Thank you so much for the reviews, follows, and favorites on the first chapter. Some of you are constantly supporting me no matter what I write and I can't express just how much it means to me. I've gotten a few messages about the "southern pride" angle I write in stories. Half of my family is from Arkansas and there is such a pride to be from the South, I don't/can't even fully explain it in the stories I write. Also, football in the South is pretty damn serious.

…

Chapter Two.

Real estate wasn't exactly booming in Cherry Hill, Georgia, but Daryl had managed to get himself a foreclosed house on a quiet street filled with either old people or young families, and it needed a lot of work, but Daryl didn't mind hard work. The previous tenants had known that they were going to be getting kicked out so they had done their best to trash the house before the inevitable and in the evenings, after school and before bed, Daryl would work on one room at a time.

He had a history department meeting the next morning with the other two history teachers in the school. Last week, during orientation, they had sat down together and they had walked Daryl through the curriculum for each grade. Freshmen year, students learned from the time before the Revolutionary War, leading up to the Civil War. Sophomores learned the Civil War – which was probably the biggest unit for any of them. Juniors learned the Reconstruction Era that followed and WWI. And Seniors learned WWII and after. It was a lot to take in – for both students and for Daryl to teach all of it. Mr. Theodore Douglas and Ms. Karen Diaz were welcoming and nice and with their classrooms all clumped together in the same hallway, they both came in often between bells to see how he was doing. Considering it was only the third day, Daryl thought he was doing alright.

At least, he had thought he had been doing alright.

As he painted the walls in his living room an off-white, he thought of Ms. Beth Greene, the school's guidance counselor. He had noticed her last week during orientation. She was a pretty little thing. There was no denying that. She was the kind of pretty that made a guy forget what he was doing for a moment as he looked at her. Way prettier than any of the women in Merle's magazines, that was for sure. And she was young. First time he saw her, Daryl thought she was a student. But then she had stood up and began talking after Principal Grimes introduced her and he sat in his chair, watching her smile and listening to every word. She may have looked like she was barely eighteen, but she talked with authority and experience and Daryl was quick to learn that she had beauty and brains no matter how young she looked.

It wasn't too surprising to him that someone came to talk to him about the football players in his class. He had just been surprised that it had been Ms. Greene. He hadn't expected her to go along with this because, no matter how many times she had told him that she didn't like it, she did go along with it and not that he knew the first thing about her; he just thought that she had been better than that. He honestly didn't know how he felt about it himself. This was his first teaching job and he didn't want to cause waves, but if he gave the football players passing grades if they didn't earn them, he'd have to give everyone passing grades and he wasn't going to do that if they didn't deserve those passing grades. He was amazed the school didn't seem to care about the slippery slope this led to.

He had never thought he would become a teacher, but when he was younger, he knew that he wanted to become something; something more than any Dixon before him. His family had never cared about school, but Daryl learned when he was still just a little kid that if he wanted to be anything in this world, he had to go to school. And so he went and he never missed a day – even when he showed up with black eyes and split lips and limps in his step from being kicked. Some teachers pretended not to see, but others kept him after class and brought him to the nurse themselves and sat with him as the nurse looked him over.

He never missed a day and he never missed an assignment. As he grew older, as soon as the final bell would ring on Friday afternoons, he'd go home just long enough to grab his crossbow and a change of clothes and he'd go into the woods for the next couple of days. He hunted anything he ate and he knew the woods like the back of his hand and where he could get fresh water. If he wasn't hunting, he'd spend his time, sitting on the ground, leaning against trees and studying.

Sixteen in the state of Georgia was the legal age and as soon as he was sixteen, he went down to the courthouse to get himself emancipated from his old man. And everyone in the county knew Will Dixon and no judge would ever even think of not granting Daryl's request. By the time he graduated from high school – the first Dixon to ever graduate from anything – both his mom and old man were dead and Merle was locked up. But even with no family in the audience, he still could remember the way everyone else watching had cheered for him; everyone knowing how hard he had worked to make himself more than just what his last name was.

He didn't go to college right away. He kept the job he had had in high school at an auto garage and worked the next few years, saving up as much money as he could. By the time he was able to go, he was almost thirty and could only take a couple of classes at a time, needing to keep working and saving his money.

