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The crossing light beeped and Rey eagerly pulled Ben by the hand across the street, past the old minty green Marshal Field's clock and under the golden Christmas trumpets of Macy's on State Street. It was a cold late November night just over a week past Thanksgiving and Ben was taking Rey to dinner at the department store's famous Walnut Room, but first a stop at the Christmas windows.
"Are you really putting decorations before food?" Ben grumbled, apparently the hangry one this time.
"It's to get us in the holiday spirit," Rey explained as if she were an expert on Walnut Room fine dining holiday experiences.
Ben wordlessly pointed to the trumpets over their heads.
"Yes, those are important too," Rey agreed, "buuuut there's nothing like a good Christmas window to sprinkle on some extra Christmas magic before dinner. And see?" She pointed at the writing above the storybook framed scene. "In Miracle on 34th Street, the 1947 hit, Christmas magic is real... if you believe it," she read aloud. The right side of the scene showed a girl putting a letter in a mailbox, but it was the left side that tugged at Rey's heart. "Oh," she pressed a hand to her chest. "See how the parade float pops out of the tv? The boy believes, Ben. Don't you believe in Christmas magic?"
Ben kissed the side of her head, his lips lingering close to her ear. "I do now."
The warmth of his breath tickling her cold ear made Rey internally swoon, a feeling she can now admit she had long before she realized it herself early in the fall at the World Chicken Festival. Their relationship officially took off on a pumpkin farm with a kiss under a maple tree the week before Halloween and now Rey could act on her swooning whenever she wanted, which she did. Often. With her lips. And maybe other more intimate things.
"Be a good boy and I'll take care of your eggplant emoji later," she mumbled into his lips before kissing them.
But Ben pulled away with a groan, either not amused or uncomfortable in his likely tightening pants or perhaps both. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you," he grumbled, referencing that time he didn't know what eggplant emojis meant.
"Nope!" Rey popped the P and smoothed down the lapels of his long black wool coat with a sigh. He looked so good dressed like this. She never wanted him to take it off. No, scratch that. He looked good in nothing, too.
"Do you really think I'm comparable to an eggplant?" Ben asked too loudly. Failing to keep his voice down earned him a strange look from a young woman next to them who must've overheard and understood the other non-vegetable meaning of eggplants.
Rey rolled her eyes, taking his hand again and dragging him to the next window. "If only I knew sooner how much sex would improve your mood."
"You improve my mood."
Whenever Ben was being sweet, it thoroughly distracted her from the times he continued to get on her nerves. Her friend Rose told her it was built up sexual tension and... she was not wrong. So only a few days after Ben and Rey shared their first kiss, the only solution to all the build up was to relieve it and celebrating Halloween together provided the perfect chance. Of course, them being them, got into it again when Rey showed up on his "Take one!" bowl of Twizzlers porch like every good midwesterner in her beauty pageant ball gown costume under her warm coat and he was not prepared. Black sweater, black pants, no Snickers bars, no Reese's cups.
"But Twizzlers look like lightsabers, Rey! Vvrrrrrr!"
"You did not just say that! We're going to Target."
The store thankfully had a great candy selection for last minute underprepared shoppers and even trinkets for kids with food allergies, but the costume selection was... lacking.
"I'm not wearing this."
Rey snickered and quickly kissed his pouty lips. "Please? It's perfect."
Ben was mostly a good sport handing out proper candy and spider rings in his hot dog costume, but it quickly came off as soon as the front door locked and porch light turned off. Rey's costume, too. It was a good night.
Rey hugged his arm, pulling it into her chest. She was completely in love with this man, this day, everything. Until he got on her nerves again. Repeat. But even then, of course she loved him, building sexual tension and all.
"Ready to go in?" Ben asked, his arm still awkwardly held in her grip.
Rey nodded, loosening her hold and sliding a hand into his as they strolled inside. Their senses were immediately assaulted by perfume, a typical department store feature even in this fancier Macy's, but the ground level's grand festive decor caused Rey to pull Ben to a stop in wonder.
"Wow," Rey breathed out, staring mouth agape at the giant red presents hanging from the high ceilings. "I've never seen so much Christmas in one place."
Ben squeezed her hand, leading her away from the gorgeous ceiling. "Yes, you have. You saw the decorations last year."
"It wasn't the same," Rey argued because, naturally, she latched onto any sign of disagreement and ran with it. "This is my first time here for the– Wait! Where are we going?"
"The elevator?"
