Chapter Text
Matrimony, as defined by many, is the ultimate ritual of confirming one’s love; the commitment of an entire day or more to celebration, adorned in flowers, white, sweet cakes, sentimental toasts. Champagne, food, and good company abound. Gifts are given and received. There’s dancing and gaiety. A wedding, done right, is a fairytale.
Sitting in the white wicker chair, sinking into soft cushions, Rey doesn’t feel anything like a princess. She doesn’t feel much of anything at all.
The dressing rooms of the small but elegant boutique are full of tittering women — another prospective bride and her sister and friends, helping her do what Rey was about to: choose a dress. Rey had already visited some number of places, trying to find some gown that would spark some feeling of something, anything, but there had been nothing.
Just like the moment when her now-fiancé proposed. Just like the moment when she signed and sent out cards announcing she was officially engaged. Just like any part of her relationship’s timeline, come to think of it.
Everything. Just everything. Nothing.
Fiddling with her purse in her lap, she tries not to check the clock for the hundredth time. Uncle Plutt was off meeting people, so Rey was left to drive to the charming downtown avenue full of small businesses and restaurants to try out the accoladed bridal shop on the corner by herself.
The size of the boutique was diminutive, to be sure, but every dress in the window was rather breathtaking in shades of cloud and ivory and sand dollar and creme, some hand-embroidered with jewels and pearls and silk flowers in artful clusters, some laden with lace and skirts and trains. Someone at another place had recommended it, and an appointment was promptly made.
Except the bridal assistant was ten minutes late.
Rey had already glanced at her phone calendar three times, positive she had marked the right date and time. She was beginning to get anxious.
“I take it you’re my eleven o’clock?”
Rey’s head jerks up at the sound of the hair-curling, deep voice addressing her. Her lungs tighten, like accidentally missing a breath, and Rey blinks to dispel the unexpected sensation that overcomes her, forces herself to properly give her attention to the man.
The attendant, dressed in well-tailored slacks and an open vest over his collared shirt, was tall, very tall, and broad. It was a sharp contrast to the aesthetic of the boutique. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing pale, strong forearms, and his dark, long hair contrasted with his skin. He gazes at her expectantly in turn. It is neither rude nor overly-friendly — merely looking; waiting. Watching.
He was very good-looking.
Inhaling abruptly, Rey blinks again, trying to shake off the mesmerizing quality of his very normal gaze, and reflexively gives him a smile.
“Um, yes, I’m the eleven o’clock.”
Just like that, he relaxes — just a bit. Casually, he tucks his black, neck-length hair behind an ear, and holds out his hand professionally as Rey rises to meet him.
“My apologies for the wait.” His large fingers were smooth and warm around her own, which she hadn’t expected, but it wasn’t bad. She was just surprised. “My last appointment was a little difficult.” He keeps speaking as if her mind is not a hurricane of insanity. “Right this way. My name is Kylo.”
Kylo, her mind twists the two syllables, tasting it on her tongue without speaking it. It was an interesting name. Maybe a nickname.
Her heart hiccups harder.
“Did you have anything in mind? And is this your first time trying on dresses?”
His long strides take some effort to keep up with, but when she reaches the first racks, he’s already plucking through the gowns expertly, barely glancing back at her to size her up and take in her figure and stature.
“Um, no,” Rey answers lamely, unsure whether she should also be browsing or just... waiting for him to make the decisions for her. “I’ve made a few stops before this. And I... don’t have much preference. I guess not pure white, and nothing too... short? Or too puffy? Normal, really. Just... something normal.”
Mid-way through moving a hanger, Kylo stops, but then the soft chime of the door’s bell signals another bride’s exit, and his head tilts. And Kylo looks at her. Really looks at her.
“‘Normal’?” he repeats, airily.
If her mind wasn’t stuck in the gutter where heat rose in her belly, she’d be more aware that the tone is a trap — a beautiful, stainless steel trap, laden with sugar, and she the rat.
“Yes?” she questions back, unsure of what he disliked about her choice of words. A thread of anxiety begins to needle at her skin.
Still unmoving, Kylo gives her a long, thoughtful stare. He seems to be dwelling on her, and what exactly it was he wanted to say. But she can’t decipher it — she’s clueless. The urge to ask him what he’s thinking strikes her adamantly, but either by luck or mercy, he saves her the trouble, and his head tilts the other way instead.
