Chapter Text
"Good morning, lovebirds! We gettin' along a little better today?” Dameron moves his eyes between Rey and Ben, like he’s watching them play a game of invisible ping pong. “First thing I need to know is which one of you put that crack in the window on my bus door? Little Miss Sunshine here had one hell of a temper yesterday. I thought for sure we'd come back and find Solo with a black eye."
"You're lucky you didn't come back and find us dead from hypothermia," Rey mutters, softly enough so that Ben can barely hear it.
"Now, now." Captain Charm bends down to retrieve a crumpled up piece of paper from the floor. "It was well above freezing, Sunshine."
He smooths out the note he'd defaced, while giving her an unsubtle once over. It must’ve been the only piece of debris they neglected to pick up.
Rey extends her hand, blocking his path down the aisle.
“Can I have my letter back?” It's technically a question, but her tone is more demanding, than inquiring.
Ben leans slightly forward to catch more of the exchange.
"Thing is, I have a longstanding policy that newcomers need to go through a little ritual.” He lowers himself down onto the seat next to her, pushing into her personal space, using the letter to poke at her arm as he accentuates his points. "And yesterday happened to be the night y’all fell asleep a little too early. I know you don't want to be treated any differently than the guys. Do you?"
"No.” She snatches the letter out of his hand, with a little more vigor than necessary. “You know me. Just one of the boys."
Ben watches him nod approvingly, oblivious to her acidic tone.
"Say, did you manage to get any sleep?"
"Not much,” she answers honestly.
Rey pulls her coat a little tighter around her torso, and Ben is once again torn between wanting that smug bastard to see her neck and knowing what a terrible idea that would be.
"Dang it. Well, maybe you can catch a nap after the matinee." Dameron leaps back to his feet. "Thing is, I knew Solo wouldn't actually do a damn thing. But I’ll bet he was giving you a piece of his mind all night."
Ben notices the corner of her mouth curve up the slightest little amount. Or, at least, he thinks he does.
"Somethin' like that," she agrees, even though he hadn't bothered waiting for her answer. Like some crafty animal stalking his prey, Dameron ambles down the aisle toward the rear of the bus, with a couple of his bandmates filing aboard after him. She steals a glance at Ben's careful, expressionless face, which is probably occluded by a thin cloud of cigarette smoke. "Actually, I think we came together on a few things."
He nearly has a coughing fit, as Dameron cocks his head to the right and looks down at the handkerchief bandage.
"Jesus, Solo," he says, with a shake of his head. Ben takes another drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke vaguely in Dameron's direction. "Looks like the door won," he observes, as he reaches for the suit coat, draped limply over the back of the seat in front of them.
Rey catches Ben's eye, and the owner of the jacket misses the knowing look that passes between them: a pure little moment of human connection. They let it linger until Rey forces her gaze back to the front.
And then it's over.
Sometimes that's all these things are meant to be: sublime and fleeting.
Because if he really considers it in the cold light of day, the truth is that following him could be a terrible mistake. It reads like a cautionary tale on the back of one of her paperbacks: "A promising young singer's career is derailed after a romantic entanglement with the wrong sort of man!"
There's no proof that he can be the right kind of man—the person she writes her songs about. He might be able to play him for two or three minutes at a time, but what happens when all the old demons claw their way to the forefront?
Nightmares don't suddenly stop when someone tells you it's not your fault.
You don't wash your pills down the drain just because a girl loves you.
Not all of them, anyway.
No, he has to admit that he still feels a sense of relief that the bottle is safely tucked away in his coat pocket.
He’ll probably need it later.
Hux stretches out and yawns on the seat in front of him. Maybe he’s Nashville’s most mediocre guitar player because he gets so little sleep at night.
After several long minutes of grandstanding in front of his hangers-on—during which, the others seem to accept at face value Rey’s insistence that they simply slept in separate seats, to an almost insulting degree—Dameron finally takes a seat. Naturally, he selects the one next to Rey and he sits facing the aisle, so that she's not included in their conversation, while also being blocked from moving anywhere else.
