Chapter Text
When Ben returned to his hut, the glow of his brief meeting with Tai was already fading. Tai had said they should talk about it—and, in his hopeful confusion, Ben had only been able to think it meant something good. If Tai wanted to talk about it, it must mean he felt the same and thought they could make this, whatever it was, work.
Now Ben saw only all the ways it could not.
Tai wanting to talk about it meant nothing. Tai always wanted to talk about things. He seemed to think talking was the solution for everything.
Ben knew better. He had long ago lost count of all the times he’d heard we’ll talk about it from another person only to realize those words were, at best, a gentle letdown. We’ll talk about it was the sort of thing people said when they were too cowardly for honest denial.
Yes, he knew how little talking truly solved. How useless it was when no one wanted to listen.
Optimism thoroughly depleted, Ben undressed, washed up, and laid down on his pallet. After a few minutes he threw the blanket off and rolled onto his back. His body was out of sorts, too warm, all jittery. He stared up at the wooden beams of the ceiling and fought, feebly, not to think about how else it might have gone with Tai tonight as they’d spoken by the stream if Ben had been able to articulate his feelings better, if he’d been emboldened rather than bewildered at Tai’s seeming reciprocation. He knew he should not fantasize, despite the potent temptation. It would only hurt more when they talked.
If they talked.
Ben could avoid that. Tai would be disappointed but hardly surprised, and they would both be spared a great deal of embarrassment. Things could go back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.
He rolled to his side, arms tucked in, and closed his eyes.
Could it all have been a dream? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d dreamed something so vivid and affecting that it felt real. This might have been one of the rare dreams from which he never wanted to awaken, in which his trust wasn’t just rewarded but returned.
But the kiss had been real. Tai’s soft mouth and kind words—his patience, his respectfulness—had been real. Ben wouldn’t be able to smoke or smell locap bud again without remembering all of it.
He’d denied Snoke’s call over it.
A chill overtook him. What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d let himself be carried away by the explosive emotions that stupid, stupid game had stirred in him. Rather than seek the counsel of the one person who would have set him back on the right path, Ben had turned even further inward, like a crab retreating into a shell it had outgrown.
He had been disrespectful and ungrateful. Snoke would not let Ben forget it.
Ben tried to reach out. He rarely did so; Snoke always knew when Ben most needed his unrelenting wisdom. It scared Ben to seem too presumptuous; it scared him to think he might be rejected. Snoke had known him since he was a child, and though Ben was a child no longer, he couldn’t help but think Snoke still saw him as one and found such needy weakness distasteful. Every time he initiated contact, Ben surrendered something of his own that was already in short supply. But he did it now, and the silence that met his attempts was worse than the headaches.
He deserved it.
He did not deserve Tai. Not as a friend. Not as whatever tonight had made Ben think—for a handful of moments, words, and touches—he and Tai might become to each other.
—
The next morning was a free day. No formal training, no lectures, no schedules, though students were nonetheless strongly encouraged to choose pursuits that complemented their learning or enriched areas of development they wanted to improve upon. Occasionally, Luke would pair or group students on special projects he thought them well-suited for, particularly if he sensed tensions that could be alleviated through simple teamwork. Ben was often a target of these efforts, and so it came as little surprise to him when, as he helped himself to a second serving of breakfast, he heard his uncle approaching.
“Morning, Ben.”
Ben glanced at Luke, then scooped a heap of eggs and roasted mushrooms onto his dish and eyed the crackling, fragrant spiced sausages. INGR-10, the cooking droid, had outdone himself. He kept downloading increasingly ambitious recipes despite Luke’s insistence that a simple, straightforward existence at the temple extended to culinary matters as well.
“Good morning, Master,” Ben said through a yawn.
“Up late last night?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You look tired.”
“I always look tired.”
Luke chuckled, and his eyes crinkled with a rare, genuine smile. “Do you already have plans for today?”
