Chapter Text
For once in your life, you actually felt like you had your shit together.
That was a little dramatic, but lately, you’d take any win of seeming to ‘have it together.’ Your days were busy and while you kept on top of all the work you were given, you found yourself scrambling to do so at any given time, overwhelmed by every task handed to you. That’s why you had set so many goals this term that basically summed up to be ‘get it together.’
Your afternoon class had gotten cancelled, so you spent that time studying and even decided on a wardrobe change so you could look cute for the honors program gathering that evening.
The weather was still in that nice space of early November where it was warm enough to wear skirts but cool enough to wear sweaters, so you donned a cute white top tucked into a plaid brown skirt, a soft pink cardigan buttoned up over the outfit. You put on ankle-length cable knit socks that stuck out a little from the tops of your scuffed up brown boots, and finished the look off with some gold jewelry. You felt really cute as you left your apartment for office hours. It certainly beat your usual oversized sweater and leggings.
The leaves had only just begun to turn, and the drive from your studio apartment off campus to the old library where the honors office sat was filled with warm toned hues and a soft breeze. It was perfect.
One of the two jobs you kept was working for Maz (or Dr. Kanata, but she didn’t like that formality), the director of the honors program, in her office, filing papers and organizing meetings.
And you were early to said job for once.
Your “office hours” went from 3:00 to 7:00 every Tuesday and Thursday (1-5 on Monday and Wednesday), and you were always rushing across campus to get there five minutes late.
Dropping your backpack and cardigan off in her office, you chirped a quick “Hey Maz,” before hurrying down the hall to the doorway that led to the lobby of the building and the bathrooms.
This whole trying to get your shit together thing had you drinking a lot of coffee and a lot of water, meaning bathroom breaks were happening way too often.
Too concerned with getting to the bathroom and making it back to the office in time for your hours to start, you didn’t notice the tree trunk of a man that came through the doorway right as you opened it.
Apparently, he didn’t notice you either, because you crashed directly into his chest. He was hot. He was really hot.
No, like actually, something was burning you.
“Shit,” a voice said somewhere above you.
You had no time to process all six-foot-something of man in front of you when you jumped away and examined where the burning feeling was coming from.
Oh.
He had been holding coffee.
Of course he had been holding coffee.
Of. Fucking. Course.
It was hot, too. Like… McDonald’s lawsuit hot (okay maybe not that hot, but it hurt).
And it had soaked your entire front.
You tugged the fabric away from your chest to relieve the most painful portion of the burn, tears welling up in your eyes in both embarrassment and pain.
“Ow,” you whined quietly. You looked up at the man to look for an apology, but were immediately taken back by his beauty.
You knew that the patriarchal standards for aesthetic descriptors deemed “beautiful” and “pretty” inappropriate to describe a man, but “handsome” just would not cut it.
He was beautiful. His inky hair curled over his ears and down his neck, coiffed in a way that made his face look statuesque. Or maybe it was his aquiline nose that did that. Somehow, it was too big but just right for his face. His lips were plush and pink, his jawline firm and set. Under his dark brow lay two equally dark eyes, wide and looking directly at you in what seemed to be shock.
The goals you had written for the term of “be bold” and “don’t apologize when you did nothing wrong,” were thrown aside when your eyes met his, a now-limp hand still pulling your stained shirt away from your body.
You were like a deer in the headlights. Completely and totally frozen.
Until he opened his mouth to say something.
“Sorry!” you squeaked before he could say anything, and you quickly pushed past him to literally run to the bathroom.
Your bladder mostly forgotten, you pulled off your top and started desperately rinsing it in the sink, but it might as well have been a coffee tie-dye job. You caught your gaze in the mirror above the sink. Tears streamed down your face, ruining your makeup. You didn’t remember when you started crying, but now found yourself unable to stop. Here you were, a tired, burnt-out college kid hunched over the sink in just a bra and a skirt, a bright red mark covering your breasts where the coffee had spilled, desperately trying to get a coffee stain out of your shirt you had treated yourself to on your last trip to Target, hesitating over the clearance tag that read $15.
“So much for getting your shit together,” you mumbled aloud to your reflection in the empty bathroom.
The coffee stain didn’t come out completely in the sink, but it would have to do for now. You were scheduled to give the guest speaker for the honors gathering a tour of campus at 3:30 and you didn’t want to make the wrong impression by being late. He was some rich business man who was an alumni of your college that you had been emailing back and forth through Maz’s address in order to organize itineraries and all the boring aspects of getting him to speak for thirty minutes at tonight’s event.
You stuck the shirt under one of the hand dryers, not wanting to give the poor old guy a preview of your submission to Alpha Delta Delta’s annual wet t-shirt contest (not that you’d ever go to an A Double-D party, as if you would ever get invited in the first place).
