Chapter Text
"No. I only ever sang about it."
The words are still echoing in his ears. Bouncing around the walls of the bus. Chiming like a steeple bell. A town crier's voice in Ben's head yells "Extra! Extra! She's a virgin!" from a street corner.
"But your lyrics—" he pauses, mentally sifting through snippets and phrases and titles. "You wrote a song called 'The Ways to Love a Man.' "
"From hearing songs on the radio." Her brow furrows slightly, like she's confused about how he hadn't pulled this information out of thin air four months ago. "Not from...anything that happened to me. I listen to music and I read these books, like—"
"Henry Miller?"
"—paperbacks." There's a nervous flutter in her voice. "Gothics, uh, mostly, but some other stuff. Have you read Valley of the Dolls?" He shakes his head. "Well, they're easy to stick in my bag. Carry around. And I got a big imagination. I can picture anything."
He doesn't think he imagines her glancing up and down the length of his torso.
It's not a shock, exactly. Maybe it's just the cognitive dissonance of squaring the events of the last five minutes, divided by this revelation, multiplied by her uptight off-stage behavior, subtracted from the suggestive lyrics she's penned—lines they've sang to each other, separated only by the windscreen of a microphone.
The puzzle pieces don't quite snap together.
"I wondered if—" Ben straightens his back "—you'd known some great love, or something."
Rey shakes her head.
"It's easy to sell songs about that kinda thing. I got good at it." She sits up a bit on her elbows. "Writing, I mean. I can get up in front of a thousand people and sing about making love because I've done it a hundred times in my head. It feels like it's almost the truth."
Ben mentally dog-ears that last statement to mull over at a later time.
"And, uh—" he glances up at the bus windows behind her, conveniently avoiding eye contact "—Finn?"
Her eyes widen in what appears to be legitimate surprise.
"We never did...that." Ben draws in a tentative breath, as she continues. "It wasn't like...whatever you're thinking."
"All right," he says, even though he's still not sure what he's actually thinking. He runs his hand through his hair, like that might reset his spiraling, racing thoughts back to something simple and logical. Like the fact that she's an innocent young woman. And his singing partner. And has significantly more to lose if this goes wrong. Three logical considerations.
"Is it? Is it 'all right?' " Rey sits up a little further, like she's trying to decode his expression. "Are you—" her face scrunches up a bit, like she doesn't want to say the word "—disappointed?"
"No! I just—"
"It's fine if you don't want to." She slides back, all the way to the end off the seat, like she's retreating from a fight that's about to turn the wrong way. "Completely fine. We just got carried away, is all."
All of the fire and anticipation of the last five minutes dwindles into a single wisp of smoke.
"Rey—"
"Is it because you're leavin' tomorrow?" She turns her head to the left and looks out the window onto the mostly empty parking lot. Her profile is absolutely perfect, framed by the cloudy glass.
Another good reason not to, he somehow stops himself from saying. But there's a bigger issue.
"Your first time shouldn't be—in a bus." He glances toward the door with the cracked window. "Especially not a bus you can't leave."
"That's what you're worrying about?"
"I don't want to push you into anything. If you're not ready. And I don't have a—"
She suddenly sits all the way up, looking him straight in the eye.
"When did I say I wasn't ready?" Her voice is steady. Full-throated.
"We don't have to, Rey. Not like this."
She deserves a big bed in a nice hotel. Crisp sheets and fluffy pillows. And room service. He wonders if she's ever had room service.
Ben can see her throat bob as she swallows.
"I want to. All of it. With you."
His heart punches against his ribs. He's supposed to respond, but instead he needs to let those words hang in the air for as long as possible, rather than erase them with his own.
Luckily, Rey doesn't wait for a suave reply that's never going to come. She leans forward, until she's on her hands and knees, making her way back to their makeshift bed, where he's still kneeling.
She stops a few inches in front of him, in a diffuse patch of moonlight, like she's stepping into the spotlight in front of a microphone. Except she's not the girl he stands in front of every night with the big smile and southern twang. Sunshine is pretty. She has the right mix of sweetness and sass. She can charm the pants off an audience. But she's not Rey.
And he wants Rey more than he's ever wanted anything in his entire miserable life.
For some reason, she seems to want him, too.
Ben extends his good hand and reaches for one of hers, pulling her the rest of the way, until she's pressed against him.
"And lots of first times happen in inconvenient places," she says.
"You're sure?" He scans her face.
"Far as I'm concerned," she says, "that lock's keeping them out as much as it's keeping us in."
