A/N: I honestly can't tell you where this came from. I have been working on this low key for about two months. I almost scrapped it. I don't know what this is. I hope you enjoy anyway.
If I continue, this will be only one other chapter.
This started out being influenced by the Carmen McRae and Dave Brubeck Quartet version of "Take Five". I'd suggest a listen.
Summary: Rick finds himself enamored by the new hire at Worthington's Warehouse and Supplies. AU
Though I'm going out of my way/Just so I can pass by each day/Not a single word do we say/It's a pantomime and not a play- Take Five
Rick palmed the cigarettes in the back pocket of his jeans and stared out the store's big display window. The days were getting longer now, and they didn't feel as oppressive as when the dark swept in before dinnertime.
Through the streaks the Caramin twins had left with their sticky fingers on the glass he could see what, or rather yet who, he was searching for: Michonne. She was their new worker and she was still out there.
After a month of her being around, he shouldn't still feel the way he did, but that didn't stop the nerves firing up his legs and through his belly when he got the chance to step outside to the back of the building to be in her presence for a few moments.
He closed his register, clocked out and bundled into his favorite denim jacket with the wool collar. He pushed his way outside. Weeds shot through the concrete of his path and the crunch of gravel sounded beneath his feet. Despite the inside of the warehouse of surplus goods being immaculate, no one could say the same for the employee areas that had been neglected. He plopped down across from her on the wooden picnic table. It swayed and creaked with his weight. It was past its prime and needed to be recycled into something useful. He was surprised it could still hold two adults.
A month into her appearance and they hadn't said much of anything to each other that didn't contain asking how much three cases of pickles cost or if someone could wheel a cart containing five dozen paper towels around to the front of the store. He fiddled with the lighter in his coat pocket and produced one of the cigarettes. He'd been trying to quit smoking ever since his father had died of lung cancer a year ago. He didn't want Carl and Judith, his young children, to end up fatherless any time soon. He had visions of watching Carl graduate and escorting Judith down the aisle of her wedding.
Michonne's head was buried in a book. Everyone else stayed inside during the cold, nuking frozen meals that never got quite done in the staff microwave. They shivered from just the thought of walking to the favorite summer smoking table. Those who did go out for a quick puff huddled next to the door, their empty hand shoved inside their hoodies for warmth while their legs did a dance familiar to anyone who had ever woke up in the middle of the night and needed to pee. But not her. Every day she wrapped up in a jacket, scarf and earmuffs with a cup of tea and read a book outside.
This was the day he was going to speak to her. They'd been-he'd been-playing around with doing more than sucking in some nicotine and scurrying back inside.
"Whatcha reading?" He wasn't sure of his voice.
She must not have been either because she looked up from her book with raised brows. She eyed the cigarette in his hand and then looked back at him.
"Book for a test."
She wasn't curt, yet he still felt the sting of her dismissal. She didn't give him a second glance before she immersed herself back into her book.
"Oh," he whispered.
He tried to not let the surprise of disappointment show.
He left without lighting his cigarette.
"Man, you should have seen Andrea." His best friend at Worthington's Warehouse and Supplies hit Rick in his chest.
Rick kept one ear on Shane, but his eyes watched Michonne as she scanned a twenty-five pound bag of dog food. From this angle in the staff kitchen, he could see her register perfectly through the tiny window. He wasn't into the habit of watching her work, but he'd lost his nerve to rejoin her outside the last two weeks.
He watched her lean fingers slide bundles of frozen vegetables across the beeping scanner and he actually bit his lip when she leaned over in her khaki work pants and rang up cases of bottled water still in the cart. Her ass. Fuck. Rick wasn't even an ass man. Or else he was, but no asses of note were attached to women he wanted to get to know before her. He wasn't sure what it was. He just knew that he was more frustrated with himself than ever.
"That chick is fucking flexible, if you know what I mean."
