The next day, Rey was better prepared to make the trek to Agriculture from Music Ensemble. She made certain that she had everything needed for Agricultural Sciences before she went to the morning music class, which was located at the front half of the school near the entrance, not secluded from society like Mr. Solo's class. When the period bell rang at 8:40 A.M. Rey was one of the first students to leave class, without making it too obvious that she was anxious to get to her new destination. She walked at a semi-fast pace, not wanting to look like she was running a marathon.

It wasn't until Rey was halfway down the Ag hall when she started second-guessing her decision to show up early. Had he been making fun of her, or was he genuinely hoping for her to make the day a repeat of the former?

Then, there was also a slight hint of optimism that she was able to pinpoint in Mr. Solo's voice at that time. It made the butterflies in her stomach gradually subside, encouraging her to question what it was, precisely, that these emotions toward him meant. It really, really was a bad idea for her to continue initiating this – concept – when he clearly was a professional that took pride in his job. She paused outside the threshold of his classroom, talking herself down from the momentary state of panic and into a more rational state of mind.

It definitely wouldn't hurt to just hold a friendly conversation with him – that was something that could be considered 'acceptable.' Because every student had that one teacher whom of which they could relate to, and consider them a person to confide in when needed. She repeated the notion in her head several times before making her grand entrance.

Just like he had been doing the day before, Mr. Solo was sitting in the same ridiculously small desk next to hers, heavily engrossed in reading his book to notice she was there at first. Having his hands holding the paperback piece of literature open on the desk, she was able to get a glimpse of the novel's back cover. It was a boyish-shade of blue, complimenting the darker shade of denim on his plaid shirt that he sported for the day.

He sure does like wearing plaid.

Claiming the desk alongside his, Rey caught a brief glimpse of the book's title, running down the spine of the cover in a black calligraphy-style font, before Mr. Solo finally pried his attention from the pages and looked at her. His expression border-lined that of surprise and being pleased to see her, precisely the look that Rey was hoping to see.

"Good morning, Miss Kanata."

"Black Beauty?" Rey immediately asked as she sat sideways in her seat to face him, arching a brow. She planted the books and trapper keeper in her arms on the desk. "I never would've pegged you as one to have such unusual taste in literature, Mr. Solo."

Ben scoffed at the statement and cleared his throat, closing the novel and placing it face down on the desk.

"It's a classic," he corrected in defense and turned only his head towards her. "I always liked the message it carried."

His hands lay clasped over the book like they were the day before as if shying away from some sort of enormous secret that she wasn't supposed to see. Rey wondered if she had insulted him once again.

Fuck my luck, she chided under her breath, worrying her bottom lip.

"I've never read it before," Rey admitted, hoping that she wasn't sounding more ignorant than she was already. "I just know that it's about a horse."

Ben nodded curtly. "It is, but it also offers a meaning that's something much more than being in the life of a horse."

"Enlighten me then?" Rey asked humbly.

"Or how about I just let you read it sometime?"

Rey frowned at the offer. She was never the type of person that read lengthy books, especially ones that ended up having some sort of surprise tragic ending to them, so spoilers were welcome. It was one of the main reasons why she hated reading Romeo and Juliet in 6th grade and even more that she had to write a book report over the doomed star-crossed lovers.

She couldn't recall how she acquired the weird quirk, other than it began not long after her parents died. She'd lost count of the days and nights of which she spent crying to Aunt Maz for them to come back, only to discover that it was hopeless and would never happen. It made sense for her to admit that she now avoided things that made her feel anything but happy: movies and books alike.

"Will it make me cry?" Rey asked, fully aware of how juvenile and naïve the question sounded.

Ben was taken aback by the query and wondered what prompted her to ask such a thing. He knitted his brows and turned to regard the description on the novel's back cover, pondering an answer that wasn't going to indulge too much of the story's plot.

It was a very emotional story and one that struck very close to home for him. But Ben also wanted Rey to make the decision for herself, and not base her thoughts off someone else's opinion. He settled on an answer that he hoped would be satisfying enough.

"I think it's one of those stories that can affect every reader differently," Ben replied, his expression poignant. "Some people can relate heavily to it while others can just see it as being nothing but fiction and take nothing from it."

Rey sat silently for a moment, running her tongue between her lips. His explanation was fair and simple, but the timbre in which he spoke sounded far more significant than just simply coaxing her into reading a book. He sounded – sad?

"Which one of the two are you?" She asked apprehensively. She held her breath and hoped that she wasn't being too nosy.

Ben considered her question. To anyone else that read Black Beauty, it was a simple question that could be answered with a simple answer. Unfortunately, for him, it was something much more personal and always opened up the opportunity to discuss horses, which would then lead to discussing a certain forbidden topic.

