Chapter Text
He shows up in the middle of the dinner rush.
The bell above the door dings and Rey’s head turns and she notices him. Only vaguely at first, only in the way one has to notice someone so tall and broad entering such a relatively small space. But, she’s busy running orders to and from the kitchen, and he doesn’t sit in her section, so she doesn’t pay him too much mind beyond that. Beyond noticing. A lot.
He continues to catch her eye as the night progresses. She takes in the slump of his shoulders, the stooped angle of his back, the dark mess of his hair as his fingers comb through it over and over and over. His distress is almost palpable - filling the air. It’s shocking how no one else seems to notice it at all.
He orders a coffee but doesn’t drink it - doesn’t even touch the cup. Just stares, just watches it grow cold and stale.
More than once throughout the evening, Rey finds her feet pointed in his direction. It’s like they want to take her there. She doesn’t let them, shaking the foolishness from her head and turning away every time.
Seconds and minutes and hours tick by on the clock perched above the kitchen window and the restaurant clears until only she, Rose, Maz, and the guy are left.
Rose’s foot taps a steady rhythm against the linoleum below, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, as she watches the door. She perks up with an audible inhale at a flash of ginger hair outside. Shy eyes peer through the glass accompanied by a tap of knuckles and a tentative wave.
“Look who’s here,” Rey smiles, her voice kept low, conspiratorial, teasing.
“Yeah…” Rose’s eyes practically morph into big, exaggerated cartoon hearts. “Is it okay if I just pop out there really quick? Just to say hello?”
Rey shakes her head around a breathy chuckle. “Just go. I can finish closing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Rose, please,” Rey puts both hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Go on your date. One of us ought to have some fun tonight. And I suppose I won’t see you again before you leave, so happy Christmas.”
"Oh," Rose inhales, looking suddenly sheepish. “Well, now that you mention it. I was thinking of… staying home this year? Maybe.”
“Home as in here?”
“Yeah.” Rose bites her lip.
Rey shakes her head, certain she has misheard. “What? Why?”
“I’ve got a lot of school work that I need to catch up on.”
It’s a lie - a and a bad one, at that. She and Rey are in the same classes, they have the exact same workload, and Rose always finishes before Rey does (a benefit of not having to take on as many shifts to cover tuition).
“And I was thinking it could be fun. Maybe I could stay over at your place? Or you could stay over at mine… We could bake cookies, exchange gifts. It could be a Friendsmas instead of Friendsgiving!”
Rey is struck speechless for a moment. First by shock, then by confusion, then, finally, those two melt into boiling hot rage. She sees flames.
“Finn put you up to this, didn’t he? That little -”
He’d tried to get out of his own trip this morning. Poe had been carrying his luggage down to the idling car, but Finn stood waiting on the stoop of their building. Rey had gone in for a hug but he’d stopped her, his hands gentle on her upper arms and his eyes alight with the same concern Rose’s hold now.
I don’t have to go, they’d said. I can stay. What he’d asked aloud was, “you’re sure?”
She hadn’t been then; still isn’t now, but she’d forced the brightest, most genuine-looking smile she could muster onto her face and practically pushed him into the passenger’s seat.
“He didn’t,” Rose protests. Another lie.
“He did - because the two of you think me some incapable toddler, liable to spontaneously combust if left alone for longer than four hours.”
“That is not true. I only -” she presses her lips together, fingers twining at her waist nervously. “I know that this time of year is, like, a thing for you…”
“It is not ‘a thing’.”
It absolutely is a thing. It’s the thing. Of course she’s not going to admit that now. No, that would mean defeat. That would mean Rose canceling her family plans to spend Christmas babysitting Rey and the thought of that alone… the thought of being such a burden…
Fear. Bright, shining panic grips Rey’s heart and makes her do something stupid.
“You can do whatever you want, but I already have plans.” She doesn’t know where the lie comes from, but it’s out and living a life of its own before Rey can even really consider what it is she's said.
Rose stops, her mouth falling open and then snapping shut. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of plans?” Rose doesn’t believe her, which, logically, makes sense because she is lying, but it only serves to make Rey angrier.
“I’ll be with someone.”
Rose narrows her eyes. “‘Someone’ ?”