Rick felt rather than saw Shane's eyebrows wiggle and his mouth turn upward. They had been friends a long time, had gone to high school together, had done brief stints in security after college together and now they were both stuck working at Worthington's until the new farming jobs from Hershel's Farming Co. were slated to arrive next year.
Rick didn't picture himself a big farmer, but it would keep food on the table and his family close after Lori had passed in a car accident. He could have moved to another town, specifically nearby Atlanta, which would have given him more job opportunities, but he couldn't deprive his in-laws the remaining pieces of their only daughter so close to her passing. Even though Lori had been gone a year and a half, the Bakers had not gotten over her death. Rick vowed to stick around for a couple of years for them. That meant pursuing jobs that he didn't always like. Worthington's Warehouse and Supplies was the ultimate speed bump to something secure, but it had good health insurance and accommodating hours for a single dad.
"Yeah." Rick nodded absently.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Yeah, sure." But his gaze remained on Michonne.
"Wait, dude, are you spying on that new chick?"
"What?" Rick startled, prepared to defend himself.
But Shane wasn't interested in busting his balls. "She's a rock, Rick. Always alone at work. Head buried in a fucking book. I'd think she had no one if I didn't see her hanging out with some redneck and Hershel's daughter, Maggie, by the country store."
"Really?"
Shane crinkled the three-burger wrappers in his hand and tossed them one by one at the trash, a cheer ringing out as the crumbled paper left a trail of stale onions and ketchup scent through the air and swished neatly into the can by the door.
"Really, Rick. Don't bother with her. Total weirdo."
Rick closed his eyes at that. That didn't warn him off her. After Lori's death, he'd been the town weirdo; the guy people looked at like he was a porcelain figurine too fragile to talk to or else he would crack. There were always whispers, sympathetic pats on the back and then came the shock that he was actually keeping his own children. He'd been most offended by that, as if he'd toss them to Lori's parents and forge into the world without them like they were a burden to his freedom. He knew people sometimes thought badly of fathers, but he had no clue until then.
When Rick opened his eyes, Shane was gone and Rick found himself caught in the gaze of Michonne who looked at him through the kitchen window from her register.
"You need help with that?" He watched Michonne trying to operate the forklift to excavate a case of orange juice from one of the top shelves of aisle nine.
Two months into her employment and she was good at just about everything. She could operate all the new gadgets, could do temporary food sampling stations, could help load baskets and do her cashier position like a pro. She could do it all. Except the forklift. She was god awful at operating the forklift. She had nearly knocked out Shane with a dozen giant cans of chocolate pudding on aisle 15. Rick found it charming and almost too cute that there was finally something she was bad at.
But they were short staffed and a church lady with her white gloves and lavender netted hat tapped her foot against the concrete. Rick was tempted to let Michonne dump the case of liquid right over the woman's head for her attitude, but he didn't want Michonne getting in trouble for injuring her nor did he want to spend the night mopping up the mess. He'd found chocolate pudding in crevices he forgot existed for a week. The creamy treat latched onto his skin like sand or glitter and not even a hot shower could dissipate it all.
"Yeah," she replied. Her shoulders dropped in relief and a spark of something infused his gut.
He hopped into the machine and whirred it to its destination, pulling levers and adjusting heights until he maneuvered the plastic jugs from on high where he then manually deposited them into the lady's basket.
They watched the lady huff away without a "thank you" and Rick turned back toward Michonne.
"Is that all you needed?"
He watched her fiddling with the "M" necklace around her neck and silently placed that action into the file he kept on her that he'd labeled intriguing to him.
"Yeah. Yeah. Hey, thank you."
"No problem."
They faced each other without a word for a few seconds.
She started to walk away, but Rick called out to her, "You want to get a beer or something?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. He felt his heart speed.
"When?" she finally asked.
"Whenever."
"Maybe. Not now."
She walked away from him.
He found her hanging out at the outdoor staff picnic table with the new hire, Glenn Rhee. Glenn was the expert deli guy, fresh from delivering pizzas across town, and his navy blue apron swallowed his lean, but built frame because Carol had ordered the wrong size for him.