No logical considerations could ever stand a chance against this.
Rey kisses him enthusiastically, as if she's just discovered a new favorite pastime and she's diving in head-first, making up for several wasted months of cold warfare between them. She uses her hands, wrapping her fingers around the back of his neck, scratching lightly up and down his scalp, rubbing her thumb across his cheek. She tears off his coat—almost catching his injured hand on the sleeve—and tosses it aside. Ben barely even hears the rattle of the pills in the pocket as the coat lands somewhere behind her. The cool air probably cuts through the more permeable material of his sweater, but he doesn't feel it at all.
"Tell me if you ever want me to stop," he says quietly. It's the extent of his chivalry.
Rey nods her head into his shoulder and he pulls back to look at her, waiting for a verbal acknowledgement of understanding.
"I'll tell you," she agrees.
"Or slow down."
She grabs the front of his sweater in her small fist and pulls him closer again.
"I don't want you to stop or slow down right now. Okay?"
With that settled—and the angel on his shoulder temporarily satisfied—the devil on his other shoulder urges him to return to the important work of marking up her neck, mostly because she's enjoying it so much, but also so that there won't be any doubt from anyone else on this tour as to what happened.
He’s not proud.
Ben reaches around to her back with his left hand, feeling for the zipper of her dress.
"Can I…?" His fingers brush against a thin stripe of something stiffer than the fabric.
He feels Rey nod against his ear and she shivers a little bit as he slowly tugs at the zipper pull. He lowers it just enough to move the sleeves off her shoulders and let the bodice of the dress come down a few inches, revealing her bra. It's black, and cut low, but otherwise basic. The hook and eye poses some difficulty with his one set of working fingers—and it doesn't help that Rey distracts him by nibbling on his right ear—but he eventually manages to undo the closure.
With a soft tug at the front of the bra, the straps slide off her shoulders, the cups fall away from her chest...and two white athletic socks fall out.
More than anything, it's the incongruity of the socks that gives him pause. He grabs them from the bunched up fabric around her waist and holds them up silently and quizzically.
"Shit," she says, under her breath.
"For safekeeping?"
"I need a little help with that neckline. Works better than tissues or cotton balls." She snatches the socks out of his hand. "Sorry."
"What are you apologizing for?"
"I s'pose this might be a let down," she says, looking down at her bare, unaugmented chest.
"A let down?" He puts his index finger under her chin to tilt her head back up. "You're perfect, the way you are. Do you know that?"
"Not exactly a Jane or a Raquel."
"Well, I don't want a Jane or a Raquel. I want you." His hand trails along the underside of her breast and over her nipple, stiff in the cold air. "Just you."
The layers of sheer, silky fabric that give her dress shape on stage now prove to be an unexpected hindrance. He pushes gently on her chest with the unscathed heel of his right hand, guiding her back until her shoulders meet the seat, while his left fumbles to find her stocking-clad calves under the excess material.
His eyes roam over her silhouette, framed in the moonlight and flickering pink neon from the motel sign. He runs his fingers up the shiny nylon—the backs of her knees, her thighs and hips, up to the waistband of her pantyhose. With his hand on her stomach he can feel each heavy inhale and exhale. Hooking his thumb under the elastic, he tugs down, just a little bit at a time, revealing an inch of bare skin.
He must pause a couple beats too long, because Rey lifts her head up a little bit.
"What? What is it?" Her voice is tinged with anxiety.
"You're not wearing any—uh…anything under your—"
"Am I s'pose to?"
It's a good question.
He pulls down a little bit more. "I'm not complaining."
He thinks he hears her mumble something about "panties getting bunched up under there," or "extra laundry," but he's so distracted, it's like hearing someone talk underwater.
Because it's surreal to have the woman he's been staring at and thinking about and trying to decipher for nearly six months lying underneath him, just waiting. Brimming with nervous tension.
After a little awkward one-handed maneuvering, resulting in more than one run in her stockings, Ben manages to yank them off completely. He tosses them over his shoulder. God knows where they end up.
It doesn't matter that no man has ever done this with her, his rational mind insists. But the voice representing the decidedly more hot-blooded part of his body loudly disagrees. She saved herself for you, it shouts. Not that you deserve it, the self-hating faction of his brain adds, helpfully.
"Ben?"
Everything gets quiet again. Or maybe it's just quiet relative to the way Rey is breathing—big heaving, irregular inhales and exhales that make her whole chest expand. It's the only sound he can hear and, really, the only sound he ever wants to hear again.