"No." Rey planted her feet firmly, stumbling from Ben pulling on her arm. "We have to take the escalators!"
"Sweetheart, the restaurant is on the 7th floor," Ben complained.
Rey paid his complaints no attention. She was a woman on a mission to have the full Christmas experience and it would not be hampered by handsome men in long wool coats wanting to take elevators. Once again back to the bustle of the middle of the store, Rey breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped onto the escalator and they slowly began to glide up.
"Wow," she breathed out, looking all around. Up, to the side, down where Ben's hands were clasped in front of her. "Isn't this much better than the elevator? This feels like the North Pole!"
They reached the next floor and followed the other wise escalator taking people to the next one. Rey clasped the handrail, looking over the side.
"I could have held you on the elevator too," Ben said, squeezing her in his arms.
Rey turned her head, feeling her heart melt. What a sweet man. Maybe his poor plan to take the far less superior elevator came from a good place. He pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth, causing them to trip and giggle their way to the next set of stairs.
The wait just outside the restaurant was surprisingly long, which is how Rey ended up sitting on a couch in the furniture department staring impatiently at the pager in her hands. They had reservations.
Ben sighed as he stretched his arms over the back of the plush white couch, one arm coming to rest over her shoulders. It was that typical Guy Stretch that's full of what they believe to be justified impatience. "We could already be seated, if we took the elevator."
Ok, so Ben couldn't resist egging her on at signs of disagreement either.
Rey sat there internally fuming. If she were a cartoon, a thought bubble with flames would appear over her head. All she had was this blinking pager in one hand and a fancy pillow in the other. Perfect.
"Ow!"
She thwacked him in the chest with a plaid joy pillow.
"What was that for?"
"Your couch needs pillows."
"What?" Ben asked, voice laced with confusion.
"And a tree. When are you getting a Christmas tree?"
Ben looked at the pillow in his hand, a raised eyebrow no doubt on his face, before tossing it aside. "You..." he breathed into her ear, "are taking me up escalators and attacking me with cushions because you want to decorate my house?"
Rey shivered, partly from his voice and partly from the shrill noise of the pager vibrating through her body. "AAH!" She screamed, tossing the damned thing in the air. It crashed to the floor, where it flopped around like a fish out of water.
Ben moved first calmly picking it up and holding out his hand with a chuckle. "Come on."
"Does this happen often?" Rey asked, her bells thoroughly jingled. "Are you pager trained?"
"There's usually a line, yeah, even with the reservations."
"So it had nothing to do with the escalator."
Ben didn't get the chance to answer because he was busy handing over their pager, but Rey was confident in her assessment on the escalator situation and had nothing more to add anyway.
"We'll go pillow shopping tomorrow," Ben told her as he helped her remove her coat, "Or do you need to work on your poetry project?"
Ben removed his own coat and took a seat across from her. The restaurant was beautiful with its dark walnut wood paneling. They were even lucky enough to be seated right next to the huge Christmas tree.
Rey snapped out of her stupor at the appearance of a menu on the table, making her draw her attention to the server. "Pot pie!" She blurted. "We're here for the pot pie."
The server and Ben paused mid-conversation to stare at her, Ben's lips twitching in amusement.
"I'll give you a few minutes," their server announced before moving to another table.
Rey leaned sideways, frowning as she tried to watch her around the curve of the tree.
"Aren't you going to look?" Ben asked, tapping on her menu.
Rey straightened up. "Oh! I'm good. I want the pot pie."
Ben turned his hand palm up with a sigh, patiently waiting for Rey to take it. "You might miss out on the cheesy garlic bread and I happen to know you love cheesy garlic bread. What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's just that this place is famous for Mrs. Herring's pot pie," Rey told him, finally picking up her menu. "Supposedly the recipe had been unchanged for like a century? Isn't it an unspoken rule that you're supposed to order it?"
Buttery garlic bread with asiago cheese. Ok so Ben was right this time. Her eyes had been opened. This was getting ordered. First thing.
Ben shrugged. "That's up for debate, the unchanged part. They added leeks to the recipe a couple years ago." When met with an unusual silence, one long finger pushed her menu down. "Rey, what's wrong? Are you still nervous?"
"No. Yes." Rey looked everywhere but Ben, eyes eventually settling on the tree. "I shouldn't be."
"I know that. You were fine on that extremely slow escalator that made us late for our reservation."
Rey cracked a smile at his teasing that had become a source of comfort. "It's not the escalator's fault and you know it." She tossed a crumpled straw wrapper at him.
