Chapter Text
Ben was used to getting up early.
After all, the London Stock Exchange opened at 8 a.m., and Snoke had always expected Ben to be in the office well before the opening bell.
But just because Ben was used to something, didn’t mean he was happy about it. And he was definitely not happy about standing behind a till at 6 a.m. in an ill-fitting white button-up and red baseball cap selling coffee and pastries to the same type of sad fucks he used to send to get him coffee.
But that had been before. Before he’d walked out of First Order Management in a blaze of glory and burned bridges. Before Snoke had had him blacklisted at every hedge fund, investment bank, and private equity firm in the City of London. Before he’d gotten so bored sitting around his flat, watching his bank balance decline, that he’d taken the only job Snoke hadn’t managed (or, more likely, hadn’t bothered) to block him from: Team Member at Pret A Manger.
At approximately £9 per hour, however, things still weren’t looking great for Ben’s bank account. He probably only had another month or two before he’d have to swallow his pride and tap into his trust fund.
So much for making my own way in the world , he thought with a sigh. At least he didn’t have to worry about deportation. He’d gotten his settlement status while still working at First Order, so he was now free to waste his fancy Oxbridge degrees at any “unskilled” jobs he liked.
“Er, Ben?”
Ben looked down to see his Team Leader, Mitaka, timidly trying to get his attention. “Just wanted to remind you about the Pret Behaviors. Pret Team Members are happy and positive at all times to give our customers the best possible experience. It’s an integral part of our brand.”
Ben stared blankly. “You don’t think I’m happy and positive?” he deadpanned after an uncomfortably long silence.
“Er, uhh…” Mitaka was trembling. “I would never presume—It’s just that, um, just now you had kind of a distant, grim look and… It wasn’t a big deal, of course, but… well, if our corporate mystery shopper had seen it, I’m not sure he would be as keen.”
Ben plastered a toothy grin on his face. “Better?” he asked through his teeth.
Mitaka took a quick step back. “Maybe you could, um, tone it down a bit? Something warm, but a bit less… aggressive?” Ben adjusted his face slightly. “We’ll work on it,” Mikaka said just before fleeing to the safe embrace of the black-shirted baristas across the store.
Ben dropped the smile as soon as Mitaka’s back was turned and tried to form his face into something less deranged. He didn’t actually want to scare off customers the way he’d scared off his Team Leader. He needed this job. Not for the money, per se, but because he needed the distraction; too much time spent in his own head wasn’t good for Ben. And just because Mitaka was too afraid to fire him, didn’t mean the higher-ups would be.
Unfortunately, even with his job on the line, genuine happiness was too great an ask for Ben. Instead, he tried to think about what a happy person might do. Maybe if he copied enough of their behaviors, he’d be able to convince his managers that he properly embodied the Pret culture. ”Use personal phrases that you are comfortable with and treat customers as if they are guests in your own home,” he recalled from the training manual.
“Good morning,” Ben tried when the next customer approached. “Nice weather, isn’t it?”
“Well, for now at any rate,” sniffed the old woman in front of him. “They say it will be tipping down by lunchtime.”
Ben immediately regretted his attempt at cheery small talk. He was, ostensibly, a native-English speaker, but he’d never successfully managed a weather conversation with a Brit. It seemed like such an innocuous topic, yet he always managed to say the wrong thing. Or to run out of things to say entirely. How many ways could you talk about the rain? If you were British, apparently hundreds.
He forced himself to smile and handed the woman her change. “My weather app isn’t predicting rain until Wednesday,” he tried to reassure her. It didn’t work. The woman looked offended by his contradiction and a frosty silence ensued while she pocketed her change and scurried out of the shop.
He didn’t have a chance to dwell on the failed interaction, however, because they were suddenly very busy. The morning commuter rush had arrived. In fact, it was another couple of hours before Ben had enough downtime to overthink. And by that point, the weather conversation was long-forgotten. Instead, Ben took the opportunity to poke at a much more familiar point of pain: his rejection during last week’s taping of Naked Attraction.