Cradling her right leg in his left hand, just above the back of her knee, he rubs his cheek against the unbearably supple skin of her inner thigh. She bristles a little bit against the bit of stubble on his face and he starts to lay a delicate row of kisses leading upward.
He pauses, hovering over her, and it's darker than he'd like for this moment, but he would happily do this blindfolded. It all feels too fleeting and fast, like one of those dreams where you move from scene to scene too quickly.
He lingers there, breathing against her, a little too long because she sits up a bit.
“You don’t have to. I mean…" There's a catch in her voice. A nervous wobble.
“ 'Have to?' " He raises his head to look up at her, over the fabric of her dress. "You’re giving me a gift. You have no idea. All I want in the fucking world right now is to make you feel good."
She bites her lip and exhales, setting her head back down on the seat.
"Okay."
He twists around, grabbing the first thing he sees that can be rolled up—someone's suit jacket, carelessly flung over a seat back, oh well—and quickly folds it into a makeshift pillow before pushing it under her hips. If she sees what it is, she doesn't object.
It feels like some kind of natural high, like he's taken the best uppers, ones that make his heart race a little bit, but not so much that he can't focus on the way the gossamer layers of fabric under her dress frame her from this angle. The tender skin at the apex of her thighs feels soft against his cheek and every little quivering movement she makes seems magnified when he's this close.
It takes about a minute for her to make any sound. But eventually, little gasping breaths evolve into soft moans and she unclamps her fists from the fabric of her dress, reaching down to brush her fingers over his hair.
There's never been a better sensation.
"Ben!" she utters sharply, as he buries his head between her thighs. His name in her mouth makes him feel like he's the only man ever to exist.
Rey's back keeps arching up over the seat and she's grinding against his mouth a little bit and it's probably just an instinct but he knows that she needs something more. He slowly presses a finger inside her and she tenses for a few seconds, holding her breath in, before relaxing around him.
She's too shy to give him any words of feedback, but they develop a kind of understanding based on a combination of her little noises and the way her hips move and how firmly she tugs at his hair. She says his name when it's almost too much and pretty soon she's saying it a lot and louder each time. Her legs are shaking and he's trying to hold onto some semblance of restraint with his finger and his tongue and his nose nudging up against her, but he pushes a little bit, because fuck she's so close and if he can just give her this right now, it'll somehow make up for a year's worth of terrible, selfish things he's done.
"Ben? Ben....ah, ah, ahh, I think I-I'm—" Her voice breaks and he feels some little burst of energy surge through her, making her whole body shudder.
Right after it happens, it feels like a particularly good dream. She's still gripping his hair as she catches her breath, but it's not like he's trying to move away, anyhow.
It's in the minutes after all those feelings have made a couple circuits around her whole body that reality starts to hit.
It's impossible to go back now. You can't let your singing partner do that to you and then go out on stage and perform "If I Were a Carpenter" on stage the next day like nothing happened.
Not that Ben can play "If I Were a Carpenter" now.
Not that he's even planning to stay.
She isn't sure if that makes the whole thing easier or harder. Maybe after whatever happens next, she won't want to see him in the morning. Maybe it'll feel like a relief if he goes. If he disappears. Like the friction that's been getting under her skin and making her itch since the day they met might just lift away and make everything simpler.
Right. Very likely.
She hasn't been holding onto it for any special reason. It's not about God or being married. Or being afraid—even though she's still a little bit nervous about the things they haven't gotten to yet. Maybe it's like putting down a book at a really good spot because you're almost scared to turn the page and read the next chapter. Sometimes things don't turn out right in novels and you're left wishing that the characters just stayed forever in Chapter 10.
After a few minutes—maybe it's a few minutes, but the whole inside of the bus seems to exist in a place where time doesn't work the right way—Ben finally pushes himself up, so that he's lying by her side again, kinda like how the whole thing started. Between the darkness and lying flat on her back, she hadn't actually seen much. Granted, her eyes were shut pretty tight, too.
He runs his fingers over the modest peaks and valleys of her chest, and if he's unsatisfied by anything that just happened—like how long it took or what she looks like down there—he doesn't let on at all.
Rey doesn't say anything, either, because what in the world are you supposed to say after that?
Thank you?
Why didn't you tell me you could do that?
I need more of everything that just happened and I need it right now?