Once the shirt was reasonably dry, you pulled it back on and decided that your cardigan could probably cover most of the stain. A quick swipe under each eye helped fix your ruined makeup. You sighed, “This is as good as it’s gonna get.” Right before you left the bathroom, you remembered your full bladder, so you took care of that before heading back to Maz’s office.
Your mind briefly drifted back to the quick glance you stole of the coffee guy. He had been so handsome and you wondered why you had never seen him before. This was a small school, you knew just about everyone. He was probably a new professor or a transfer student. Thankfully, you’d never see him again and have to relive that embarrassment.
You shuffled in through the side door of the office, avoiding the other hallway you’d taken earlier, just in case that guy was still there. Said door had a tendency to slam, so you backed into the office to slow it down and close it quietly.
“Sorry for being late, Maz, some idiot ran right into me in the hall and spilled coffee all over me and I had to basically strip in the-”
You really needed to start being more aware when you walked through doors, you noted as you turned around and were greeted by Mr. Coffee himself sitting at Maz’s desk, staring right at you with a quirked brow.
You didn’t know whether you should cry, laugh, or scream.
“Your timing is fine, dear. I’d like you to meet Kylo Ren, tonight’s guest speaker,” Maz said, seated across from him.
Maybe vomiting was the best choice at the moment.
You swallowed back the bile rising in your throat.
This was not happening. This was just a really bad dream where you made a fool out of yourself and called a handsome rich dude an idiot to his face.
Mr. Coffee- Mr. Ren stood to greet you, holding out a hand for you to shake. You just stared at it. You swore that if you opened your mouth, you would puke.
Maz had really good intuition, and you silently thanked the stars for that.
“Kylo, this is my assistant,” she started, giving him your name. This shook you up enough that you finally took Mr. Ren’s hand, willing your grip to be stronger than you could manage in the moment. His hand dwarfed yours and your brain cleared up just enough to note the way it completely engulfed your fingers. “She’s a little shy at first, but a very hard worker. She’s the one who you’ve been in contact with these last few weeks. Very detail-oriented, as I’m sure you’re well aware of, and such a sweetheart. Come chat, dear, before you give Kylo his tour.”
“I don’t really need a tour,” Mr. Ren said in a deep baritone that made your brain go fuzzier than it already was. Was it possible for humans to malfunction? You hadn’t realized he was still holding your hand until he let go of it, but his eyes were still glued to yours. In this different lighting, you could see that they were the color of whiskey. You immediately missed the warmth of his touch, but walked around the desk to stand next to Maz.
“Sure you do, Kylo,” Maz insisted, “They’ve managed to pull enough funds to remodel three buildings and build two new ones since you’ve graduated! And you have your very own tour guide to show you around.”
“Not a very good tour if she doesn’t talk, is it?” he grumbled.
Your mouth fell open in shock. You mentally took back all the nice things you thought about how pretty he was.
Maz ignored the malice in his tone and chuckled quietly, “I’m sure she’ll do plenty of talking once you’re a little nicer to her. You’re very intimidating, you know.”
The way Maz spoke of you was like how a mother spoke of their child, which was sweet that she knew you like that, but this was not the time. You were supposed to be professional. Suave. Bold like your goal for the term.
You took a deep breath before speaking, “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Ren. I think the burn I got from that coffee jarred my head slightly. Would you like to start your tour now or do you have more catching up to do with Dr. Kanata?”
You didn’t mean for it to be as sassy as it was, but at least you didn’t throw up.
All those nice things you had just mentally taken back flooded into your mind when the man across from you smirked and let out a huff of amusement.
He was just too darn beautiful.
“I think I’ve done all the catching up I need to do. Let’s go,” and with that, he just walked out the door.
Your eyes went wide and you sent a panicked look to Maz.
“You’ll be fine, dear. Just don’t call him an idiot again, please,” She smiled at that statement and you grimaced. So she had figured out who the culprit was. Great.
You grabbed your backpack and turned to hurry out the door after him, worried he would leave without you.
“Maybe buy him a new coffee when you tour the university center!” she called out after you, laughing to herself.
Mr. Ren wasn’t right outside her door, so you went down the hall that led to the lobby again.
So concerned with finding your guest, you ran right into him as you barreled out the door.
You were going to scream. This was truly a nightmare.
He grabbed your shoulders and held you still before backing up slightly. Your eyes were glued to the ground, so he hunched over a little to make eye contact with you. His face was very close to yours and you noted he had several moles and freckles dotting his face like constellations.
“You need to pay more attention to your surroundings, you know,” he scrunched his brows together in what you hoped was amusement.