Rick's hand flexed when he saw Michonne and Glenn leaning into each other and laughing. Spring had sashayed in like a debutante and the dead weeds were sprouting through the pavement. The sun stayed behind to play far longer than she had in the dreary cold of winter.
He didn't have a right to be upset. Rick and Michonne weren't together. They weren't even friends. That didn't stop jealousy from making a home in his head and in his heart.
"Hey, Rick," Glenn greeted him.
"Hey," Rick mumbled. His chicken salad sandwich tasted like sand paper and it went down as easily.
"Hey." He looked up as she addressed him. "So, I told Glenn we could grab that beer you mentioned." Her voice was soft and it struck him deep in his groin.
He fought closing his eyes. He did not want Glenn to be there. He did want her to be there.
"Sure," he reasoned.
And then she smiled at him. It was a brilliant all-encompassing smile that made her look gorgeous. She'd never smiled at him once in the three months she'd worked with him.
Suddenly, his appetite was gone, but for a different reason than he would have expected when he sat down.
"Hey, dumbass, might help if you made it less obvious you were trying to get in her pants."
Rick jolted at the words being spoken to him.
The clack of balls breaking on the pool table in front of him nearly drowned out Glenn's amused voice.
A week after the invitation at the staff table Glenn, Rick, Michonne, Shane, and his date, Andrea, found themselves at Ralph's Pool and Beer Joint. There weren't many bars in King County and Ralph's and Jimmy's down the street were the only good local bars not attached to one of the chain restaurants in town. They'd just gotten a quality Food Lion grocery store two years ago. Things moved slowly in the county.
Ralph's was a great bar. The pool tables had all their balls and the felt stayed smooth. The bartenders were decent, the beer on tap was always cold and poured to perfection and women didn't have to worry about men grabbing their arms and being rude. Plus your shoes didn't stick to piss on the bathroom floor. Ralph ran a tough ship. If you respected him, he respected you and kept you fueled with your favorites at a good price.
Rick and Shane had been frequenting the bar since it had been built ten years ago.
Rick glanced away from gazing at Michonne, who leaned into the bartender to place another round. Her locs swayed in front of her face and she brushed them away before waiting for the guy to place the fresh beers on a tray.
"What?"
The dim lights reflected across Glenn's smile. "You always look at her like you can't wait to fuck her."
Rick grimaced. He'd hoped he'd been less obvious, but when Shane was your only confidant, it was likely he was telegraphing a whole lot more than he wanted. Shane, bless his heart, was oblivious to everything that wasn't getting hit in the face by a two by four.
"That obvious?"
Glenn shrugged. He was still nursing the first beer he'd gotten in one hand and holding his pool stick in the other. "To me. Certainly to her. Maybe not anyone else."
"Has she…has she said anything?"
Glenn put down his beer for a second and adjusted his baseball cap. He picked up his beer again. "Doesn't need to. She always shifts under your stare."
On cue, Michonne shifted her stance in her tight jeans before looking over at them and giving them a weak smile. Her eyes skittered across Rick's. Her left hand reached to fiddle with her necklace as she looked away.
"Shit." He ran a weathered hand down his face.
He was totally caught. He was standing out in the bar with his whole metaphorical ass hanging out and he hadn't known it.
The crack of a pool cue hitting its target sounded in the background of his thoughts.
"Yeah, buddy. Figure it out." Glenn patted him on back and turned back to the game.
She rejoined the group with their drinks.
She wasn't a lightweight drinker, but she wasn't a heavyweight either. He could see her step off balance as she grabbed the cue to line up her shot. The pink of her tongue peeked out from behind her full lips as she struck the white ball.