Merle got out around this time and though he had always made fun of Daryl for his book-learning and acting like he was better than everyone else, Merle offered to help him pay for some of his classes. Daryl had refused as nicely as he could though without pissing Merle off. He didn't want to pay for his college with drug money.

History had always been both his best and favorite subject in school. He liked learning about everything that had happened through the ages over so many years. He liked imagining someone like him, someone the books would call insignificant, witnessing all of these things that happened. Becoming a teacher of it just made sense to him and when he finally graduated with his education degree – with a minor in history – he felt like maybe his life had finally started.

Finishing up the wall, Daryl set his roller brush down, done for the night. He had managed to paint the entire room and he still had enough gallons left over to get started on the kitchen and dining room next. But not tonight. Tonight, he was going to get a can of beer from the refrigerator, sit on the couch with the National Geographic channel on the television, and look over the papers he had his sophomore classes fill out.

He had asked them to write what they knew about the Civil War. People not from around here didn't understand how passionate of a topic this was for people from the Southern states. People had pride for it – no matter how it turned out. People still proudly said if they had a relative who fought. Students could discuss the battles for weeks, debating what could have been done differently. There was a reason there was a saying down here – the South will rise again. Everyone every else thought that they were just a bunch of inbred racist hicks who wanted to bring slavery back. And Daryl didn't doubt that there were a number of those, but they weren't all like that. Considering most of the men who had fought in the Confederate Army were just poor farm boys who had never had a slave in their life, it was about being proud where they came from.

Now, as expected, reading through the papers, he saw more than one student mention a family member who had fought and one of them, Jackson, proudly boasted that he was named for Stonewall.

A little after nine, Daryl got himself ready for bed. This was the first place he ever lived in with two floors and he climbed the stairs to the room he had chosen as his bedroom. He knew the house would still be considered small to some people, but to him, he had never had so much space before. He didn't know what to do with it all.

Once he was in his bed, he didn't fall asleep as he expected himself to. Instead, he laid there and thought of Ms. Greene. He wasn't sure why; didn't understand why she was in his mind right that second. One thing was for sure. His guidance counselor in high school had definitely looked nothing like her. He wouldn't blame the boys in school if they went to go talk with her about colleges and their future just so they could sit across from her and look at her.

He was surprised he was thinking about a woman like this. He had never really done it before. Merle had always been the one who had been woman-crazy, always chasing after them and needing at least one on his arm at all time. He had pushed his fair share towards Daryl and had called him gay and Dar-lina more than once throughout their lives, but Daryl hadn't cared because he hadn't had time for it. He was working towards something and he wanted to stay focused on the goal at end. He wasn't a virgin and had been with a few women, but only for a night at a time. He had never had a relationship before in all of his forty years.

And he sure as hell couldn't have anything even looking like a relationship with Ms. Greene. She was his co-worker and according to Cherry Hill High School rules for staff, that was a big no-no. He could lay there and think about her – in the privacy of his own bed, in his own home – but nothing past that could ever happen. This was his first teaching job and he already loved it and Daryl wasn't looking to lose it.

No matter how damn pretty Ms. Beth Greene was.

…

"Okay," Karen said as the three history teachers sat at the small round table in the teacher's lounge, tucking curly brown hair behind her ears. "So, we will move the first test for the freshmen up two days to Wednesday so it doesn't interfere with the JV game," she said and wrote a note to herself in her planner open in front of her.

Daryl made a note to himself, too, joining the others he had already made during the meeting.

"I usually like them to use their books for the first one," Theodore said.

"I know you do," Karen frowned and it was obvious to Daryl that she didn't agree with him on that.

"Eases them into it, Karen," Theodore said with a grin. "Haven't been using their minds for damn near three months. I'm just trying to be nice."

Karen sighed and then looked to Daryl. "What do you think? Open-book test or not?"

Daryl thought it over for a moment. He heard the door to the room open, but he didn't turn to see who it was. And then he shrugged, looking to his fellow history teachers. "Don't see a reason why the kids can't learn about the Pilgrims and Puritans and why they came over here and be tested on it without help from their books," he decided. "We all had to pass the test it without ours."

"Ha!" Karen gleamed in Theodore's face.

Theodore shook his head, but Daryl could see a little smile peeking through. "You're a hard teacher, Daryl. Glad I'm not in your class," he joked and Daryl smirked a little. "Fine. No open book on the first test of the year for freshmen." Theodore made a note to himself in his own planner and Daryl reminded himself to buy one of those of his own. "It's a lot to cram into one school year and can be overwhelming," Theodore told him.

