Chapter Text
It’s not like she didn’t expect it.
They’ve known each other for two years now, been together for a year and a half. And they’ve talked about it, because of course they have. About how big they’d want the wedding (not big at all, a handful of friends and family), whether they’d announce it to the public (an exclusive piece inside General Fashion will do — no tabloids, no interviews with other magazines) and little bits and pieces, little jokes about whether he’ll wear a black suit or whether he’d like to go for something a little more adventurous (she’d suggested a pale mint green, just to see his reaction. It was worth it.)
So Rey expects it. It’s just that she expected something a little … more, for some reason. Even though she doesn’t need or want more — she just needs and wants him.
It happens on a Saturday. It’s later in the morning — she now knows the difference between the brighter early morning sun coming in through Kylo’s windows and around the warm, diffused sun that spills in at around 10 or 11, now. Kylo’s side of the bed is cold, made up with the sheets tucked in and his glasses placed meticulously in the black glass dish she got for him one day just on a whim of wanting to buy something for the man she loves.
Rey hums, wanting to stay just a little longer beneath the plush grey comforter, but the smell of bacon coming from downstairs is too tempting to ignore.
The hardwood floors aren’t kind to her bare feet, still aching from standing in stilettos all night at an exhibition at one of the city’s smaller museums. For as stressful as her job may be sometimes, she’s grateful that she’s able to see so much — like the garments entirely made out of stained glass and delicate chain that she’d seen the night before. Not only does she get to see works of art on a daily basis, but she gets to see the way Kylo becomes absorbed in them, in the process of creating them as he speaks to the artists who made them.
It’s just one of the reasons out of a million or so that she loves him.
A quick glance in the mirror in the hall shows that no, she did not get her eye makeup entirely off the night before, and the marks that Kylo had sucked along her neck during their tryst in one of the unused exhibition rooms have gotten a lot darker than expected, but Rey just grins and rubs the shadow of mascara out from underneath her left eye before making her way downstairs.
She hears C’s nails on the floor before she sees the dog, and coos as the black pup comes rushing around the corner to greet her. “Hi, sweetheart,” she croons as the dog meets her halfway up the stairs. Rey laughs, letting her hands be licked as she tries to pet C behind her ears. “Were you waiting for me, huh? Were you waiting for Mama to get up?”
C follows her into the kitchen, and Rey stands in the entry for just a moment, watching as Kylo cooks.
He’s going all out. There are scraped-open vanilla bean pods on a cutting board, strawberry stems gathered into the large black bowl that he always uses for trash. She can see some eggshells in there, too. Kylo’s standing at the stovetop, bacon hissing and spitting in one pan as he caramelizes shallots in the other.
“What’s all this for?” she calls gently. His shoulders tense for just a moment beneath his black t-shirt before he’s turning to her and raising a brow.
“You’re not supposed to be up yet,” he warns as she walks into the room and makes a beeline for him. He returns to the pans, and she presses herself against his back, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. His hair’s still damp — he showered without her, she somehow slept through that.
“What, were you planning on bringing me breakfast in bed?” Rey teases as her arms wrap around his waist and squeeze gently. She gets silence as an answer. “Wait, you were! Aw, love--”
He turns, and all of the sudden his lips are on hers and his arms are around her and this — this is bliss. Warm and soft and with a wet nose pressed to the back of her knee and the smell of bacon and something sweet in the air and Kylo all around her. Rey smiles into the kiss, moving her arms so that she can wrap them up and around his neck instead for a proper hug.
When Kylo pulls away, it’s to check the bacon on the stove, transferring some pieces to a paper towel and flipping others. Rey leans back against the counter, crossing her arms and watching as he pushes the caramelizing shallots across the pan. “What’re you making?” she asks.
“Vanilla brioche french toast casserole, and mini crustless quiches with caramelized shallots and bacon,” Kylo explains. Rey sneaks around him to grab a strip of bacon, pulling off a little piece to feed to C beside her.
“Damn,” Rey mutters around her bite of crispy meat. “What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion,” Kylo replies, too quickly, and really, that should have been her first clue. He moves to her side to press a kiss to her temple before he’s grabbing out a few mini quiche pans. “Just in love with you, that’s all.”
Rey grins, taking another bite and watching him work. He’s as efficient chopping spring onions as he is editing the Book, but it’s a different kind of focused. Still, his gaze is steady, his hands quick to finish his task, and she watches, enchanted by him as he sweeps the little green bits of onion into a bowl for later before moving to stir the shallots again.
She reaches down and rubs C behind her ears, content to just listen to the sounds of her boyfriend cooking.
It’s part of the reason she loves being with him, the silence. Not every moment needs to be filled with conversation. At night she’ll read next to him as he edits. At dinner they’ll sometimes just sit and eat, hands laced together on top of the table, because they already know how each other’s days went. As much as she loves to hear his voice, she’s just as content hearing his breathing, the little discontented hums he makes when he catches a typo, the quick way he scratches a word out with his pen and replaces it with something more fitting.
She never thought the soundtrack of her life would be so peaceful.
She watches him as he mixes the ingredients for the quiche together, carefully pouring the egg-milk-cheese-bacon-green onions-spices mixture into the sprayed pans before putting those on a tray and popping them in the oven. As soon as he opens the door, she can smell the french toast casserole, the warm smell of baking bread and the sweet promise of vanilla. Her mouth waters, and she’s too busy staring at the dishes in the oven that she fails to see her boyfriend dramatically pat the pocket of his pajama pants.
“I left my phone upstairs,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
“If it’s for a timer, I have mine?” Rey offers.
“Need to check messages anyway.”
Right, because if there’s one thing she’s learned in this work environment, there are very little boundaries when it comes to what needs to be done and when answers are needed by. Granted, they’ve hired some amazing people who help make the process a lot easier, but there are still things that fall through the cracks because humans are just that — human.