“This is supposed to be the most important day of your life, you know,” he finally delivers. “I’ve helped plenty of brides pick out their dresses, and I can’t say I’ve ever met one who was so ambivalent about it.”
Oh. Oh. By the way Rey’s mouth twists and she looks away shamefully, there’s no way he didn’t know he hit the nail on the head. The words sting with all their backhanded glory.
“Then again,” he goes on, turning back to the dresses and prying amongst them once more, “that’s really none of my business.”
Double ouch. He makes it feel like she just failed some sort of test. Badly.
But then, just as quickly, it’s like nothing happened at all. Hangers are pulled off and returned after a brief scan by his well-trained eyes, and Kylo turns perfectly professional as he works with her. No further comments are made on the lack of enthusiasm, and after some measure of time she’s finally escorted to a dressing room with an assortment of tulle, silk, organza and lace in his arms.
The other employee on duty holds a brief conversation with him, and after confirming that Rey was their last appointment on a very quiet Tuesday, Kylo gives her the nod to go have lunch.
The moment the door shuts behind Rey, leaving her and her attendant alone, the second strike of something she couldn’t explain settles in her core. The room had become stifling, and her eyes instinctively combed over Kylo as he began hanging up the gowns, honing in on the soft mane of his black hair and the flex of muscle in his arms as he worked. His clothes fit him marvelously, which shouldn’t have been a surprise at all, and even with all his atypical, masculine qualities he still seemed like he should have been modeling the groomswear rather than selling it.
Her appearance had never been something she paid much mind to. Uncle Plutt always lacked thriftiness when it came to material things and refused to be seen in poor company, so Rey had never been badly dressed or unkempt. But now, before her attendant? Laughable and inadequate. She might as well have been wearing dishrags.
“Which would you like to try on first?”
Rey comes back to her senses to see the devil in question leaning languidly against a wall, a long, charming pink ribbon of measuring tape draped around his shoulders. His heavy gaze watches and waits, and Rey’s stomach roils as she hurries to give her attention back to the hangers.
“That one.”
From the moment he touches the first rack with scarcely a glance her way, it's apparent that this boutique is just as good as the reviews.
Kylo works with precision and ease. He knows each dress intimately, and comments on how the neutral and cooler pale tones suit her complexion better, how certain cuts were more flattering to her figure and why. Wryly, he adds that despite her apathy, she is one of his more exciting customers if only for the fact that they were provided with a very... generous budget for the dress in question.
“This.” A long, cinched dress of silk is taken down — the one she had impulsively pointed at first — and he tenderly strokes down the front of the skirt. “Is by my favorite designer. She manages understated designs without being too minimalist or too busy. Tasteful.”
Scuttled into a fitting room, her heart stops. It’s not at her reflection in the large mirrors — eyes a little too bright and cheeks flushed, fingers curled in tentatively — it’s at Kylo closing the curtain behind both of them. As he begins prying the dress off its hanger, Rey swallows, the blood draining from her face as she realizes far too late into this endeavor that he’s going to be helping her try on these dresses.
Stop fussing, she scolds herself out of desperation. Stop it. You’re an adult. You’ve tried on dozens of dresses with different people already. This is nothing new.
Biting the inside of her cheek, she quickly undresses, not thinking about the no-frills lingerie she’s wearing (wear what you’re wearing to the wedding, after all) or how much she weighed or if she had any blemishes on her skin. Kylo doesn't seem to pay her frazzled nerves any mind — he simply folds her clothes for her and hangs up her purse on a hook before offering his hand to help her step into the first gown.
First, she notices his skin again — his fingers are surprisingly, pleasantly smooth still.
And then she notices the lack of a wedding band on any of them.
“You’re not married?”
The question escapes Rey’s lips before she can catch herself. She freezes, slightly mortified at the entirety of her behavior in the last twenty or so minutes, but Kylo doesn’t so much as falter as he guides her arms through dainty sleeves and begins zipping her up.
“No, I am not.” He smiles vaguely at that, like there was some private joke she was missing, and adjusted the waterfall of fabric to sit more nicely. “I never really intended on it.”
“Oh,” Rey says lamely. “May... I ask why?”
“You may.” Is his devious reply, and then he gestures at the mirrors, distracting her from her question. “What do you think of this one?”
