Chapter Text
The house is a cute two storey with a big driveway and an invitingly cozy front porch. There's even a swing seat with twin round iron tables on each side, a potted plant on each of them.
Rey parks her car in the driveway, knowing she's probably blocking the car sitting inside the garage, and takes out her suitcase from the backseat pulling out the handle to roll it up to the house's blue front door.
Once there, she rings the doorbell and waits patiently for the man she knows lives there to answer. Inside, she hears a TV and after some moments a familiar voice calling: "Who's there?"
Familiar because she grew up knowing it.
"It's Rey!" She provides.
Not long after, Mr. Solo opens the door. A furrow in his brow. "Rey? You're early."
She smiles. "I thought I'd do a little bit of sightseeing before the start of the semester, God knows I won't have time for it later."
He opens the door wider, silently inviting her in. His home is as cozy as she remembered it being, with hardwood floors and a big living room to the left where she can see the TV is muted now. He closes the door behind her, then offers to take her suitcase.
"I got it," she tells him and as a force of habit her eyes go to his bad leg. He seems to go still for a moment, but shrugs and keeps walking to the staircase dividing the living room from a dining room to her right.
When she was young and had no social filters she had asked him why he limped, he had only chuckled lightly and dismissed her father's worry that she had offended him. "A bad day happened, kid." He'd told her.
Some years later, she found out what exactly a "bad day" meant. Mr. Solo had been twenty three when he and his family were involved in a car crash, he had been the sole survivor but his leg had never really healed right.
He mounts up the staircase with some difficulty, she has half a mind to help him but years of knowing him had shown her he dislikes being treated like an invalid. She'd seen him rebuff her father's attempt to help him countless times, he always got grumpy afterwards, like people wanting to help him up the stairs or carry something heavy for him was a personal attack to his person.
"I want to thank you again for letting me stay here, Mr. Solo," she says, right behind him on the staircase.
"You're my best friend's kid," he responds gruffly, the effort of mounting the steps taking a toll on him. "And you're a nice girl, Rey."
She's glad he can't see the blush on her cheeks. A nice girl wouldn't have daydreamed a million different scenarios for how this semester would play out, with her living under his roof until she could find a place for herself. A nice girl wouldn't have found out about the joys of self pleasure by touching herself after seeing Mr. Solo in swimming trunks when he went to spend a summer with the Damerons in their beach house.
He leads her to one of the guest rooms upstairs, it has a nice view of the backyard and plenty of sunlight. The bed is big enough for two with a pretty design on the wrought iron bed frame, a cream colored duvet and twin nightstands on each side. On the far wall there's a wardrobe, the same shade of cream as the duvet and the nightstand's wood, a large circular rug set before it.
It's a very nice room. She'll have no trouble adapting to it.
"You have space in the wardrobe, and the bathroom is down the hall. You can leave your things there too, since I use the bathroom in my room," He explains while she goes to open the wardrobe doors only to find empty space inside.
"This is perfect," she says, "thank you."
He's leaned against the bedroom's doorway, teetering between the room and the hallway. His eyes look soft when she meets them and his lips mirror the smile on her own face, though his is much more contained.
"I usually cook for myself," he tells her, "but I can cook for two now, if you don't mind having unseasoned food that is."
Rey cocks her head to the side, arms askance as she rests her hands on her hips. "You don't like seasoning?"
"I don't know how to season," he confesses. "One of my many flaws."
She laughs and starts unpacking her suitcase as he stands there in the doorway making small talk. However, Rey hadn't considered how awkward it would be to put away her lingerie with her father's best friend watching over her like a hawk. Well, not exactly like a hawk, but it feels like it when she absently reaches for the bright red fabric only noticing what exactly she's holding in her hand when Mr. Solo's familiar baritone slowly fades away into silence. Her head snaps to him, eyebrows pinching together, and she sees his eyes focused on her hands. More precisely on what's on her hands.
Oh.
She quickly throws the damned panties in one of the empty drawers in the wardrobe. Mr. Solo seems to have woken up from the trance-like state he had been in, she can see the light rose dusting on his cheeks as he clears his throat.
"So, um, dinner at seven?"
She nods, eager to have him gone so she can put away her lingerie without feeling like she'll expire from embarrassment.
"Okay, I'll be downstairs," he says, already walking away from her doorway, "if you need me."
Rey plops down on the fluffy mattress after he's gone, her heart racing stupidly in her chest after that brief interaction. He was just surprised she owns any lingerie, that must be it. Mr. Solo watched her grow up, for Christ's sake, of course he would be shocked that the little girl he knew liked to wear provocative underwear every once in a while now that she was old enough to do it.