Later, Rick sat in the corner nursing his fifth beer. He could handle his liquor and he knew he was guaranteed a free cab. Back in his security days, Shane and he had run off a would-be robber that might have decimated Ralph's fledgling start up and Ralph had promised free cab rides at his expense ever since. They never abused his kindness, but a couple of times each year Rick found himself cruising the quiet streets of King County in the backseat of a taxi.
Besides, he'd found himself reaching towards more beers rather than facing Michonne. The beer had loosened her up (so much that even Shane was rethinking his theory on her being an ice queen), but he still found her fidgeting under his gaze. And he still gazed a lot. As much as he was trying to tone it down now that Glenn had alerted him to his problem, he couldn't help but come back to her. She was a brilliant light illuminating the abyss.
As the balls clacked against each other and started spinning toward open holes, he found himself tracing the lean, curvaceous lines of her body. His eyes took a pit stop at her ass, but kept going upwards, sweeping over her sculpted back and across her breasts. He continued his journey and startled to see her head turned lightly towards him. Her shining brown eyes narrowed, but he could see something in them. Usually, he found them soft and hazy, conveying of seriousness, but tonight they were tinged with the glaze of tipsiness and something else. She licked her full lips and smirked before turning back toward the table. She had only glanced at him a second, but his jeans were tighter.
He swallowed his remaining beer in one gulp, which was quite the feat since he had nearly half a mug's worth left, then reached to his back pocket. The package crinkled and his fingers tugged on a singular stick until it popped out. He could give up smoking later. Right now he needed his safety net.
The night was surprisingly chilly. Spring had been unusually warm, but a cold front had pounced through to make its presence known before summer could bring its muggy nights and stifling hot days.
He looked up at the moon. His finger flicked on his lighter. He was in some fucking trouble. A thrill raced through him. He was never a daring man, too afraid to go out on the limb because his family needed stability. In that, he'd lost a lot of chances for adventure, but looking at Michonne let him know it was time to start leaping.
He almost stopped at the door when he saw her pouring a cup of stale coffee into a faded mug in the quiet kitchen. It was close to Easter and the staff was bare bones. Everyone was flocking to sunny beach resorts and local carnivals.
He avoided her after the night at the bar. He'd finished one more round of beer, played one last game of pool and high tailed it out of there out of embarrassment and fear. He'd lost his nerve once he'd stepped back into the chaos of Ralph's. His neck and ears flushed bright red every time he thought about her knowing his feelings. What's worse he had no idea how to convey that he didn't just want to fuck her. He'd finally discovered that the books she carried outside each day were law books. And that made him even more intrigued with her. Like him, she realized helping people plan huge parties by lugging cases of food and toiletries to customers' cars was only a pit stop to something else. Her something else was greater than his, but he found himself wanting to know even more about her. What were her hobbies? What made her laugh so hard she could barely stand? What made her cry? What made her want to study law?
At the bar, she'd been freer than he'd known her to be. She had laughed and played and been more charming than ever. Shane had commented that, "Maybe she's not such a weirdo after all."
That didn't stop the shame Rick felt from flooding his mind. He got a hard on just flashing back to the fire he remembered lighting up her eyes.
She looked up just before he decided to leave the kitchen.
"Coffee's pretty awful. Strong though and it's still hot." She lifted out a mug from the wooden cabinet and placed it on the Formica counter. Her locs were slightly longer than when she first arrived and they flowed over her back with the action.
She took her cup and plopped into a chair at one of the three tables present.
He found himself speechless, but he sauntered over to the mug she'd left out for him.
Once he poured the coffee, placed two sweeteners and two creamers to make it milky he joined her at the table.
She didn't have a book this time. Neither Glenn nor Shane was there. It was just the two of them. His stomach clenched.
"Kinda crazy how the schedule is," she offered. He realized she was just as eager as he to avoid the elephant stomping in the room. He wanted to give her a squeeze of gratitude then.
"Yeah, just when we need more hands on deck."
She nodded and lifted the company mug to her lips to sip. He didn't watch her drink. Her lips, along with her eyes and her lean fingers were some of the things he found most physically attractive about her and he didn't want to light his lust during a simple conversation.