“Yes, someone I’ve been seeing.” Rey scrambles, her mind struggling to string words together in a way that is both coherent and convincing. “I’ve started seeing someone and we’re spending the holidays together.”
Rose seems angry, herself, now. “Since when? Who?”
“Not long,” she scratches the back of her neck and adjusts the collar of her shirt. Did Maz turn up the heat? “You don’t know him. We have plans to spend Christmas together.”
“Why is this the first I’m hearing about him - about any of this?”
“I don’t tell you everything, you know.”
“Yes, you do.” Rose folds her arms across her chest. “We both do. I told you when I met Armie.”
That does make Rey feel a little bad. She actually would tell Rose if she’d met someone. But she’d told the lie for a reason (a really good one, she reminds herself), so there’s simply no backing down now. In for a penny...
“It’s really new.”
“It’s ‘really new’ and you’re going to spend Christmas together?”
Rey shrugs. “Neither of us had alternative plans.” She can tell that Rose still isn’t buying it. “Look,” she turns her friend around to face the outside doors and the man waiting for her on the other side. “Your date is waiting. We can talk about this later.”
Rose looks back over her shoulders, brows hard-set and stubborn. “Don’t think we won’t, Niima.”
Ding. The bell chimes, the door shuts. Rey presses her back to the glass and exhales like she’s run a mile, thankful for maybe the first time in her life to be alone.
Well, not really alone. He’s still here.
Maz pokes her head up above the window looking into the kitchen, perhaps having heard the bell. The guy, the sulky sad sack slouching in the back corner catches her attention too. She points to him and then to the clock on the wall overhead.
Get him out of here.
Nodding, Rey gives her aching feet what they have seemingly been longing for since he wandered in hours ago. She stops just beside his table but he doesn’t look up, doesn’t even move.
“Is there anything else I can get you today, sir?” She asks, pen pressed to notepad, at the ready. “Or just the check?” A pointed question like that is usually enough to get most people to realize that it’s time to leave . Not this guy, apparently.
He snorts, his head buried in his hands. “A girlfriend?”
The smallest laugh bubbles its way out of her throat, a surprise, even to her. “Sorry, fresh out of those. I was thinking… pie? More coffee?” He’s been nursing the one in front of him since he came in. It must be ice cold.
He looks up, but then stops, blinks. And - oh god - he’s hot. Like, ridiculously hot. Like, unfairly hot. His eyes trail a slow line from her face down to her feet and her stomach flips.
Why couldn’t he have come in yesterday?
Yesterday, she wore a cute blouse speckled with polka dots and daisies. Yesterday, her skirt had been free of mustard stains. Yesterday, she’d actually had time in the morning to throw on a bit of makeup.
She watches him take her in as she is today - bare-faced, wrinkled shirt plucked from beneath her bed just before she’d rushed out the door for class, shoes threadbare and, like the rest of her, completely lacking.
“You’re not my waitress.”
“Oh, no,” Rey agrees with a little shake of her head. “Rose had to leave, I’m afraid, so you’re stuck with me.”
“What’s your name?”
Smirking, Rey taps the little silver name tag pinned to her top.
“Rey.”
The way her cheeks flame at just the sound of her own name on his lips is actually mortifying.
She watches him scan the restaurant, brows furrowing when he turns to look out of the window beside his booth. “What time is it?” He pulls up the sleeve of his suit jacket, revealing a black watch face detailed with gold.
“Christ,” He peers up again, apparently apologetic. “You’re probably trying to get rid of me.”
Rey worries her bottom lip between her teeth because, yes, she had been, but she finds herself less inclined towards kicking him out now - for whatever reason.
“Nope,” she holds up her notepad, physical proof of her feigned innocence. “Just trying to take your order.”
“Of course,” he nods, rubbing a hand - a large hand - across his jaw. “Do you have anything to drink? Anything strong?”
Rey laughs. “Coffee. You’re at a diner, not a bar.”
“Yeah, I know,” he sighs, his head returning to the cradle of his palms. “I’m sorry.” He waves his hand in her general direction. “Just bring me the check and I’ll get out of your hair.”
Rey frowns, her shoes squeaking on the mop-shined linoleum floor. She’s not sure she’s ever seen someone look so despondent. Tucking her pad into the pocket of her apron, she slides into the booth across from him.