“I’m working on it,” you mumbled, straightening up so he didn’t have to crouch, and he dropped his hands from you in response, “College is about learning and improving, right? So I’ll add that to the list.”
“Are you always this cheeky?”
You bounced your head back and forth in indecision as if you actually had to think about it, “Not really, but you did ruin my new shirt, so I think it’s fair.”
Mr. Ren hummed in response.
“So, Mr. Ren, where would you like to start? The new humanities building or the upgraded science research labs?” You pulled your cardigan back on and buttoned it up in a way that hopefully covered the coffee stain that covered your front.
His eyes were glued to your every move. “Kylo is fine. What would you prefer?”
“Well… I spend a lot of time in the humanities building, so that would be a more impressive start, but I think you’d like the science stuff more,” you shrugged.
“Let’s start with humanities, then,” Mr. Ren started walking towards the exit of the building and you followed him, your legs struggling to keep up with his comparatively long ones.
You led him through the building, showing him the office, a cool statue of books, and your favorite chairs in the whole world.
“Okay so I know I shouldn’t base my favorite building on the chairs, but these chairs are the best, I nap in them all the time between classes,” you gestured to the woven egg-shaped chairs hanging from the ceiling that were full of pillows.
“They look like unsafe bird nests,” he seemed skeptical.
“They’re safe if you don’t swing in them. You should sit in one,” you beamed up at him.
“Absolutely not,” he shook his head.
You frowned, deciding not to push him too much, “You’re missing out, but okay.”
You led him back downstairs, showing him a couple of offices on the way.
“You said you’re in here a lot, are you a humanities major?” he asked as you left the building.
“Mhmm,” you nodded, “I started as a psych major but switched to linguistics and educational studies after my first term freshman year, psych’s my minor now.”
“Double-majoring?” He almost sounded impressed.
“Couldn’t decide,” you smiled, leading him next door to the remodeled science building. “I want to do speech therapy with kids or something similar. I had a stutter when I was a kid and I had to go to speech therapy for a while and for some reason I enjoyed it a lot. I think it would be nice to help other people like that.”
You felt Kylo’s eyes on you as you said this and you looked up at him, paused in the lobby of this building.
He eyed you up and down and nodded, “That makes sense for you,” his eyes caught yours before they snapped away.
You felt your cheeks warm, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” he started to walk away from you, but you rushed to get in front of him to stop him.
“What did you mean by that, you don’t even know me,” you huffed in frustration.
Kylo looked you over, his eyes shining with something between curiosity and recognition. He bent down so his eyes were level with yours before speaking, “I know everything I need to know about you.”
“You-”
He cut you off with a wave of his large hand, “Let me guess. You grew up gifted and struggled greatly to make connections with your peers because you couldn’t relate to them. Your parents weren’t there as much as you would have liked, so you found out how to be independent at a young age. You busied yourself with books and hobbies that didn’t require you to get to know anyone, and each one came oh so easily to you. You came to college, probably out of state, hoping for a fresh start because everyone blossoms in college, and you did for a little bit with your new found freedom. And then you realized that you still couldn’t make friends.
“You probably have a cutesy journal with silly goals like ‘put yourself out there’ in it, if I’m correct, but every term, you fail to do so and feel worse and worse about how alone you are. Your only meaningful connections are with your professors who will forget you the second you leave their class. You work for Maz, but you want to be as financially independent as you are emotionally independent so you have another job at what, a bookstore? Maybe a boutique? You busy yourself with work and school, both of which you excel in, but you still feel so utterly alone that you can’t sleep at night. You’re still that brainy little girl who sits alone on the playground because no one wants to give her the time of day, aren’t you?”
Fire had settled into your veins, making your face feel like it was melting. The tears that were dripping onto your cheeks provided evidence that it was. Without you telling your body to do so, your hand came up in an instant, poised to slap him, and you almost did, but he caught your wrist mid-motion, inches from his face, his hand wrapping completely around your limb as he leaned in closer.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked, and the tone of his voice told you he already knew the answer.
“You’re an asshole is what you are,” you muttered bitterly, tempted to spit in his face as you caught your breath and slowed your crying.
He dropped your now-limp hand and started walking away from you. As offended as you were, you would still do your job, maybe just with more malice now. He seemed surprised when you rushed to catch up to him, the streaks of tears rubbed from your face and replaced with red blotches. Maz told you to give him a tour, so dammit, you would give this supreme asshole a tour.
This was only your second time in this building since it had been updated, and as you went about your simplified tour that included minimal speaking, you were surprised to find an arrow pointing out a side door that said “greenhouse.” You paused in front of the sign and made the decision to detour slightly, not really caring if the handsome jerk was following you, more caught up in your own curiosity as you sped up towards the door, boots squeaking on the linoleum floors with every step. You pushed the door open, and sure enough, the courtyard had been turned into a large greenhouse that almost felt more like a small botanical garden.