The dress fell elegantly on her frame, the color and luster of turtle dove feathers. It made her feel like a swan made out of silk and satin.
“It’s really pretty, but...”
“Got it. Next one, then.”
...But it was just a dress.
Kylo’s patience is endless and focused, and every touch was as dangerous and innocent as the last. Part of Rey is morbidly ashamed of the tingles that stretched over her skin like spiderwebs whenever his fingers brushed against it, adjusting whatever she was trying on and tying bustiers and doing and undoing buttons with swiftness. She wasn’t an antsy person by nature, but it was nearly impossible not to fidget when he wasn’t looking, overwhelmed with nerves and the balmy air of the room.
Flipping his wrist to check his watch, he frowns, and she realizes their two hours are probably almost up.
“I’m sorry,” she laments in a very cupcake-looking dress — very cute, but not her style. “I—”
“Don’t apologize. I’d much rather find you something that speaks to you than let you settle for normal.”
He says it so casually, so unyieldingly, that she can only gawk as fresh self-consciousness bubbles up.
“I just... didn’t want you to think you were doing a bad job,” she stammers back, flustered.
To his credit, Kylo laughs lightly and gently nudges her shoulder in a silent request to turn around so he can unbutton her. Rey unconsciously moves at the gesture, and is suddenly making eye contact with him in the large, bronze-framed mirror. His face was mostly obscured behind her, but when he speaks, she can feel the soft rumble all the way up from the base of her spine.
“I’ve never done a bad job,” he drawls, fingers working nimbly. “Dresses are more than enough enrichment for me. No reason to get married when I’m already good at this.”
“Marriage is supposed to be something you’re good at?” Rey queries, confused by his statement.
“Not really. I’ve seen more than a few good dresses go to waste.”
The intimacy of the situation sinks in quickly — his words are punctuated by the buttons slowly coming undone. Kylo helps Rey out of her dress, his pointed gaze sweeping over her exposed back, grazing over the expensive bra as he slipped each tiny button out of its hole.
In a different life, maybe, she could imagine this was really her wedding night, and the fitting room was instead a suite, and that the moon was already waiting up in the heavens for him to take her. She could already have a proper ring on her finger; a new weight to remain there til death did she part, and she could have a new last name, too — another new weight to join the ring. But a good weight. A name that came with the burden of love.
“How... does one get good at being married?”
It was a strange question, to be sure, and Rey heard him hum thoughtfully from behind her shoulders.
“Who knows?”
The dress falls off in a frumpy heap, and before she can register it, his hand is slipped into hers, delicately escorting her out of it. Rey had never been more acutely aware of her undergarments, and the presence of her body, and how close he stands — so close, so close and yet inches apart that were miles — and then her hand is empty and he is leaning down to scoop up the garment, his hair brushing past the spot right above her knee.
Another awkward pulse pangs in her core, and her breath hitches without him noticing. It was far too hot in here, and she felt dizzy, but hungry-dizzy, and... wrong? Rey felt off.
Maybe it was just inadequacy. Because she had disappointed him somehow.
None of this made any sense.
Swallowing thickly, Rey steps out of her heels and begins redressing herself, careful not to look at him. A tiny part of her wonders if he would steal a glance, but she knows, somehow, that he will not.
“Most people have different ideas about marriage.”
The declaration comes from completely out of left field, but Kylo doesn't look perturbed by the suddenness of his statement. Rey is starting to get the impression that he did this a lot — drifting out of a conversation only to strike it up again after turning over the words in his head long enough. But instead of being uncomfortable, or disjointed, she could only be quite fascinated by whatever it was he was going to say. He kept her on her toes.
“Such as?” she asks casually, trying not to seem too interested.
“Well,” he starts, “my parents believe in love at first sight.”
Pulling her cardigan back on over her shirt, Rey smooths her bun back into place and watches him methodically hang the dress back up.
“I take it that means you don’t,” she half-smiles. Even if she doesn't either, it’s still a little sad to hear someone else is on the same page.
“Not at all. Love at first sight is just a prettier way of saying infatuation. But limerence is the better word for it.”
“I haven’t heard that word in a long time, but I... think I agree. The idea of meeting someone and instantly wanting to throw your whole life away for them seems far-fetched. Or at least delusional. Maybe both. Probably both.”