To be fair, there’s no reason she’d want to chime in to this scintillating discussion about the merits of various cup sizes.
The bus lurches forward, headed toward the civic center or county auditorium, Masonic Temple, or wherever the hell they're booked today.
It's not that Ben's trying to stare at her. He's just facing forward, same as always. He can't exactly help it if his eyes rest on her profile—the way she watches the dreary Michigan landscape pass, blowing out a big breath every so often.
If he pictures her peering through a little round airplane window, her nose pressed up against the thick glass, well...everyone's entitled to a little bit of hope, aren't they? Even him. Hadn't last night proved that ridiculous miracles happen every so often?
Maybe that’s why he’d torn a page out of his notebook, folded it up, and snuck it in her coat pocket when they were putting their clothes back on.
Anyway, she's the one who keeps turning her head back to catch his eye. She's done it about half a dozen times.
Until Dameron turns his attention back to her.
"Well, the thing is, hon, Solo can't play on that hand. So we'll figure out something for you. Think of it like a promotion. Gettin' called up to the majors."
The thought of him taking all of her raw talent and moxie and absorbing it into his corny pre-packaged brand of showmanship until she’s just a girl holding a tambourine and singing “ahhh”s in the background of his manufactured, corporate-approved singles...it makes him want slam his hand into the door and shatter it this time.
With a little flourish, Dameron stands up, flipping his suit coat around.
"Well, I gotta say, I'm a little dissatisfied by the results of my chemistry experiment." He slides his right arm into the sleeve. "But I guess Solo never did want to follow directions." He shrugs his other arm into the coat. "God, will ya look at that?" he says, doing a half-turn and admiring his reflection in the windows. "Polyester is such a fuckin' miracle on the road."
One of the nice things about being the only girl on tour is that sometimes Rey gets an actual dressing room to herself. Of course, sometimes, in a pinch, it's a janitor's closet. But this one has one of those mirrors with the round light bulbs on the sides and it makes her whole face shine in a way that doesn't match the tight, churning wave of nausea she’s tried to ignore for the last hour.
He’s not here.
No one's come to knock on her door to tell her, but she knows. It’s that sinking feeling, deep in the pit of her stomach. She's all-too-familiar with it.
There's a copy of Cosmopolitan strewn across the counter, with an eyeliner mustache drawn over the model's upper lip.
Rey picks it up.
The model's face is bright and glowing, aside from the extra facial hair. Her breasts are glowing too, and Rey pictures a makeup artist applying light, shimmery powder to the perfect cleavage poking out of the plunging neckline. This is a woman who doesn't need to stuff her bra with socks.
Fashion magazines always feel like they're written in some kind of slang no one ever taught her. She leafs through the pages, skimming over stories that seem utterly foreign (Jobs for Bored, Restless Young Housewives, A Cosmo Girl's Christmas—Beauty, Food, Decorating, All to a Man's Taste), worrisome (How to Be His Last When You're Not His First), or personally insulting (Raquel Welch in Fantastic Holiday Fashions).
But it's an ad that stops her cold. Cheryl Tiegs, on horseback, looking somewhere in the distance, with her blond hair blowing gently, but not covering her face. An array of brand new peachy-colored lipsticks and powders are carefully arranged in the sand. Rey tells herself that it's Cheryl's orange scarf that catches her eye and makes her linger on the page, not the words "California Girl by Clairol."
"Makeup that lets you look like a fresh air fiend," the heading promises. "The Sunshine Makeup comes in every vim-and-vigor shade under the sun. Puff on a little Unshine Powder. Powder off with a Sunshiner Lipstick or Gloss—you'll look like you just licked a fresh fruit popsicle. Meanwhile back at the ranch, take care of your complexion with our lotions, potions, and treats. They help your skin look great—like fresh air and sleep. That's what California Girls are made of."