Ben tried to dodge it, a pointless effort considering it was a piece of paper that merely tapped his arm. But oh, now Rey was distracted by those arms, crossed over the top of their table and making his muscles bulge just enough under his suit.
"Maybe we're not cut out to be a dinner date couple," Rey commented, recrossing her legs. "It's too much like work."
Now, one would reasonably conclude that following each other around to various eateries for over a year would make dinner dates second nature, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Dinner dates meant expectations and attachment and validation, none of which they had before. Rey could storm out of a restaurant without Ben's leftovers because he refused to hand them over without a care to what he thought. Until the next time, when Ben would choose the table next to hers when there were many others available and then proceed to complain that her video chat was disrupting the peaceful dining environment.
Ben opened his mouth to answer, probably something snarky about eggplant emojis or elevators, when their server interrupted his thought before he could say it. Rey once again blurted out "Pot pie!" as soon as the ordering pad came out, but because Ben was completely unbothered with dinner dates, remembered to order the cheesy garlic bread. Maybe dinner dates weren't so scary when you have a date who remembers your order and makes sure you order what you want to begin with, but then again Rey would have remembered had this been a food review visit.
Now that orders were taken care of, Rey could relax with assurance that her chicken pot pie was on its way and enjoy the beautiful tree.
"You know..." Ben interrupted the quiet restaurant chatter, "I was nervous, too, when I was coerced into agreeing to your bet."
Rey dragged her attention away from the Christmas tree to her own human tree and tilted her head, regarding him. "Nervous you would lose?" She teased with a small grin.
"Something like that." His focus was entirely on the silverware he was rearranging. "Nervous I wanted to lose. Why do you think I wore a suit to a fried chicken festival?"
"Because you were uptight and overly confident and clearly didn't care to understand that the humble workings of fall festivals didn't require a fine dining uniform," Rey rattled off her excellent observation, a vivid memory of him walking stiffly passed a man dressed as a chicken.
But Ben shook his head no, picking up his butter knife and stabbing the edge into the table.
The action made Rey jump, her eyes glued to the utensil spinning under his fingertip. "Fine, you wanted to dress for work, but didn't research the assignment," Rey repeated what he told her that day at the World Chicken Festival, remembering his "I'm working." defense for wearing a suit despite being surrounded by grease and t-shirts so it clearly deserved her opinion on the matter. Come to think of it, Rey had never seen him wear anything but a suit at the time.
"I was nervous," he stressed the word. "I felt safe in my suit. Like I could hide behind my work persona."
Rey gasped dramatically, smacking her hands on the table as she leaned forward and making Ben jump. "But you're wearing a suit now!" She pointed at him, dressed in dark slate and a light gray tie. He looked so good and Rey could not wait to take it off.
Ben gave her his trademark duh expression, the one that makes Rey want to both smack him and kiss that spot between his puckered eyebrows.
"Wait," Rey leaned forward even more to whisper yell, "do you think this is work?"
"What? No!" Ben whisper yelled back. "This is what one wears on a special dinner date."
"That guy over there is wearing jeans!"
"Rey–"
"Ah HA! This explains the whooooole," Rey waved her arms around, "elevator thing. Because elevators are for work dinners."
Ben scrubbed a frustrated hand down his face. "Sweetheart, that is not what I said."
Rey narrowed her eyes. "Are you intentionally starting a fight?"
A throat clearing next to their table abruptly halted their argument there and their server began placing down dishes along with refilling drink glasses. Rey mumbled a quiet thank you to the server who looked relieved to walk away with her now empty tray. The sight of hot food consumed all of Rey's attention now, her pot pie ready for its first taste. Or should she try the cheesy garlic bread first?
A firm kiss to the side of her head jerked Rey from her thoughts and so she turned to see Ben settling into his now moved chair on the side of the table. "What are you doing?" She asked, watching him rearrange plates.
"Open." He held up a chunk of bread.
Rey took a bite and oh, what were they arguing about?
"What I was trying to say," Ben started, flicking his cloth napkin with a flourish onto his lap, "is that I felt nervous too when it felt like a date to me." He dipped his spoon into her bowl. "As one-sided as I thought it was, at the time."
"Hey!" She exclaimed, picking up her own spoon and dipping it into his bowl in retaliation. "Wait," she paused, chewing. Delicious. "You thought the World Chicken Festival was a date?"
Ben didn't say anything, entirely focused on tapping his pie crust like one of those fancy soft boiled eggs at breakfasts of old time movies.
