Chapter Text
I’m sorry, but I’m not the right man for you.
It’s been well past a year since she heard that soul-crushing and mortifying rejection coming out from those tempting, plush, red lips of his, yet there isn’t a day that she doesn’t remember it. It still stings and makes her want to dig a hole and bury herself alive, but that doesn’t make it any easier to finally get over the massive crush Rey has on Ben Solo.
Especially since he’s her neighbour and is the sexiest walking definition of tall, dark and handsome she never even knew could actually exist outside of the dirty romances she reads.
The fact that he refuses to wear a shirt inside his apartment doesn’t help her situation at all.
And is the very reason she’s currently, like almost every other day in her life, sitting by her balcony pretending to read a book while she tries not to freeze to death as she spies on him.
Instead of calling maintenance to repair her heater, she’s distracted herself with his defined shoulders.
Rey knows that makes her creepy and a horrible human being, yet she can’t stop ogling him.
Not while he looks like the human incarnation of sin as he corrects papers only in his slacks.
Because as if it wasn’t enough daily torment that he’s tall like a tree, built like a goddamn lumberjack and owner of the most tempting lips and soulful eyes she has ever encountered on a male specimen, he’s older, a professor and completely unattainable.
He’s also grumpy, blunt, arrogant and considered an asshole by most people in the building.
Except that the day she had first moved in, Ben had surprisingly been a gentleman to her.
When she first found out that she had inherited an apartment in a nice but old building in a good neighborhood of the city she had moved to for her studies, with enough money to get her through college and still live comfortably from a grandfather who she had never known existed at all, Rey thought she was being pranked by a scammer on the phone.
Mr. Hux was very offended when she called him that and told him to fuck off, but after a meeting in person with the ginger notary and the confirmation that yes, she was indeed the sole heir of a small fortune from a man that had died years ago and was such a spawn of Satan that no one missed him, she couldn’t believe her luck after surviving years in foster care.
Barely able to believe that this was actually happening to her and for once destiny and fortune actually worked in her favor, she packed her bags and said goodbye to the dorms.
The apartment was more spacious than she expected, and although a bit outdated because it had been vacant for ages, it was nice and cozy enough that she could make a home there.
Exhausted and looking frazzled from spending the entire afternoon cleaning and fixing everything by herself, and probably making too much noise as she tried to move in all the boxes cramming up the hallway, she didn’t pay attention as the door from unit 707 opened.
She was bent down, picking up another heavy box when she heard someone clearing their throat right in front of her, startling her, and the first thing she saw as she looked up was...
“Pecs.”
Looking back, she’s mortified by how stupid she must’ve sounded when she said that to him.
In her defense, they were very nice, defined, pale, attractive and soft-looking pecs which totally explains why her brain had suddenly stopped working and she made a fool of herself.
“Excuse me? ”
A very manly and slightly annoyed voice said to her from above, interrupting her gawking.
Rey must be hallucinating because men don’t have such nice hair and pretty mouths like that where she comes from. And certainly don’t have thick and muscular shoulders for miles.
He cleared his throat again, making her meet his impatient amber eyes and finally react.
“Uhm, hi, sorry, what did you say?” She mumbled, her voice sounding pathetic even to her.
Pecs crossed his arms, flexing his chest even more, probably wondering if she was stupid and repeated with a slightly less miffed tone: “I asked if you need help moving those boxes.”
She was tempted to accept, but there were only seven boxes left and she was almost done.
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want to burden you like that, don’t worry,” she shook her head, trying to sound more grateful than embarrassed. “I’m managing just fine, but thank you, uhm, sir.”
Rey didn’t expect him to raise his eyebrows, stare inexpressibly at her and then simply go back into his loft, leaving her alone there staring at his still open door like a speechless idiot.
Eyes wide at his rude attitude, she walked back in a haze. What a weird hunk of an asshole.
Thank God for small mercies, because she wasn’t sure she could avoid staring at his chest any longer. It would likely have made her trip and break her neck had she accepted his help.
She barely made it to her door when the box suddenly was removed from her grasp and Pecs marched past her in long strides, this time dressed in a black henley, without a word.
What. The. Actual. Fucking. Hell.
By the time her legs regained function, he had already brought the rest of the boxes inside.
She gawked at him again. “Ohmygod, holy shit, uhm, thank you…?” If she was lost before, she doesn’t even know what to think of him now standing in the middle of her living room.
“No problem,” he deadpanned, shrugging, and then looked around him. She was about to nervously thank him again for his help, but his attention was already fixed on the unfinished furniture she decided to leave for the other day. “Do you need help assembling those?”
“Oh no, I can’t possibly inconvenience you any further, sir-”
“Actually, the faster I help you stop making noise, the sooner I can go back to my grading.”