The high ceiling was made of paned glass and there were tables covered in all sorts of tropical plants. The sides of the large room had been turned into beautiful displays of rocks and water features, like something you’d see at the zoo. You started walking around and observed all of the plants, careful not to touch anything, a bubble of anxiety growing in your mind that maybe you weren't supposed to be in there. The door slamming behind you caught your attention and you looked up to see that sure enough, Mr. Butthead had followed you in. He looked unamused as he glanced around, his eyes quickly finding yours. You jerked your head so you didn’t have to look at him, busying yourself with a neat looking orchid on the table. Crunching footsteps in the gravel approached you and you felt his presence closeby.
“What happened to my tour?” he asked, not sounding at all bothered by this distraction.
“We were touring this building. This is part of this building, so therefore, part of the tour,” your attention was turned to a set of small dinosaur figurines arranged in the moss of one of the displays, the cleverness of the decoration bringing a small smile to your face.
“Then why are you looking around like you’ve never been in here before? Aren’t tour guides supposed to be familiar with their routes?”
“Not a real tour guide, first of all. Second of all, this is my first time in here,” you glanced up to see he was only a couple of feet from you, much closer than you had thought. You briefly sized him up before turning your attention back to the display, “And you were wrong earlier.”
Kylo was obviously trying to tease you when he responded, “Oh was I?” Except it genuinely sounded like he was surprised at least a little.
You nodded, “I work at a nursery. Not a bookstore. Though, we do sell books. But mostly plants,” your hand traced the leaf of a large Monstera plant.
You were embarrassed to say it, but Kylo’s quiet chuckle made your heart pound in your chest, especially when you realized just how close it was. You didn’t want to turn around to face him, though.
After a few moments of silence, where you pretended to observe the monstera and tried to ignore the eyes burning into your back, you piped up, your curiosity getting the better of you, “How… How did you know all that? Earlier, I mean. Genuinely asking, but… Am I that transparent?”
“I think if I didn’t know you as well as I do, I wouldn’t have known any of that outside of your shy bookworm persona,” Kylo responded.
You turned on your heels to face him, confusion and anger laced in your brow, but quickly faltered when you saw how close he was. Did this guy not know how to respect personal space or something? If you wanted to, you would barely have to reach out to touch him. You thought for sure that the warmth you felt on your face was from his breath.
“You don’t know me at all,” you hated how your voice cracked and how your eyes danced around his face to avoid the eyes that were staring intently into yours.
“I do know you, actually,” he leaned down again and you couldn’t look anywhere but those honey-colored eyes as they scanned yours. “I know you… Because I was you.”
The second you opened your mouth to say something, the door opened and a voice piped up, “Hey, you guys aren’t supposed to be in here, this room is for biology majors only!”
Kylo straightened up and stepped back from you slightly while you were stuck frozen in place, brow scrunched up in confusion, trying to understand what he had meant from that.
“Come on, let’s go,” he held his hand out to you, and for some reason, you took it, and let him lead you from the room, mumbling an apology to the guy that had interrupted you as you left.
It wasn’t until Kylo had led you completely out of the building that you finally shook your head to clear it and let go of his hand. He turned to face you like nothing had happened, “Where to next?” He asked simply.
You huffed, trying to form some sassy remark that wouldn’t come. You glanced down at your watch and saw you still had forty-five minutes until you had to be at the honors gathering to help set up for when it started in an hour.
“Maz wants me to buy you coffee,” you grumbled, starting your way down the path to the university center that held the bookstore, a coffee shop, all the guest info desks, and other stuff like that, including the room where the gathering was going to be held.
The walk to the coffee shop was silent except for the scuffling of shoes on the pavement and the occasional hum of approval you would accidentally let slip when you saw a pretty leaf on the ground or a cute dog walk by. The entire time, you felt Kylo’s eyes on the back of your head as he trailed a foot or so behind you. You tried not to think about how easily he had read you, or how he somehow saw himself in you. If he thought he could relate to you, did that mean you would turn into him? You had always thought of yourself as a warm person, was he once like that? If so, what happened? Would that happen to you, too?
As if he had read your mind, Kylo spoke up from behind you, “When I was in my last year of college, I was offered an internship at the company I now run. The former CEO took me under his guidance and taught me well. I worked my way through the company, and shortly after I got my Master’s, I was a high-ranking employee. My mentor died in January, leaving me and another employee to run his business.”
You just hummed, trying to sound bored as you approached the coffee shop.
“You would do well to find yourself a mentor, you know,” Kylo hurried his pace to open the door for you and you walked in.