Wary now, Ben moved on to a pot of bubbling porridge and toyed with the ladle. “I’m spending the morning on the Grimtaash. I have some ideas for the thrusters I want to experiment with.”
He’d made the decision days ago, but now it seemed even more urgent that he do so. It would be a way to avoid Tai, who tended to respect Ben’s preference to be left to his own devices when working on mechanical things (“or most things,” as Tai would have pointed out). But Ben’s ship, in particular, was his domain. He’d restored it from a rusted-out husk when he was fifteen. He didn’t let anyone else touch it for repairs or maintenance, and only a few people other than Ben had ever been inside. If he spent most of the day elbow-deep in its grease and wiring, Tai wouldn’t have an opportunity to ask if he still wanted to talk, and Ben wouldn’t have an opportunity to disappoint Tai by saying he didn’t.
“I should have guessed,” said Luke. “Good for building focus.”
“Yeah, usually.”
“I’ll have to stop by for a look soon—you’ve done great work on it. Your dad would be proud.”
“Thanks.”
“I’d have sold a hand for a ship like that at your age.”
Luke was quiet for a moment, waiting for Ben to acknowledge his macabre joke. It was always like this between them lately, excruciating attempts to reestablish a rapport that had begun to wither years ago.
Ben grimaced and said, “At my age you were the hero of a galactic rebellion.”
“That isn’t what I—” Luke shook his head, then shrugged. “The point stands. You have a talent for it. Runs in the family.”
Ben smiled tightly. Perhaps this would be all, his plans for the day deemed satisfactory.
“You know, though,” Luke continued, and Ben suppressed a groan, “after a few hours stuck inside a ship, you might want an opportunity to stretch your legs. I know I would.”
“Probably.”
“Glad to hear it. Our stores of seaweed are getting low. I know it isn’t your turn on the rotation, but if you have the afternoon open anyway, you could head down to the beaches with Tai for it.”
“With Tai?”
“It’s his week to handle the foraging. Ket was supposed to be his partner, but she’s in the infirmary today.”
Everyone at the temple took turns foraging and gathering local plants for meals, medicines, and other needs, the same way they took turns handling routine tasks like laundry and basic maintenance of the grounds, buildings, and ships. Skills they would all need when they were on their own, skills that would be useful as future Jedi traveling the galaxy. It wasn’t unusual for the schedule to shift when unexpected situations like illness or injury arose, but all Ben could think was that Luke knew. He couldn’t—he couldn’t—but it was impossible not to wonder.
“Why me?” Ben asked, realizing too late how stupid and childish it sounded.
Luke’s brow crinkled. “I thought you would be happy about it. You and Tai work well together.”
The way his eyes narrowed seemed to add, Unless there’s something I should be aware of?
Ben scrambled for an excuse but found none that wouldn’t give Luke one more thing to read too much into and draw all the wrong conclusions about Ben, Ben’s needs, and Ben’s deficiencies. He couldn’t bear it.
“You’re right. We do. That sounds good.” Ben looked at his feet. “Thanks for suggesting it.”
“Of course. Remember, I want a look at that ship of yours soon.”
“Yep.”
Luke clapped Ben on the shoulder in another attempt to convey discreet avuncular affection, smiled, and left Ben to a dish full of food he could no longer stomach.
—
Ben could lose himself for hours working on the Grimtaash. He craved the pure escape from his thoughts, doubts, and questions, and it was a sure way to make time go faster while truly enjoying himself.
For once, he wished it could have slowed time down. When the signal for the midday meal sounded out across the temple complex, he felt like he’d only been there for half an hour rather than the entire morning. He skipped the meal, opting instead to head back to his hut to clean up and pack for the day’s excursion to the beach.
He and Tai would probably head down and then follow the coast for a few hours, gathering the seaweed Luke had requested plus whatever other plantlife and shellfish caught their eye. The truth was, the beach was one of his favorite places to be, and this was one of the few duties he looked forward to. So it rankled him doubly to realize how much he would have preferred to avoid it, run off and spend the rest of the day elsewhere, then take the upbraiding it earned him with his head high.