It hadn’t been a surprise, exactly. Every elimination round Ben had felt sure he’d be the one asked to leave. But he hadn’t expected to feel so disappointed when it finally did happen. Probably because he hadn’t expected to like Rey as much as he did.
He thought back to his exit interview.
“Of course I’m disappointed,” a naked Ben had told the camera. “She’s beautiful and I wanted the chance to get to know her better. But I’m not surprised. She said Orange looked like a movie star. Of course, she was gonna pick him. Do I regret the experience? Yeah,” he’d ruefully confessed. “Because now I know what I’m missing out on.”
Ben had signed up for the show as part of a self-destructive tear. He knew, once the episode aired, that it would negatively impact his career prospects and relationship with his family, but he’d done it anyway. Hell, for Ben, the fallout had been most of the appeal. But he hadn’t been prepared for how it would ruin him personally. Something about Rey had worked itself under his skin and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. It was a lot. Too much. He was afraid he’d developed an unhealthy fixation.
That smile! Those freckles! That voice! he thought, scrubbing a hand over his face.
At some point, his fixation must have turned into a full-blown hallucination without him noticing because suddenly Ben was sure he could hear Rey’s voice. Actually, physically hear it.
“50p for one banana!?!” it cried.
What a weird phrase for his mind to conjure...
“They’ve got to be kidding! I can get them five for a quid on special at Tesco,” she continued, her voice clear as day.
Ben’s head jerked up.
Fuck.
He was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed him yet, too busy complaining to her friend about price gouging and produce, but it was only a matter of time. She was in his queue. He suddenly had the overwhelming urge to run.
What if she didn’t recognize him? Or worse, what if she was dating that fucker in the orange pod?
Ben looked around for Mitaka, his brain screaming at him to feign an emergency so he wouldn’t have to face her, but the Team Leader seemed to be avoiding his eye. Ben had no choice but to continue working. The customer in front of Rey walked up to the till and ordered a coffee and a croissant.
“Just don’t buy a banana,” Ben heard Rey’s friend say as he was fishing the croissant out of the pastry case.
“I won’t buy a banana,” Rey affirmed. “But it’s the principle of the thing! Someone else will buy a banana and they’ll have been taken advantage of.”
Ben couldn’t help but smile. Now that he was making just above the living wage, he agreed it was fucking dumb to spend 50p on one banana. (Nevermind that he kept “forgetting” to cancel his laundry service, despite having a combo washer/dryer right in his flat… The dryer didn’t work well! His socks always came out damp!) But bananas were Pret’s best-selling item. A lot of dumbfucks were “being taken advantage of,” as Rey had so charitably put it.
“Here’s your croissant,” Ben muttered to the middle-aged man standing just ahead of Rey in line. He must have also been eavesdropping on her conversation because he was sheepishly placing a banana back in its basket.
“Sorry. What was that?” the man replied, glancing up once the banana was returned. “I didn’t hear you. Please, speak up!”
Ben barely suppressed his scowl. “Here is your croissant,” he repeated again, only slightly louder but with each word carefully enunciated.
“American, eh?” the man asked, his voice at a volume that was sure to draw attention. Ben clenched his jaw. “What brought you across the pond?”
“Work,” Ben gruffed, shutting down any further conversation. The man looked affronted as he handed over his payment. “I thought you lot were supposed to be friendly,” he bit back sharply.
Ben wasn’t sure if he meant Americans or Pret employees, but either way, he knew he wasn’t being a very good representative. “Sorry,” he offered as he ran the man’s card. He handed it back with the warmest, “Have a nice day,” he could muster. The man just gave him a pitying look.
As soon as the man was out of the queue, Ben shifted his attention back to Rey. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it was still a shock to see her looking back at him, her hazel eyes wide and her mouth adorably gaping. “Ben?” she cried.
Well, at least she remembered him.
“Did you just call him Ben?” yelped the woman beside Rey. “As in the Ben?”
Ben furrowed his brow. The Ben? What the hell did that mean? And why was Rey staring at him like that? Like she couldn’t believe it was really him?
