed by a frowning face was the correct response to hitting my ‘really expensive sports car’?” he questioned, leading her on in the thought process he was currently grappling with himself.
Rey winced at that and wrapped her arms around her torso, her keys clinking somewhat in her hand due to the fact she was subtly shaking unknowingly. She just rasped out in a quiet murmur, “I don’t exactly have the kind of, er, money to…”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence for him to get the idea. Ben just dragged out, “Right…” before looking over his shoulder at the golden 2001 Honda Civic. He’d probably never even touched a car like hers before in his entire life.
“And do you know how much it’s going to cost to get that repaired by any chance?” he continued, turning back to look at her as Rey kept her eyes downcast. She could feel his gaze burning holes into the top of her head, but she refused to look up at him now. Rey had never felt more like a guilty child caught doing troublesome things by an adult more than she did now.
“I looked it up last night in the bath. Around, like, fifteen thousand, right?” she breathed out, rocking on her feet.
“Try twenty-two thousand. It’s a 2020 720s—”
“—Spider, yeah, I know,” Rey finished for him. Feeling a small burst of bravery, Rey finally met his eyes once more and was surprised to find that he was no longer looking at her like he wanted to yell at her for hitting his car. No, he just looked annoyed at this point. She could settle for annoyance.
“And I’m assuming you aren’t going to help in the slightest with that payment, are you?” Ben confirmed dully. Rey thought for a moment about her savings and held up a finger to signal she needed a minute before fishing out her phone from her back pocket and unlocking it.
Ben scoffed in astonishment and hissed out, “Are you serious right now?”
Rey just opened her banking app and refreshed the page to make sure she was getting an accurate read on the amount of money in her savings account. “Well, I have just over one hundred in my savings that’s supposed to go towards paying off my college loans, but… I can give it to you if you really need it,” she admitted softly.
Ben’s shoulders sagged at her statement and the bewilderment that had been on his face only seconds ago was now contorted into something disoriented and addled. “You have one hundred dollars in your savings? How much do you have in your spendable account right now?” he barked.
Right, he was an investment banker.
“Uh…” Rey looked back down at her phone and tapped out of the savings account to switch to the one she used for everyday purchases, like groceries and shampoo and shit like that. “Right now, I’ve got forty-two dollars. I get paid on Friday, so I mean, I can give you that paycheck if you really need me to also, but—”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Ben cut in once more. She blinked at him, somewhat thankful that they’d turned the conversation more towards how broke she was instead of the damage she’d inflicted upon his car. Rey just shook her head, no, at him.
Ben pushed a hand through his hair with a huff, looking to his left for another moment of conflicted thought, then he turned his focus back to her once more and made a quick glance up the entirety of her body. Rey shifted under his intense gaze, a blush easing its way onto her face.
“Alright, fuck, I’ll just fix it myself. It’s not like I don’t have the goddamn money to do it… But you’re coming up to my office right now,” he informed her in a no nonsense sort of way. Rey swallowed hard, flicking her eyes to the rundown culprit car behind him before zeroing in once more on the serious man in front of her.
Hell, if he was going to pay for it himself and let her off the hook for the incident, Rey would gladly go anywhere he wanted. So she just huffed and shrugged before agreeing, “Alright. Lead the way.” Ben nodded and pushed past her, peering down at her smaller form to make sure she was actually following.
Rey didn’t really know what she was feeling as she trailed behind the absolute monster of a man. He was much larger a few inches away from her as opposed to the usual foot or two that the coffee shop counter provided, and fuck, did he smell good too.
Like whiskey and smoke and tangerines all mixed together in one dark, fruity scent.
Whatever expensive cologne he wore was certainly a good one and deserving of its price. “You don’t have a second shift to go to today, do you?” Ben asked when they found themselves at the stairs to the corporate building once more.
“Er… no, not today at least. But usually I spend my mornings here before going to my second barista gig until the dinner rush comes in,” she admitted softly behind him. Tick off yet another lie she told him today…
Her sneakers squeaked against the polished stone of the stairs and the chocolate frappuccino she’d made for herself earlier was still on the floor at the very bottom, its dark brown contents spilled to all hell and withering beneath the summer sun. She really had been looking forward to that.
Ben said nothing else as they walked through the bustling first floor, the hectic lunch hour still going on, but no one seemed to pay them any attention as the pair moved towards the elevators. “Shit, hold on one second,” Ben growled suddenly.
Confused, Rey looked over to him while they waited with a small group for an elevator to descend, but he plunged his hand into one of the dark pockets in his slacks to retrieve his phone. “This is Ben Solo,” he answered, crisp and professional.
Rey took the time to clasp her hands in front of her blue jeans, wondering just how much shit she was truly in. He’d told her to go up to his office even after giving in and saying he’d pay for it himself, but she had a feeling that didn’t mean she wasn’t off the hook.
What could he possibly want from her? Free black coffee every morning for a month? Free car washes for the next year? The ding of the elevator pulled her out of her worry and Rey weakly followed Ben into the confined space with ten other polished executives.