He didn’t.
Stomach in knots, he dutifully trekked out to the top of the path at the appointed time. Tai was already waiting, levitating small stones and making them spiral upward in a neat line, then back down to the ground. It was a simple enough trick any child with basic Force sensitivity and a little bit of instruction could accomplish—Ben had shown Tai how to master it in their first days at the temple together. Ben had been eleven years old and terrified at the prospect of no longer being Luke’s only charge. He’d been eager to impress his new peers, secretly desperate to earn their approval and respect, torn between a desire to befriend them and a compulsion to keep them all at arm’s length. Instead, it won him Tai’s admiration and then, soon after, his friendship.
Typical Tai, really.
A stone zipped toward Ben, aimed at his chest. He halted its progress at the last moment and sent it skittering into the grass. A few birds startled and flew off, screeching affront.
“Ah hah, the man still has it!” Tai said, and let the rest of the rocks fall, grinning.
A ticklish feeling erupted behind Ben’s diaphragm. This was going to be impossible.
He’d decided he could spend the day with Tai and still avoid the matter of last night. They’d just talk about something else. There was no shortage of subjects, and usually if Ben made some off-hand comment about something, Tai could spin it into an entire hour-long discourse.
This proved true enough when Ben mentioned he’d spent the morning with the Grimtaash. Tai took the bait, and they passed most of the walk down to the water talking about Tai’s ambitions to acquire a swoop, though he hadn’t quite worked out how that was going to happen.
The fact that Tai didn’t push to revisit their conversation from the night before, or even hint at it, should have been a relief. It was exactly what Ben had wanted. So why did Tai’s unexpected obliviousness only make Ben anxious and then slightly angry?
Ben was grappling with this question as they reached the first diving point. The midday sunlight danced in quick sparks on the ocean surface. Broken remnants of harvested algal blooms bobbed like small purplish islands beyond rocky outcroppings—vats of the stuff provided the energy that powered just about everything at the temple. Though some seaweed had washed up on shore, the greatest and freshest supply would be underwater, in the shallows and a bit further out. He and Tai would have to wade out and dive for it, bringing up thick, ropey handfuls of the slimy stuff. The complication this might pose had not occurred to Ben until they set their packs down on the pebbles a few meters from the water and Tai began to strip.
In almost a decade of spending nearly every waking hour together, Ben and his fellow students had all seen one another in various states of undress. It had never been a big deal. Hell, Ben had probably seen Tai naked before, and vice versa. He couldn’t remember. That was the thing—it had never mattered.
Suddenly he wasn’t sure where to look as Tai shucked his trousers off to discard them on the ground with his shirt and shoes. Ben didn’t want to seem like he was staring at Tai, who was now in only a pair of lightweight black shorts and, thank the Force, seemed inclined to keep them on. Though, Ben did want to stare, even if it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. He’d seen Tai’s shoulders, and his back, and his chest, and . . .
Tai stretched his arms behind him until something cracked, then cocked his head with a curious look at Ben. “Are you planning to go in fully dressed?”
“No. I was . . .” Falling apart at the seams, apparently. “Go ahead in, I’ll be right there. I have a leg cramp.”
Tai looked skeptical, but he turned on his heel and sauntered off to get a head start. As Ben too stripped down to his basics and made his way to the water, he was inexplicably self-conscious about his own body—so recently filling out, with its too-long limbs and too-broad shoulders—and what Tai thought of it. If Tai thought of it at all. Which was absurd. Last night would not have happened the way it had if Tai found him repulsive. Which opened up a shocking new venue of questions about the ways Tai might think of Ben’s body, and what he might want to do to it.
Ben was glad to be waist-deep in cool, choppy water by the time this occurred to him, and he promptly shut those thoughts down before he said or did something stupid.