Rey doesn't feel like a totally different person. Just an altered one. And she's not sure if it's because Ben's special, or they're special together, or maybe there's nothing special about either of them and it's just the circumstance of being trapped together and letting a bunch of pent up frustration boil over. Could be that the exact same thing would've happened if she'd woken up and found Hux sleeping with his magazine falling out of his hand.
The thought just about makes her snort.
Maybe it is a little hard to imagine anyone else lying here, stroking along her ribcage, up the slight curve of her breast, to her collarbone and back down again. It's strange how natural it feels—it doesn't even tickle the way that it ought to.
"Can I take this off?" he asks, pulling at the stiff outer shell of her half-undone dress.
"Please."
"Turn around," he says, with a slight nod of his head, and she sits all the way up and twists at the waist, turning her back to him.
With his left hand, Ben grabs the little rounded zipper pull and tugs down, being careful not to catch the fabric. The material parts like the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments. Han had taken him to see it years ago—his father's version of Sunday School—but this is a thousand times better. Her lower back gets revealed, inch by inch, to the base of her spine and then, well, lower.
Rey crosses her arms and lifts the dress up and over her torso, tossing it over the back of the seat in front of them.
And then it's just her.
She turns her head to look over her right shoulder, a lock of hair barely covering her eye.
Which is good. It's a very alluring distraction to keep him from focusing so obviously on her ass. The empire waist dresses hide her shape too well—someone clearly told her the baby doll silhouette would help sell Sunshine's sweet innocence. He can't remember her ever wearing anything form-fitting enough to show off this particular part of her.
"No one's ever seen me, um...you know…like this, at least." Rey's mouth twists adorably into a series of crooked lines and he's torn between reassuring her and expressing his eternal gratitude for bestowing this honor upon him.
"Are you cold?" is what comes out instead.
"I should be freezing," she says. He reaches his good hand over to touch her shoulder. "I'm not, though. Just—" she tilts her head down and swallows hard "—shaking for other reasons."
Ben pulls at her shoulder and she turns forward again to face him. There are about a thousand things he means to say and they all get caught somewhere between his brain and his throat. He finds himself pushing the lock of hair away from her face, letting his palm rest against her cheekbone.
"You're so—" he looks down into her eyes, so that there's no mistaking it, no way she can't understand it "—you're beautiful."
She's facing away from the weak light streaming in through the window, but even in the darkness, he can see her face soften a little.
"I wanna see you too," she says, pulling at his sweater.
He nods, dropping his good hand down to the hem.
"I might need a hand here—um, literally."
A smile spreads across her face, as she stands up in front of him and pulls his sweater and undershirt over his head in one fluid motion.
"Dang, you really don't spend any time in the sun, do you?" She runs her fingertips over his—apparently very pale—skin, grazing across his moles and assorted imperfections, as he rises to his feet and undoes his button and zipper with his left hand. "I guess you'll get plenty tan in Califo—"
He stops her with a kiss and she seems completely fine with having her observation cut off. His pants drop to the floor and he's left in his boxers, the thin cotton material straining against his plainly obvious erection.
Rey moves her hand down to his waist and a little lower, pausing when her fingers brush up against the hard length that's been nudging against her.
He draws in a choked breath. He doesn't want anything more in the entire goddamned world than for Rey to touch him. To want to touch him.
She glances down, before wordlessly tugging down on the elastic waistband of his shorts until they join the pants in a pile.
He's pleased to hear her mumble a soft "wow" as she traces a line from the base to the tip with her index finger.
Covering her hand with his—and once again, cursing his temper for leaving him without the use of both hands—he demonstrates the stroking motion, up and down the shaft. Of course, it's far slower and gentler than he does it in the privacy of his motel room, but she doesn't need to know that. And he doesn't really want anything more vigorous right now. Much better to take it slowly.
So...he's big.
Not that she's an expert on the subject, but—
Yeah.
Big.
The size of his hands and feet should've been a clue. That's definitely a thing she'd somehow picked up from conversations with other girls. Or at least, from overhearing conversations other girls have with each other.
Once, she'd read this book where the heroine called it "a steel rod covered in velvet." And even though it'd seemed strange and funny at the time, the description makes a lot more sense now. (To be honest, it's still kinda funny—not that this particular moment is the right time to laugh about it.)
Really, there are maybe a hundred things Rey should be contemplating. Fretting over. Second-guessing.
But for some reason, she finds herself returning to the big thought every couple seconds. Maybe because it's so...evident. She can see it. Feel it. Good Lord, she can barely get her hand around it.