He was still speaking with whoever was on the other end of the line, his voice back to its usual exasperated and frustrated tone while the rest of the company remained silent. Rey had never been one to speak on the phone in quiet situations like this where her topics could disturb others, but Ben didn’t appear to have a care in the world.
She watched as he jammed a thick finger into floor 66, all of the other numbers pressed glowing over the twenties and thirties. Now was probably a bad time to tell him she had a fear of heights, wasn’t it?
One by one, the other suit wearing millionaires and pompous assholes left the elevator with sour faces and Rey silently found herself overjoyed at the fact she wasn’t withering away in a job like this. None of them seemed happy here, but when one got a big paycheck, that probably didn’t matter in the end.
Ben finally terminated the call when it was just them left in the ascending contrapment, terrible music of the classical kind humming away in the background. Rey swallowed down her nerves as the elevator came to a slow stop and eventually dinged open to reveal a small foyer with a large set of silver twin doors at the other end.
There was a receptionist to the right, a pretty black haired thing with thin arms and a perfectly made over face, and Rey blanched at how plain the woman made her feel. Ben once again paid no attention to the environment around him and strode out of the elevator towards the doors, as if a model wasn’t seated right there.
“Mr. Solo, your meeting with Mr. Snoke has been moved to 5:00 tonight,” the woman behind the desk informed professionally as they passed.
“So I’ve been told,” Ben snapped back before opening the silver entryway and letting Rey walk inside first. As expected, his office had a complete birdseye view of the city, all three walls in front of her, pure glass.
His furniture was sleek, modernized to a T in dark blacks and sharp silvers, and the decorations that were scattered around the room looked rich and minimalistic. Rey figured the whole office probably cost double her entire college tuition. “Take a seat, Miss Niima,” Ben sighed.
She watched as he effortlessly rounded his black desk and sat in the leather chair behind it, diverting his attention to the massive iMac tilted on the left of the smooth object supporting the rest of his expensive looking office things.
Rey nervously padded over to one of the two chairs on the opposite side and sat down quietly, observing him as he typed into his keyboard and clicked a few things she couldn’t see. What on earth was she doing here? Yeah, she was out of having to pay for the damage she caused, but why the fuck was she here? In his office?
“Is there… something you needed me for? Up here? Specifically?” Rey asked, trying to make herself more and more clear when she inquired him. Ben finally looked away from the screen and leaned back in his chair, his attention on whatever he’d been looking for abruptly gone.
“Yes, actually. I’d like to ask you a few more questions about your financial situation,” he admitted. Dumfounded, Rey just gaped at him with the most bewildered expression she had as he stared emotionlessly back at her.
“And just why do you want to ask me questions about that? I already told you I can’t afford to fix your car and the amount I have in my savings and spending account. I didn’t think I could make the idea that I’m poor any more clearer to you,” Rey snapped.
This man was infuriating. For someone so smart, he certainly hadn’t caught onto that little tidbit about her life. Rey wasn’t ashamed that she didn’t have much money— she’d never had money growing up. The only reason she didn’t have much now was because she’d been putting herself through online college to get a formal education.
And that was something she was proud of, whether she was broke because of it or not. In a few years, she’d never have to worry about student loans again, and she certainly wouldn’t have to worry about coffee stains on her white shirts.
“You said your savings are for college, to pay off loans and whatnot. What college do you go to?” Ben asked, ignoring the part where she said she was poor. Rey was albeit a little impressed he actually latched onto the information that she was in school.
Wiggling in her chair, now starting to feel a little embarrassed because she was sitting in some big shot’s office who probably went to an in person ivy league school, Rey just muttered, “Uh, SNHU. You know… the online one.”
Ben nodded and looked her over with a searing gaze. Why did he have to be so hot when he did that? Rey shifted in her chair for a different reason this time and tried not to think about how incredibly attractive this man was.
“What degree are you pursuing?” he continued.
Rey just huffed at the interrogation and answered, “Engineering. Mechanical. Look, all of my money goes to my education, okay? It’s why I drive that shitty Honda, why I work as a barista at two different places every single day of my life, and why, for just a few hours last night, I was accepting the fact I might have to say goodbye to the scented candles I love if I had to pay for repairs.
“I don’t have money to spare, Solo. I’ve been broke practically my entire life, which is why you need to tell me right now whether or not you want to pocket some of my money. If that’s the case, tell me soon so I can then figure out how much longer it’s going to set me back until I can graduate and get a real, nice paying job.”
She sighed after she was done and crossed her arms protectively over her chest, already trying to figure out how she was going to tell Finn about her day. Ben just tapped his fingers on his desk and remained quiet for a long time.
Growling, Rey sat forward in the chair and barked out, “Can you just tell me what the hell I’m doing here? I’d rather not waste my day waiting for you to either punish me, let me go, or continue questioning me about my money.”
“On the contrary, I’d like to take you out for dinner tonight, Miss Niima,” Ben replied casually. She immediately reeled back in the comfortable leather chair and stared at him with an expression twisted up in confusion. Out of all the things Rey expected him to say, that certainly wasn’t it.
*****
McLaren 720s Spider
$315,000- $411,300