It wasn't that he didn't want to open up to her about his life. He was just as equally curious about her as she was of him. But this – this was a topic that Ben always kept to himself. His ability to clam up about his past, whenever a woman had asked anything relevant to it, was the leading cause for their relationship with him to end.

"You sure do ask a lot of questions, Miss Kanata," Ben remarked, purposely changing the subject.

"I thought that's what a student was supposed to do?"

Ben snorted with a smirk. Her fiery tenacity made him admire Rey as much as it made him wish that his mouth would obey his brain and shut up. "It's just as much a part of your job as it is mine."

Rey grimaced, aware that his remark was another harsh reminder of where she stood with him. Mr. Solo was her teacher, and it made the need to know more about him that much worse. Whatever it was that he wasn't willing to share, it was a sore spot relevant to Black Beauty and one that she had come close to striking.

She took a breath and nodded, accepting the stand-off even though the cliffhanger had her curiosity piqued. Well, that could have gone better.

"There's something that I want to know, too," Ben spoke after a moment's pause, giving her a coy smile. "But I also want to make this fair for both of us. So, I'll answer two of your questions if you answer two of mine – every day that we're here."

Rey scrunched her nose at the proposition, turning her face askew. "Okay. But you have to answer one of mine first."

"Fair enough," he replied with a nod. "What do you want to know?"

"I already asked," she affirmed with raised brows.

Ben paused, sighing exasperatedly. "You really want to know the answer that bad, huh?"

Rey nodded eagerly, waiting on pins and needles for him to reveal this seemingly larger than life secret.

"It's really not that interesting."

Bullshit. "I don't care," she stated frankly. "I still would like to know."

Ben frowned at how easily his plan had already backfired on him. He thought that Rey would've at least taken the opportunity to ask something that was more interesting: like how old he was, his favorite color, normal things. Once again, his brain ceased to no longer function properly whenever he was around her.

He opened his mouth to reply but was cut short at the sound of students coming down the hall, abruptly followed by the ringing of the final period bell. Ben gave her a reassuring look that they would be able to pick up where they had left off, taking his spot at the front of the class.

Rey grit her teeth, muttering a few choice obscenities under her breath at the other students for the unwarranted interruption. Her hips swiveled to sit properly behind the desk so that she was facing Ben, leaning to discard her music workbook inside the basket beneath her chair.

Ben gave a brief lecture on what they were expected to do inside the greenhouse, and why it was relevant to their discussion about dirt the day before. Each student would be having their own gardening tray and dividing it equally with loam and potting soil on opposite sides. He would be giving them each a packet of sugar snap peas and broad bean seeds to plant within each plot.

The objective of the experiment was to see which type of soil was the preferred method of choice for planting crops, whether it was in the field or in pots that were similar to theirs.

Rey was probably the only student in the class that showed the least amount of enthusiasm over having to get her hands grimy and covered in dirt. She definitely wasn't a girly-girl by any means, but the thought of constantly having to scrape dirt from under her nails wasn't her ideal way of having fun.

She complied, begrudgingly, forcing herself to remember that her grade depended on overcoming that particular pet peeve. Having always lived in large cities it was never expected of her to get dirty with yard work. Aunt Maz had always moved them into the second or third floor of apartment buildings for their personal convenience.

Aside from the aforementioned, Rey was curious to see what a greenhouse looked like. She imagined it being a small house that was green. She snorted at her own humiliation, discovering that it was nothing more than a small building made entirely out of windows with controlled interior climate for year-round plant growth.

Rey was glad that she was the only one who knew herself to be a jackass at the moment; more so that she never worked up the courage to raise her hand and ask Mr. Solo what a greenhouse was. But it definitely would've at least saved that single ounce of dignity that'd been lost, along with a few scattered brain cells.

Regarding Ben's previous instructions, Rey followed in suit with the other students to complete her project. She scooped the dirt with her own hand shovel from the soil-filled troughs and proceeded to evenly divide the tray with loam and potting soil, scrunching her nose up in the process.

She stabbed a finger three times into each plot to make holes for where the seeds would go, grinning like a kid that received her first academic trophy when she successfully completed an entire row of snap peas.

Smiling proudly at her work, Rey went to open the last packet of broad bean seeds and managed to give herself the biggest, most painful paper cut of her life in the process. She debated what reaction to enact upon first: cry, spew an endless stream of profanities, or apologize repeatedly to the kid next to her, who had gone white as a sheet at the first sight of blood that bled from the wound on the top crease of her finger.