"But you'll get through it," Karen added. "I would feel bad for history teachers one-hundred years from now. Just think about all they'll have to teach." She smiled and Daryl smiled a little in return. Her eyes caught the clock on the wall. "Alright. That's it. Good meeting. And remember Daryl. If you need anything, do not hesitate in getting me or Theodore or both of us."

"Thanks," Daryl said with a nod as they all stood up, their chair legs scraping across the floor beneath them.

He picked up his notebook and pen and teacher's edition of his history book for his first period class – junior history – and turned as Theodore and Karen headed from the lounge. And he saw that when the door had opened, it had been Ms. Greene. Beth. She was standing at the counter, waiting at the toaster, smiling at Theodore and Karen, Theodore teasing her about something that made her laugh, but Daryl didn't hear what it was because if he was honest with himself, he saw Ms. Greene's face light up when she laughed and he couldn't see anything past that.

Then, they were gone, and Daryl found himself alone in the teacher's lounge with Ms. Beth Greene. He wasn't too sure what to say to her. Normally, he wouldn't say anything. He had never gone out of his way to talk to women before and he wouldn't have started now. But, Ms. Greene wasn't like the other women he usually saw; nothing like the women in the bars he went to with his brother.

Her eyes met his for a moment and she gave him a small smile before she looked back to the toaster, two slices of bread popping up a moment later. She picked them up with the tips of her fingers, dropping them onto a paper plate and then going to the refrigerator, pulling out a small jar of blueberry jam.

He felt like he should apologize for yesterday afternoon. It wasn't her fault that the school had some asinine views in regards to their football players. She was just the messenger. No reason to be a dick to the person who was just passing the message from the higher ups along.

But before he could even think of what to say and open his mouth to say it, Beth returned the jar of jam to the refrigerator and then picked up her plate, giving one more look and smile towards Daryl.

"Have a good day, Mr. Dixon," she said in a voice that made him want to shiver and sweat all at the same time and he had no idea how the hell that was even possible.

"You, too, Ms. Greene," he managed to say as she slipped out of the room.

Daryl exhaled a deep breath that had been trapped in his lungs. Today, she was wearing a dark blue dress with little white polka dots on it and her blonde hair was pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck¸ to help with the heat of the school that not even fans could cut through, and all he could honestly think about was taking that polka dress off of her and burying his fingers in her hair.

…

"A'righ'," Daryl said, cutting off the chattering of his students once the bell had rang. They all quieted down and he was met with twenty pairs of eyes. "Who did the readin'?" He asked and not to his surprise, all of the hands went up. Even if they didn't all do the reading, which he suspected was more of the truth, they weren't going to let their teacher know that. "Alrigh'," he said and his eyes glided over the students, whose names he had already memorized. He had memorized all of his students' names on the second day. "Donnie," he said and the quarterback jumped a little in his seat as if he had just gotten an electric shock. "Can you tell me who the Radical Republicans were?" He asked, facing the class and leaning back against his desk, keeping his face blank as the quarterback seemed to squirm in his seat.

He wasn't a dick. He wasn't going to be a dick teacher either. He just wanted to show the football players that maybe he didn't want to play along like the other teachers. Maybe standing up to them will make them actually want to do the work for his class. It was a long-shot, but Daryl was going to give it a shot anyway.

"They were a part of the Republican party," Donnie said and Daryl admitted he felt a little bad because the kid sounded so damn nervous.

"'s right," Daryl said. "What else?"

Donnie took a deep breath and began fidgeting with the corner of the front cover of the closed history textbook on his desk. "They strongly opposed slavery during the war and then after, they hated the Confederates and wanted a lot more harsher punishments towards them. They also wanted civil and voting rights for all of the recently freed slaves."

Daryl didn't mean to be surprised, but he couldn't help it. The quarterback of the football team had actually done the reading and had retained some of it.

"'s absolutely right," Daryl said with a nod of his head and Donnie let out a smile. Another football player in the class, sitting behind him, Clarence, leaned forward in his seat and clapped a hand on Donnie's shoulder. "So, someone else. Who can tell me the names of some of the Radical Republicans?" He asked and smiled a little to himself when a few hands went willingly into the air.