How on earth is she going to—
He takes his left hand off hers and tilts her chin up. Until that moment she hadn't even noticed that she's been looking down at her own hand stroking him. Staring, really.
Amateur.
Kaydel wouldn't need a tutorial. A band rat would be so good at this he would lose his mind. She's half-expecting Ben to laugh at her poor technique, when bends his head down enough to kiss her again. His good hand traces her collarbone, while his right elbow hooks around her side, pushing her right up against his chest and stomach. It feels so warm and safe and right that she forgets to keep her hand moving.
If he notices, he doesn't acknowledge it.
Breaking the kiss, he stoops slightly in front of the bench and picks up the wool blanket, wrapping it around both of them.
"I think my theory was correct." He tugs the blanket tighter with his left hand, pulling her closer. "Fewer layers, more body heat."
She gazes up at him, noticing the way the light illuminates one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow.
"Anything to keep warm, right?"
" 'Anything?' "
"Anything." She sounds more confident than she feels.
Ben sits on the bench, using his left hand to pull her down, so she's straddling him with a knee on either side.
"I think it'll be easier like this," he explains. "To keep the weight off my hand."
It's funny—obviously, it can work this way, too. Rey just never pictures it like this. She always envisions the man—some tall, dark, uh, mystery man who is certainly not Ben Solo every single time—on top of her, pinning her down, controlling the pace, the rhythm, dictating the motion. Doing things to her.
But something about being on top of him feels so natural.
She still has the blanket hanging off her shoulders, halfway covering them, like a tiny plaid tent.
The way he gazes up at her is just a shade or two different than the way Kylo Ren looks at Sunshine every night. More intense. Knowing. Like he sees something that she can't when she looks at her own reflection.
"Tell me to stop, if you—"
Rey shakes her head resolutely.
"My whole life, everybody's always treated me like one of the boys. But when I'm on stage with you—the way you look at me...It's the only time I don't feel like someone's kid sister."
The expression on his face right now says everything she needs to know: all he sees is a grown woman.
It takes an attempt or two, and a little awkward fumbling, to get the positioning right. Once they do, Rey slowly lets herself lower down, grabbing his shoulder to steady herself while he guides himself inside her. Everything feels tight at first, like her muscles want to pull themselves taut and resist.
He doesn't tell her to relax, thankfully. Instead he distracts her with kisses down her sternum and over her breasts and she's sweating, but somehow her nipples are the only part of her body reacting normally to the actual temperature.
And Ben seems more than happy to warm them up.
She makes a little inadvertent keening noise at the way he uses his mouth on her—the way it makes her head drop back. It feels wonderfully impure, like something a preacher would holler about.
"Does that feel good?" he murmurs into her skin.
She nods against the side of his face, her chin bumping his ear. The fingers of his left hand dig into her back and pull her closer and she lets herself sink down a little bit further, pushing past her body's twinging resistance.
Ben's breath stutters.
It hurts a little, like a dull pinch, and she's glad he can't see her face because she's probably wincing. But after a spell, it doesn't hurt so bad. Something inside her relaxes and she finds herself exhaling for what feels like the first time in a full minute.
She lets her weight rest on his thighs and he makes a little guttural noise when the muscles in his legs tense up and relax again a few times before everything seems to settle. Ben runs his fingers gently up and down her spine; she nestles hers in his hair, scratching along his scalp in a steady cadence. The flicker of the neon punctuates the darkness with the occasional strange burst of colored light.
They stay like that for awhile, which is also unexpected. For some reason, Rey had pictured sex as more of a "rapid movement" kind of thing—like bunny rabbits. Like an explosion of bottled-up energy. But this stillness is nice. It's luxurious, almost—being held this close, invited to stay in someone's arms, rest her head on a strong, broad shoulder.
The last twenty minutes could provide her with songwriting material for the next twenty years.
He slides his left hand down to her waist and thrusts his hips upward a little bit, making her stomach clench.
"Is that—okay? To move?"
"Y-yeah," she stammers into his ear, as he continues a slow, steady pace, increasing the amount of force ever so slightly each time.
Just as she's starting to work out how to move in tandem with him, she feels the rumble of his voice against her chest.
"Show me how you touch yourself."
Her head whips back up from his shoulder.
"Huh?"
"You touch yourself, don't you?" He gives her a knowing look. "I want to, but I'm down a hand, here. And I want to see you do it, anyway."