“Maz is kind of my mentor,” you responded, finding a place in line with him.
“Maz is wise, but she isn’t charismatic or tough enough to teach you how to rise through the ranks,” you heard your backpack’s zipper move and turned to see Kylo was fiddling with it.
“The front pouch was open,” he mumbled. His hand stayed on your backpack.
“I don’t want to ‘rise through the ranks,’ I just want a steady job where I can help people,” you observed the menu above the register as the line moved slowly.
“Don’t you want to have power? Money? Glory, for lack of a better term?”
You giggled at that, “I just want to be happy, Kylo.”
“Next!” the cashier called.
You walked up when she called you, giving her a friendly greeting and ordering a ‘White Knight’ (a.k.a. A blended mocha drink with caramel and white chocolate drizzle and five shots of espresso in it), before turning to Kylo and asking, “What are you getting?”
Kylo looked down at you, then back to the cashier, somehow seeming surprised that you were asking his coffee order while you were ordering a coffee. He, to no one’s surprise, asked for a large black coffee.
You already had your card out, and yet Kylo managed to beat you to it as he handed the cashier his card.
“I think I was supposed to pay for that,” you mumbled to him after the cashier handed his fancy-looking black credit card back to him. Your brain flashed on that one time you briefly considered trying to get a sugar daddy and read about the black credit card they only gave to really rich people, and wondered if it was that kind of card. Probably not, though. Dude was rich but it seemed like black was kind of his thing .
You walked over to the area near the register to wait for your sugary hell of a drink as Kylo received his simple order before joining you.
“You can let people do things for you sometimes, you know,” he sipped at his coffee, his face scrunching up slightly in response to what you knew was bad coffee (hence why you got yours full of sugar).
“But Maz said-”
“I think she was joking when she told you to buy me coffee,” he looked down at you, an eyebrow quirked.
“Oh,” the barista called your coffee order and you grabbed it and made your way out to the lobby of the building. Kylo led you to a small table and sat down at it. This wasn’t part of your plan, but you sat with him, taking your backpack off and putting it next to you on the ground.
“Show me your journal,” he said in between sips of coffee.
“My journal?” you asked, head tilting in confusion as you spoke.
“Earlier. I said you probably had a cutesy journal of goals. You didn’t deny that. Let me see it.” It wasn’t a question.
You hesitated a moment before reaching into your bag and pulling out the iPad you’d gotten for Christmas last year (after telling your parents you’d pay for half of it and it could count for your birthday present, too).
“I have a couple,” you mumbled, the device just sitting on the table, unopened.
“I want you to show me the most recent goal list you have,” Kylo nodded to you. To your surprise, the request wasn’t condescending; He sounded genuinely interested.
You nodded and opened up the iPad and flipped through your fancy notes app until you found the page with the green header of ‘Non-Academic Fall Term Goals!’ and glanced over the list to make sure it wasn’t too embarrassing before showing Kylo.
- Be Bold!
- Improve calligraphy
- Don’t apologize when you did nothing wrong
- Make a friend! (Please!)
- Stick to monthly budgets
- Drink 64 oz. of water DAILY
- Learn one (1) thing about fixing cars
- Get it together!
The man had already judged you a lot today, how much worse could it get?
You turned the device around to face him and watched as he read over the sloppy calligraphy and took in the pink flowers doodled all over the page.
“How many of these have you accomplished so far?” he asked, eyes still on the list.
You shifted in your seat, “Well… I’ve been doing pretty well with the water one. And I learned how to check my oil and change a tire, so I went above and beyond for that one. Um… The others… I… Well those are just long-term goals?” You didn’t mean for it to come out as a question.
“Well you can cross off ‘Make a friend,’ if you’d like,” Kylo commented, turning the iPad back to you.
Your brow scrunched, “I haven’t made a friend, though, so why would I-”
“I can be your friend.” Kylo’s eyes became very busy with the coffee cup he was holding. You felt heat rise through your chest and into your face.
“Why… Why would you want to be my friend? I’m like… half your age,” an exaggeration, sure, but he had the experience of someone at least twice your age.
“I didn’t know they let fourteen-year-olds into college,” he smirked, eyes still fixed on his cup.
“Wait, you're not even thirty yet?” That was surprising.
“I’m twenty-seven, actually.”
“Shit,” you muttered. You didn’t want to be impressed by him, but that felt impossible with what you now knew about him. “What’s in this for you?”
Kylo laughed. Well, it was almost a laugh. His eyes scrunched up in this beautifully sweet way and you caught a glimpse at the kindness that had probably once frequented his features. His teeth were a little uneven, but they looked perfect when framed by his plush lips. He really was gorgeous.