Tossing the magazine aside, Rey observes her too-brightly-lit reflection. She half-heartedly runs her fingers over cheekbones that don’t look anything like "fresh air and sleep." Certainly not after last night. Half her mind tries to cast herself as a breezy, potions-and-lotions California Girl, while the other half screams that it's a silly detour. Somewhere out there, her parents are still listening to Poe Dameron croon about pretty, big-boned gals in honky tonks.
Believing that has gotten her this far, at least.
She hasn’t managed to take off her coat just yet. Yanking down the zipper to reveal all the unmistakable evidence of last night seems like a thing that could just about push her over the edge. So Rey balls her hands into tight little fists and shoves them in her pockets.
Thirty seconds and then I’ll open my makeup case.
Thirty seconds and I’ll at least think about opening my makeup case.
Her knuckles brush up against something smooth and pliable and flat in her right pocket, and she grabs it in between her fingers and pulls it out.
Neatly creased, lined paper. Thick. Soft from months of being scrawled on and turned over. Better quality than the hotel paper she writes letters on.
Rey forces herself not to picture him carefully removing it from the notebook—the tear is almost as clean as a cut.
His song. Their song?
It hurts just looking at it—his cursive and her not-quite-so-refined lettering mingling together on the page. It's a shame no one'll ever hear them sing it. Not together, anyway.
The best thing to do is push Solo completely out of her mind. Treat the whole thing like some kind of fever dream. A sad radio song come to life. She can perform her simple tunes with anyone—he'd said as much, himself.
There'll be other chances to see the ocean.
Someday.
"Solo’s not here, darlin.’ And I don't expect he'll be back.” Rey stares blankly at Poe as she shuts the dressing room door, while he tells her information she already knows. “But I've already got it all planned out for you.”
“I'm all right singin' by myself, so—”
“Tell you what, kiddo. You could just do a couple songs on your own. That'd be...just fine." He throws his arm over her shoulder, walking her toward the wings. "But let's make lemonade, here. You go out there and sing something that'll tug at the heartstrings a little bit. 'The Ways to Love a Man,' maybe. And try and look real sad about it. ‘My man done me wrong’ and all that. Then we go for the knock out. You follow it up with ‘Take Me.' ”
“Oh, that’s a duet—”
“You’re gonna sing it all by yourself. Both parts. Couple little tears." He stops to brush his thumb across her cheek, while she flinches. "See, you’re already doin’ it. And then stop before the end of the last refrain, like you can’t bear to go on."
"I d-don't think that's—"
"I’m gonna walk out from the left side over there. You turn on the waterworks, if you can. We'll finish the song together. Maybe you swoon a little bit, nice and subtle. And then we’ll sing one of mine. They’ll eat it right up.” He hugs her to his chest a little too tightly. “Welcome to the Charm Offensive, Sunshine. I always wanted a girl backup singer.”
Rey holds her breath until Poe's a safe distance away, filling in Ransolm and Hux on his plans, while Snap strides out onto the stage.
"How're y'all doin' this fine afternoon? It's fantastic to be here in Michigan!" he shouts, into a microphone perched on a stand all dressed up like a candy cane. There's an uninspiring smattering of applause, as the band gets set up. "Is it true that folks here shovel snow to make room for more piles of snow?"
Snap goes for cheap pops with his fill-in-the-blanks local material, while Rey tries to ignore the way her heart is pounding. It's never thumped like this before a performance. Of course, she's never gone out there all alone—not that Ben ever delivered pep talks before their sets. But she'd give anything for him to be standing next to her, with his guitar slung across his back, working his jaw back and forth, adjusting his stupid hat while they wait for their cue.
She hadn’t anticipated that Snap would introduce “Kylo Ren and Sunshine Jones” like he’d memorized a five word announcement by rote months ago and couldn’t make a single adjustment, no matter the circumstance.
Gulping in a breath, Rey makes her way to the candy cane microphone stand, while Snap immediately takes off, probably reaching in his inner jacket pocket for his flask before he's a foot off stage.
“Afternoon, folks,” she says, stepping into the hot spotlight, wondering if the marks on her neck show through her less-than-thorough makeup application.
“Where’s Kylo?” a man’s voice yells from somewhere.