Rey was ignoring her friend in favor of continuing to hold his gaze, the hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. Eventually, though, her friend’s exclamation seemed to register. After a beat too long, Rey pulled her eyes away from him to glare at the other woman. “Rose!” she scolded, a significant look passing between them.
Ben did not find it comforting.
Rose (Ben assumed that was her name) was grinning. “It’s very nice to meet you, Ben,” she said, turning to face him. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Ben frowned. “Oh, um, okay,” he said, unsure how else to respond. Why would Rose have heard anything about him, let alone a lot? Had Rey talked about all of her contestants? Or was there something about Ben, in particular, that warranted mention?
His dumbo ears came straight to mind and Ben felt his face getting hot. “Um, what can I get for you two?” he asked, suddenly desperate for this transaction to end so he could take his rest break.
“Two filter coffees in our own mugs, please,” Rey said with a smile that made Ben’s insides go funny. “They’re 49p, right?”
“Yes,” he replied, trying his best to sound professional. “I just need to see your cups—”
“And your contact information,” Rose added.
“Rose!” Rey squeaked. (Fuck, she was cute when she got worked up.)
“My… contact information?” a bewildered Ben repeated, looking between Rey and Rose.
“Forget it,” Rey told him, blushing furiously.
“I’m quite serious!” Rose insisted, getting up on her tiptoes to lean over the glass counter separating her from Ben. “Rey’s spent ages trying to contact you, but you don’t have any socials!”
What? Rey had been trying to contact him? Why? He glanced over at the woman in question and saw her nervously chewing her lip.
Ben struggled to reconcile this suddenly tentative version of Rey with the confident, self-assured woman he’d met at the taping. Was it him? Did seeing him again make her uncomfortable? he wondered. But if that were the case, why would she have spent so much time trying to get in touch with him (at least according to her friend)?
Rather than vocalize any of these questions, Ben just told her, “Uh, yeah. I don’t have any social media. I don’t like being so—” he grasped around for the right word. “Available,” he finally said.
“I figured,” Rey replied, seeming to deflate a bit. “We’ll just take those coffees, then, and bugger off.”
Ben hurried to correct himself. “I’m not talking about you!” he cried with a bit too much intensity. “I wouldn’t mind being available to you! It’s everyone else I’m trying to avoid!”
Rey’s eyes went wide and Ben cringed at how awkward he was. He’d been in such a hurry to fix the hurt look on her face, that he’d gone ahead and made himself sound like a creep. Not that it wasn’t more or less true—but it wasn’t the type of thing he should be confessing to a woman he’d only met once before and who’d already explicitly rejected him.
But Rey’s initial surprise quickly transformed into the exact smile Ben had been obsessing over for several days. “Alright,” she said. “Then I’ll take your mobile number in addition to the coffees.”
Ben’s heart gave a hopeful little tug, but he tried to temper his expectations. What if Rey wanted his number for completely innocent reasons? Maybe she was planning a trip to the States and wanted to ask him about driving on the right side of the street. He didn’t want to assume anything.
“Oh. Um. Sure,” he said, looking down at his till so he wouldn’t have to meet her eye. “But, uh, what for?”
“Well, I was hoping to sell your information to one of those tele-scammers. Make a few quid,” Rey teased. Ben didn’t react. “I’m joking,” she clarified, before taking a deep breath. “I was hoping to get to know you, Ben. Whatsapp you, ring you, maybe even make plans to meet up.”
“What about Moe?”
There was a long pause. “Do you mean Poe?” she finally asked, sounding bewildered. Ben kept looking at his till but offered Rey a tiny nod. “Er, well, it turns out Poe and I get on better as friends. There was no spark on our date. You and I, on the other hand… Well, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. And definitely not in a friendly way.”
Ben looked up. “Really?” he asked, hardly believing her words.
“Really,” she answered, her cheeks flushed with pink. “I know we don’t really know each other, and maybe I’m coming on too strong, but—”
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, either,” Ben confessed all at once.
