Chapter Text
The girl smiled up at him, blonde hair a mess, lips swollen, skin flushed. At least he’d finally gotten her onto the porch, the door between them as he leaned around it. Still smiling, damn it, and doing that thing where she leaned in. He could see down her little cherry printed sundress. The mark he sucked between her tits a few hours prior played peek-a-boo with the slightly stretched out neckline, threatening to appear just above the sweet little bow.
“I had fun,” she said. Fuck right she did, because he knew what he was doing.
“Yeah, it was good.” Good enough.
“Well, I should—”
“Here, take that with you,” he said, offering the gift bag he’d had ready to go by the door. “For the ride.” As if on cue, the ride-share turned the corner and slowed at the curb.
“For me? That’s so sweet, you shouldn’t have! What is it?”
Jesus.
A hand darted out from behind him as his roommate ducked under his arm, peering into the bag. “Ooh, you got the good snacks, he must have had a really great night!” Rey said, smiling with all her teeth and shoving the bag at the woman (something with an S…Samantha? Sharon? Fuck, no…Sarah! That was it: ‘Sarah, with an H’).
“Thanks for fucking Ben!” Rey chirped, elbowing him out of the way. She started closing the door as Sarah-with-an-H’s face fell, confusion ruffling her brow as she began to pout. “He had a great time, but he has to get ready for work now,” Rey half-shouted at the poor woman. “Enjoy your parting gifts! Bye-ee!” The door clicked shut. “I thought the two of you were going to stand there all day,” Rey muttered, leaning against the door and glaring up at him. “Well, get a move on, work awaits,” she said after a moment, making a shooing gesture.
“I don’t work today.”
“No, but I do,” she said, shouldering past him and making a beeline for the bathroom—the bathroom with the only fucking shower. He’d like to wash Sarah-with-an-H off of him before breakfast.
“I’ll have waffles, thanks!” Rey called over her shoulder as she pushed the door almost closed.
“Damn it, Rey!”
She laughed as she peed, which he knew because: door open and even if he couldn’t see (not that he tried), he could hear. Little menace didn’t even flush as she turned on the shower and stripped the rest of the way, pajamas (underwear and his t-shirt, doubtless stolen from the laundry like so many others) probably left lying abandoned in the middle of the floor, where they’d be until one of them (Ben) was annoyed enough to throw them in the laundry and restart the whole stealing his clothes and flaunting that fact cycle anew.
He ran a hand through his hair, scratched the back of his head, and frowned. Ugh, he smelled like Sarah’s body spray. Okay, not just that, but the sickly-sweet scent of dead flowers and baby powder or whatever combination it was made his stomach churn.
He stretched and scratched his stomach, then followed the path Rey had taken to the bathroom. “Gotta piss,” he mumbled, not that she could hear him over the spray and her own humming.
“Can you hand me that new body wash?”
Or maybe she could.
He grunted as her wet hand stuck out from behind the curtain, and he reached up to the shelf above his head with his free hand. He frowned at the label of the bargain-brand 3-in-1, but handed her the bottle. “You could get at least get those ‘dollar-store dupes’ you keep making me listen to people talk about on that watch app.”
“Clock app,” she said, and he chuckled a little at the note of annoyance in her tone, but he managed not to piss on the seat or outside the toilet (even if Rey likely wouldn’t notice, or mention if she did, he wasn’t an animal). “They weren’t in stock, and this was on clearance!”
She must have started washing because his nose burned and suddenly, he missed what’s-her-name’s awful body spray. “Jesus, I can smell why!” he mumbled, shaking off and tucking his dick back into his pajama pants. She wouldn’t care if he walked around stark naked, but he did have some sense of self-preservation. Naked cooking was not something he wished to try.
Ben waited until it sounded like she was rinsing her hair and flushed the toilet, laughing as she shrieked and jumped back. He looked at her in the mirror over the sink as she jerked the shower curtain back and glared. “Fucking wanker! Could have boiled my arse!”