He finally took a taste of his own coffee and winced. She was right. It was burnt and bitter and too strong to be anything but caffeine to keep its maker awake.
She laughed and he fought hard to keep his eyes open at the wonderful sound. When she laughed her entire body looked fused with joy. Her shoulders hunched forward, her hair swayed, her eyes crinkled around the corners. She was beautiful.
"I told you. We'll make it through our entire shift this way."
"Yeah," he repeated.
She was talkative. Well, not really, but for her, she was talkative. He liked it a lot.
"So you want to get another beer sometimes?"
She said it so casually that he jerked at her words.
"I didn't think you would want that," he admitted.
"I enjoyed beating Shane," she replied with a smirk. Her hands cupped the mug. "You ran off kind of fast. The beer thing was your idea."
"Yeah." He scratched his beard. He was reduced to muttering the same word over and over again while she destroyed him with her charm. He would have run out the room in panic if he weren't so eager to be having an actual conversation with her.
"You're not going to stand me up, are you?" she teased.
Who was this woman and who had replaced her with the one in front of him?
"No," he exclaimed too eagerly. "No," he repeated. "When?"
She stood up from her chair and pressed it under the table and walked over to the sink where she dumped the remnants of her warm coffee down the drain.
"I'll let you know." She gave him one last glance over her shoulder before exiting the room.
He stood in front of the mirror in his denim button down and worn blue jeans. He'd shaved his facial hair from the monster it was becoming to a nicely trimmed beard with stray gray hairs running through it.
He wiped his palms on his pants and took another glimpse. He'd abandoned thoughts of wearing his hat. Summer was quickly on the horizon and he didn't need anything making him hotter than gazing at Michonne did.
Tonight he was headed back to Ralph's with her. Shane, Andrea and Glenn would be missing this time. It was far from a date because he'd never take her to Ralph's if he were trying to woo her, but it certainly was more than a crowded game of pool with their friends.
Rick adjusted his collar.
"Who are you dressed up for?" Carl flopped on his bed and yanked Rick's hat on his brown mop of hair.
"No one."
Carl rolled his eyes and jumped backwards on the springy bed, his bare feet came off the plush carpet and landed on Rick's quilted comforter.
"Come on, dad. Who is she?"
His nine year old was not letting him off the hook. And he owed Carl this. His life had not been easy so far. He'd lost his grandpa and his mother a mere six months from each other. When Carl started acting out, Rick had put him in counseling with Doctor Denise Cloyd to help him sort through his feelings. If any new woman managed to make it pass Rick's defenses, Carl deserved to be aware every step of the way.
"A lady I work with."
"Really? It's not Carol is it?"
Rick gazed at Carl's reflection in the mirror and held back a snort. "No, no. It's definitely not Auntie Carol, Carl."
Rick loved Carol. He'd helped her get out of a bad situation with her husband, Ed, but since then she'd flourished into a social butterfly. She was the one who had recommended the job at the warehouse to him. She'd cooked him casseroles and cakes when Lori died. He didn't know how often she'd been there to pick up the slack in those days, but he was thankful. Still, he would never think to date her. They were on two different wavelengths as far as attraction. Carol was never going to get over her bad boy thing and Rick was never going to be the bad boy type. Rick liked being a good guy, even if he was finishing last more than he was finishing first. It's what his dad had taught him and he hoped Carl came up with the same kind of sentiment.
"Okay, good," Carl sighed. Carl removed the hat and placed it behind him on the bed.
Rick grabbed his watch and fastened it around his wrist. Its glass face gleamed from the overhead lights.
"Her name is Michonne and this is not a date."
"But you want it to be a date."
"No, no," Rick began.
"You only put on your good cologne when you want it to be a date."
Rick frowned. He'd tried going out with the local art teacher, Jessie Anderson, once, and he'd definitely spritzed a touch of cologne across his chest, but that date had been such a disaster that they'd decided in the middle of it to call it a night. They hadn't tried it again.
