WHO: Logan and Merrick
WHEN: 22 September ( morning of Merrick's birthday )
WHAT: Logan has a birthday surprise—or two—for Merrick.
His alarm goes off at 5am and almost launches himself off the bed in an attempt to get to his phone before he wakes the entire house. The ringing ceases with a single tap and Logan lays very still, breath held as he tries to listen out for any sign of wakefulness in the other rooms down the hall. Nothing. The sky is dark, the house is quiet, and he finally exhales.
He untangles himself from the covers, light footsteps guiding him out of his room and down the darkened hallway—slipping like a ghost into the bedroom he's spent many nights in the past year. Merrick is sound asleep—on her side, face pressed against the pillow, arm stretching across the empty space in front of her—and he pauses, chest swelling with affection at the sight. He slips under the covers with her, gingerly sliding an arm under her and pulling her against his side. She stirs but doesn't wake, settling back to sleep with her face buried in his chest, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt.
He sets another alarm—this time for 7am, an hour before Whitney's likely to descend on them without warning—before placing his phone on her bedside table. Merrick whines in her sleep as he pulls away, going quiet only when he lies back down. "I love you," he whispers, pressing a kiss against the top of his head. He could try and get a little more sleep, but it's hard to get his mind to quiet down enough to fall asleep, not when he's so hyper aware of Merrick's gift, tucked safely underneath his shirt, less than an inch away from where her head is resting.
The metal is cool against his skin, tangible proof of his love and commitment. Logan thinks about the past year, thinks about how much things have changed; Merrick is no longer the little girl who would tag along with him and Holly wherever they went. No longer does she trail behind him—no, her place with him is at his side, equals. She's seen him at his worst and she'd stayed, had held his face between her hands and promised I love you and nothing will change that.
It's not so much the words—he's heard the same before, from past girlfriends—but the way she'd said them, the conviction in her voice, the complete and utter belief that she'd spoken nothing but truth. It had shaken loose the rest of Logan's defenses, his armour lain down for her. That day, she'd lodged herself so deeply inside of him that he doesn't think he'll ever be able to pry her out. Not that he wants to, no. All his life, he's carried around this darkness within himself. Now, though—now, he carries light, too.
She isn't perfect, he knows. It would be so easy to put her on a pedestal, to hold her up as a paragon of all the good things in his life, and he's come dangerously close to it before. But Merrick is her own person before she is his—his girlfriend, his anchor, his everything—and she has her own fears and insecurities. Sometimes he gets so caught up in his own problems that he loses sight of that—Logan thinks about the weeks after the carnival, swears that he will never make the same mistake ever again—but never again.
He never wants to be the reason for her tears ever again.
"I'll do better," he whispers to the still-asleep girl, voice raw with honesty. "I promise."
Dawn bleeds into the sky, night turns into day, and Sunday morning is upon them. Merrick groans when his alarm goes off, arm flailing to try and find the source of the noise. It takes a good five seconds for her to realise that she's not alone in bed, and Logan can't help the grin that stretches across his lips at the sight of her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
"Logan?" she calls, squinting at him as she tries to blink the sleep out of her eyes.
"Good morning, baby," he returns, leaning in to press a soft kiss against her lips.
Merrick's grin is as slow and bright as the sunrise right outside her window, and he is helpless to do anything other than lean in and kiss her again. "Missed me?" she teases.
"Wanted to be the first person you saw today," he answers with a shrug, pink dusting his cheeks at the confession. "Happy birthday, Merrick."
He reaches for the chain around his neck, pulling it up and over his head, revealing the ring at the end of it. "I know you don't like making a big deal of your birthday, but..." he starts, fingers mindlessly turning the ring over and over and over. The fidgeting ceases suddenly, Logan looking up from his lap to meet her gaze. "I won't be able to see you on your birthday next year, and I wanted to get you something."
Taking her hand in one of his, he drops the ring—chain and all—into her open palm. She stares, unspeaking, at the band of metal in her hand for a long moment before turning to him again. "Logan, this is..."
"A promise ring," he finishes. "We're too young to really be talking about marriage but—but I want that with you, someday. No matter where I end up going to for college, I want you to have a reminder that I'm yours, always."
Carefully, he picks the chain up again, slipping it over Merricks head. It's longer on her, the ring resting in the middle of her breastbone. It feels like his heart is in his throat as her hand comes up to clutch the ring to her chest. There's a spike of panic when he spots the tears in her eyes, but then she surges forward, and the apology that had been on the tip of his tongue is lost in the meeting of their lips.
"I love it," she tells him in between kisses, "I love you."
"I love you too," he replies, "So fucking much."
"Yeah?" There's something like mischief in the curve of her lips as she presses herself closer to him, straddling his lap. "Why don't you show me just how much?"
"Gladly."
He spends the next hour doing exactly just that—until they're forced to a stop by Whitney's arrival. It's a small miracle either one of them had heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway, but Merrick's had years of experience keeping an ear out for her mother, and he's shoved off the far side of her bed just moments before the door opens.
Merrick's gaze flickers over to him for the briefest of moments before her attention returns to Whitney, still standing in her doorway. There's laughter in her voice when she answers, "The sweetest."