“Are you… okay?” It’s an awkward question, one made even more uncomfortable when the answer is already a clear ‘ no ’.
“Honestly?” He laughs ruefully. “No.”
“Is it something I can help with?” And she doesn’t know why she asks that, but she does. She does and he looks up at her with bemused appreciation, the smallest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Unless you really do have spare girlfriends stashed back there,” he inclines his head in the direction of the kitchen, “then, also no. But thank you.”
“There are more traditional ways of acquiring those, you know?” Rey offers lightly, hopeful to get him smiling again. “Typically, you meet someone, date for a while…”
The guy seems less than amused, unfortunately. “I am aware of how to get a girlfriend,” he says flatly. “In a general sense, at least. Believe it or not, I have had one or two in the past.”
“So, why are you trying to order one from me, then?
“I’m -” he presses his lips together - his full lips. They’re pink in that fresh-bitten way. Maybe he has the same bad habit she does. She can envision him pulling them between his teeth when he’s nervous or agitated. She does not allow herself to imagine his mouth in any other capacity, because she is professional and not completely self-destructive. “I’m in a bit of a time-crunch.”
“Why?”
He sighs. “It’s a long story.”
Rey gestures around at the empty tables and booths that surround them. “I've got time.”
“Why do you care?”
She doesn’t really have a reason for her level of investment in this stranger’s life, so she shrugs. She feels bad for him, mostly, but saying that feels a bit too… much. And if he’s providing just the right level of distraction from her own problems, well, no one has to know.
“It’s this or Netflix,” is what she settles on eventually. Defaulting to humor, as always. Deflecting, some (Finn) might call it.
“Ah,” the man nods. “You find my personal tragedy entertaining. Fantastic.”
“No, not really,” she admits. “But maybe I can help, if you just tell me...”
The stranger narrows his eyes as he considers her, the corners of his mouth pulled down into a slight frown, and she thinks he might refuse, but then he sighs.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he gestures with one hand as if to say ‘obviously’ . “But my mother thinks I do.”
“Why?”
“... Because that’s what I told her.”
And what are the odds of that? Rey just stares for a moment, dumbfounded. The man must take her shock as disapproval of some kind, because he continues, unprompted and just a tad defensive.
“It’s complicated -” he presses two fingers and his thumb to the wrinkles gathering on his forehead. “My mother is… I love her, I really do,” he says like he has to convince himself. “ But she’s slightly impossible. She has this completely unhealthy interest in my romantic life - it’s an obsession, really. I think, in her mind, I should be married already, have two kids, a house with a picket fence - the whole nine yards.
“But I’m not and I don’t. She invited me to our family’s lake house for Christmas and I knew, I just knew, that it was going to be another long weekend of her trying to set me up with the eligible son or daughter of every person she has ever met and I just - I couldn’t do it again. I can’t turn down another date with her dentist’s niece or butcher’s son. So, when she asked me if I was bringing someone I said yes.
“That was,” he checks his watch again. “About four hours ago. I don’t even know how I got her off of the phone or how I got here, much less how I’m going to get a girlfriend in less than a day.”
Rey laughs, full-bellied and hearty. She laughs until tears stream down her cheeks, until her stomach hurts.
The man stands, his face having darkened considerably, and for a moment, Rey is simply taken aback by his height - or, she is, until she realizes that he’s leaving.
“Glad I could provide you with a laugh,” he snaps. Digging through his pocket, he pulls out a dark leather wallet and slaps a twenty on the tabletop. “This should cover the coffee. Keep the change.”
“No, stop,” Rey reaches for his sleeve but misses, her hand wrapping around his pinkie and ring finger instead.
He freezes. They both do. The feel of his skin against her own is… She doesn’t know what it is, but it’s something.
Something that Rey consciously ignores.
“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I swear. I’m laughing at myself - at us.”
His face screws up. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t overhear me and the other waitress, Rose, talking just before I came over, did you?” She doesn’t think it’s possible he had, but she has to ask.
“No,” the man frowns, confusion warring with his patience.
“She’s my friend - one of my best friends,” not that she has many to differentiate that from, but it feels important to say. “She was about to cancel her plans to go back home to visit her family so that she could stay with me. She’s worried about me being alone - not even romantically, just in, like, a general sense.”