Rey grinned and Ben couldn’t help but smile back. There was something about Rey that drew him in like a moth to a flame. When he was with her, he was oblivious to everything else around him. Until—
“Thank you for addressing our concerns about your banana pricing!” Rose was suddenly loudly proclaiming. It startled Ben. To be honest, he’d kind of forgotten she was there. “I was ready to boycott your shop and tell my large social network to do the same! But you’ve convinced me otherwise. What a valuable employee you are!”
Had she just lost her fucking mind?
Ben looked to Rey for guidance on what to do, but she didn’t seem concerned about her friend. Instead, she was surreptitiously trying to direct Ben’s attention behind him.
Oh! Suddenly, Rose’s outburst made a lot more sense.
Ben casually glanced over his shoulder, only to find Mitaka standing close by, watching them. When he noticed Ben looking, he offered an encouraging smile and said, “Brilliant, Ben! I was wondering what was taking so long, but now I see you were just providing the high-level of customer service Pret is so known for!” He took a step closer and lowered his voice so Rey and Rose couldn’t hear. “Do try and remember, though, our goal of service within 60 seconds. I realize this is a special circumstance. And you’ve done the right thing, but… just keep it in mind.” He returned to his regular volume, “Carry on!”
Ben, Rey, and Rose all watched as Mitaka stepped away to micromanage another corner of the shop. As soon as he was out of earshot, Ben turned to Rose. “Thank you,” he said, genuinely.
“I couldn’t let you get in trouble,” Rose responded. “What if you took it out on Rey and decided not to give her your number? She’d never stop whinging!”
Rey rolled her eyes. “Please don’t listen to her,” she said. “But we really shouldn’t keep you any longer.” She glanced around and seemed relieved to find the shop mostly empty and the queue behind Ben’s till non-existent. (The lunch rush was still an hour away.)
Rey handed him a quid. Their fingers touched briefly as Ben took the coin, and he felt something spark between them. Neither one seemed willing to break the contact until Rose very pointedly cleared her throat. Ben felt his ears go red as he pulled away to ring them up. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there, gazing at her and barely touching her hand. He seemed to lose track of time whenever Rey was around.
Right before handing back her change, he scribbled his number onto the receipt. Rey pocketed it, along with her 2p. “I’ll be in touch,” she whispered with a conspiratorial smile. Then, much louder, “Thanks again for being so helpful! We’ll certainly be back. And we’ll tell our friends, as well!”
“Have a nice day!” Ben told her, for once not having to fake any warmth.
He watched as they exited (trying very hard not to ogle Rey’s ass). Just as the door was closing behind them, he thought he heard Rose say, “Poe was right. He’s smitten!”
Ben was too busy blushing to worry over the mention of Poe.
___
A couple of weeks later, Rey sat on a very uncomfortable tufted leather sofa on the set of Naked Attraction, waiting for filming to begin. She hoped the interview would be short. Not only did she not want to sit on this sofa for long, but she was eager to finish her last contractual obligation to Studio Lambert. After this, Rey would be free—well, at least until the episode aired and friends, neighbours, and strangers alike all saw her naughty bits.
“Action,” Pryde called, and Ben stepped into the frame. He leaned down to give Rey a quick hug. She squeezed back and tried her best to look like she hadn't spent the last fourteen-odd nights in his bed.
“How’s it going?” Ben asked, taking the seat beside her.
Rey gave him an amused look. “Oh, very well,” she told him, play-acting a reunion for the sake of the cameras. Pryde had told them not to seem too familiar—at least not right away. They needed to keep the viewers in suspense. (Had they seen each other since filming? Were they together? Had they gotten naked again?) In truth, since that day in Pret, Rey and Ben had hardly spent any time apart.
Rey turned to face the camera, ready to end the charade. “So we should probably explain something…” she began.
Ben huffed out a laugh.
“This isn’t Poe, who I picked and who would normally be here for this interview. This is Ben, who I eliminated.” Ben reached out and enveloped one of her hands in his. “Poe and I went on our date but we decided we were better off as mates. We’ve actually met up several times since then, but always just as friends.” She looked at Ben. “He’s a cracking mate, wouldn’t you say?”
Ben looked back, his face carefully blank. “Yeah, he’s fine,” he tepidly offered.
