Chapter Text
Ben has a new coworker.
She started a few weeks ago.
He’d been glad when he heard they were hiring a new comms team leader – honestly, things have been such a mess since Hux left, but he was glad to no longer have to reply to Hux’s arsy emails – and he would never admit how much of a trash-fire things had been on that end, certainly not to Armitage.
But emotionally, it’s a bit of a hurdle. She’s British. She’s very pretty. He hasn’t really gotten the chance to speak to her so far, and every time he bumps into her at a meeting, he mutters a swift hello when she chirpily greets him by name.
He feels like a teenager again, in the worst possible way. It’s funny. He’d thought he’d left those years behind him, of feeling too tall and rampant embarrassment about the haircuts his mom would insist on giving him. His relationship with his dad had improved swiftly when, upon seeing yet another of his mom’s attempts, his dad drove him to town, gave him twenty dollars and told the barber ‘Fix this’. Not that his hair was bad now. No, but he feels self-conscious in a similar way. Ears burning red (thankfully hidden now) and his shoulders beginning to creep up and forward.
Rey’s tall too- and all sleek limbs, he’s heard her talk about running and bouldering - but he feels gangly again. He cringes at his own response. God help him if he ever has a one-on-one with her.
He regrets that thought the next day, when at an all-hands meeting, she sits down next to him and asks to borrow a pen.
In his periphery, he sees Rose Tico stare very intently down at her phone, as if trying not to laugh. He knows he has a bit of a reputation – it was how he and Hux fell out, the fucker was not only a pen thief but a pen breaker – but Rey doesn’t know any of this. And well -fuck it he thinks- he’d really like to make a good impression. He gives her the red Kaweco. It’s a little test, he’ll admit that to himself. She thanks him and they chat briefly about work and what they had done at the weekend. She begins to talk passionately about going gremlin mode – her face goes pink, and he thinks fervently she’s so cute - and they’re interrupted before he gets the chance to ask her what exactly a ‘gremlin’ night means.
Her handwriting is cramped and scrawling, and he barely takes in the updates in the meeting as he sees her scratch away with the pen. At the end of the meeting, he’s distracted by Poe, wanting to make lunch plans. Poe’s love life – always in shambles, but he admires the man’s tenacity – has a new wrinkle, and he feels for his friend, but he’s irritated by the lost opportunity to talk more with Rey. Freed eventually and locked in for lunch plans, he looks to his left.
She’s long gone.
She’s taken his pen.
He’s not sure how to feel.