Chapter Text
“I-uh-what?” Ben stammered. He was pretty sure he was having a stroke. What did having a stroke feel like? Maybe he misheard what she had just said. He had to check. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
Rey, who had looked uncomfortable requesting to be paid just $200 a week, now looked completely unphased. Cool as a cucumber, she reiterated, “I asked you if you’re expecting any sexual favors as a part of this job, because if so I am not interested.”
Oh. Ok. Wow. He definitely hadn’t misheard her.
“Y-yeah. No sex stuff. Not a problem,” he chuckled nervously, “I’m not interested in that kind of, uh, professional relationship either.” God, he hoped his hair was hiding his ears. He was sure they were beet red by now. This was quickly becoming the most uncomfortable conversation he’d ever had in his life, and that was really saying something.
“Perfect,” she said with a charming little clap of her hands, “Then we’re on the same page here. I apologize for asking at all, really. I’ve just learned to be...proactive. About avoiding those kinds of situations. So, I accept the job offer. Should we shake on it?”
“Hey, backpedaling a little bit here, about your question-”
“-The sex question?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Was there...something wrong with the ad I posted?” He was pretty sure that was not the case. He’d been short and to the point in the listing. He’d proofread it a few dozen times. He was confident that he hadn’t accidentally typed ‘erotic’ instead of ‘exotic.’ Unless something was some kind of...code word he was unfamiliar with? He couldn’t see how there could possibly have been room for misinterpretation. “I’m trying to understand the context here.”
“No! It’s nothing you did. You seem very nice. I can see how someone...not versed in the industry...might find that line of questioning a little out of the blue.”
“Just a little, yeah,” he squeaked out as his voice began to crack with discomfort. He pulled out the copy of her resume that he’d printed earlier. It seemed so normal. “I feel like I might have some pretty serious concerns about your previous employers. Can you tell me more about your past work environments?”
Rey sighed, “That’s going to be kind of a long story. When I aged out of foster care, I had to get a job right away. And I found this website, a tiger farm that was hiring. They did yoga and trained tigers and practiced vegetarianism. You got to live on-site. You didn’t even need experience, they’d train you from the ground up. I’d always wanted to work with animals, you know? So I applied.”
Ben nodded.
“It looked so legit. It sounded like a dream,” Rey continued as her expression turned sour, “And then I was accepted and it was a nightmare. The ‘on-site housing’ was a bunch of old horse stalls. There were roaches just everywhere. I don't mind working hard, but the work was grueling. There wasn’t enough food for all the girls—did I mention that he only hired young girls? Guess why.”
“No. No, no, no. Please tell me he wasn’t-”
“Yeah, turns out he expected everyone to have sex with him. He considered a few of them his wives. It was some kind of cult, I swear. Fortunately—if you can even say that—I was too flat-chested to be found attractive. He offered to pay for breast implants, but,” she gestured to her naturally proportionate chest, “As you can see, I declined.”
“Oh my god,” he buried his face in his hands and repeated, “Oh my god.” He parted his fingers enough to glance at the resume again, cringing visibly at the dates. She had lasted there for nearly a year. Good lord.
“I couldn’t just leave. I wanted to, but it wasn’t an option. I had nowhere else to go. So I kept my head down, got as much experience as I could, and then got the hell out of there as soon as I got another job offer,” she shrugged, as if this somehow wasn’t something worth making a big deal over. “My next boss, he was a different kind of awful. He was gay, so no funny business there. He had a bad temper, though. And a lot of guns. Not a good combination.”
“I imagine not,” Ben groaned. This was fucking unbelievable.
“He put me up in a rat-infested trailer. But meals were free, if you were willing to eat the same expired meat they fed the tigers. I lasted there a lot longer,” and her resume confirmed this. “The guy who took over recently, he was a swinger. He wanted to reassign me from caretaker to nanny, and I had a bad feeling about it. I put in my two weeks notice instead.”
“Well,” Ben said while dropping whatever semblance of professionalism he’d been clinging to, “Fuck, I don’t know. There are no words.”