Rey laughed. She knew Ben wasn’t particularly fond of Poe but she kept hoping he would change his mind—especially since she quite liked the other bloke. He was cheeky and could get them into all the best clubs and lounges. Rey may have been more of a pub-person than a club-person, but it didn’t hurt to have well-connected friends.
Not to mention Poe was the one who’d convinced her to pursue Ben… Although, she hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Ben that.
Fortunately, Ben was much more favourably disposed towards Finn and Rose. They hadn’t hit it off with him quite as quickly as they had with Poe, but they’d made progress. At the very least, Finn and Rose both seemed to like Ben better than any of her past boyfriends.
Rose still had some reservations about Ben’s “brooding quality,” but that didn’t matter to Rey. She was well-practiced at ignoring Rose’s opinion of her romantic life. The one time she’d prioritised Rose’s feelings over her own, she’d ended up rejecting Ben. It was only thanks to their fortuitous trip to Pret A Manger that she’d been able to correct that mistake.
Rey looked back at the camera. “A week or so after the show, I randomly ran into Ben. Turns out, we’d both been doing a fair bit of thinking about the other. We exchanged contact info, got to talking, and we ended up meeting up.”
Rey smiled, thinking of that first date. They’d just gone for a pint, but the banter had flowed so easily and the chemistry had been so electric she’d know quite early where the date would end up.
____
“I could see you all fondling yourselves.”
“What?!”
“The pods are backlit. I could see you all in silhouette, jiggling yourselves around.”
“No! The producer promised us the screens were completely opaque!”
Rey could barely speak for laughing. "Definitely not," she wheezed, watching the brick shithouse of a man across from her turn bright pink. (It was adorable.) "Oh, come off it! You of all people shouldn't be embarrassed by that."
Somehow Ben turned even pinker. "Because I made a much bigger fool of myself later on when I got, um, excited in front of you, Bazine, and the entire crew?" he asked sheepishly.
Another laugh exploded out of Rey. She'd honestly forgotten about that, but remembering it now caused her to shift in her seat. "No," she insisted, uncrossing and recrossing her legs beneath the table. "Because your equipment is more than adequate. Much more, in fact."
Ben continued to blush, but at least he looked pleased.
"Oh. Well, I'm glad you think so," he said.
They settled into a comfortable silence, occasionally offering the other a shy smile over the top of their pint glass.
“This has been really nice,” Rey offered after finishing off her cider. “I’m really enjoying myself.”
“Me too,” Ben replied, leaning across the table to get closer to her.
Rey mirrored the move. “Oh yeah?” she teased. “Is it because of me or your lager?”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Me?” she guessed with a grin.
Instead of answering, Ben closed the gap between them and pressed his lips against hers. Rey eagerly returned the kiss. As they were still in the middle of a crowded pub and kissing across a table, they were forced to keep things fairly PG, but Rey could feel herself getting excited.
When they finally broke apart Rey was grinning. Even Ben looked uncharacteristically happy. “This has been such a good night,” she told him. He nodded, his heavy-lidded gaze still lingering on her lips. “I don’t want it to end,” she admitted, placing her hand on his arm.
Ben glanced down at her hand and then up to meet her eyes. “We could have one more drink at my place if you’d like,” he hedged.
Rey’s grin grew even wider. She felt lightheaded and giddy, but it wasn't from the alcohol. “I’d like that, yeah,” she coyly replied.
As soon as she said it, Ben nearly went arse over tit trying to rush out of the pub. Rey followed close behind.
They made it back to his flat at a record-breaking pace, both buzzing with excitement to get on with the evening.
But when they reached his door, Ben paused. He looked Rey in the eye and asked her seriously, “Are you sure you want to come in?”
“It’s just a drink, Ben,” she laughed.
He gave her an almost predatory once-over, and Rey felt a shiver run up her spine. “We both know that’s not true,” he said.
She took her time replying. Not because she had any doubts about what she was about to do, but because she wanted to tease out the moment. With every beat of silence, Ben looked more and more feral, like he could barely hold himself back from ravishing her. She loved it. So she let the pause linger, letting him think she was still considering and building his anticipation up to a fever pitch. Finally, she leaned in and whispered, “I want to come in.”