“It’s, uh, just me today. Kylo’s, um—” she squints at the confused, upset faces in the crowd. Had Poe told her how to explain it? Had they gone over this part? “Well he…"
There's a faint boo or two rippling through the crowd.
"I'll be yer boyfriend!" another deep voice shouts.
There's a distinct bead of sweat forming on her hairline as she adjusts the mic stand a little lower.
"But I’m real glad to be here with y’all.”
The spotlight feels like it's burning her skin.
Ignoring the tittering from the audience, she launches into “The Ways to Love a Man,” which forces her to sing lyrics about how "quickly he can slip through your hands" and "one little thing goes wrong, then all at once he's gone."
Funny how she'd written those words without ever understanding just how deep they could cut.
Her speaking voice shakes when she tries her hand at some stage banter, but none of her usual bits work without Ben there to be the straight man. She looks helplessly at Hux, who pretends to be completely immersed in adjusting one of his tuning keys.
The crowd hums with restless energy, so she gives up on the talking and announces that she and the boys will be playing "Take Me" next. Her hands grab at the stiff fabric of her dress like they can't help themselves, as the all-too-brief intro rings out from behind her.
She's never sung it without a partner—never sung it facing the audience, rather than gazing up at a six-foot-two man in a cowboy hat.
"Take me," she warbles, in the biggest voice she can muster.
Take me to your darkest room,
Close every window and bolt every door—"
Lyrics about being "in darkness no more" feel awful coming out of her mouth. Ben's half of the verse sounds flat-out wrong. And Hux doesn't remember not to change the key for a baritone singer who isn't there, and the pace feels sluggish and almost sickening. A funeral dirge.
Even though she’s staring at a theater full of people—all with the same expression of concern mixed with pity on their faces—all she can see in her mind’s eye is Ben, slouching in the back of the bus, giving her this look. This "I've seen you. I know you" kinda look.
“Take me—"
Or gazing up at her with awe and almost disbelief, cupping her cheek in his hand and then touching her everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. With—
"To Siberia—"
—his hands... Ben on top of her, inside her, making her feel everything. Every single little thing she'd ever written about without ever really knowing what it felt like.
"And the coldest weather of the wintertime—"
She shivers a little bit at the fragments of memories that come bursting back to life in her mind. Somehow their edges are already getting singed and burnt away with every passing moment.
"And it would be just—"
Oh God. She'd forgotten this particular line.
"—like spring in C-Calif—”
Rey’s voice hasn’t ever failed her while she’s in the middle of a song, but her lungs just give out, like a truck stuttering to a halt along the side of a lonely dirt road. No sound’s coming out at all.
Hux and the boys are still playing haphazardly, slightly out of rhythm with one another, apparently unsure of what to do. The dramatic moment's not supposed to happen until the second repeat of the verse and, with the spotlight in her eyes, she can’t see where Poe is supposed to be waiting in the wings—if he's even ready to walk out on stage.
The crowd—an sea of muted blacks and dark, shadowy grays—gets louder and louder. It's not just murmurs, but individual voices poking through the din.
She clutches her skirt tighter in her fists, as her eyes well up again. Somewhere, deep in her chest, a giant sob threatens to erupt.
Rey doesn't see the blur coming toward her from the right at first, but she notices a couple people in the audience pointing in that direction.
Poe? She squints. Thank God.
Blinking rapidly does nothing to tame the tears, so she turns her head up stage, away from the crowd, and desperately wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand in a way that’s not at all ladylike.
It doesn't do much good either; there's still a watery film over the world in front of her.
The dark, Poe-shaped blur has a guitar strapped to his back. She can make out the outline of his hat as he takes big, purposeful steps toward her from the right side of the stage. Almost a kind of strut. Except wasn’t he supposed to enter from the left?
And since when does Poe Dameron wear a hat on stage?
She's blinking like crazy as he gets closer and closer and the hollering from the audience starts to become more like a roar.