The subliminal message that she wasn't a little girl anymore must have startled him.
She kept putting away her underwear, thoughts whirring inside her head. Many of them about a certain Mr. Solo and how he would react to see the same red thong on her body.
Rey decides that she will cook dinner on her first day at Mr. Solo's house. It would be poor manners on her part to let the man do the work when he 1) clearly sucks at it and 2) is offering his home for her to stay in as long as she needs to. Even though she told herself she won't spend more than one semester under his roof.
She climbs down the steps and checks on him in the living room, he's sprawled in his la-z-boy recliner taking a nap and the TV is on playing reruns of a shitty reality show that probably started playing after he went to sleep. The sight is incredibly endearing to her, his face looks so much younger in sleep when he's not frowning or pursing his lips in annoyance at something someone said. Rey recognizes that she's always had an unrequited crush on him, but now that she's older and has had a bit more experience in the field she can say with certainty that her attraction is not misplaced.
His hair is soft and just long enough to cover his ears, which she knows are a little too big from the times she saw him with wet hair from the pool or the beach. Streaks of white hair intertwine with his naturally dark locks, creating that salt and pepper look that simply only makes him look even more handsome. His beard is much the same, dark with white hairs concentrated around the chin and upper lip. She remembers him clean shaven too, and she knows that with or without a beard he is still stupidly hot.
He sleeps with his mouth slightly open, soft snores falling out through the slitted entrance and she wonders if his lips are as soft as they look. She might have done something stupid and touched them just to check had she not bumped into the side table beside the la-z-boy making the remote control resting there fall on the floor producing a loud smack that startled him awake.
"Rey?" He mumbles sleepily when his eyes focus on her.
Kneeling to pick up the remote control, she repeats sorry over and over until he stops her with a hand on her shoulder. She feels his touch all the way down to her toes, it makes her freeze in place.
"It's okay," he says, taking the remote control from her hand to turn off the TV and putting it back on the table. "You just gave me a fright."
"I gave myself a fright," she jokes lamely, trying to diffuse the awkward energy she unwillingly created.
"What time is it?"
She glances at the clock hanging on the wall. "Time to start dinner."
"That's why you came looking for me?" He rubs one eye with the heel of his hand. "Are you hungry, kid?"
Rey tries not to wince at the childhood term of endearment he's always used with her. She needs to remind herself that no matter how big her crush on Mr. Solo is, he will always see her as a little girl.
"It's not that," she says, "I just wanted to see if you're okay with me cooking dinner tonight?"
He stares back, still a bit sleepy. "Is it because I said my cooking is bad?"
She laughs, involuntarily nudging his forearm in a playful way. In a flirting manner. Immediately, she retreats her hand and watches for his reaction. He didn't seem to mind, so she breathes relieved and continues.
"No, actually, maybe," she adds with a chuckle. "I just want to say thank you for having me here."
"I don't know how many times you'll say thank you, kid," he grumbles, standing up to stretch his back muscles. She tries not to glance at the sliver of skin revealed in his midriff when he stretched his arms over his head. "It's fine."
"Not everyone would do this, that's all."
"Well," he says, clearing his throat. "I've always liked you."
Her heart flutters, even if her brain tells her to stop being emotional. "Yeah?"
Mr. Solo smiles, a soft lifting of his lips that is enough to make Rey feel special just for witnessing it. "Yeah, you've always been a good girl."
The praise goes straight to her lower abdomen, like liquid fire licking up her insides. She mentally advises herself to keep her cool, after all, she doesn't want to make a fool out of herself in front of Mr. Solo.
They move to the kitchen, Rey slowing her pace to keep up with him as he pretends not to notice what she's doing. He's not always happy when he sees that people are changing something to accommodate him, she knows that he hates being an "inconvenience", as if his friends are doing him a favor and not only looking after him because they care.
His kitchen is big and she can see it is very well loved. Mr. Solo might claim to be a bad cook but he sure does use the counters that look washed out from cleaning, or the pans that are burned on the bottom, or the cutting board that has many nicks in it. She smiles at every detail she can pick up in the room, it's like discovering a new side of him, one she had never seen before.
She starts working on dinner, asking for the supplies and appliances she will need but that's the only help she accepts from him. Rey tells him to sit down and make her company if he wants to, but she will not let him cook. Her gift to him, she says.
