Chapter Text
“Rey, can you make a chicken salad wrap, please?”
It’s loud in the cafeteria—busy, like it always is. Rey has her back turned to the noise and is busy over her work station, hurriedly making wraps and sandwiches with trembling hands. She’s been at this job for about two weeks and she shouldn’t find it hard, but it’s… kind of hard. Stressful.
But she needed a change of pace, and the hospital has good benefits and pay. It’s better than cashiering at the gas station; that’s for sure.
“Rey?”
She looks over her shoulder at her coworker, Lisa. Lisa raises her eyebrows and the doctor standing on the other side of the glass looks annoyed.
“Coming right up,” Rey says.
It’s a bit better when the lunch rush is over and she can take a break. She texts one of her roommates, Finn, to ask if she should pick anything up for dinner on the way home. His boyfriend, Poe, just moved in, and things have been kind of rocky between them. Poe is… a lot sometimes.
Rey eats her salad and watches the nurses and doctors and other staff milling around chatting. She considered becoming a nurse—maybe an LPN—but it’s expensive and difficult to start school. This job works for now. It’s stressful, but it works.
Finn calls a few minutes after the text. Rey picks up, smiling.
“Hey!” he says. “How’s work?”
“Oh, you know.” Rey looks around at the sea of people in scrubs and white coats. “Work is work. How’s the restaurant?”
“Good, good. We’ve been swamped today so it took me a minute to be able to call.”
“It’s okay, you didn’t have to.”
“Well…” Finn hesitates. “Poe and I were wondering if you could crash somewhere else for the night. We wanted to have a date night.”
Rey scowls. She peels off her hair net and leans back in her creaky blue chair. Of course.
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she says. “Can’t you guys go to Poe’s place? He hasn’t fully moved out, right?”
“Uh… yeah, sure. I’ll call him and ask.”
“Okay.”
“…Okay.”
The call ends awkwardly and abruptly. Rey puckers her lips and glares at her phone for a minute before she gets up. Back to work, then.
| | |
The first month of work goes relatively smooth. St. Andrew’s is a big hospital teeming with people, so Rey is able to blend in easily enough and avoid making waves or making friends. She feels like she fucks up when she tries to make friends—it’s easier if she keeps her head down and just does her job.
And she stops trying to fight with Poe at home. He’s so nice when he does rude stuff, like drinking her coffee or borrowing money. It’s hard to be mad at him and it’s hard to say no, so she keeps spending nights away at her friend Rose’s to give Finn and Poe space. Can’t move in with Rose unfortunately. She has a one bedroom.
Rey struggles through another busy lunch rush on a Friday afternoon. She collapses in a blue plastic chair at a table in a corner and peels her hair net off. She’s tired. Her back hurts from sleeping on Rose’s couch.
“Mind if I sit here?”
A man in a black suit is standing a couple feet away with a tray. He’s tall and vaguely familiar—she’s seen him around, but he obviously isn’t a doctor. Maybe he works in finance. The hospital has finance people, she thinks. The CEO was at her orientation.
Rey nods, hardly looking at him. He’s fairly young, she thinks, but she opens up her phone to scroll through Twitter instead of examining him. He smells nice. Clean.
He unwraps his sandwich and cracks open his bottle of water. Rey rests her cheek on her fist and gives him a second glance: he’s probably in his thirties, and he has long black hair that brushes his shoulders. Pale, with a long face and a big nose. He isn’t looking much at her, but that makes sense. He seems important.
But he notices her staring and his dark eyes flicker to her. Rey jumps a little, cheeks burning, and she looks down at her phone again.
The man takes a sip of his water and offers his hand for a shake. “I’m Ben Solo. What’s your name?”
“Um…” Rey shakes his hand. “Rey Niima.”
His grip is firm. He dwarfs her hand, and an odd tingle winds up Rey’s spine.
Ben separates the two halves of his sandwich. He opens one side to take off the tomatoes with his fingertips, and he wipes them on the napkin in his lap. It’s very… clinical, somehow.
“You can order it without them,” Rey blurts. He looks at her, and she shrugs helplessly. “We don’t have to make them that way.”
Ben raises his eyebrows. “I seem to annoy Roxanne when I ask.”
“Roxanne is annoyed by everything. You can ask for me, if you want. I can do it.”
He tilts his head. He smiles, but it’s very slight, and just touches the corners of his mouth. Rey smiles back.
“Thank you, Miss Niima,” he says. “I’ll be sure to ask for you the next time I’m here.”
She feels like she should say more and try to carry the conversation, but she doesn’t want to interrupt Ben while he’s trying to eat. He must be busy. His job is probably a lot more important than hers.
So he eats quietly, and Rey pretends to be busy on her phone. She waves when he says goodbye.