Maybe she can't see clearly, but she feels him next to her: the little electric hum that flows and crackles between them every time. Like the pop and hiss of a well-loved record spinning on a turntable.
“And it would be just—"
It's not Poe's voice. There's only one man in a million that sounds like that.
"—like spring in California,"
The tears spill over her lower lashes, leaving warm tracks down her cheeks.
"As long as I knew you were mine."
Finally she can see him, standing a couple inches away from her, gazing down into her eyes, his strong features cast in shadow from his hat. But she can still make out a look on his face that she couldn't hope to describe in ten whole bars worth of lyrics.
So this is what it’s like when someone comes back for you.
He leans in further, until his mouth is dangerously close to the microphone, and Rey can't help but tilt her head up and push in a little bit, too, letting the hem of her dress brush against his pants.
Maybe it's pure instinct, having done this part a hundred times before, but she breathes in and finds her voice again.
"Take me," they sing in perfect unison.
"Take me.”
Hux's guitar reverberates in the still air; it sounds particularly ethereal today.
A thousand bewildered people gape at them from the dark auditorium, hanging on whatever’s about to happen next. From somewhere in the crowd, there's a light cough.
Ben is breathing hard, with his dark whiskey eyes focused on hers in a way that makes the entire planet fade away.
His head angles ever so slightly to the right, just out of the way of the microphone screen.
Then down a half inch.
And down a little further.
And—
Rey opens her fingers, unclenching her fists from her dress. Hands shaking only a little bit, she reaches up, almost to his temples, and grabs the brim of his hat, lifting it off the crown of his head and flinging it into the crowd in one swift movement.
"You're late," she says, as he blinks in surprise. Her voice echoes through the speakers.
Ben's eyes rapidly move back and forth across her face, which feels like it's changing its expression every second or so.
"I'm sor—"
Rey doesn’t need to hear the rest. Her hands find his cheeks, bearing an extra day’s worth of stubble, and before she can give it a second thought, she's yanking his head down that extra half inch. His lips—warm and familiar and insistent—find hers, and this time there’s no clumsy smashing. That’s what a night of practice will do.
He properly takes her in his arms—being mindful of his right hand—and she feels her shoulders tip backward at an angle that’d feel dangerous if any other man was holding her.
Rey can’t rightfully say she’s ever been weak in the knees before this moment. It’s like every corny, romantic song she’d ever sighed over and tried to rewrite in her own words.
Except this is about a hundred times better because she doesn’t need to imagine it. She doesn’t need to put herself in some other girl’s nicer shoes and make believe for three minutes. She doesn’t need to tap her pen against a motel notepad, picturing what’d it be like to have her tall, taciturn singing partner sweep her up in his arms (all right, his one good arm) and kiss her until her lips look bee stung.
It’s probably a bit indecent for an afternoon show, but Rey has a feeling their tenure with Captain Charm’s tour is coming to a close, anyhow.
Might as well go out with a bang.
At some point—maybe it’s fifteen seconds later or just as many minutes—they come up for air, accompanied by a chorus of hoots and hollers. Somewhere out of the corner of her eye, Poe Dameron stares daggers at them, with his hands on his hips.
"See how much easier that is without a hat?" she says, just a little louder than a whisper, catching her breath. “You came back.”
“I’m so fucking in love with you. I couldn’t—”
Rey grabs hold of his tie and tugs down until they’re kissing again.
“Are you ever going to let me finish a sentence?” he asks, covering the microphone with his left hand.
She shakes her head. “No one’s ever been in love with me before. I got no idea what I’m doin.’ ”
“Me, neither.”
He has this incredulous sort of smile on his face and Rey spends an extra few seconds admiring all the little details in his expression. All the little things that add up to a perfect swell of emotion.
But he steps back up to the mic before she can capture the whole snapshot.
"Ladies and gentleman, I apologize for being tardy this afternoon." Ben lifts the leather strap over his head and places the neck of his guitar in Rey’s left palm. It feels heavy and solid in her hand. “Folks, this is a new song. We just finished it last night, as a matter of fact."