He looks up at her with his big pleading eyes and swollen mouth, and it's not as if she can deny him anything now. Rey traces his profile with her fingers, moving between his eyes and down the ridge of his nose to his upper lip. He kisses her fingertips as she lowers her hand all the way down the sliver of space between their bodies, until she's grazing just above where they’re joined. It feels different like this, sitting up instead of lying down on her back in her nightgown. And being watched. And, well...everything else that's happening.
It's almost hard to find the little spot at first, with all the distractions. It's not like pushing a clearly marked button. Ben kisses along her shoulder and up her neck and then he's whispering things about how good she is and how many times he's thought about her doing this exact thing, and asking if she ever touches herself while she's thinking about him.
And she wants to cry out Yes—every single time! but the words feel trapped in her throat and the best she can do is nod and tighten her grip on his back. He thrusts a tiny bit harder and some tingling sensation blazes to life under her fingers, igniting a lick of fire that spreads up and down her limbs. The blanket must've fallen off her shoulders at some point, but she never felt it happen.
It's so much more than any idle fantasy her brain can spin up out of nothing. Her body throbs and pulses and aches and he's too much and too deep and there's an edge somewhere but she can't feel it yet.
Maybe being on top of him makes her feel a little bolder—like she can set the pace, move with him or against him and squeeze a little bit. She can grab a little more control and he can become a little more helpless. The push and pull isn't all that different from singing together.
There's only this tension that keeps swelling and fracturing a little bit, like a crack in a window. Every time she throws her head back and stretches her spine it feels like maybe it'll shatter, but it doesn't. They just keep building it up again together.
She's moaning in a way that sounds an awful lot like a woman in the next motel room, and he's cursing softly under his breath. Rey wants to remember all of it for later—all the dirty words and praises and utterances that aren't in the dictionary at all—but it's getting too hard to think straight.
"Are you—"
"Yeah," she says, nodding vigorously. "Yeah, I'm—I'm—"
He presses his left hand against the base of her spine, and she's not sure how he manages it, but suddenly her knees aren't digging into the seat cushion anymore and a half-second later she's lying on her back with her shoulders chafing against the vinyl upholstery. The whole thing's a lot more like the gauzy vision she'd had in her head of how this would be: Ben hovering over her, her calves hugging his sides, and the ends of his hair brushing her sweaty forehead.
He's rocking into her with more urgency, less restraint. Her fingers are moving quick like she's strumming furiously, bringing herself so close to the brink. Everything's twisted and coiled, until suddenly she can't bear to hold on anymore. It slides out of her grip and everything unwinds in a crazy rush, leaving her trembling underneath him.
Every part of her body feels like Jell-o that hasn't quite set.
It's wonderful.
Ben hasn't had much cause to concern himself with prophylactics on this tour. It's possible there's a rubber somewhere on this bus (actually it's more probable there's a discarded one lurking underneath one of the seats), but he hadn't had the patience or presence of mind to address the situation. And the leap-first, look-later nature of that decision means that he has to pull out at exactly the moment when his body wants to push in as deep as humanly possible.
He does his best to avoid her body when the time comes, grabbing the closest receptacle that doesn't belong to either of them—the suit coat he'd balled up and shoved under her hips about ten minutes earlier. The release itself is pure, unfiltered relief.
They're both sweating, but he reaches down to the floor for the blanket anyway. Maybe it's some protective instinct, some impulse to make up for everything this setting lacks.
To be fair, Rey might not have noticed anything that's happened in the last ten seconds because her eyes are unfocused, staring vaguely at the ceiling and her chest is heaving. He lies down next to her, arranging the blanket over both of them. His right hand is starting to ache, like his body suddenly remembered how to feel pain again.
The faint neon light flickers over her delicate face and he can't stop himself from smoothing her hair a little bit. She looks utterly peaceful, but he doesn't want her to drift off into sleep. Not yet.
Morning will come too soon and everything might be different. Every minute feels precious.
He waits for her to speak first, but it seems to take forever, and his heart is racing and all the words he needs to say just tumble around his brain, waiting to come out.
His patience is rewarded when she finally parts her lips and says:
"Oh my God."
Ben pauses, stifling the laugh he feels in the top of his chest.
"Let's not bring him into this," he replies, after a beat.
The corner of her mouth pulls up into the tiniest little smile and she finally meets his gaze.
"Deal."
He rearranges himself a little bit, pulling her into an embrace with this left arm.
"Was it a lot like all the hundred times you imagined it in your head?" he asks, adopting a casual tone, as if his life doesn't depend on whether or not she regrets what they just did.
"No."
It's all she says.
But her smile gets a little bit wider.