Kylo flashes a wicked smirk for a split-second, and it feels like the room spins.
“My, my, you have more of a cynical streak than you let on. Delusional is a good term for it. Nobody can know the future, and nobody can know anybody in the span of a single glance.”
Cynical? Her? Rey messes with her buttons and makes a noncommittal sound.
“So the other marriage methods?” she hedges.
“Arranged marriages. Hit or miss, depends on commitment a lot of the time. And then there are people who actually date and take their time to figure out if things will work, and it does. And then there are people who date and just think it will work regardless. And it doesn’t.”
“Ah,” Rey says, taking in his sentiments. “So pragmatic is good, then.”
“Probably. I wouldn’t know.”
Something uncouth lingered in those words — something she couldn’t put a finger on. But she was dressed and he had all the “no” dresses in his arms once more, already striding past the curtain to return them to the racks.
It hits Rey, then, that this was it.
She would never see him again. She didn’t find a dress. The hours came and went and gave her more than she had asked for despite the fact that she would be walking out empty-handed.
“Um, Kylo?”
Rey speaks impulsively as she follows him out, back into the afternoon-lit store. His dark hair swishes as he moves, and the urge to run her fingers through it hits her even harder.
“Yes?”
Pull yourself the hell together, Rey hisses at herself, and before she can change her mind, asks, “Would it be alright if I made another appointment? To try again?”
Mid-rack, he pauses. The world stills again as she bites her lip, straining to stay composed and rational, yet when his head finally turns he’s smiling curiously. Why, though? Why was he so unreadable? Why was it so difficult to tell what he was thinking?
Why did she want to know the answer so badly?
“More than alright,” he said lightly, rising and heading for the front desk. “I don’t like letting someone go without finding the right dress. Especially when I have the feeling there’s something here for you.”
Rey meets him on the other side of the counter, and he pries a planner out from a drawer she can't see before making a pen appear out of thin air.
“I bet you tell all the brides that,” she murmurs, half-jokingly.
Kylo peers up at her from under his lashes, a curtain of hair hanging over the left side of his face. His expression is just as inscrutable, even with his lips quirked in a faint smirk, dark eyes glimmering, and when he speaks she forgets her own name.
“Only the ones who look good in all the dresses I pick.”
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. There went her heart again, pounding mercilessly in her head like drums, and driving her slightly crazy. Her legs itch to walk out of the store and very far away — to the safety of her car, the safety of her gated home and her room without a lock on the burnished knob. A place without bridal store employees and strong hands that touched her featherlightly as they helped her in and out of countless gowns.
If he saw her hands trembling as they rested on the desk, he didn’t say a word about it.
“Is Thursday at the same time alright with you?” he offers, skimming the page.
“Yes! I mean, yes. That’s perfect.”
A lovely eyebrow arches, and Kylo waits just a beat before he decides to say what crawls onto his tongue.
“You alright?” he asks innocently.
No, her brain spits out, no I am not, at all. But she just laughs awkwardly, the sound too pitched and strangled-sounding, and nods.
“Yeah,” she swallows. “Just a bit overwhelmed.”
A niggling feeling wonders if he believes her. She wasn’t lying, to be fair. Mostly. But the eyebrow returns to normal, and the polite smile of the man smooths over any uncomfortable questions that might have lingered in the air.
“Understandable.”
Rey waits for him to say something more, but he doesn't. Of course he doesn’t. The enigmatic smile remains, and so do all the unspoken things. Like this was a dream that was missing pieces, where she didn’t want to wake up until she solved it.
“Well then. I’ll see you Thursday.” He bows his head, snapping his planner shut.
“What? Oh, right, that sounds good. It was... It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”
The phrase was so harmless. So ordinary. She’s said it hundreds of times before, to countless people of all ages and genders and levels of attractiveness.
And now, she feels like she’s accidentally confessed her undying devotions.
“Likewise, Miss Rey,” Kylo purrs back. If he’d misheard it as I think I love you, he doesn't say a word about it.
And then he was gone, his broad shoulders the last thing she sees before he vanishes amongst the racks.
It takes a few seconds for her to collect herself. Her grip on her purse strap is white-knuckled and her mouth is dry, but with some effort she can set her jaw and will her feet to move, one in front of the other, to walk away and out the door that jingles cheerfully as she crosses it.