Rey nods, noticing the two pieces of bacon that he left for her and C on the stove and plucking from the cooling pan as she hears him walk upstairs. She breaks a piece off of one strip for herself, and breaks the other into smaller pieces for C, the mudi eagerly waiting and licking her lips, her three feet doing little tippy-taps in eagerness.
“Sit,” Rey says. Kylo’s more of a hard-ass — he’d make sure that C was sitting all the way down on the marble floor before giving her a piece. But she just looks so damn cute, Rey thinks, that she barely waits for C’s butt to hit the stone before she’s grinning and giving the dog a small piece. “Good girl!”
She does it a few more times, C getting more excited each time and doing her little excited butt wiggle dance. Rey laughs, glancing to the timer on the stovetop and the one on the counter to make sure that she doesn’t need to take the casserole out while Kylo’s gone.
She doesn’t notice him standing in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her with a happy but nervous heart.
“Okay, okay, just a little more,” Rey croons as she takes a very small bit of her strip of bacon and gives it to the pup. “Don’t tell Daddy, okay?”
“Rey?”
“Oh, hey,” she starts. “Were there any—?” She’s about to finish with ‘messages’, because there’s a 75%/25% chance that there is, and she’s going to offer to help if she can, but she turns and expects to see her boyfriend standing in front of her, his phone in hand.
He’s not standing.
Rey’s heart skips a beat as she looks down to find Kylo on one knee.
“Oh.”
C is licking her fingers free of bacon grease. Kylo’s looking up at her. It’s hard to breathe all of the sudden.
“I—“ he starts, before he stops, and rethinks whatever he wants to say. Rey waits, because what else can she do? She stands there in the middle of his kitchen, in one of his old band t-shirts and a pair of panties, and watches him. And then -- “Fuck.”
She can’t help it — she laughs. She laughs even as he takes her hand, even as he pulls her closer to him so that his hands are on her hips, reaching up and rubbing them through the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
“Fuck?” she questions, when she can stop laughing.
“You know I’m a better writer than I am a speaker,” Kylo says, and oh, but he’s red — his cheeks, his neck, his ears just visible through the dark waves of his hair. Rey grins as his hands continue to hold her hips, thumbs rubbing at the bump of bone beneath soft skin and thin cotton, soothing and sweet. “I … you … are everything to me.” He takes a deep breath. “You are … radiant. Even that first day, you … you are warm, and you are kind, and so, so beautiful, and … and every time I wake up next to you, I wonder what I’ve done in my life to deserve you. Your understanding of my faults, your stubbornness in loving me,” he says with a dark chuckle. ”I … you are my light. Truly.”
She watches as he rakes a hand through his hair, seemingly frustrated with himself that he can’t find the words, but she reaches forward and cups his cheek, smiling as she begins to fully realize that this is happening.
He takes her hand, kisses her palm. “I love you,” he mutters, the words warm and buzzing against her palm. “And I want to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll let me.”
“Yes.”
He freezes, his gaze somewhere around her hips, his lips still brushing her palm. “I didn’t—” he starts, frowning. “I haven’t asked yet.”
“Then ask,” Rey breathes. “Because the answer is yes.”
“Rey Kenobi, will you marry me?”
“Yes!”
She bends at the same time he stands, a jumble of eager limbs and bright smiles as she presses herself into his arms and lets herself be lifted from the floor. Rey yelps, but laughs and laughs, letting him turn with her in his arms as C tries to come between their legs, confused but sensing the joy in the moment.
She always loves how he holds her when he kisses her, like it’s the last time but also like an instinct to hold her close and cup her face and pull her in. She should kiss him properly, she knows, but she can’t help grinning as she’s kissed over and over and over again before she finally kisses back.
“You weren’t getting your phone,” she accuses, feeling something bulkier and harder than the slim device pressing against her hip.
“Ah,” Kylo says, and she watches as he flushes all over again. “I knew I forgot something.”
He pulls the black velvet box out from his pajama pants pocket. She almost expected a deep red Cartier one, or a blue Tiffany one, but this one is surprisingly plain. Her breath holds still in her chest as he pops the box open with his free hand, the other wrapped around her back as he shows her the ring.
“Oh,” Rey breathes, staring down at the emerald cut diamond. Three more slender baguette cut diamonds are on either side of the 1 carat stone, the band gold and delicate. It’s simple, compared to a lot of the rings she’s seen these days on the hands of the models and actresses they work with regularly. It’s beautiful, and she wouldn’t want bigger — and he knew that.
“May I?” Kylo asks. His voice is tight, and when she looks up, his eyes are shining — wet.
“Yes, please,” she whispers, holding her left hand out between them and letting him slide the diamond on her finger. It fits, but of course it does, because it’s Kylo, and when it comes to making sure things are just right for her, he spares nothing. Rey stares at the way the stone glitters in the late morning light, turning her hand back and forth to watch it sparkle before Kylo is bending to kiss it. And then he kisses the tip of each of her fingers, her palm, her wrist, before just holding her hand to his cheek.
“Oh, love,” Rey whispers, feeling warm tears slip between her fingers. She smiles, leaning up to kiss him — her fiancé — again. It’s sweeter this time, less frantic with excitement and more with all the adoration and love she feels for the man in her arms.
“You said yes,” Kylo mutters against her lips.
“Yes,” Rey replies. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—”
He kisses her again to keep her quiet, but her giggles are only muffled as she wraps her arms around his neck and lets herself be lifted into his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist as he just holds her.
The top of the brioche casserole gets a little … it’s not black, but it’s not exactly golden brown. But of course, slightly overdone baked goods aren’t exactly as important right now.