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Never had Rey been so cold in her life. Being buried alive in arctic snow would be a kinder fate than the one she suffered, her flesh exposed to the elements due to her own folly. With her arms wrapped around herself, she went in search of a way to warm her weary body.
The library’s lost and found was always full of missing clothes. She knew that from the semester she’d spent working as a library assistant. Now, nearly ready to graduate with her bachelor’s degree in linguistics, she had managed to wrangle enough scholarships and grants that she didn’t have to work her last year of school. Of course, she could only afford to eat ramen and gummy vitamins, but that was better than working thirty hours a week on top of taking her nineteen-hour course load.
Rey went up to the desk to speak to one of the students manning the station. He glanced up at her, then did a double take when she offered him the smallest of polite smiles. The guy was new. Good. The regulars wouldn’t let Rey get away with much anymore. She’d talked too many of them into waiving her late fees, thus getting them into trouble with the boss.
“Hi—” She glanced at his ID badge. “—Hux. I think I left my sweatshirt here the other day and I was hoping you’d check the lost and found for me.”
He sat up straighter, his red fauxhawk practically bristling with his sudden interest in being helpful rather than surfing through whatever was on his phone hidden beneath the desk. Yup. She knew all the tricks.
“Sure. What color is it?” His eyes gave her the once-over before he remembered to paste on what he probably thought passed for a charming smile.
Rey toned down her own smile. “Gray.” Most sweatshirts were gray, right? If there wasn’t a gray hoodie, jacket, or cable-knit sweater back there, she’d be ridiculously surprised.
“Sure. Hold on a sec.” Hux stood from his chair and went to the back.
Yup, he was really new. The veterans knew to ask for other identifying marks, size, and everything else. Rey never kept the sweaters or other things she borrowed from the lost and found. She used them, then left them to be found again. If the real owners ever showed up, they could take their property back. So, it wasn’t stealing.
Hux came back holding a massive gray hoodie with a bright red decal on the sleeve. Oh, that was her favorite. She’d borrowed that hoodie last week. Sure, it was huge, but it was also ridiculously comfortable. Last week, it had still smelled like the previous owner, too. Whoever the person was who wore that thing, they had amazing taste in cologne.
“This is the only gray thing we’ve got back there,” Hux said, a smirk on his face. “It can’t be yours, but—”
“It’s my boyfriend’s, actually.” Rey beamed at him. “I’m glad it’s still here. He loves that sweater. Alderaan was his favorite team before they were disbanded.” She held her hand out confidently.
Hux positively deflated. “Your boyfriend’s?” He grabbed the sweater by the shoulders and held it out, studying the front where she knew there was a bright red graphic of a football being blown apart from the inside. She’d been intrigued enough by the logo to look it up and found out it was an older Irish team that had been absorbed by others in the league when they went bankrupt. “He’s into soccer, huh?” Hux snorted. “Not much of a guys’ sport.”
“Not the way Americans play it,” Rey retorted sweetly, holding her hand out a little higher.
The guy tossed it at her, his lip curling slightly. “Try not to lose it again.” He sat back down, reaching for his phone and blatantly ignoring her.
“Thanks.” Rey grinned and walked away from the desk, pulling the sweater on as she went. The sleeves fell past her fingertips, the hood fell halfway into her face, but it was ridiculously comfy. She tugged the hem to mid-thigh and went back to her table where her books were spread out and her laptop waited. She’d managed to snag one of the tables near the window that looked out over a nice little garden.
Rey popped in her earbuds and cranked up her study music. In no time, she was lost in the history of literary language and Chaucer’s unfinished works.
#
Ben usually avoided the campus library. There were too many students crawling all over the place, hardly any of them doing any real work. They were texting, listening to music so loud through their headphones and earbuds that it was a wonder their ears weren’t bleeding. They sat in corners, rearranged the furniture so they could chat like they were in a cafe instead of the library, and so many of them brought food in despite all the signs marking the study areas as food-free zones.
But this close to midterms, people were quieter. They were trying to cram everything into their heads that they should’ve been studying for the first half of the semester. That meant the stacks were blissfully silent and he might actually get some work done.
The week before had been a complete disaster when he tried to grade papers between his own classes. A gang of rowdy baseball players had trooped in and sat at a table to help one of their friends figure out how to text a girl. They’d been loud and crude. Ben had left in such a hurry that he’d forgotten his favorite hoodie. When he came back for it the next day, the kid manning the checkout desk had said it wasn’t in lost and found.
As a TA in poli-sci, Ben’s time was pretty evenly divided by his own coursework and practically spoon-feeding POLI 110 students the basics of American Government and Politics. How he’d ever let his mom talk him into the position, he’d never know. He didn’t even want to be a professor, ever, and his master’s coursework was in law. He wanted to be a lawyer, not a politician.