They got to work. Failing to dispel the worst of his malaise, Ben channeled it into diving and gathering. He loved to swim. As a kid on Chandrila, it was something he’d taken to as naturally as he had to flying, and as he’d grown older he began to find it therapeutic. When he was upset about something, the water centered him; when he thought of the Force, it was always an ocean, vast and bright, fathomless and stormy.
So when Tai found a scarlet arrow urchin, a delicacy particular to the season, and suggested they see which of them could collect the most, Ben jumped at the chance to throw himself into competition rather than disgruntled pining.
It worked at first. Every other dive, he emerged not just with seaweed and mollusks but at least one or two pulsating spiny globes. But Tai’s collection was piling up faster than his own, and the spark of friendly sport twisted itself into a hard, bitter lump. Tai had grown up on Denon, a whole planet covered in bustling cityscapes, and had never seen an ocean before coming here; Ben had spent his youth running along the surf of Junari Point and splashing in the Silver Sea—Tai had no right to be doing better at this than he was. When they both surfaced at the same time, Tai with yet another bounty to rival Ben’s, something snapped.
“You can’t just drag up whatever you find down there and call it a good haul,” Ben said waspishly as they waded back in after depositing their latest haul into environment-controlled containers onshore. “We don’t exactly have unlimited space.”
Tai stopped mid-step and looked hard at Ben, who continued his lurching departure into the waves. “What is going on with you today? You’ve been glaring at me ever since we got here. I thought you liked doing this.”
“I do!” Ben yelled back, whirling with his hands thrown up, raring for a fight. “I just— It’s—”
“Leg cramp?” Tai supplied, brows raised.
“Oh, be quiet, Tai! Why do you always think you know everything? You don’t, you know!”
“Okay. Wow.” Tai exhaled, seemed to recenter himself, then looked at Ben again, infuriatingly calm. “Is this about last night?”
“No, it’s about—”
Last night. It was about last night.
All the ire left him in a rush. Ben felt raw and dazed. He watched the water lap at his waist.
“You said we should talk about it. I said I wanted to,” Ben said in a stilted rush. “We’ve been out here almost an hour. You haven’t brought it up at all. So I don’t know what else I’m supposed to think but that you didn’t really mean it.”
“Oh.”
To Ben’s surprise, Tai looked chastised. It wasn’t a pleasant realization when Ben was pretty sure Tai didn’t have anything to be sorry about.
“I was waiting for you to say something,” Tai said. He walked out a bit further, only stopping when he was an arm’s length from Ben. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m already uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, I know, you usually are. Hence my point.”
Ben glared.
“Sorry,” said Tai. “That was . . .”
“Accurate, actually.”
Tai snorted, and Ben gave a short, reluctant burst of laughter. The tension loosened.
“Do you want to talk about it now?” Tai asked—not the way he had last night, like he thought he might scare Ben away. Now, they could have been talking about anything. It felt good to hear him speak that way, about this. When Tai spoke like that, everything seemed less insurmountable.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Um. Let’s get out of the water first. We can talk on the way to the next stop.”
They walked ashore and gathered up the containers, their bags, their clothes. They didn’t bother getting dressed, because they’d just be in the water again, and the sun was out and the air was warm.
“So,” Tai said as they began to move on.
“So.” Ben peered into a wading pool as they passed, spied some clams, and stopped to retrieve them. It was easier to imagine talking like this, when he had something to do with his hands and keep his mind at ease. “I . . . don’t know where to begin.”
Tai was silent, considering. “How long have you felt this way about me?”
Ben tried to remember a moment, a flipped switch, an epiphany. He couldn’t, aside from last night, though he knew it had started before that.
“A few months?” He shrugged, snapped the container shut, and began to walk, Tai just behind. “A year?”
“Wow, really?”
“I’m not sure. It’s not like I wrote it down.”
“Psh. Ouch.”
“I’d never felt that way about anyone,” Ben explained. “And you were my friend.”