"Technically, we finished this morning," she adds, sliding the strap over her shoulder and running her thumb across the dark, glossy finish.
"And Sunshine is gonna play it for us." Ben tilts his head away from the microphone once more. “Remember the lyrics?”
Rey twists a little bit so she’s facing away from the audience, before tucking her hand down the neckline of her dress and into her bra. It’s immodest, but she’s also never claimed to possess fine manners.
He watches with curiosity as she pulls out a neatly followed notebook page.
Handing it over to him, she whispers, “Doesn’t work as good as socks,” before arranging her fingers around the neck of his guitar. “I just might run away with this thing. And its owner.”
Ben gives her a look that makes her wish they were huddled under a blanket inside a dark bus rather than standing, fully clothed inside a bright spotlight.
On the other hand, it’s really nice to see his face, all lit up.
"I promise I'll never leave you hanging again, Sunshine."
GRAND RAPIDS—The Michigan leg of Poe Dameron’s start-studded tour promised some holiday surprises, and boy did the so-called “Charm Offensive” deliver. The show got off to a rousing start with tinsel-tinged set by Luke Skywalker's former backing band, The Porgs. Dallas disc jockey Snap Wexley let loose with a Christmas-themed variation on last hit's summer smash "Snappin’ It!," reworked as “Wrappin’ It!” The ever-capable "Captain Charm" didn't disappoint, playing a rollicking set that highlighted his extremely confident allure.
But perhaps the act that caused the biggest sensation was the are-they/aren't-they sweethearts Kylo Ren and Sunshine Jones, who treated the Michigan crowd to an absolute doozy of a smooch, before debuting a brand new song, "When You’re Next to Me." The intimate, folk-infused tune featured Miss Jones playing a pared-down guitar arrangement while harmonizing with Mr. Ren, who appeared to have a bandage on his hand. A rep for New Empire had no comment on what might presumably be the duo's next single.
CLEVELAND—After setting off country music fireworks at the December 17 matinee of Poe Dameron's star-studded tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the twosome of Kylo Ren and Sunshine Jones were conspicuously absent from the evening show, and indeed, have missed subsequent engagements the following three nights in Cincinnati, Canton, and Columbus.
During a recent appearance on WKYC's Country Jamboree to promote his upcoming stop at Cleveland's Public Music Hall, Dameron declined to speculate on the whereabouts of his tourmates.
"I say it every night, Cal, it's never a dull moment. Part of the problem with having a girl singer around, right? You put a rooster in with a hen, she stops laying eggs." Despite Mr. Ren and Miss Jones flying the coop, Captain Charm seemed to have no worries about filling the gap. "The tour can get along just fine with more Poe Dameron. Better, in fact."
"Holy—" Rey has her nose pressed up against the thick double paned glass of the little rounded window. "Look at those mountains."
She elbows Ben in the ribs and he closes the copy of Valley of the Dolls she'd forced him to purchase at the airport bookshop. She's poked him about a dozen times, mostly to point out clouds. But peeking over her shoulder, he has to admit that the view from where he's sitting is pretty spectacular.
They hadn’t gotten on the plane right after the show. As much as Ben had longed to take a cab directly to the airport, there was someone Rey wanted to see in Detroit.
And it turns out that there are plenty of very nice hotels there, with fluffy pillows, crisp sheets, and room service—and thicker walls than the motel rooms they'd grown accustomed to on the road (although the guests in the neighboring room had seemed to disagree).
Ben had insisted the expense was worth it because he could write it off as a business expense, due to the number of new song ideas they’d generated.
They’d held three days of very productive songwriting sessions before booking the flight.
It's the first time in over a year that he hasn't popped a handful of Valium in order to get on a plane. He’d thought maybe he'd need to be the one reassuring Rey—but everything is a delightful novelty to her, from the compartmentalized tray of food with tiny salt and pepper shakers, to the stewardess' colorful uniforms. She's even thrilled at every nauseating bit of turbulence.
None of it should come as a surprise. It's not as if he's even known her to be afraid of anything.
She holds his hand anyway.