Rick turned around and walked over to his son. He ruffled his hair and Carl tried to swat at his hand while letting out a groan. "You are too observant for your own good. This is not a date," he sighed, "but, yes, I'd like it to be a date."
Carl worked on smoothing his hair back in place once Rick moved away from him. "Just be yourself, dad. It'll work out."
Rick's palms were sweating. He swiped them across his jeans again and looked back at the table where Michonne was knocking back the rest of her beer.
They were having fun—or he was having fun. He didn't know how she was feeling about it, but so far she hadn't looked at him like Jessie had when they realized there was no way of salvaging the disaster of their date.
Michonne was an anthropologist's daughter. They had ended up moving around to several colleges when she was younger because of it. Her father was working diligently on Maroon Communities, groups of enslaved people that ran away and built thriving enclaves to escape the horrors of previously being property. They'd lived in Virginia, Florida and Louisiana—twice—before staying in Atlanta, where he'd taught at Morehouse. Her mom was a chef. She owned her own high-end restaurant that catered to Atlanta's intelligentsia right in the center of Peachtree.
Michonne had gone to Spelman for a stretch and then something had happened. Rick wasn't sure what that something was, but it was raw and painful for her and she hammed up when she started talking about it. Rick knew they weren't close enough for him to press on such a tender wound so he'd deflected back onto himself. Then she'd opened up about going back for law school. She was taking a few local classes, but traveling to Atlanta sometimes. He was fuzzy on the details, but impressed with her drive.
"Don't get that poor girl too drunk, Rick. She can't handle her liquor." Ralph pressed two perfectly poured drinks toward him, their foamy heads floating on top of the cold beer. "If it weren't you, I'd stop the flow now."
"I won't treat her badly." His hands grasped the icy mugs.
"I know. Just be easy on you both." Ralph's handlebar mustache twitched and he looked at Rick over his glasses.
Rick wanted to curse. He really was obvious to everyone, huh?
Rick slid back into the chair across from her. The pool tables were quiet tonight. They didn't get going onto the weekend. Rick was surprised she'd asked him to come out on a Monday, the first day of their mutual Easter vacation. The warehouse liked housing the college kids that were coming home from college, but too poor to go out of town with their friends. For one week, they could barely pay a group of young adults minimum wage to run the store under the guise of a work initiative.
She'd set her empty glass on the wooden table between them, the thud crying out in the quieter bar. Her eyes were closed until he settled her new beer in front of her.
"I have a kid," she blurted out.
Rick blinked, but didn't startle. "Okay." He couldn't keep his accent from drawling out the word in confusion.
She was staring at him, but he didn't know what she wanted from him.
"He's three."
Rick smiled. "Then he's just a year older than my youngest. I have two children: a nine year old and a two year old."
Her entire body slouched in relief.
He was baffled.
"Some men don't like me anymore once they find out about Andre."
He felt heat rise to his cheeks. She'd named his feelings so plainly. He wasn't ashamed so much as he was not ready to call out to her face the attraction he felt.
"I'm not one of those guys." His finger rubbed against the glass handle of his cup.
"No," her eyes shifted quickly between both of his, "I guess not."
"Look, Michonne, you've named what is happening with me. I like you and I know you know that. I didn't know how much until recently, but I'm not going to pretend I don't. I don't know your background, but I'm not going to play games with you."
She sat back in her chair and gazed at him. "At first, I thought you just wanted to fuck me, but at the bar I felt like it might be more than that." She removed her hands from the table and placed them in her lap. "I have some trust issues from a recent past relationship. Hell, we aren't even really friends. Can you handle all this?"
He nodded. "I can. I will. Let's be friends." He took a sip of his drink.
They were quiet a moment while the glowing jukebox whined to life. It started blaring a classic rock tune.
"I tried to be your friend." He couldn't keep the accusation from his voice.