“Were?”
“Are. So I couldn’t say anything. I thought it would just go away, if I ignored it.”
“Why couldn’t you say anything?”
Ben frowned, growing frustrated with the questions but aware that without them he’d be floundering through half-formed sentences. “Because you couldn’t feel the same way. I’d ruin things.”
“That’s not true,” Tai said.
“Yes, it is. So when I weighed whether it was more important for you to know that suddenly I— wanted to— you know—that, or for me to still have you as my friend . . . it was an easy choice.”
Tai hummed. “I’m sorry you felt like you had to choose between the two.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t need to. Choose. If that wasn’t obvious by now.”
“Is it obvious?”
“I did kiss you back,” Tai said.
“Could’ve been reflexive. Or friendly.”
“Friendly!” Tai looked as if he was barely keeping himself from shaking Ben by the shoulders. “Please don’t tell me you’ve spent all your time since last night finding every possible explanation other than the simple fact that I might like you.”
Hearing Tai say those words—I might like you—sent another thrilling flutter through Ben. “So why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Do you realize,” Tai said with a wry expression, “how much time you spend complaining about the way Tenal and Osi run around together? Or that time you saw Xanja and Pris in the library ‘studying the oral histories’ with Pek? And how you don’t get it and it’s so stupid because we’re all going to be Jedi anyway, and you wouldn’t be caught dead wasting time like that, so what’s the point?”
Ben pressed his lips into a thin line. He did, in fact, realize how much time he had spent complaining to Tai about these things. Now he imagined Tai holding back his own unspoken wishes and wondered if it had bothered Tai the way it had begun to eat away at Ben.
“I guess that would send some mixed messages,” he admitted.
Tai laughed. “Just a bit. I figured you wouldn’t be interested. It was fine. I still got to spend time with you. Drive you nuts. Feel a little bit special that you always let me into your orbit anyway.”
“People aren’t exactly clamoring for the privilege.”
“Their loss.”
The pebbles crunched and shifted beneath their bare feet.
“Have you ever . . . with anyone else?” Ben asked, shocked at his own desire to know.
“What?”
“Any of it.”
“No one here. There was a guy when we all went on that learning expedition to Gatalenta a while back. We were there for almost a month. Something like that? You remember.”
Ben grunted.
“Anyway,” Tai went on, with the same ease he might have discussed what he’d had for supper last week, “I met with him a few times. Half the excitement was sneaking around.”
A flicker of jealousy licked at Ben’s ribs—a strange sensation, to be jealous over something like this, of some person he would never meet but who had mattered to Tai at least a little bit. That it had been so easy for Tai. Mostly, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed, or that Tai, who was generally a known rule-follower, had taken such a risk on an official trip. It made him more curious.
“So . . . you only like other men?”
“Hm. I never really thought about it that way, but . . . I guess, yeah. If we’re talking humanoids,” Tai said. “You?”
Tai spoke of these things with such simple confidence; he knew himself and was comfortable with that. And though Ben envied it, he also responded to it.
“I don’t know. It’s you. That’s all.”
Ben had been thinking about this a lot. Something he’d thought he understood about himself—for once—was now a mystery again. It wasn’t as if he didn’t recognize physical attractiveness. He saw it in beings of all genders and species. He reacted to aesthetics. He liked to look at people he found beautiful and enjoy the things that made them so.
Yet that had never given way to anything more, and he could not fathom experiencing such an ache as this ever again. How could anyone want to? He wouldn’t survive it. It was beauty and appreciation, but it was want, too, and need, and heat—unthinking, carnal, almost animal, self-sustaining but always hungry.
It reminded him of anger. The intensity. The drive to act. The way it made him shake.
Tai smiled. “I’m glad it’s me, then.”
He brushed a hand over Ben’s back, right between his shoulders. The skin-to-skin contact nearly set Ben alight. He began to wish he’d at least put his trousers back on.
