Love Is a Bunch of Stupid Decisions

Chapter 13

The next few days gave me lots of time to reflect. With the new year approaching, it's only natural to think about everything that had happened in the last year. I had gone from a lonely, insecure, perfectionist college student who only lived to try and make other people happy, to a confident, hard-working, big-city girl who had cut out all the toxic people from her life and was currently traveling the country with the love of her life, living every moment like an adventure. It was the ultimate glow-up, if I do say so myself.

Spending the remainder of the holiday season in Chicago was nice, too. Much like NYC, there were a billion things to do while we were here. Ice skating, Christmas shopping, walks through the snow, and so many more. While I was enjoying the winter weather, it was also nice to know that in a few short days, we'd be heading to Orlando, then Miami.

"So have we decided what we're doing tonight?" Ava asked me. It was New Year's Eve, and her, Sky, Ben and I had decided to go out and do something, although we didn't know what yet.

"Apparently there's some fun stuff on Navy Pier. Want to start there and then just see where we end up?" I say, scrolling through the Google search results for 'NYE Chicago'.

"Sounds fun," Ava says, the guys agreeing. The four of us didn't really care what it was we were doing, as long as we were having fun doing it-- and we could have fun anywhere.

A few hours later, we're all ready to go. Ava and I had dressed up cute, not that it mattered much, since it was freezing out and we'd be in winter coats the whole time. I wore a low-cut forest green jumpsuit, with some jewelry and cute black booties that would be good for walking. Ava wore a tight black sparkly dress, with black heels. We warned her that her legs would be freezing and her feet would hurt, but since it was New Year's Eve, she wanted to get dressed up.

"Alright! Ready to go?" I asked Ben, who had just thrown on his jacket.

"Yep, I'll text Sky and Ava that we'll meet them in the lobby." Ben says. I grab my coat and follow him out the door.

A little bit later later, we're walking to Navy Pier. It's pretty warm, given the fact that it's the middle of winter, so it's actually quite enjoyable. The four of us enjoy everything that Navy Pier has to offer-- or, rather, everything free that Navy Pier has to offer. Sky and Ava go off on their own somewhere after a while, leaving Ben and I to our own devices.

"It's too bad you have to pay to get in there," Ben says, motioning to the nearby restaurants and clubs that offered extravagant meals and drinks to fancily-dressed folks.

"No kidding. Tickets start at like, $160 for that kind of stuff," I laugh. Looking at his face, I could see the gears spinning as he chewed on his lip- a dead-giveaway that he was going to get us in there somehow. "Ben..." I say, cautiously.

"Follow me," He smirks. I roll my eyes, knowing that there's no use putting up a fight. I was going to cave eventually.

We approach the line into the venue, getting in line right behind a big party of people. "Ben, what are we doing?" I whisper.

"Just trust me," He responds. I chuckle, adrenaline starting to fill my body. Here we were, two giggling kids in a big city, hand in hand, about to try and sneak into some fancy adult party.

"Party for Kleinman?" The hostess shouted out. The large party in front of us all started to head through the door. I finally caught on to Ben's scheme as he started with walk with the party, standing just close enough to them to look like we were with them, while still being behind them enough for them not to notice us. If we could pull this off, it'd be a miracle.

Once we're through the doors, we quickly break away from the group, hiding in the hallway by the bathrooms until we felt like it was safe.

"I feel so dangerous," I whisper, giggling.

"You're such a rule-follower," Ben whispers back. "You're lucky you have me to teach you how to break the rules."

"And you're so humble, too," I scoff. Ben shoves me with his shoulder, his usual response to my sarcasm.

We are able to sneak over to an empty table in the corner without raising suspicion from anyone. Before long a waitress makes her way over, handing us two menus. We had officially pulled it off. "Ben, this food is so expensive," I groan, looking over the extravagant menu. Lobster, sushi, steak, and more were a foreign world to the two of us, since we practically survived on ramen noodles and mac and cheese.

"Char, don't you remember? Food was included in the tickets we paid for." He says, with a wink. I can't hold back my laugh. How the hell did we do this?
Ben and I enjoy an extravagant (free) steak dinner in what might be the fanciest restaurant I've ever seen, and also break out some moves on their dance floor for a while too. I don't know if I'd ever felt as happy, bubbly, and carefree as I did in this moment with Ben. I wished I could bottle up this feeling and save it for a rainy day.

I feel my phone buzz in my pocket and pull it out to see Ava's name. "Charlotte? Where did you guys go? We haven't been able to find you guys in, like, two hours."

"Ava... have I got a story for you," I laugh. "Are you guys still by Navy Pier? Ben and I can come find you. Fireworks should be happening soon, right?" I say, pretty sure that it's almost midnight- although I kind of lost track of time.

"Yeah. We'll be looking for you guys!" She says. We hang up, and Ben and I start to make our way back.

"I still can't believe we just snuck in to some fancy restaurant, had the most boujee dinner I've had in months for free, and we didn't get kicked out." I babbled as we made our way through the city streets.

"Did I make this New Year's Eve the best one yet?" Ben asks, looking down at me.

"Benjamin Tyler Cook, you manage to make every single day the best one yet." He smiles, the city lights reflected in his bright blue eyes. We're able to make it back, find Ava and Sky, and find a good spot to watch the stunning fireworks over Lake Michigan with just enough time.

"So where did you guys wander off to?" Ava asks again.

"So, get this. Ben somehow managed to sneak us in to that super fancy restaurant down the road. I had the best steak of my entire life, and we got to dance for a while, and we didn't have to pay a cent!" I rave, Sky and Ava both looking at us with some mixture of awe and disbelief. I can't help but smile as Ben and I tell them the entire story. This would be one of the stories that we'd tell our two kids one day, when we lived in a suburb outside of the city with two golden retrievers- just like we planned.

And I could not be more excited.

A/N: You ever start writing a chapter and you're not sure where it's gonna go and then it just kind of writes itself and it ends up pretty good? yah same