He snorted. She got all British, sometimes, when she was annoyed. It was cute. “The water doesn’t get that hot, Rey.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped back under the spray. Ben stood there a moment, waited until she started washing again, then reached around the curtain and slapped her wet ass. She yelped at the sting. “I’ll make you waffles but you have to eat fruit!”
She swore creatively as he walked away. Won that round—point to Solo.
Ben dragged his feet into the kitchen and washed his hands again. Waffles, huh? Yeah, okay. Waffles. He rummaged in the fridge and pantry, gathering his ingredients while the waffle iron heated. “Rey!” he yelled, “Where the fuck is my cutting board?”
“How should I know?” she muttered, rounding the corner into the small kitchen and clambering onto a stool at the island breakfast counter. He opened the dishwasher and gave her a pointed look. She shrugged. “It’s glass, Ben. I’m not handwashing it.”
There were a lot of things he could say to that but none that were worth it. Instead, he grunted and washed the assortment of berries they needed to use soon-as-in-today. “Almond or vanilla?”
“Mm, I think lemon!”
He capped the strawberries and huffed. “Not one of the options.”
“Ugh, finnnnne! Vanilla, then.” She paused. “Chocolate chips?”
“No.”
“You’re no fun!”
“Not what Sarah said,” he muttered.
Rey rolled her eyes and blew a raspberry. “It’s Thursday morning. Where did you even find her?”
Ben smirked, sliding his sliced berries to the side with the back of the knife. “Bible study.”
“You went to Bible study?”
“No, I went to the coffee shop. Apparently, her Bible study group meets there once a month,” he said, transferring the strawberries into a bowl raspberries, blueberries, and even a few fat blackberries threatening to burst.
Rey made a disgusted noise, then swiped a strawberry and chewed it with a lip-smacking frown. “You lazy asshat!” she said before she finished swallowing. “That’s barely even a challenge.” She grinned and he knew something else was coming. “Talk to me after you hook up with a worship team member during a praise service.” She slid off her stool as Ben mixed the batter, adding vanilla extract, and, since she wasn’t looking, half a handful of chocolate chips. Cleaning the waffle iron would be a pain in the ass, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before.
Rey moved slowly, barely stifling a yawn, and he paused for a moment to really look at her, a pang of guilt coursing through him at the purple circles under her eyes. “Cold brew on the second shelf,” he muttered. “And there’s some of that oat creamer you like in the door.”
“I thought we were out?”
He measured out batter into the waffle iron. “Bought more,” he muttered with a shrug.
“Oh.”
She slipped past him, opening the utensil drawer and digging for the tempered glass straws. He plucked her favorite glass—one of those shaped like a soda can with a picture of a fox and the caption “Out of” above the picture and “To Give” below. Out of fox to give. He should get her the rest of the set, or at least For fox sake! The bamboo lid was in the drawer with the straws and Rey retrieved it with a little cry of victory. She finished mixing her coffee just as the first waffle was done and he put it on her plate while she drank about a quarter of her coffee and did a little happy dance in the middle of the tiny kitchen.
“Are those my boxers?”
Rey paused, looking down as if she needed to check. “Obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What, you think I’d pay for designer label?”
Ben just shook his head and poured more batter on the waffle iron. No point in arguing. If she hadn’t changed by now, she wasn’t ever going to. Actually, he rather hoped she didn’t. “Eat the fruit, Rey, or I’ll mix them in the batter next time, make your waffles all fruit-slimy.”
“Ew,” she muttered around a mouthful, ‘accidentally’ bumping a blueberry off the edge of her plate. She plucked a fat blackberry off the top of the pile and popped it into her mouth, chewing open-mouthed to express her displeasure. A little purple juice dribbled down her chin, so she sucked air between her teeth and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Spaghetti tonight?” he asked, pretty sure he already knew the answer. Food was generally a yes. Especially if she didn’t have to cook it after working…whichever job it was she was doing that day. At last count she had three in rotation and an on call back up position at one more. Plus school.