"Is that why you agreed to the bet?" Still nothing. "Ben," she tried getting his attention again with a different tactic. "You can't see the tree from there."
"Everything I want to see is right in front of me." He cupped her cheek, leaning in from a quick kiss. "Mmm, cheesy." And then he went back to his pot pie. No... her pot pie.
They had become one of those couples, the ones that sit next to each other at the same side of the table. Well, corner of the table in this case, but that was a tiny minor difference. Casual observers would definitely see this as the same side.
One of those couples. Those couples. A couple.
"Are you gonna finish that?" Rey asked shyly through her diminishing nerves, though not too shyly as she was already sliding Ben's pot pie closer to herself.
He didn't stop her. Just smiled as he raised his glass to the lips she now loved to kiss, his gaze intense over the rim, and then winked.
Rey gulped down a lump of nothing at that wink, but it jolted out of her the last remaining fragments of nerves, leaving only the same tingles she felt the first time she held his hand.
The pot pie was good and filled Rey with festive warmth. Was it the food itself? The tree? The company? Or all three? She couldn't say and didn't want to think too hard on it, not wanting to squash her feeling of pure happiness as Ben helped her into her coat afterwards.
"I almost forgot!" Rey exclaimed, digging into her pocket, taking out the very shiny penny she had saved for this special occasion and clasped it in her hand. It's a penny she picked up as they left the pumpkin farm, heads up and perfect on the pavement. A penny full of unmade wishes.
"Hmm?" Ben tugged her hair out from the scarf he wound around her neck. "What did you forget? You got your pot pie."
"This!" Rey held out her palm, revealing the bright coin. "For the wishing fountain." She got into the wishing position facing the tree. Hands clasped below her chin, eyes closed tight. Deep breath–
"Rey..."
"Shh!"
"Rey–"
"What?!" She cracked an eye open, squinting through the slit.
"That's a Christmas tree."
Rey's arms fell to her sides and she fully looked at Ben. "I know that! But did you know they put the tree on top of a fountain?"
"Yes, but–"
She cut her hand through the air, but he didn't take the hint to zip it.
"–but what does that have to do with anything?"
"You can't go by a fountain without making a wish," Rey logically explained. "Now, I have a wish–"
"But right now it's a tree."
"That's not a risk I'm willing to take! Now, can I please make my wish?"
Ben mumbled a thank you to their server as she went by before turning back to Rey and motioning to the tree.
Eyes closed once again, Rey wished to be happy for always just like today and then she kissed her clasped hands and tossed the penny at the tree where it got lost in the branches. "There!" She dusted off her hands. "My wish covered you, by the way, so you don't have to worry."
Ben wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he steered her out of the restaurant. "What did you wish for?"
"Can't tell you."
Ben pulled them to a stop just outside the restaurant where other hopeful dining guests were waiting past their reservation times. "Didn't you say it was my wish too?" He bopped his nose to hers.
But Rey was distracted by the bag in his hand. "What's that?"
Ben handed it to her in reply.
"When did you go shopping between pot pie and now?" She teased him, peeking inside the paper Macy's bag. "Wait... is this a to-go box?"
Ben shrugged.
"Do you know what a to-go box even is?"
"You didn't finish your cheesy garlic bread."
Rey's jaw dropped. "Because it was yours!"
Ben shrugged again.
"You're giving me your leftovers?"
"Come on," was all he said, leading them to the correct way down: the escalator. "I thought you might like to snack on it during the movie tonight."
Rey held the bag's handles tightly in one hand, Ben's hand in the other as they stepped onto the escalator. "I think my wish already came true."
"You wished for cheesy garlic bread leftovers?"
"As good as they are, no." She squeezed his hand, carefully stepping onto the next down escalator and looking up at him instead of the surrounding store. "I'm happy."
Ben watched the screaming boy on the opposite up escalator until his neck couldn't twist anymore, before glancing down at Rey and squeezing back her hand. "I'm happy too." One side of his mouth twitched. "Far happier than him."
"I would hope so!"
"I would be even happier if I could pick the movie."
Rey scoffed, stomping a bit onto the next set of moving stairs. "Don't say it."
"Ghostbusters 2."
She would smack her forehead, if it didn't put her leftovers in danger, but at least he didn't say Nightmare Before Christmas this time.
They discussed their movie options the rest of the way down until they were back outside the front of the store, at the Christmas windows where Rey stopped and pointed to the storybook scene they saw before dinner. "Let's watch that one."
Miracle on 34th Street
Christmas magic is real, if you believe it.