Rey turns in her seat, trying to furtively watch him. He’s approached by a doctor and another guy in a black suit, and they nod their heads, talking as they leave the cafeteria. Ben must be important here. It’s a little exciting that she got to talk to him.
| | |
Rey tries not to think too much about her encounter with Ben, but she does look for him over the course of the next week. He doesn’t come by. She even started wearing a little makeup so she’ll look nice if he does come by.
She doesn’t date much—doesn’t have much interest in men. Maybe she should, since she’s nineteen, but she’s so busy working and saving that she doesn’t bother with the dating apps. It doesn’t help that she can’t go out to bars yet, too.
But Ben is… interesting. Everyone in the hospital seems like they have it all together, but Ben is on another level. Nothing out of place; not a hair or a blemish or anything. Even his beauty marks seemed deliberate. It’s a nice distraction. A nice fantasy. Thinking of someone like that being interested in someone like her is—
“Rey?”
She blinks, then pivots. Lisa is at her side and startles when Rey nearly knocks into her. She huffs.
“Can you make a grilled chicken wrap with no tomato, please?” Lisa asks. She gestures. “Mister Solo said he wanted you to do it.”
“Oh—yeah. Yeah, sure.” Rey nods, peering over Lisa’s head. “I can.”
He’s standing behind the glass with his hands in his pockets. He’s talking to a doctor, but he seems to sense Rey’s gaze. He looks at her and gives her a small smile, and she smiles back. He’s wearing a black suit again. It’s nice.
Rey makes the wrap and hands it off to Lisa. She has a hard time concentrating through the rest of the lunch rush, and when her break comes she sets off in search of Ben. He probably left already. She shouldn’t read too much into things. He’s probably married with kids and a big house; he’s just being—
“Miss Niima.”
She stops and looks to her left.
Ben is sitting at the same table from last week. He has his fingers knitted together, obscuring his mouth. He pushes out the chair before him with his foot.
Rey skitters over and takes a seat. She smiles, then remembers to take off her hair net at the last second.
“Hey,” she says. She opens her bottle of green tea and pulls her chair in. “How was the wrap?”
“Fabulous. Thank you.”
“Oh, good. The turkey is great, too. I can make that without tomato.”
Ben raises his eyebrows, fingers still knitted. “Do I have an ‘in’ at the cafeteria now?”
“Yep. Tomato-free sandwiches whenever you want.”
He smiles. It’s just barely visible.
Rey eats her turkey club while Ben looks around the cafeteria. He leans back in his seat, distractedly unscrewing the cap on his water bottle. He takes a sip and purses his lips.
“Have you worked here long, Miss Niima?” he asks.
“Just about a month.” Rey wipes her fingers on the napkin in her lap. “I was a cashier at a gas station before, but I think I want to go to school.”
“Do you? For what?”
“I think I’ll be an LPN?”
Ben twists his lips and shakes his head. “You’d be better off becoming an RN. Pay is much better.”
“Oh. Okay, thank you.” She pauses. “What do you do, sir?”
He’s in the middle of screwing the lid back on his water bottle. He stops, eyebrows raising very high, gaze flickering to Rey. She pauses her chewing and reddens, realizing that ‘sir’ might’ve been a bad choice. It just felt right in the moment.
Ben keeps watching her, and a smile spreads across his face while he plays with the cap.
“Sir, hm?” he muses. His eyes wander off, but his smile remains. “I work for Pfizer. Typically I don’t come onsite—I haven’t worked sales in a few years—but we’re in the midst of sweet-talking psychiatry into purchasing a new Adderall alternative. My presence is useful during negotiations.”
“Oh. Is it hard?”
“Generally, no. Flattery is a useful tool, but some doctors are stubborn fucks.”
Rey chokes on her food. Ben looks at her, concerned, but she waves her hand and shakes her head. She’s fine—just wasn’t expecting him to say that.
She finishes her lunch and checks the time on her phone. Her heart sinks when she sees it’s almost the end of her break. Rats. They were just starting to talk, too.
“I better get back,” Rey says. She gathers up her trash. “I hope you seal to the deal with psychiatry.”
“Thank you, Miss Niima.”
She smiles and nods. She stands up and turns.
“Miss Niima.”
Rey looks back. Ben is watching her, idly tracing his lip with the edge of his index finger. He has his other arm draped on the back of his chair, and his silver watch catches the light. Her heart flutters.
“You’re too young and pretty to wear that much eyeliner.” He stares, still brushing his lip. “And the foundation hides your freckles. Just wear the lip gloss. It’s very flattering.”
Heat creeps all the way up into Rey’s ears. She nods, dropping her gaze, embarrassed that he noticed her wearing makeup at all. But he liked the lip gloss—and maybe he’s implying that he likes her freckles.
She throws out her garbage and has to rescue the tray after accidentally dumping it, too. Rey takes a shaky breath, curling her hair behind her ear, and shyly checks over her shoulder to see if Ben saw.
He’s gone.