“You’re a smart girl, you know that?” he asked, finally looking up at you. For a moment, your heart fluttered at the praise before you realized what he was saying, and you had to fight the slump that wanted to settle in your shoulders. It was silly to think you could be friends with him. “I’m looking for a new intern, someone to mentor like my predecessor did with me. I think you would do well. While it wouldn’t be your normal `get pizza and watch movies' type of friendship, the position would suit you.”
Well… That was not what you expected. You didn’t really have room for another job at the moment, but it felt nice to be considered.
“Thank you, Kylo. That’s very kind of you to offer, but I’m already too busy as-is. Plus, I have no interest in tech stuff, I’m all humanities,” you trailed off, unsure of how to continue the conversation.
“I was a psych major and got my master’s in counselling, you don’t need to be into ‘tech stuff,’” he replied.
Oh. So that certainly had something to do with how easily he read you.
“Thank you, really, but I’m not interested, sorry,” you said clearly with a nod.
Kylo hummed and his eyes squinted in disapproval. You had thought that he would keep pressuring you into the job, but instead, he reached forward and pointed to the iPad that was still unlocked in front of you.
“‘Don’t apologize when you did nothing wrong,’” he read from your list.
You felt your cheeks flush at being caught in the act. “Right, sorry.”
His eyebrows raised in amusement and you were confused for a moment before you retraced your words and found the error.
“Oh my God,” you groaned, and your head fell into your hands in embarrassment. “I said I’m working on it.”
Kylo chuckled and your head immediately left your hands so you could take in his smile in all its beauty before he made eye contact with you again.
“My job offer still stands if you change your mind. Until then, I would like to find a way to help you cross off some of those goals, so my original offer stands as well.”
“You mean… You want to be my friend?” You almost felt like a little kid again because of the way you asked. It felt unusual to ask someone to be your friend as an adult; usually it just happened . Kylo, however, had pointed out that plan wasn’t really working for you.
“Sure, if that’s what you want to call it. I suppose you’d prefer that title over ‘mentor,’ but I’d like to focus on helping you succeed rather than building emotional connections. You’re full of potential but lack ambition and drive,” Kylo hummed nonchalantly as if his sentence had not housed any offense.
“I think my advisors are supposed to do that,” you muttered, trying to not let your negative feelings towards this man seep out.
“Advisors don’t buy you food and coffee. I will,” Kylo leaned forward when you perked up at that. “You need to learn to let people help you, I can tell. So let me. You don’t have to be as independent as you want people to think you are.” You squinted at him instead of dignifying his statement with a response. Kylo stood up and threw out his half-empty coffee before facing you and saying, “Just think about it,” and then walked towards the meeting room for the honors event.
You glanced down at your watch and saw you still had five minutes until you had to be there, so you sipped at your drink before you opened up a new page in your iPad notebook and drew up a quick ‘ Kylo Ren: Pros and Cons ’ list.
Pros:
- I’ll have a friend
- He can help me
- Free food and coffee :)
- I’m struggling to meet my goals
- Probably has good connections
- Very smart
- Mentor!
- Sexy
Your brain wrote that last point without permission, and you quickly erased it before continuing:
Cons:
- He’s an ass
- Will read me like a book and hurt my feelings
- I already have no free time
- No “emotional connections”
- Will probably pressure me into the internship
As you made the list, you found yourself wanting to find more pros than cons, and you took it as a clear sign that you wanted to pursue friendship or mentorship or whatever it was going to be called with him.
You let out a sigh of something similar to resignation as you packed away your stuff and stood up, your backpack over your shoulder as you headed to the event room, drink in hand. With a quick glance around the room, you located Kylo talking to one of the professors attending the event, a handful of early honors students, and finally landed on Maz chatting with another professor. You approached her quietly and waited until she noticed you and paused the conversation to address you, the other professor walking off to join Kylo’s group.
“Have you been crying?” she asked. Of course she would start with that.
“No,” came the quick retort.
Maz hummed, squinting and taking in your face and forgotten, smudged makeup “Alright. How did the tour go?”
“It was... “
“He’s intense, isn’t he?”
You nodded and glanced over at him, only to find him looking at you. He just nodded and returned his attention to the professors.
“He worked your position when he was your age, you know,” Maz murmured, and it called your attention back to her. “I like you more, though. You’re friendlier. He’s been very impressed with your work, though.”
“Really? Did he tell you that, or-”
Maz laughed, “If you need to know anything about Kylo Ren, know that he is forward with everything except for his kindness, including compliments. I could just tell.”
You paused, not sure if you should tell Maz about any of your interactions with him, but decided it was relevant, “He offered me an internship.”
Maz’s hand was on your shoulder in an instant, and she pulled you closer to her, face suddenly more serious than you thought possible, “Do not take that internship. Promise me you will not take it.”