“Now what do we do?” Ben asked, staring ahead, jaw tight.
“What do you want to do? I’ll follow your lead.”
What a question. Ben wanted to kiss Tai more. A lot. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to find out where kissing and touching could take them. But he couldn’t just say that, and he had no idea how to flirt.
Tai cleared his throat. “We also don’t have to do anything.”
“I know.”
“But, if you’re looking for ideas—can I kiss you again?”
“Right now?”
“Ahh . . .” Tai made a show of looking up and down the beach, then squinting back toward the temple. “I don’t see why not.”
“I’m not going to be very good at it,” Ben said.
Tai laughed and shrugged. “Last night wasn’t bad. And I happen to know you learn fast.”
“Hah.”
“Besides, you have great lips, so you’re starting at an advantage.”
Ben’s neck grew hot, then his face. He wanted to throw himself back into the ocean, if only to cool off.
“Your ears are red,” Tai pointed out.
Ben grumbled and tried to rearrange his wet hair, which was stuck in a particularly unflattering fashion to his neck and forehead.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Make me, Solo.”
Ben looked at Tai askance, slowing, and licked his lips. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Is it working?”
“What do you think?”
He grabbed Tai by the shoulders, pulled him close, and kissed him. For a few seconds, Tai responded with enthusiasm, letting Ben grasp at him and hold him in place. But then he brought his hands to Ben’s face, slowing him down, breaking just enough to say, “Definitely working.”
He dipped forward to suck at Ben’s lip and begin again.
Someone made a small, plaintive sound—Ben. It was Ben, and he did it again, wondering. This had been the best, worst idea he’d ever had. He was half-naked and wet, alone with Tai, who was also half-naked and wet, with hours until dusk and no one around to see anything they did here. He understood now why Tai might have risked sneaking around on Gatalenta, why his peers risked it here at the academy. It was a sensation a person could get carried away in.
How was it possible to feel so invincible while so exposed and vulnerable?
One of the containers dropped to the sand and tipped sideways, the saline suspension inside sloshing noisily as the airtight seals kept the contents from spilling.
“Shit,” Ben mumbled. Tai laughed.
Spurred on by the sound, Ben let his hands wander tentatively from Tai’s shoulders. They skimmed over a hard, smooth chest, down further to a stomach taut and faintly ridged with muscle. Tai was smaller than Ben, shorter and leaner, more compact but just as fit from the rigors of their training. Ben had known this, logically, from observing him during exercises and from the first-hand proximity of spars. This was another thing entirely. He’d never touched another person like this before, sheerly for the pleasure of exploring and inviting exploration in turn.
Tai shuffled nearer. His thigh brushed Ben’s. Ben slipped an arm behind Tai’s waist as his other hand caressed Tai’s face.
Ben shivered, but he was hot all over. His chest and arms prickled with goosebumps. His heart felt like a pulsing fist hammering against his ribs. He felt his blood in his ears—heard it—felt it rushing everywhere, everywhere.
He shifted backward. Tai pursued him, gave his hair a tug. Ben groaned, and opened his mouth against Tai’s—and then he stumbled over a shell, nearly sending them both into the sand with a swear. Perhaps it would have been better if he had. Instead, Tai righted them, then gave an amused sound and pulled away. He lingered, though, with his forehead tipped against Ben’s.
“This is not how I expected today to go,” Tai said. The corner of his mouth ticked upward. He was breathing hard, which made Ben feel a bit better about his own quick, shallow breaths.
“Me neither.”
Ben thought, unbidden, of Luke asking him to join Tai today, as if he suspected something. It was a difficult fear to shake. It reminded Ben how Luke always seemed to be watching, taking note, weighing something.
And Snoke—he was always watching too. Not truly, but he knew things. He sensed them. He saw with the Force. To him, Ben was as open as the sky.
Ben suppressed a shudder and prayed Tai wouldn’t notice it.