So he sits on one of the stools around the kitchen island and watches her cook them dinner. They keep a string of conversation throughout the entire ordeal, and incredibly enough they steer far away from childhood memories, which would only make Rey feel like a child playing pretend at being an adult at the moment. Instead, they talk about the upcoming semester at the university and her excitement to finally start this new chapter in her life. She gushes about her good grades in school and how that earned her a full scholarship to one of the best universities in the country, how she can use the money her parents had saved up for her higher education to rent a nice apartment and keep herself afloat throughout the four years it would take to get her degree. They talk about the best neighborhoods in the city for her to go apartment hunting, and many more things. By the time they finish eating, Rey feels like a grown up with real grown up things to do.
She doesn't feel like a kid he has known her whole life. She feels like a young woman about to start her first year in college facing a whole new world of experiences and firsts.
She feels a little bold.
"Do you have wine?" She blurts out.
Mr. Solo raises an eyebrow. "You're not old enough to drink, if I remember correctly."
"C'mon, I'm old enough to live on my own and buy a gun if I wanted to. Why can't I have a glass of wine under supervision ?" She prolongs the last word, implying that he would be the one to watch out for her.
"Your dad wouldn't like it." He shifts in his seat, avoiding the puppy eyes look she always uses when she wants to get something.
"What my dad doesn't know won't hurt him," she says, touching his arm and shaking it a bit to get his attention. "Please?"
Mr. Solo groans, standing up. "You better not snitch on me, kid."
She claps her hands, giggling animatedly as she watches him limp towards a cupboard and take a wine bottle from it. He takes two glasses of wine and slides one in front of her, shaking his head at her enthusiastic bouncing on the little stool she's seated on.
"You'll end up on the floor." He pops the wine bottle open and she stops bouncing, stretching her arm out with the wine glass at the end like an extension of her limb.
He pours only a finger of the dark liquid. She frowns.
"That's it ." Mr. Solo states, reading the disappointment in her face. "You're too young to be getting drunk anyway."
"You know I'll do it anyway at my first college party," she retorts, downing the glass in one gulp. Mr. Solo stops pouring wine for himself, looking at her in a contemplative manner.
"You shouldn't be getting drunk in college parties," he says, "someone could take advantage of you."
"So you've never gotten drunk at a college party?"
He resumes pouring for himself, ignoring her question. She traces the rim of her wine glass with the tip of her pointer finger.
"I feel like that's an experience one should have in college, right?" She pushes, watching him take a sip of his drink. "A whole world of firsts."
His brow furrows, she pretends not to stare at his lips when he licks them clean of wine. "Firsts?"
"Yeah, like first times."
"I get the concept," he mumbles, staring into a spot on the wall behind her head. "I just never thought about you in that type of scenario." He takes another sip. "I blinked and you grew up."
"You're being too sentimental," she jokes.
"It's just hard to reconcile the image of the little girl I knew with the young woman standing before me," he says, finishing his drink. Then frowns, looking down at the empty wine glass. "Old age has made me a lightweight."
"You're not that old," Rey scolds with no heat.
"Forty three is old enough to be your father."
True. Her own father is forty three.
"But it's still not old ."
He smiles. "It is."
"Why do you want to be old so bad?"
His gaze lingers a while on her face, then slips away into the same spot on the wall behind her. It makes her angry that he won't look in her eyes when he speaks.
"I should go to bed," he says, cutting their conversation short.
"It's only eight thirty."
"I'm old, forgot?"
She scoffs. "You're lame ."
He chuckles, taking their plates and putting them on the sink before limping away. She takes their wine glasses and deposits them on the sink too, following after him. They mount the steps to the second floor, Rey having to hold back from helping him more than once. When they're at the top of the stairs, he goes to one side and she goes to another, their bedrooms being on opposite sides of the hallway.
"Good night, Rey."
"Good night, Mr. Solo."
Before she enters her room, though, she hears him calling her name. Turning to meet his gaze, he smiles softly, one hand on the doorknob of his bedroom door.
"You can call me Ben," he tells her, so softly it sounds like a secret. Maybe it is. Maybe it's something she can only do when they're alone. Maybe she will take advantage of that little olive branch of hope he's offering her.
Returning his smile, she tries the name out for the first time. One syllable, quick and simple. "Ben. Okay."
He enters his room, leaving her alone in the hallway with that little piece of himself that she will cherish all night. Whispering it over and over as she touches herself under the duvet, feeling like a prepubescent teen discovering how to masturbate again.
This will be a long semester.