They stumbled inside Ben’s flat in a flurry of kissing and touching and groping. The pretense of “one last drink" immediately forgotten.
Rey thought Ben was leading them toward his bedroom, but she was too busy kissing and undressing him to get any real sense of her surroundings. She imagined them moving through the flat, tossing clothing behind them like a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to the front door. Even that simple thought was pushed from her mind, however, as soon as Ben managed to unhook her bra, tossing it aside and wrapping his pillowy lips around her bare tit.
"Oh, God," she moaned, falling back onto something soft. (His bed, she assumed.)
"Fuck, Rey," she heard him reverently whisper. She opened her eyes to see him looming above in nothing but his pants, his eyes raking over every inch of her now-naked form. She reached up and helped him shuck off the last bit of his kit, eager to see his much-talked-about todger in the flesh once again.
It was even bigger than she remembered.
Rey scurried into position, too keen to feel intimidated by his size. That was until she tried actually impaling herself on his instrument of mischief.
“Bloody fucking hell,” she moaned as she clenched around him, his plonker only halfway buried in her fanny.
Ben was groaning, his grip tight on her hips. “Rey—FUCK—you’re so tight!”
“I think you’re just fucking massive, mate!” she countered, before burying her face in his pillow to smother her cries.
It took some patience and perseverance, but they finally got it all the way in, Ben politely giving Rey several moments to adjust. Rey, though, was practically salivating. She needed to know if he was as good at wielding his pork sword as she’d been imagining… She started pushing back against him, forcing him to move.
Ben groaned and started thrusting against her.
He was somehow even better than she been imagining!
“Oh, yes! Oh, God! Oh, Ben!” she cried out, as he rammed her with his purple parsnip, over and over again. She couldn’t believe that she’d almost missed out on this! If she hadn’t run out of tea that morning… if Rose hadn’t suggested a stop at Pret… if Pret hadn't offered 49p filter coffees with your own reusable cup, allowing perma-skint Rey to justify the extravagance… if Ben hadn’t been on shift…
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the what-ifs from her mind. She focused instead on the feeling of Ben pressed up against her, shagging her brains out.
When she opened her eyes and looked back at him, he smiled and leaned down to kiss her. Rey had been close before, but kissing Ben while feeling him inside her was enough to bring her off and push her over the edge. Another couple of thrust and she was throwing back her head, screaming out his name.
It didn’t take long for Ben to follow.
Afterward, as they were lying in bed, both of them trying to catch their breaths, all Rey could think about was how glad she was that she’d gone on Naked Attraction.
She didn’t regret anything.
And neither did Ben.
____
“We’ve been seeing quite a bit of each other,” Rey told the camera, letting the double entendre sit out there for a minute.
“Yeah, we have,” he agreed with a knowing smirk .
“It’s been really good.”
“Cute,” he offered.
“Cute,” she laughed. “That’s a word for it. We’re cute. And I don’t think either one of us is seeing anyone else.” She gave Ben a questioning look.
“I’m not,” he assured her.
“I’m not either.” Where would she find the time? They spent all their free time together
“I don’t want to.”
“No, neither do I.”
“So, I guess… that makes you my girlfriend?”
Rey felt her cheeks go pink and her heart jump up into her throat. She gawked at Ben for a minute, before finally remembering where they were. She turned to the camera. “We haven’t talked about this at all!” she told it like it was her confidant.
“We’re talking about it now,” Ben said, never taking his eyes off Rey.
“I…” Rey took a moment to gather her thoughts. She’d been in a lot of relationships over the last five years, each one more disappointing than the last. Ben hadn’t been in any. But here he was propositioning her on the telly for all to see.
And here she was excited at the prospect of finally getting it right.
She grinned goofily at him. “Of course I’m your girlfriend,” she said as if there had never been any question.
Ben’s face lifted in that way it only ever did for her and he stooped down to kiss her squarely on the lips. Rey kissed him back a few times. When they finally pulled apart, she looked back at the camera.
“This is my boyfriend, Ben.”