That was enough to shut her up. “Okay, then,” she agreed lamely, unsure of what else to say.
By the time he returned with the toolbox and started assembling her furniture, Rey had pinched herself five times and was too unsettled by the situation to control her nervousness.
This couldn’t be real life because holy fuck her neighbor was huge. Older. Hot. Very attractive.
“You know, it’s my first day here, so thank you for helping me out. I guess we’re neighbors now, and I totally owe you one. Whatever you need in the future, please let me know.”
He nodded, his attention on the screws he was drilling to hold together her new bed frame.
“My name is Rey, by the way. I’m twenty-one and I’m an undergraduate at Naboo University. Oh, shit, I’m sorry to be rude, but can I offer you some water? I don’t have anything else.”
“No, thanks.”
“You’re sure you don’t need help? I feel bad just watching you do all the work. Thank you again, sir…” he shrugged, bored. “Uhm, what’s your name? So we’re not strangers anymore.”
He kept drilling, still not sparing her a glance, and she was about to ask him what shampoo he used to have such nice hair, but then she heard him deadpan with a low sigh: “Ben Solo.”
She thinks it suits him, surprisingly. Nonsense but stylish. Sounds better than Pecs for sure.
“Have you lived here for long, Mr. Solo? It’s a very nice building, old but fashionable. I never would have been able to afford this place if not for this prissy notary that tracked me down and said I inherited it from a grandparent that I never even met. Still can’t believe it’s not a prank-”
The drilling machine’s noise shut off abruptly as he stopped moving altogether and then whipped his head to look at her with such intense ferocity that she almost fell off her chair.
Yet his voice sounded almost haunted when he asked hoarsely: “You’re a Palpatine?”
The horror hiding behind his flashing eyes was so sincere that Rey felt her shoulders sag.
“Not really, but biologically I guess so? My parents died when I was five, and I didn’t even know I had family until Mr. Hux found me and said my grandfather had left me money.”
Ben was so tense that he looked like he’d forgotten how to breathe, clinging onto her every word.
“The notary told me that he kept tabs on me until I was fifteen, but never looked for me or cared about my existence. Which sucks, but I guess it was a blessing in disguise, because apparently the old man was possessed by evil. With his death, at least I benefitted though.”
The following silence was cutting enough to make her flinch and start fiddling with her fingers.
She was almost expecting Mr. Pecs to turn his back on her, leave and never talk to her again.
However, as she dared to look at him again, his expression wasn’t disgusted but livid with impossible outrage. “I thought it was impossible to hate that motherfucker even more, but I was wrong. I hope that old fuck is burning in the deepest pits of hell right where he belongs.”
And when the rage in his face melted and his eyes softened into hers in a way that made her heart skip a beat, what she saw there left her feeling tingly and breathless. Was that... Compassion?
“I’m glad you’re my neighbor now, though. And Rey, just call me Ben.”
How she went from calling him Pecs, to Mr. Solo and finally Ben is still beyond her.
The transition from being hormonal, to attracted and then crazy about him wasn’t as easy.
Because you see, it’s been over a year since that fateful day, and there isn’t a single moment since she’s moved into the building that her thoughts haven’t been consumed by her neighbor.
Maybe it was the way he was still kinda rude but always attentive to her presence, or the way he was disgusted by her food choices and started leaving healthy homemade meals by her door, or when he caught her writing papers in the balcony and corrected every mistake he saw, or the day they started watching movies together because she was bored and lonely.
Yet when she saw his bare pecs again for the second time, Rey almost had a heart attack.
Then she ran into him at college, saw him in a suit and glasses, and almost suffered a stroke.
She didn’t know it was possible to be so attracted to someone outside of her dirty romances until she met him. Or if it was acceptable to be so thirsty and crazy about a man who had stopped her from making a move on him the one time she tried to finally kiss his plush lips.
Because this is real life, and he rejected her with I’m sorry, but I’m not the right man for you.
Next to the adult women she has seen him date, Rey only feels like a washed-out imitation.
She’s too young and too inexperienced for her hot neighbor who is totally out of her league.
No matter what she has tried to seduce him, it doesn’t work. Ben isn’t fazed at all by her provocations and teasing, seeing her as a bratty little girl he has to protect from leering men.
Her friend Rose doesn’t understand why she still hasn’t moved on from him. Finn and Poe, her friends from downstairs, think it’s a shame that she doesn’t have better taste in men. When they jokingly offered her a threesome last week, Ben looked positively insulted for her sake.
None of that stops her from shamefully wishing he could see her as more than his neighbor.
Now she just needs to stop spying on him, get her heater repaired for the upcoming ice storm, accept that she’ll never leave the friendzone and that it’s finally time to give up on Ben Solo.