She gestured in front of herself, as if her story was some physical object she was presenting him, “So you see why I asked what I did. In my experience, all these Tiger-guys are into some really weird stuff. I just wanted to make things clear.”
“Absolutely,” Ben nodded, “Just for the record, I’m not into...any of that. I’m monogamous. I’m so monogamous. I’m not even dating anybody right now, let alone multiple people at once.”
Smooth, he thought. But she giggled at his clumsy admission. It was just a little chuckle, bright and short-lived. He could tell immediately that it would be his new favorite sound. Not that he had ever had an old favorite sound, before just now. Truly, she was delightful.
Whatever he’d been hoping to find on Craigslist when he posted that ad, it certainly wasn’t Rey. She’d exceeded all of his expectations, even with the tragic backstory. It was almost comical how much shit this poor girl had been through. Almost. His fucking heart broke for her, he could feel it aching in his chest. He was fucking angry for her. It wasn’t fair. He got to inherit a goddamn mansion and more money than he could ever know what to do with. He’d never wanted for anything his whole miserable life, and poor, lovely Rey got to work for a series of predators. He had to do something about this. Maybe he would forward a copy of Rey’s resume to his mom later, and she could pass it along to someone who could investigate these people. Surely her political connections had to be good for something.
At least everything was going to be better now. Ben was going to be the best damn boss Rey had ever had. Sure, he was a fuck up. But the bar was set really low. These other guys were real fucking scumbags. These people belonged in jail. Ben could do this. His mom is Leia Organa-Solo. He grew up drinking his ‘Respect Women Juice.’ He was going to shower Rey with kindness and appreciation. He was going to respect the ever-loving hell out of her.
And...yeah, being a good boss meant he couldn’t, like, ask her out on a date. That would be incredibly unprofessional, especially considering what she’d just shared with him. But, let’s be honest, she was so very far out of Ben’s league that dating her had never been a realistic possibility anyway. He wasn’t missing out on anything by getting to be her friend instead.
“Um,” she interrupted as she gazed up at him warily. Shit, how much awkward silence had passed just now? “Do I still have the job?”
“Yes,” he responded immediately. She probably could have asked him for literally anything just then—the shirt off his back, the keys to his car, a goddamn kidney, to name a few things—and he would have agreed with as little hesitation.
-
Ben immensely regretted showing Rey one of the smaller guest rooms first. It was closest to the office where they’d been talking, so at the time it had seemed a sensible decision. He’d envisioned taking her around the house, showing her every room, and letting her decide whichever she’d liked best. She could have her pick of any of them, save for the master bedroom (still full of Lando’s things) and the room he’d claimed for himself (which was the same one he used to sleep in when visiting Luke as a young boy, because Ben was a creature of habit).
But Rey had thrown a wrench in his plans when she insisted that the very first room he showed her would suit her just fine. It was a nice enough room, he guessed. Definitely better than a roach-infested horse stall or rat-infested trailer. The ensuite in this one didn’t even have a bathtub though—just a shower. She could not be persuaded to consider the other rooms, despite any gentle attempts or tempting stories of the nice clawfoot tub in one of the rooms upstairs. Ben decided not to push the issue, and she skipped off to her car to grab some of her belongings.
Which were conveniently in her car already because, she’d confessed, she’d been living in the damn thing.
He must have looked stricken when she told him, because she smiled and offered that sometimes she crashed on her friends’ couch when the temperature was too hot to sleep safely in a vehicle. As if that made it better. As if any of this was OK for her. She was still smiling when she carried in what were apparently her most important possessions: a backpack, a trash bag full of clothes, and a box of granola bars.
As soon as she was moved in (if you could call it that), Rey got right to work. Apparently, there was much of it to be done. She was topping off water troughs, taking inventory of what supplies were on hand, and checking on some old freezers she found in one of the sheds. She assembled a list of necessities to be ordered, and even called suppliers for price quotes. As it turned out, ordering meat from a packing plant was a lot more cost-effective than buying out the local butcher’s shop. Rey was proving to be a highly efficient employee. Ben had a really good feeling about her.