Ben headed for his usual area, a quiet corner with no windows or distractions, but as he got closer he actually saw one of his students sitting at his regular table, making out with someone he didn’t recognize. Without hesitation, Ben turned and looped back through the stacks of bound political journals no one ever looked at.
The long row of shelves spit him out next to one of the larger windows where a table for two was occupied by just one girl. One girl in a very familiar hoodie.
Ben came closer, sure he must be mistaken, but how many people were actually fans of a defunct Irish soccer team? And there was no way that hoodie belonged to that girl. How had she gotten ahold of it? Had she stolen it the same day he left it?
When he stood at the table, he glared down at her for several seconds, waiting to be noticed. But she kept her head down, typing away at her laptop, the hoodie obscuring her eyes.
Ben cleared his throat.
No response.
“Excuse me?”
Nothing.
Glaring at the top of her head, Ben held out his stack of student essays and dropped it three feet to the table’s top. The resulting SMACK of paper against the surface made the girl jump, her head jerking up to look at Ben.
“What was that for?” she demanded, reaching up into the hood. She pulled out a Bluetooth earbud. “If you want to sit down, next time just sit. No need to be rude.” She glared at him, waiting for him to apologize no doubt.
Every indignant thing Ben had thought to say, the accusations he wanted to level at her, dried up the moment his eyes met hers. They were a coppery brown shade he hadn’t seen before, and her face was absolutely stunning. A sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks charmed him. Her clipped tone only served to accentuate her British accent.
The girl rolled her eyes at him and started to put her earbud back in.
He had to say something, fast.
“Nice hoodie.” Right. That was subtle.
Her eyebrows came together. “Thanks? It’s my boyfriend’s.” She popped the earbud back and pulled the top of the hoodie further down, as though to block him out.
Boyfriend’s? Nope. Now that he was close, Ben knew it was his sweater. He’d pulled the drawstring out of the hood the first day he got the thing, so the grommets were empty. And there was the slightest smudge of ink on the right sleeve’s cuff from when he’d used his calligraphy set to help Poe write some ridiculous poem out for a girl.
Lowering himself into the chair across from the hoodie thief, Ben reached over to her side of the table and knocked twice on the wood.
She looked up at him again, obviously irritated. He mimed taking out her headphones, so she did.
“Listen,” she said before he could say a word, “you’re being somewhat obnoxious. I don’t mind sharing the table, but I’m rather busy. Midterms, you know. If you’re hitting on me, you should stop. I have a boyfriend.”
Ben’s lips twitched. She was going to stick to that story? Really? “And he liked the Alderaan FC?” Ben asked.
“He does. Loyal even though they’ve—” She stopped and looked down at the front of the hoodie. The logo was there, the name of the team wasn’t. And they weren’t very well known on this side of the pond. She raised her head slowly and looked him over carefully, from his head to his shoulders. Then she swallowed. “Um. What size sweater do you normally wear?”
“XL usually has the shoulders right,” Ben answered with a grin. “But if I can get a large that’s extra-long, that works, too. I think that hoodie is an XL-long, but it has a numbered size. European clothing is weird like that.” He folded his arms and leaned forward. “Not exactly a perfect fit. But it does look good on you. Better than it does on who it actually belongs to, actually.”
Was he flirting? Why was he flirting? She’d stolen his sweater. Then lied to him and tried to tell him off. He was briefly reminded of the way his dad talked about meeting his mom. “First thing the lady does is insult me and my car, then my best friend. Called him a walking carpet. Chewie had crazy seventies hair.”
“Oh. Oh, no. This is yours, isn’t it?” she asked, face suddenly pale beneath the freckles and tan. “I am so sorry. I was cold, so I went to lost and found and asked for a gray sweater.” She started pulling it off, right in front of him, almost panicked.
He hadn’t meant to upset her. Not like that.
“No—stop.” Ben held his hand out and she froze, staring at him like he was a crazy person. “Um. Listen. You’re obviously studying, and it is cold.” He glanced up at the vent directly above the table. “You can keep the sweater. I’ve got to grade these papers, it might take me a couple of hours. You can just leave the sweater when you’re done.” When she kept staring at him, he extended his hand across the table. “I’m Ben.”
She looked from his hand to the stack of papers in front of him. “Are you a professor?” She sounded suspicious. Like if he was, she didn’t want to wear the sweater or shake his hand.
“A teacher’s assistant,” he said quickly.
She reached out to shake his hand, though the wary expression remained on her face. “I’m Rey. Just an undergrad.” Then their hands met, and lightning flashed before Ben’s eyes. Time froze, then sped up, and he knew he needed to get to know this girl. Needed to know everything about her.