“No extra veg,” she demanded.
“Not even if I blend them up? You actually liked the roasted red pepper sauce.”
“Okay, fine, but only with extra cheese.” Rey pointed her fork at him and squinted. “And I want dessert!”
Ben extracted the next waffle from the iron. “Another?” Rey made a ‘grabby hands’ gesture and snatched it, hissing as she (presumably) burned her fingers on the melted chocolate chip she was busily licking and sucking off her skin. He turned his attention back to his batter.
Rey finished her fruit.
Dishes. Shower. Gym. Another shower.
Groceries. For the second time in the week, but then he had only grabbed what they were out of and some produce, no real plan for the rest of the week.
He vacuumed and dusted the space that passed for their living room and started a load of laundry. Thursday nights had become their nights. “Roommates doing roommate things,” Rey insisted, like it was normal.
As if anything about them was normal.
He slid the sheet pan into the oven, set a timer, and washed the dishes and utensils he’d used so far. He’d gotten it down to a science: dinner almost but not quite ready when Rey came home, so that she had time to wash up and change while he plated.
They usually ate side by side on the sofa, Rey forcing him to watch something banal and ridiculous as she got sauce on her chin and drank her wine entirely too quickly or dropped cheese on the cushions and guzzled a soda before she belched and shot him a sly, proud grin.
Sometimes both.
Ben stirred the sauce one more time, frowning at a lump of roasted red pepper that the food processor hadn’t quite broken down. He’d make sure that it was on his plate. He retrieved the pull-apart garlic cheese bread out of the oven and checked his pasta.
The front door opened and then shut with a bone-rattling slam. Rey’s bedroom door echoed it a moment later.
Shit. He should have gone with his gut and made chocolate souffles for dessert instead of the vanilla bean crème brûlée.
At least he’d gotten the bread she liked.
He tossed the pasta and sauce together and put a slice of mozzarella and some shaved parmesan on the bottom of Rey’s plate, topped it with the pasta, and then some more cheese.
He glanced at her closed bedroom door and frowned, but before he could decide whether to check on her, she slipped out and jerked her chin toward the bathroom. Ben nodded, and carried their food and drinks to the coffee table, remote in easy reach of Rey’s usual seat.
She reappeared in a pair of his brand-new boxer briefs.
And his “lost” hoodie. Whatever. She could have it.
“Shit day,” she mumbled, then perched cross-legged on her cushion, pulling up a shark documentary for background noise. They ate in silence, and Ben managed not to comment that Rey tore into her bread the way the great whites hit the baitsicle or whatever it was the scientists were using to lure them in.
Rey finished scraping her plate with the edge of her fork and the last bit of bread and sat back at an angle, turning to stretch her legs, plopping her feet in his lap. He thought about pushing them away, maybe telling her that her feet smelled (they didn’t, not really), but in the end he just covered them with his hand. The shark documentary ended and she scrolled before shutting off the set with a sigh and leaning back.
She tugged against his grip, sliding her right foot to rest on his thigh. Her left though…Rey rotated her ankle, pushing against his crotch.
“Could you not?”
She wiggled her toes.
“Rey.”
“What’s wrong, Ben? Afraid you might get hard?”
He frowned. “That’s kind of a foregone conclusion if you’re touching my dick.”
She huffed and did the toe-wiggling thing again. Ben groaned and grabbed her toes. “The fuck is wrong with you, Rey?”
She crossed her arms and jerked her feet back, pulling her legs in until her knees were practically against her chest.
He shook his head, mussing his hair and then smushing it back down with his hand. “I’ll get dessert,” he muttered, grabbing their plates and forks to take to the kitchen.
“It’s fine,” Rey said. “We can have it tomorrow.” She’d already disappeared into her room by the time he looked up.
Fuck.