"I think you should put a band-aid on that," the kid choked out without losing his breakfast from earlier in the day.

Rey decided to swallow her pride out of desperation and chalk up another loss of dignity to seek Ben out for a first-aid kit. Ben didn't question Rey what happened when his eyes met her pursed lips and arduous gaze. He simply shook his head and gestured for her to follow him back to the classroom, grabbing a red shop rag for her to control the blood flow as they left.

"I wasn't gonna ask at first," Ben snorted, taking a seat at the chair behind his desk. He opened the bottom side drawer to acquire the first-aid kit. "But how in the hell did you cut yourself?"

"I was born with two left feet and have occasional accident-prone tendencies," Rey grumbled.

Ben chuckled, gesturing a large palm outward for Rey to give him her hand. Her expression softened when she felt the warmth of his skin around hers, becoming engrossed with how small her hand looked when compared to his. His fingers were slightly rough and calloused from years of hands-on labor yet his touch still remained surprisingly gentle.

"The former," Ben stated suddenly.

Rey blinked from her momentary trance, scoffing. "What?"

"You wanted to know which reader I was," Ben replied with a low husky voice as he carefully dabbed the antibiotic on her wound. "I'm one of those that can relate to it – kind of – in a way."

She smiled, finding his answer satisfying enough. "Okay, your turn."

Ben cocked his head slightly as he wrapped the band-aid around the affected area of her finger, giving her a brief upward glance. "What instrument do you play?"

"And what makes you think that I play an instrument?" Rey teased.

"I saw your music workbook," Ben replied as a matter of fact.

He really doesn't miss a thing, Rey thought. "Guitar," she replied softly after a long pause.

Ben smiled contentedly, focusing his attention away from her hand to her face. "For how long?"

She gave him a long look, smiling at the beauty marks hidden behind his glasses that dabbed his face in certain areas. Being this close to him had been the only cause that allowed her to see them. She could imagine herself touching them with her fingers and kissing each and every one of them.

"Is that your second question?"

His eyes slowly blinked, head bobbing a nod. It surprised her that he hadn't asked something more rather than something simple.

"7 years," she replied in a single breath.

Their eyes remained locked for a moment – or two, perhaps. But it was Ben that realized he had still been holding her hand. He released it after a minute passed from noticing and cleared his throat anxiously, chiding himself for getting so easily distracted.

"You still have a question left," Ben stated as he proceeded to put the first-aid kit away.

Rey took a moment to think over what she wanted to ask him, unaware of the fact that her face was still tainted red from the moments before. She smiled knowingly when she realized what she had wanted to ask him, something that he was sure to appreciate and, hopefully, lighten the tension.

"When can I borrow your book to read?"

**

By the end of the day, Ben remained unconvinced that he hadn't berated himself enough over what happened with Rey. He kept reassuring himself that it was simply nothing more than an innocent hand touch with an exchange of questions, even if it was more than obvious to any on-looker that Rey had been capable of addressing the bandage herself.

His hand still felt warm and oddly tingly, long after he had settled inside his apartment, where her hand touched his. No woman had ever made him feel like this. It made him realize that the hole he had dug for himself was growing deeper and that he was on the verge of receiving a First Class ticket straight to Hell.

He should've just asked Rey how old she was, for clarity on his behalf, though it certainly wouldn't have helped the matters being held at stake. He was still her teacher and school officials would undoubtedly have his hide for having any sort of relationship with Rey that wasn't professional, so long as she remained in his class.

But no one who had ever come into Ben's life, and withheld any significance to him, did so without experiencing a negative reaction to his actions. A prime example was the only 'other' in his life, waiting for his weekly visit at the ranch, where Ben's life was rendered to shambles.

Despite knowing that his mind was a cluster fuck of thoughts, wondering how he should handle the conflict with Rey, it was a welcoming distraction compared to why he'd been waiting by his phone while preparing the week's remaining lectures.

Ben nearly came out of his own skin when his phone buzzed across the coffee table, breaking him from the lousy attempt of concentrating on the papers and books scattered across the table. He breathed a sigh in relief when the word MOM appeared on the iPhone's screen, hindering his ability to see the image of a stunning black Morgan with an angry scar that divided its face.

He immediately swiped the green answer button and tapped the 'speakerphone' icon, allowing the sound of Leia Organa-Solo's voice to resonate into his living room.

"Hey, mom." Ben greeted half-heartedly, nervously rolling his ball-point pen between his thumbs and forefingers.

"Hi dear, so sorry it took so long for me to call you back. I got your text message this morning, but it was a madhouse in the stables today."