“I told him no, Maz,” you tried to hide your confusion, but she obviously saw it.
“He took that job, and it ruined him. I don’t want you to fall to that same fate,” Maz sighed, hand dropping from your shoulder. “I didn’t mean to scare you, my dear. I just want better for you than becoming obsessed with a job you hate.”
You nodded, unsure of what to say.
“Go ahead and get the powerpoint all set up, there are cookies on that table over there if you’d like one,” Maz pointed to a table on the other side of the room before joining the conversation with the other professors and Kylo Ren.
You sat down next to the projector station and pulled out your laptop, clicking through the powerpoint you had made for what felt like the millionth time, still adjusting text boxes and images because you needed it to be perfect, even though you knew no one would really look at it. You glanced up when the noise in the room got louder and saw that your fellow honors students were starting to file into the room.
“Shit,” you mumbled to yourself, turning to plug your laptop into the projector system and opening it to the first slide. You hummed to yourself, suddenly thinking about how you could’ve used a different font or different color scheme, even though you used the school colors of red, white, and grey, but what if you had done them differently and they stood out-
“Stop that,” a large hand was placed on your knee, stopping the bouncing you had started doing unconsciously. You glanced up to see, of course, one Kylo Ren.
“Sorry,” you mumbled, adjusting in your seat so it was harder for you to bounce your knee.
“I thought we weren’t going to be sorry anymore,” Kylo hummed above you as he pulled his hand from your bare skin. You instantly missed the warmth and weight it held.
“But I disturbed you, obviously, so-”
“You didn’t disturb me. The slides look fine,” he said, and you glanced up to finally meet his gaze. He was looking at you as if nothing else in the room mattered.
“Oh. Okay,” you didn’t really know what else to say.
“Here,” he held out a napkin to you, weighed down by something, and you held out your hands to take it. Upon opening it, you discovered a chocolate chip cookie and a lemon bar inside, and your eyebrows knit together in confusion. Kylo just nodded at you and walked up to the front of the room where a small stage sat.
You just stared at his gift, wondering why the hell he brought you cookies when you could’ve gotten them for yourself. Maybe they were for him and he just wanted you to hold them while he spoke? A quick glance across the room to the cookie table in the corner showed you that in typical college kid fashion, the table that held several hundred cookies minutes ago was now completely empty after hungry hands had gotten access to it. Surely he just wanted his share, so you placed them on the small table in front of you and you had to resist the temptation to eat the sweets, choosing instead to sip your coffee.
Your attention was called back to the stage as Maz started speaking, and you got comfy in your chair so you could click through the slides as she went. She highlighted some recent achievements of honors students and interesting events coming up on campus, her words supplementing the information you had on the slides that were more for visual representation.
After about thirty minutes of this, Maz switched to discussing class availability and electives offered through the program. This section only had one slide and was a lot of speaking, so you got to take a short break. When your eyes fell back to the sweets Kylo had brought you, you glanced up at the man. He had taken a seat near the bottom of the stage, and the moment you looked at him, his head turned so he could look at you. He gave you a nod before returning his attention to Maz.
What a weirdo.
Eventually, Maz finished her discussion points and introduced Kylo to the group, “Anyways, enough of me. It’s my pleasure to introduce our guest speaker tonight, Mr. Kylo Ren, president and co-owner of First Order tech. He graduated from our school four years ago and played a large role in the honors program. Please give him a big Knight welcome, we are honored to have him here tonight.”
Everyone clapped as Kylo joined Maz on stage. She gently patted him on the back before taking the seat he was just in.
“Thank you for that,” Kylo started. “My time at university was one that challenged me greatly, but it has only made me stronger and more capable than I ever dreamed of being.”
Kylo’s speech was… Basic, to say the least. You clicked through the few slides he’d had you prepare in advance as he spoke, not really paying attention to him all that much after he started talking about success, influence, and determination. Sure, maybe that was great advice for all the young students in the room who needed to have a lot of drive to find a job or for those wanting to be rich. You really just wanted a life where you were content with what you had, comfortable, and preferably not alone. A job was just a means to stay alive, not much else, and you were passionate about your interests and the career you wanted to pursue after graduation. You were driven, in a sense, but not in the same way Kylo urged the group of impressionable honors students to be.
Somehow, he managed to go on like this for at least thirty minutes before he started wrapping up, briefly mentioning an intern position that recently became open and how that was how he got his life off the ground. It was all very boring and you could tell he knew it too. He said his goodbyes and got off the stage to a round of applause. Maz took his place and encouraged everyone to hang out and mingle for a bit. The second the stage was emptied, you shut your laptop and started packing up to leave.