It’s a dreadfully embarrassing thing to admit, that her friends think her so woefully fragile, that they feel she's a child in need of constant and unbroken attention. If the stranger thinks so too, he doesn’t mention it. His eyes stay soft, intent, and he nods encouragingly when she doesn’t continue right away.
“I couldn’t let her do that. She shouldn't have to babysit me, you know? So, I told her that I’ve been seeing someone - a complete lie - and that I would be spending the holidays with this fictional person.”
It takes a moment, but eventually the stranger’s face splits into a wide grin, long dimples creasing his cheeks. His chest heaves around a breathy laugh.
“Wow. We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
“So, I wish I could help you, but it seems we’ve somehow managed to dig ourselves into the very same hole.”
He nods once and then pauses, dark brows pulling together in a thoughtful expression. “I take that to mean, then, that you don’t have actual plans for the holidays?” He sits back down, his hands folding in front of him. Very business-like.
“That depends on if you count frozen turkey dinners, boxed wine, and a Christmas movie marathon as ‘plans’.”
“I do not.”
“Then no, no plans.”
“I have a proposal of sorts. One that I think might benefit the both of us.”
There’s a pause. One that stretches on and on until Rey realizes he is waiting for her to say something. “Okay,” she nods hesitantly. Surely he can’t be about to suggest what she thinks he’s going to suggest...
“You and I have both made promises we can’t follow through on, have claimed significant others who do not exist - but, if we pose as each other’s…”
Rey cuts him off with a laugh, high-pitched and sharp, the sound leaning towards just the wrong side of manic.
“You want me to be your fake girlfriend?”
“Yes, essentially,” he agrees with a nod. “And I would be your… ‘fake boyfriend’ .” He says that last bit distastefully, like the concept, or perhaps just the term, is somehow below him despite the plan being his own.
“I don’t even know you! You could be a - a serial killer, or something.”
“Not a serial killer,” he offers, holding three fingers up in the air. “Scout’s honor.”
“I could be a serial killer,” she challenges.
One corner of the stranger’s lips tick upward. “Are you?”
“Well, no - but that’s beside the point!”
The point being that it’s a bad idea. The worst idea. Just a really terrible, awful idea.
This is the moment (™). The beginning of the end of a true crime documentary, the part where you frown at the screen and whisper, ‘oh no’. That, or the inciting incident of a rom com, the part just after the meet cute, where the couple hatches a plot so convoluted they’ve no choice but to fall madly in love by the end.
Being that this is real life and not a made-for-TV movie, the logical part of Rey's mind is leaning towards the former, unfortunately, and she’s not looking to get killed this holiday season.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Ben,” he holds out his hand in (a completely and utterly belated) greeting but places it back on the table when Rey hesitates just a moment too long. “Ben Solo. And you’re Rey…”
“Just Rey, for now.”
“Of course,” the man - Ben, Ben Solo, - holds up his hands, palms out. I mean no harm, they say. I just want to take you on a murder field trip to meet my parents.
“Even knowing your name, you’re still a complete stranger.”
“Look,” he begins, a clear attempt to rationalize an irrational proposition. “We both need dates for the holidays. You, to convince your friend to go home with her family. Me, to convince mine to leave me alone about my love life. Four days, that’s all I’m asking. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the day after.” He counts out each on a finger. “We’d fly in the first day, fly back out the last. I would cover your flights, of course.
“Worst case scenario, consider it an all-expense paid vacation to Lake Varykino. One that you have to share with a house full of nosy, slightly overbearing people, but, still… Not a bad deal.”
Rey chuckles. “If I make it out alive.”
“It’s funny,” Ben grins. “Those are my thoughts going into every visit with my family.”
“Oh,” Rey sighs, fingers pressed to her lips. “I don’t know…”
Oh god, is she actually considering this?
Ben’s eyes seem to ask the same question. They flit across her face, back and forth, up and down, taking in… something. He presses no further though. Just watches her, silent and still and patient, like he watched his coffee all night.
“It seems crazy, right?”
“It does. It is, I think,” Ben agrees. “But, tell me this. Would you rather spend the next four days with me or admit to your friend that you lied?”
Well then, that clinches it.
“Okay. I’m in.”