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“Ready for this?”
Rey’s eyes land on Ben’s outstretched hand before they slowly trail up to find his lips twisted into an odd half-smile, half-grimace combination. Caught up in her own nervousness for most of the drive, she’d nearly forgotten just how much more is at stake for him in this little game of theirs.
One wrong move and they’ll both lose the money, but Ben… Ben stands to lose his whole family too, if they ever find out the truth about this sham of a marriage.
She reaches out to take his hand – her husband’s hand – for only the fifth time since their wedding last Thursday, and studiously ignores the way Ben’s lips curve into a full smile as their fingers lace together, the way his eyes crinkle at the sides as he gives her a look she can only describe as warm, the way their hands fit together as if they were made to be linked.
“Ready,” she tells him with a nod, and hand-in-hand they walk past the door of Maz’s Castle and into his godmother’s bar.
“Ben Solo!”
A scratchy voice calls rings out above the din, immediately silencing the raucous chatter of at least twenty patrons. Even more impressive than that, however, is the way that voice makes Ben – 6’2”, nearly two hundred pounds, lifts her like she’s made of feathers Ben – jump and then clutch her hand tighter for support.
The plan had been to treat this as a dry run of sorts, to see if they could sell their little love story to Ben’s godmother before attempting to do the same with his mother. On the ride over he’d assured her again and again that they’d be fine, that Maz is an amazing judge of character and would take an immediate liking to her, but Ben’s reaction right now has Rey wondering if maybe he’d been trying to convince himself.
“How did she even see us?” Rey murmurs, squinting to make out a diminutive figure behind the counter that sits all the way on the other end of the bar. She thinks she can feel the older woman’s watchful gaze through a pair of coke bottle glasses, but the distance between them and the bar’s dim lighting aren’t doing her any favors.
“Maz doesn’t see,” Ben mumbles as he squeezes her hand, takes a deep breath, and squares his shoulders. “She feels.”
And on that ominous note, he starts leading her toward the bar.
The closer they get, the more Rey’s skin prickles under the weight of Maze’s observation – especially when the older woman’s eyes finally land on the ring on Rey’s finger and she lets out a little hmm just loud enough for them to hear.
”You don’t write, you don’t call,” Maz huffs when they’re five feet away, “and then bam, you bring home a girl with that ring on her finger. Never a boring day with you Solos, is there?” she asks with pursed lips even as Rey catches a mischievous little glimmer in those ancient eyes hidden behind thick lenses.
Still – it’s an impressive scowl, enough for Rey to falter in her steps. Ben lets go of her hand to place his on the small of her back instead, a warm and reassuring touch her body automatically reacts to even as her mind refuses to be so easily set at ease.
She lets Ben guide her forward anyway, because they haven’t come all this way only to fail at the very first step. Maz watches in silence as Ben pulls out a seat for her before taking one of his own, her dark eyes somehow still unnervingly big even as she narrows them in concentration.
“Hi, Aunt Maz,” Ben says before his godmother can fill the silence, shooting her a sheepish little smile that’s more boyish than anything Rey has ever seen on her husband’s face in all their six months of knowing each other. “I’ve missed you too.”
Maz lets out a little grunt as she reaches behind her and gropes around blindly for a bottle of whiskey. “Could’ve called if you missed me that much,” she grumbles, but soon enough she’s shaking her head and offering her godson a little smirk as she produces two glasses seemingly out of thin air. “But at least you’ve brought me a present to make up for it.”
And then, like something out of a nightmare, Rey watches in slow-motion as Maz turns the full weight of her magnified gaze upon her and tilts her head curiously. “And just who might you be, child?”
“I… um…”
Rey clears her throat, but still the words don’t come. God, she’s supposed to be ready for this, has practiced again and again with Ben, but now that the moment has come to look this little old lady in the eye and lie to her–
“I’m…”
A warm hand reaches for hers under the bar and gives her a squeeze. “Maz,” Ben says even as he turns to give Rey a smile that has her throat dry for an entirely different reason now, “this is Rey.”
Maz and the rest of the bar – the rest of the world – melt away as Ben raises their joined hands to his lips and brushes a kiss across her knuckles in a move that comes so naturally to him, as if they’ve done this a thousand times before rather than just this once.
“Rey Solo.”
With his hand wrapped around hers and his eyes staring straight into her soul, hearing that name fall from her husband’s lips nearly has Rey herself fooled.
It takes a very pointed cough from Maz for Rey to finally snap out of it, and even in the dim lighting of the bar she swears she can spy the slightest hint of red ears poking out of Ben’s hair before he turns to his godmother, prompting her to do the same.