“You didn’t eat your treats?” A voice that was quickly becoming familiar to you asked from above you and you looked up right as you finished zipping up your bag. Surprise, surprise, it was Kylo again.
“I thought they were yours…” you picked up the neatly folded napkin and handed it to him.
“I don’t like sweets. They’re for you,” he pushed your hands back to you, desserts untouched.
“Oh… Um, thank you,” was all you said. Why was he being so nice to you?
“Did you think about my offer?” he asked after a moment of awkward silence. You suddenly became aware of a group of students lingering nearby,watching your interaction, and your face warmed at the thought. They were trying to hop on the internship and you were holding them up.
“Yeah, uh,” your voice dropped drastically in volume so the other students couldn’t hear you, “I’ll be your friend or whatever you want to call it. I think you already have my number, so you can just-”
He cut you off by replacing your sweets with his unlocked phone, “I have it on my work phone. Add yourself to my contacts.”
You blinked at him stupidly and nodded before creating a new contact in his phone, deciding at the last moment to put the bee emoji next to your name before handing it back to him. He didn’t even glance at his screen before slipping his phone back into his suit jacket pocket and handing you back the parcel of treats.
“I’ll be in contact,” he said way too formally before walking away to the group of waiting students, who fell on him like a swarm of locusts.
Shaking your head with amusement at how desperate these kids were for the same job you were offered without so much as an interview, you grabbed your stuff and turned to leave. Before you could make it out the door, a tall, gangly guy you’d had a couple of classes with freshman year stopped you in your path. You could barely remember his name, but certainly remembered how much of an entitled douchebag he was.
“Hey, what’s up? Do you need something?” you tried to sound casual despite the anxiety bubbling in your throat.
“You know you can’t get that internship by fucking him, right? That’s unfair to the rest of us and you aren’t even that hot,” he huffed.
You were too amused to actually be offended, “Thanks- what was your name again? Noah? Yeah, thanks for the advice, Noah , but he already offered me the job and I turned him down. And if you’re worried about me sleeping with him, feel free to do so yourself. He’s an asshole, so you’d get along great,” you tried walking away after you finished your almost-witty comeback, but the guy blocked your path again.
“I’m the vice president of Alpha Delta Delta. Try implying I can’t get any girl I want again and see what happens,” he tried to sound threatening, but you were too amused by how noodly his arms looked when he spread them out to block you.
“Are you sure you’re supposed to be in honors? Because I never implied that and now I can see it’s something you’re insecure about. I’ll keep that in mind for later. Can’t get me, that’s for sure. Now goodnight, Mr. Alpha Delta Delta. I need to go do something actually productive with my time,” you pushed past him and he stayed in the doorway as you walked down the hall. Deciding to be a little extra cheeky, you threw over your shoulder, “Good luck with that internship, I’ll make sure to tell my good friend Kylo all about how you just threatened and insulted his favorite little honors Knight.”
Although you feigned confidence, you pulled your pepper spray out the moment you were out of eyesight, clutching it tightly in one hand, keys in the other as you made your way through campus to your car in the parking lot nearby. Once you were safely in your locked car, you pulled out your phone to see you had a new message from an unsaved number.
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[Unsaved]:
He won’t bother you again. Are you okay?
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Well that sounded… Murder-y. You saved the number as “Kylo Ren” followed by a skull and crossbones emoji.
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[Me:]
I’m okay, he’s just a jerk. You didn’t kill him, right, Kylo?
[Kylo]:
Not literally, but he definitely took a few steps down on the social ladder after I told him he would never be hired by my company after making an ass of himself like that.
Why a bee?
[Me]:
Bee-cause bees are cute?
[Kylo]:
Ok.
How does tomorrow at 7 work?
[Me]:
My cat and I were going to watch a Harry Potter movie at that time, so I’ll have to ask him.
[Kylo]:
I’ll buy you dinner.
[Me]:
Cat says it’s fine.
[Kylo]:
Bring your iPad and wear something comfortable.
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The last text was all you could think about. How informal was this relationship going to be, if he wanted you to dress comfortably? For some reason, you had imagined him taking you to a fancy boardroom or even restaurant to discuss whatever it was he wanted to discuss. These plans… Seemed almost intimate.
That night, you couldn’t stop fussing over what you would be wearing the next day, wanting to appease Kylo’s directions while also looking cute (which didn’t actually matter, as you tried to keep telling yourself along with other lies). Even after you went to bed in what you deemed “comfortable,” (a t-shirt and underwear), you read through the brief text conversation you had shared, analyzing every word of it. Was the bee annoying? Did saying you planned to spend the evening with your cat sound crazy? Or did he read it as an innuendo? You barely slept as you fretted over your plans for the next day.