He released her hand quickly, before the handshake turned awkward, and he cleared his throat. “Nice to meet you.” Ben ducked his head and focused on the essays. Or tried to. Rey had popped her earbuds back in and had turned her attention to her laptop.
Ben practically heard his father’s voice, “Smooth, kid. Real smooth.”
Why hadn’t the legendary Solo charm made it into Ben’s genetic makeup? Maybe it skipped a generation and he’d have incredibly suave children. If he ever managed more than a five-minute conversation with a woman.
With that dismal thought in mind, he picked up the first paper to grade and drew a red pen from his pocket. He clicked it, scowling at the first sentence in the first paragraph. He positioned the tip of his pen to run a line through the whole thing when a knock on the table interrupted him.
Rey stared at him, one brown eyebrow arched, and the corner of her mouth tilted upward. She already had her earbud out. “I should have said this before but thank you for being nice about the hoodie.”
He felt the tips of his ears grow hot. “You’re welcome.”
She turned back to her laptop and Ben went back to his grading, deciding he’d let that first sentence slide if the rest of the paper was up to standard. Surprisingly, the first paper and the next several that followed all made higher grades than those students usually achieved on written work.
#
After Rey read the billionth article on the Wife of Bath, she needed to stretch. And use the toilet. She stood, automatically tucking the phone into the large kangaroo-pouch of a pocket and glanced at her tablemate.
She’d been acutely aware of Ben, of his every movement, even in the midst of reading about marriage practices in the Middle Ages. His dark hair, longer than she usually liked on men, hid his eyes from her when she would glance at him. Occasionally he would release a frustrated breath and his pen would whip across the paper, creating a blood red mark that would likely cause several of his students to rethink their desire to finish out the semester.
“Ben?” she asked quietly, pausing her music with a touch to her earbud.
He looked up, his dark eyes finding hers without hesitation. Wow, he was handsome. There really wasn’t another word more fitting. He didn’t exactly look like a guy on the cover of a trashy romance novel, but still. Features that would look odd on anyone else combined perfectly upon his face. She tried to compare him to someone, to a celebrity, to a face she’d seen before, and couldn’t. He was unique. And sexy.
“Yes?” he asked when she just stood there, staring at him.
Ugh. Awkward much? Rey cleared her throat. “Could you watch my stuff? I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
“Of course.” He gave her a brief smile, and he almost looked disappointed. Like he’d wanted her to say something else.
“Thanks.” She took a step back, his eyes still on her, then turned and made her way through the shelves to the restroom at the front of the library. The whole way she kicked herself for staring at him, like an inexperienced freshman instead of the sophisticated college student she was. True, she didn’t have a lot of dating experience, but one would think some things would come naturally. Like interacting with a member of the opposite sex, a person she actually found attractive.
She berated herself the entire way to the restroom and then gave herself a pep talk on the way back. He’d been cool about the hoodie when he could’ve insisted she give it back. He’d smiled at her. Maybe even flirted when he said the hoodie looked good on her. Maybe she ought to flirt, too. Or just skip straight to hitting on him. But who hit on guys at the library?
Nearly back to the table, Rey had lost herself in her thoughts to the point that she didn’t realize someone was following her until she felt a hand on her arm. She yelped and whirled around, yanking her arm out of that person’s grasp—
The red head from the front desk stood there, smirking at her and raising his hands in an obnoxious manner. “Whoa there, babe. I tried to get your attention, but you just kept walking.”
Crap. What was his name? Hugs? Huxley? She couldn’t remember. “I didn’t hear you. Babe.” She let all the disdain she felt for that particular term drip from the word. “Can I help you?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at her. “My friend Phasma just showed up. She works the front desk, too, and she said she gave you that exact same sweater last week.” He took a step closer so that less than two feet separated them. “So, she and I have this theory that there isn’t a boyfriend and you just take things from the lost and found when you need them.”
They’d finally caught on to her. But Rey couldn’t let them win that easily. “Wait. So, because I left my boyfriend’s sweater in the library twice, and reclaimed it twice, you think I’m making him up?”
The condescending look her gave her said it all. But he shrugged. “Listen, I don’t care what you do with the lost and found stuff, and I really won’t tell my boss you’re stealing stuff from it if you agree to go out with me.” His eyes swept her up and down again, narrowing as they did so. “I think I could show you a good time.”
“I really don’t think my boyfriend would like that.” Rey tilted her chin up slightly. “And I know I wouldn’t.”
His smirk morphed into a scowl. “You don’t have a boyfriend, and you’re just being stubborn. Come on. You don’t know what you’re missing.” He raised his hand toward her face and she immediately jerked away.
Of all the nerve—
A solid, warm presence at her back alerted her that someone else had joined them between the shelves. The redhead’s eyes widening somewhat comically gave her an idea of who it was even before he spoke.