Maz has her arms crossed as she looks at the both of them, attempting to level them with a warning look even as her lips twitch with a smile. “Does your mother know? Because Benjamin Organa-Solo, so help me god if you came here to make me do your dirty work–”
“What? No!” Ben says, a little too vehemently if you ask Rey. But then again, she’s the only one who knows that he’d been considering that exact idea not too long ago. Instead of throwing Ben under the bus though, Rey decides to finally pull herself together and directly address Maz.
“We’re actually on our way to let her know, I just thought it’d be nice to stop by when Ben mentioned we’d be passing his godmother’s bar.”
A few nerve-racking seconds pass under Maz’s inscrutable gaze, but before Rey can signal Ben for help the older woman’s face lights up with a smile that somehow sets her completely at ease. “Two family visits in one day? I see you’re a good influence on him already, dear.”
Ben lets out a little scoff beside her, but Rey turns to find him smiling at his godmother’s approval. “You make it sound like I never visit.”
“Twice a year is practically never,” Maz retorts as she reaches for the forgotten bottle of whiskey and starts pouring. “Now drink up, you’re going to need it if you plan on letting Leia know her only son got married without telling her. And whatever you do, don’t ever let her find out you told me first. It would be a shame for Rey here to become a widow this young.”
It’s said so casually Rey automatically assumes Maz is joking, but the way Ben falters as he reaches for a glass has her wondering if maybe they’re miscalculated.
“You don’t think… I mean, she won’t be that mad, right?” Ben asks, and it’s funny, how she knows exactly what this man sounds like when he falls apart in her arms and yet has never heard him sound scared before.
Maz shrugs as she slides the remaining glass over to Rey with a nod. “Who knows, maybe she’ll be so happy you finally brought a nice girl home she won’t even care that you’ve been lying to us about your love life for God knows how long.”
Her tone distinctly suggests otherwise, and Rey can only watch as Ben knocks back the contents of his glass with a loud gulp.
In the silence that follows, Rey finally curls her fingers around her glass of whiskey and tears her eyes away from Ben for a second as she takes a sip.
She feels the weight of Maz’s eyes on her before she can even set down the glass.
“Not a shotgun wedding, then,” the older woman declares with an approving nod, looking much too pleased with herself when Rey abruptly sets her glass down with a heavy thunk and Ben’s head snaps up in shock.
“Maz!”
His godmother holds her hands up in the universal sign of innocence. “What? It’s a good thing! You make your old Aunt Maz proud, Benny. Much better than that scoundrel father of yours. And you, dear,” Maz turns to her with a conspiratorial grin, “I like the looks of you. It takes a very special kind of person to put up with these Solo men.”
Rey can only laugh as Ben drags a heavy hand down his face, his cheeks faintly rosy under the weak orange light of the bar. “Maz,” he whines, not that he’ll ever admit to it.
“Oh hush, you know it’s–”
Before Maz can finish her sentence, the group huddled around a booth in the far corner get a little too animated for her liking. Her lips grow thin with displeasure as one of the men sprints to his feet and starts hurling accusations at another. “Looks like I’ve got some sense to knock into those idiots over there,” she announces, and promptly disappears.
It’s not until she comes round the bar that Rey realizes the little old lady is far littler than she’d realized, having hopped down from some kind of step stool.
“Do you need help?” Rey asks before she can stop herself, though Ben had regaled her with a tale or two about Maz putting grown men in their places with barely a look on the ride over.
Thankfully, Maz merely offers her a warm smile at the offer. “Oh, don’t you worry about me, child. Just a typical day around these parts. You two stay as long as you like, okay?”
And then, almost like an afterthought, she reaches for Rey’s hand – the one swinging at her side, the one with Ben’s grandmother’s ring – and gives it a pat. “And welcome to the family, Rey.”
It shouldn’t mean that much, coming from a practical stranger, but Rey finds herself stunned into silence anyway as she watches the older woman cut a path across the bar. It’s not until Ben reaches for her hand that she realizes tears have pooled in her eyes.
“She wouldn’t say that to just anyone, you know,” he tells her quietly, and does her the courtesy of pretending to look at his empty glass when she discreetly swipes at her tears.
Rey finishes the rest of her drink and lets it burn away the lump in her throat before she turns to Ben. “Can we stay a little longer? I’d like to say bye properly.”
Ben gives her a smile that warms her even more than the whiskey does. “We can stay as long as you’d like, sweetheart.”
An hour later, after a particularly memorable instance of Maz single-handedly dressing down a group of eight rowdy bikers and then kicking them out with their heads hung low, Rey finally gets to say that proper goodbye to her new hero. Maz extracts a promise from them to come visit again soon, and then sends them on their way with enough peanuts and pretzels to last them a whole cross-country road trip.
By the time Ben settles into the driver’s seat next to her, Rey’s already enthusiastically munching on a bag of pretzels. “I think Maz is my new favorite person,” she tells Ben with a grin, holding out the pretzels in a silent offering.