Ben frowned at nothing in particular from where he was sitting, shifting his eyes incessantly over the room. "It wasn't because of anything that he did, was it?"

He heard Leia exert a snort at her end of the line. "No, Kylo was in one of his better moods today. He is getting mopey though, barely raised his head up no more than he had to when he wasn't eating."

Ben liberated his worry with another heavy sigh.

Kylo, or, if Ben was speaking in show terms, the given name to the striking black stallion with flowing waves of obsidian locks was Kylo Ren. Ben came up with the first part of his horse's name by combining the letters within his family's names of Solo and Skywalker to create something unique.

Kylo came to the Solo-Skywalker Ranch as a rescue horse, bearing more than his own fair share of scars from a precarious past. He was dangerously underweight for a Morgan of his size with a ghastly incision that split his face from the point of his main down his jaw to the center of his neck.

Unfortunately, taking in a horse that suffered from a perilous life came with a price of its own: one that Ben wasn't ready to let loose from his thoughts just yet. Needless to say Kylo healed beautifully with months' worth of tender loving care with only a scar left severing his frontal features as a reminder from his past – and an unpredictable temper to go along with it.

Kylo quickly became Ben's horse as they came to share an unbreakable bond. His behavior was more erratic when Ben wasn't around and more violent when anyone other than his master would attempt to saddle him. So when Ben made the decision to move out, he made it a weekly priority to visit Kylo on the weekends as reassurance that he hadn't been abandoned.

"I figured," Ben replied. "I'm still planning on stopping over this weekend."

"That's a relief to hear. We could sure use your hands around the place for a few days. Wedge is on vacation and Kaydel called in sick for a few days. It's been just me, Hera and Biggs running the place."

Ben frowned at his phone. Her words weren't meant to be imploring, but it still served as a cruel reminder as to why his father was no longer able to work around the ranch. He nodded, though it was pointless since his mother couldn't see it.

"That's fine. I have nothing going on anyways."

"You really should get out more often, Ben. I can see why Kylo took to you more than anyone. You were made for each other: both good at sulking and antisocial."

Ben snorted. "I guess."

"You know I try not to pry into your life," Leia urged gently. "But get out and meet someone. I'm not getting any younger to wait for grandkids, you know."

"Mom," Ben groaned.

"Unless you have met somebody and haven't told me yet." Leia accused.

"Don't."

"You have, haven't you?" Leia nearly exclaimed out. "I know that tone in your voice. What's her name?"

Defeated, Ben tossed the pen onto the table. He carelessly removed his glasses with one hand, holding them near the rims between his thumb and forefinger whilst running his other hand over his face. "It's – complicated, mom."

There was a pause at Leia's end of the line. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Ben snapped back defensively, his voice rising up an octave to exert his frustration. "It's just – she's –," he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "she's a student."

Another drawn-out pause rendered on Leia's end. Ben could already imagine the wheels turning in her head as she would normally scrutinize him with a heavy glare and crossing her arms.

"She's not fifteen or anything is she?"

Ben snorted wryly. "Nice of you to think of me in that fucked up sort of way, but, no, she's a senior."

"Don't get your briefs in a twist, Ben. I'm not accusing you of anything," Leia snarked with a pause between her words. "So, she's probably what – 17 or 18?"

"I'm assuming so, yes."

Leia's voice began to soften. "I think you're forgetting that I was also 17 when I met your father."

"He also wasn't your teacher."

"It doesn't take away the fact that I was also under that fine line of being legal in age," Leia stated reassuringly. "Sometimes, you can't help who you become attracted to, Ben. I'm not saying that it's a wise idea to engage in romantic relations with her while she's in school or under that age, but I trust that you have better judgment than that."

Ben nodded, up and pacing over the small space that divided the sofa and coffee table, hands lightly placed on the loosely knitted fabric of his sleep pants around his waist. "I just want to get to know her right now. She's incredible. I don't want to risk doing anything that could hurt her excelling in school."

"What's her name?"

Ben paused and stared at the phone, his expression growing soft as he spoke her name. "Rey."

Leia's smile extended through her words. "She sounds lovely. Bring her over sometime. I'm sure she would love the horses."

Ben nodded again. "We'll see."

"No pressure," Leia reassured. "But I also can't wait to meet her. I'll see you this weekend, my dear."

They exchanged their usual ways of saying 'I love you' before hanging up, and Ben was left with a whole new whirlwind of emotions, surprised that he'd forgotten the significant age gap between his mother and his father. However, there was much more at risk for him and Rey than there had bee for his parents. But he was able to agree with one thing his mother had said: sometimes you really couldn't help who you fell for. Now, it was simply a matter of taking the right steps to get there.