“Rey, everything okay?” Ben’s rich voice, tone soft, made all her muscles relax.
“This guy,” she said, gesturing to the library employee without even turning to look at Ben, “doesn’t know how to take no for an answer. He also doesn’t believe I have a boyfriend.”
“Really.” The single word came out both amused and slightly aggressive. How did he do that? Then Ben’s hand, large and warm, enveloped hers. “He thinks you just like to walk around in giant hoodies that belong to strangers, hm?”
She felt her cheeks grow warm but didn’t know if it was Ben’s touch or his completely accurate statement that caused it. The tingles in her fingertips definitely came from his touch, though.
“You’re not her boyfriend.” Hux. That’s what his name tag said. Hux had gone a little green. “Are you?”
“It really isn’t your business, is it?” Ben asked, gently tugging at her hand as he took a step back, bringing her with him. “Alderaan was a great team, though. Whoever he is, he has great taste. Excuse us. We have work to do.”
Rey turned and followed him, letting him keep her hand all the way back to their table. Which wasn’t far. So he let go of her entirely too soon. She opened her mouth, ready to thank him for the rescue, but he shook his head slightly at her.
“He’s still watching.” Then Ben pulled the chair out for her, as though they were at a five-star restaurant instead of sitting in the library’s squeaky wood-and-vinyl chairs.
After taking her seat, Rey watched him walk back around to his spot. “Thanks,” she whispered once he was seated.
He gave her a soft smile that made her heart twist. It made sense that the hoodie belonged to him. Large and comfy, and it had smelled so good last week. Rey sighed and lowered her gaze to her laptop, touching a key to wake it back up after her absence.
They both went back to work, Rey inwardly cursing herself for not taking a chance and asking him out, or asking him about himself, or anything really. But he did look busy. After more reading and noting citations, Rey pounded out two whole paragraphs on Chaucer’s view on women. Then her phone vibrated with an alarm, letting her know it was time for her next class. The last one of the day.
Silencing her alarm, Rey looked across the table at the handsome TA. Before she started packing up her things, she grabbed a sticky note and a purple pen from her messenger bag.
#
When Rey stood, Ben’s eyes snapped up at once. His throat closed up. Gorgeous women like her rarely looked twice at him. She didn’t seem interested. Not really. He’d glanced up a few times only to see her focused on her work. He wanted to ask her for her number. Tried to find the words.
She pulled her arms out of the sleeves first, then practically shimmied to get the thing over her head without turning it inside-out. His mouth went dry and he hastily averted his eyes when he caught a look at her belly button when the t-shirt rose with her movements.
The red hoodie appeared on the table beside his stack of papers, folded nice and neat. He raised his eyebrows and then looked up at her.
“I worked at American Eagle,” she said, giving the sweater a quick pat. “Thanks again, Ben.” Her stuff was already packed up, she slid the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “See you around.” She waved, turned, and disappeared before he even thought up a response.
Rey. How did she spell it? What was her last name? He couldn’t even look her up online. Ben groaned and dropped his forehead into his hand. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why not just ask for her number? Ask her to meet for coffee?
He stared at the hoodie, feeling somehow betrayed by that article of clothing. Then he put his hand out, over the red emblem, knowing he’d never be able to wear it again without thinking about the beautiful woman who’d proclaimed it belonged to her boyfriend.
If only.
He gathered up the sweater, ready to stuff it in his bag, when he heard a crinkle of paper. Ben froze and squeezed the fabric again—it made a sound cotton never made. Hope rising, Ben unfolded the sweater and shook it, then reached into the massive pocket.
When he withdrew his hand, he held a bright green sticky note with writing in purple ink.
Thanks for letting me use your hoodie. How about I pay you back? I’d love to treat you to coffee. Text me?
Her number was written out, then she’d signed the note Rey Niima.
In record time, Ben had his phone out and saved her number, then sent a text.
Coffee sounds great. Tomorrow?
He sat, prepared for a long wait. She’d probably gone to class. Or caught the bus. Or— His phone buzzed almost immediately.
I don’t have class in the morning. Nine okay?
Nine is perfect. The Java Hut?
Great! I’ll be there.
I’ll see you then. Ben couldn’t help grinning and leaned back slightly in his chair. A tap on the window nearby made him glance over.
Rey. She smiled and then winked at him while tapping at her phone, and then shoved it in her pocket. She waved. Even though she’d caught his reaction to her text, even though he felt himself blushing, Ben chuckled and waved back.
His phone buzzed again as she turned around. He looked down.
Bring the hoodie. It’s supposed to be cold out, and it belongs to my boyfriend. ;-)
Ben tucked the sweater into his bag and went back to grading papers, all the while thinking about coffee, Rey, and how exactly he’d make an honest woman of her in regard to his Alderaan FC hoodie.