Chapter Text
21st Birthday.
Mari hadn’t been expecting him.
She was living with two roommates in a damp little walk-up in Portland. It smelled perpetually like the takeout place on the corner and the cheap candles they lit to disguise the smell. Her parents had insisted she didn’t need to move out of home for school, but Mari had wanted the independence and the experience.
Her plan for the night had been simple: drink legally for the first time without her fake ID, wear the red dress she bought on sale that was an inch or two too short for what she’d normally wear, and maybe—if she was lucky—get a phone call from the boy she’d been seeing for the last couple of months.
Instead, Jack drove down from Washington in a borrowed car from one of the other guys on base. It rattled when changing gears, and he didn’t stop once after he started driving.
He didn’t call. Didn’t text. Didn’t warn her.
He just knocked on the door.
She had opened the door to find him in a wrinkled black button-down and jeans that looked like they were too new, judging by the starch that kept the creases firm, holding a single envelope between his fingers, and grinning like he hadn’t just broken every rule of his military weekend protocol.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, stunned as he offered her a smirk.
“Happy birthday,” he said, holding out the card to her.
The envelope was obnoxiously pink, the card glittery, and one Jack had spent way too long at the grocery store trying to decide which one to pick.
Inside, in Jack’s blocky handwriting, it read simply:
Happy 21st birthday, Marigold.
- Jack
She’d kissed him in the doorway.
The rest of the night should’ve gone well. But her roommates invited too many people, someone brought too many bottles of cheap tequila, and Jack ended up in a one-sided conversation with Mari’s ex in the hallway while Mari threw up in the bathroom.
They never made it to the bar.
Jack drove her to a 24-hour diner at 3:00 am, ordered her greasy hash browns, toast and ginger ale, and told her she looked hot even while he had been holding her hair back.
“This is not how I pictured tonight,” she mumbled into the Formica tabletop as she dropped her cheek to its cool surface.
Jack sipped his black coffee, smirking as he took her in—she’d changed into leggings and the sweater he’d presumptuously packed in his duffle bag. “I mean, I thought we’d end up in bed. So no.”
Mari groaned.
“I think I might actually die.”