After a moment of hesitation, Ben helps himself to a handful before he straps himself in. “I think you’re her new favorite too,” he says, sounding just as happy about it as she is.
“So… it went well?” Rey asks as Ben backs out of the parking lot and Maz’s Cantina grows smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror. “Do you think she bought it?”
“Absolutely.” With one hand securely wrapped around the wheel, Ben reaches for her hand across the console and gives her a squeeze. “You did good back there, Mrs. Solo.”
He’s not staring deep into her soul this time, but hearing that name again – and everything it implies – still flusters Rey in a way she’s not prepared for. But she’ll have time to think about that later, when he’s not right next to her. For now, she brushes it off with a small laugh. “That still sounds funny.”
She feels oddly bereft when Ben lets go of her hand to navigate a sharp turn. “Well, it’s only been a week,” he reminds her with a shrug.
“Yeah,” Rey sighs as she leans back and reaches for her forgotten pretzels. “I guess I’ll get used to it eventually. And the lying.”
A strangled sound rips past her throat at the realization, loud enough for Ben to spare her a quick look, his brows furrowed in concern. “Rey?”
“Oh my god, Ben,” she chokes out as a fistful of mini pretzels fall into her lap. “We just lied our asses off to that sweet little old lady.”
Ben lets out a little huff of amusement, and even with his eyes fixed straight ahead on traffic she can see the way he’s smiling, “First of all, Maz is not a sweet little old lady. You saw that yourself.”
Fine, that’s a point she’s willing to concede, but still–
“And second… is it really lying, Rey?”
It’s asked so quietly, so softly, that for a moment all Rey can do is stare at this man who’s somehow gone from being a total stranger to her husband in the short span of six months. When he doesn’t turn to her, when he leaves the question hanging, all she can do is whisper his name.
“Ben?”
He shrugs, but she can see the way his hands curl tighter around the wheel. “I mean, we are married.”
On paper, sure, but… “You know that’s not…” Rey’s protest, half-hearted to begin with, dies on her tongue as she thinks of the way his hand feels when it’s wrapped around hers, the way Rey Solo feels when it comes from his lips.
“I know,” Ben says with a heavy sigh, turns to look at her for the briefest moment. “Don’t get me wrong, I know what this is, I know why we’re married. But… but I felt something that night, Rey, when we first met.”
A flash of dark hair so soft and shiny her fingers curled just thinking about running through it, a man head and shoulders above the sea of people at Rose’s newest gallery opening, a stern face completely transformed by the warmest smile she’d ever seen, a smile she had put on his face–
“And I know,” he continues, unaware of her trip down memory lane, “I know we weren’t looking for anything back then, I still think we made the right decision not to jump into anything serious, but sometimes… Rey, sometimes I feel like maybe we were always going to end up at this point, with or without the trust fund.”
He turns to her as they come to a stop at an intersection, offers her his hand across the console. She’s reminded of that first night all over again, of how long before she’d fallen for his smile it had been his eyes that had drawn her in, that familiar glint of loneliness and longing calling to her. “Tell me I’m not alone in this. Please.”
They’ve only known each other for six months, and that’s if you count the four months they spent just sleeping together and doing little else. She’s never been in a real relationship in her entire life, and neither has he. There’s so much they still don’t know about each other, so much they’re not ready to share.
And yet… and yet her first instinct is to reach for Ben’s hand and tell him, “No, you’re not. You’re not alone, Ben.”
The way he looks at her in the light of the waning summer sun… she never wants to forget it, never wants to forget this moment with just her and her husband, all alone in the world at this deserted red light, hands laced together as he leans in to press a soft, lingering kiss to her forehead.
Ben tilts his face down, rests his forehead against hers. “After everything’s settled… You’ll get your cut either way, I swear, but once the money’s out of the way… I’d really like us to try this for real, Rey.”
It’s all moving so fast, but isn’t that their entire relationship in a nutshell? Rey smiles as she pulls back just enough to look him in the eye, brings her free hand up to cup his face like something precious. “Till death do us part, husband,” she reminds him. “We’ve got all the time in the world to figure this out.”
And Ben, Ben smiles so brilliantly she can’t help but slide her hand into the curls at the nape of his neck and tug him down to seal their new deal with a kiss. It’s nothing they haven’t done before, it’s tame compared to everything they have done before, but the fact that she’s kissing her husband in broad daylight just because she wants to…
It has Rey smiling even as they pull apart, even as a car suddenly appears behind them with an impatient honk and the pretzels in her lap scatter to the ground and they both shake with laughter as their hands remain clasped together.
They stay that way for the rest of the drive, and Rey… Rey thinks she could get used to this.