"Staring at me ringing up old ladies and bugging me while I'm trying to study is your idea of striking up a friendship?" She was teasing, but it didn't stop his eyes from crinkling and his head from titling side ways.
"You knew?"
She laughed at the pout working its way onto his face. "You're not good at hiding your interest."
He frowned.
"Don't worry, it's mostly Southern charm. I was more flattered than creeped out."
He winced. "But you were creeped out?"
"At first? Yeah. You eyed me like I had shown up to the warehouse desperate for help. Kinda weird."
He scoffed. "You didn't know me then. You don't know what I was thinking."
"No," she confessed. "Just a feeling."
He shook his head. "No, it was something else. I've never met a woman like you. There are none like you in King County."
"And that's a good thing?"
"It's a great thing," he said with a crooked smile.
She ducked her head and grabbed her mug to take a taste.
"That. You're a badass at the warehouse, but then you get almost shy-like one-on-one."
"Just finding myself back to a good place," she admitted.
"Yeah?" he breathed.
"Yeah."
"I like this. I like us just having fun."
She smiled one of her brilliant smiles and looked up at him. "It is nice."
They let the silence cover the table like a dense fog as another rock song cranked in the background.
It was finally hot enough to wear his short sleeve brown shirt with his uniform pants. He trudged his way across the broken pavement in his trademark cowboy boots. Michonne and Glenn were already eating at the table.
"Hey!"
"Hey, Rick," Glenn greeted him. Glenn didn't keep the sparkle out of his eyes at Michonne ducking her head as Rick gazed at her. "Well, it looks like it's time for me to leave now."
Glenn dumped his wrappers and empty soda bottle into his brown bag and tossed them in the giant barrel they used as a trash can. His bag made a dull thump before he glanced back at Michonne. "I'll call you when it's time, okay?"
Michonne nodded.
"What's that all about?" Rick found himself liking Glenn more and more. He'd come to lunch earlier the last few days and sat with Michonne and Glenn as they ate. He'd learned so much. He immediately understood why Michonne had taken a liking to the man. He was a loyal person who was willing to go the extra mile for his friends. Michonne had mentioned that he'd helped her through a tough time. Apparently, Michonne's good friend, Maggie, was Glenn's wife.
"Between me and you?"
Rick nodded this time.
"Maggie's pregnant. She wants a backup person to go with her to her Lamaze classes so I told them I'd go with them."
"You're a great friend." He unpackaged his meal.
"I hope so. They've done a lot for me. They're like my family."
Rick now knew talking about family was one of Michonne's sore spots so he let her set the decision on whether to move on or speak a little more as he bit into his ham sandwich.
"I have some tickets for the theater on Sunday night. Glenn can't go and Maggie is battling her morning sickness all the time now. Do you want to go? I know it's short notice, but I could ask my babysitter, Tara, if she'd be willing to take on two more kids for the night."
Any disappointment Rick may have felt at her not elaborating on her family vanished with her invite.
He put down his sandwich on the folded over brownbag and smiled. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
"I'm asking you to the theater."
"So a date?" His grin widened.
She rolled her eyes, but a smirk appeared at his glee. "It's not a date, but you can call it one if it means I don't have to ask Daryl to come along. He hates that kind of thing."
Truth was Rick didn't know if he liked the theater or not. It wasn't that he wasn't cultured, but he hadn't had the time for much of anything outside of a few beers with Shane, working and watching after his kids. But he was eager to try any and everything with Michonne. Whether he liked the theater or not, he'd enjoy it because Michonne was there.
It gave him a chance to dress up too. He hadn't worn a suit since Lori's funeral. Plus, he didn't know if he wanted Michonne to have to resort to this stranger, Daryl, when it could be him on her arm.
"For a small town group, they put on a good show. I won the tickets on the radio last November, right before Thanksgiving. Good for any performance up to a year."
"So, we're going to the theater." He started in on his sandwich again.
"It's a date," she teased.