“It’s good, though,” said Tai, his fingers brushing the inside of Ben’s wrist. “Right?”
“Yes,” Ben said. He stepped back, breaking contact, searching for hurt or irritation on Tai’s face and finding none. “Just . . . a lot.”
“That’s okay.” Tai was quiet, rocking slowly on his heels. He stretched up and kissed Ben’s jaw. “What’re you thinking?”
“That chores aren’t usually this enlightening.”
Tai snorted.
“And,” Ben went on, seeking the right words, “I wish we could stay here all day, but . . .”
“We have work to finish before sundown?”
Ben scowled. “Yeah. That.”
“That,” Tai said, his face pulling into his best attempt at mirroring Ben’s sullen expression. Then he looked serious again, or at least sincere. One of his hands sought Ben’s, linking their fingers when Ben allowed it. “I like this.” He spoke with quiet reassurance. “I like you, Ben.”
For a moment Ben couldn’t breathe. The air was stuck in his chest. He was falling, unable to do so much as gulp down the air he needed to scream.
“I know,” he said stupidly, then winced. “I mean. I like this too. You. I . . . want to do this again. Sometime.”
Tai stooped to pick up the shell Ben had tripped over. It was large and curved, smooth unassuming brown dashed with splotches of pale blue. He tucked it into his bag without explanation.
“Well, you know where to find me,” said Tai. “As long as you don’t mind a little subterfuge.”
“I’m pretty good at hiding things.”
“Yeah, at the worst possible moments.” Tai gave him a fleeting odd look that Ben had no idea how to interpret; then he grinned. “It’s really annoying.”
“Sorry to hear that,” said Ben, who was not sorry at all, and kissed Tai again, spurred by a burst of daring he hadn’t felt moments before.
The rest of the afternoon seemed to flee, with little more out of the ordinary between them. Some moments Ben found himself watching Tai from a distance, but when any opportunity presented itself to steal more touches or kisses, to link hands or lean close, he hesitated, stalled by a nameless fear he couldn’t shake.
He didn’t like that any moment spent with Tai should be tinged with that. He hated it. Yet it was as inescapable as his own shadow, and he had no one to blame but himself. He just needed time to get used to this. He needed time to adjust to the idea that he could have something so novel and wonderful if he wanted it. He needed time to banish the creeping certainty that it would not last.
—
Ben held on to the memory of the beach (and of the look on Tai’s face when, as they neared the temple compound at sunset, Ben worked up the courage to pull him against a building for another sweet, brief, groping tangle) through the evening. It got him through supper and through the nightly group meditation. It even got him through Luke approaching him afterward to ask if Ben had time for that look at the Grimtaash.
Sure, he had time. He was in a good enough mood to have time for just about anything and to not worry about hiding it. If Luke noticed, and no doubt he did, he didn’t say anything. Maybe—probably—he was relieved to see Ben in high spirits for once.
Let him wonder why, Ben thought. Luke didn’t know half as much as he thought he did.
It was late when Ben finally returned to his hut, the grounds quieter than usual. A warm, pleasant breeze slipped in through the windows as Ben shut the door behind him. His eyes landed on the small table in the corner where he often studied or wrote or read. There was his set of inks and pens; his datapad; the partially finished model of an Old Republic–era starfighter he hadn’t touched in weeks.
A seashell rested beside it. As Ben approached, a little embarrassed at how his heart leapt with recognition, he saw that the shell weighted a scrap of paper, no doubt torn from one of the blank scrolls he kept. Ordinarily, the invasion would have made him angry, but how could he be angry when he lifted the shell to read the words written there?
B,
I’m thinking of heading over to the library tonight to catch up on some studying. Maybe the oral histories?
Kidding—mostly.
Though if you have any better ideas, I’d love to hear them. Stop by if you want. I have this outlandish theory you might even have fun again.
Don’t tell me I wasn’t ten-percent right the last time.
T
It was a theory Ben was willing to test.