Classes were forty minutes long and Daryl had just assigned the next chapter to be read and the questions at the end to be answered for the next day when the bell rang. All at once, the kids began standing up, gathering their things, talking and shouting to one another as they began streaming from the classroom.

"Donnie," Daryl said his name as he and Clarence headed for the door. "Can I have a second?" He asked. Donnie nodded and then glanced to Clarence, who nodded and headed out of the classroom, and Donnie put his bag onto his back and looked at Daryl, waiting, curiosity open on his face. "Good job today," Daryl told him.

Donnie seemed to instantly relax. "Thanks. It wasn't a bad chapter," he said and Daryl felt himself smiling a little at that. "Ms. Greene got some of us players together this morning before school and had us all read the chapter together."

…

Tracking her down wasn't that hard. Everyone knew where Beth went on her lunch break and he only had to ask Karen before he got his answer. If the other teacher was wondering why Daryl needed to speak with the guidance counselor, she didn't ask and Daryl was grateful because if she did, he wasn't too sure how he would have answered. He only knew that he had been thinking of her all morning and fifth period lunchtime was the first free period he had in the day.

Daryl left the school grounds and began heading down the street towards the Starbucks. He had grown up in a town as small as Cherry Hill. It had maybe been even smaller and everyone there had been pretty much as poor as dirt. There had been a factory in town that had employed nearly everyone in one capacity or another, but it moved out when Daryl was little and it took the money with it. The town barely had anything except for one gas station and a post office. Everything else, they relied on the next town over for their schools, doctors, grocery store, and police and fire departments.

Cherry Hill was small and wasn't even on the map, but it had pretty much everything a town could need. It even had a Starbucks. And everyone – Daryl now included – knew that Ms. Greene had something of a coffee addiction. Apparently, she went to the Starbucks every day during her lunch for an afternoon kick.

Sure enough, when Daryl stepped into the shop, he saw Beth standing in line behind another person, waiting her turn to place her order. She hadn't turned when the door dinged with his arrival and he took the few seconds to look at her backside. Even looking at the back of her head and the way she stood straight and the back of her bare legs, he thought she was pretty. There was no harm in him thinking that. Nothing was going to happen and he couldn't get in trouble just for what was in his mind. It wasn't against school policy to think one of his co-workers was attractive and he doubted that he was the first male faculty member to have thoughts like this about Ms. Greene. Maybe even a couple of the females had thought about her like that. He wouldn't blame them.

As if she felt his eyes on her, she turned then and when she saw him standing there, at the door, looking at her, her eyes widened ever so slightly with surprise. He took that as his cue and he approached her.

"Hello," she greeted politely and she was smiling, but she seemed unsure about it.

Daryl felt like a dick. He hadn't been exactly friendly towards her when she had come to see him in his classroom yesterday afternoon. He wanted to get a hang of this job and this school and be good at what he was doing. He wasn't going to show favoritism to anyone in his class that played football, but at least she coming to see him yesterday made him know that it was something he should be aware of.

"Hello," he greeted in return with a slight incline of his head towards her.

She began to turn away from him once again, facing front, and just as he opened his mouth to say something else, it was her turn and she stepped up to the counter, ordering some Frappuccino drink thing and Daryl had no idea what it was. She stepped to the side and just because he was standing in line – or looked like he was standing in line – Daryl felt obligated to order something so he just got a small cup of regular black coffee.

"Heard you were an addict to this stuff," he commented as they both stepped off to the end of the counter, waiting for their drinks.

He considered it a victory when a small smile bloomed across her lips. She turned then to look up at him and the sight of her smiling made him want to smile, too. His own lips twitched upwards a little.

"My daddy says it's a nasty habit, but I always tell him that at least I'm not smoking," she commented. Her eyes widened again. "Not that there's anything wrong with smoking," she scrambled to say and Daryl couldn't help but smirk with amusement.

"Yeah, there is," he said and then shrugged. "But I've been smokin' for so long now, couldn' imagine quittin'." He paused and then looked at her. "How'd you know I smoke?" He wondered.

Her cheeks noticeably turned a shade of pink. "We seem to get here in the mornings around the same time. I see you on your motorcycle, smoking," she explained.

"Here you go," the worker behind the counter set down Beth's plastic cup and handed her a straw and she set Daryl's paper cup of coffee down next to it.

"You headin' back?" Daryl asked. "Mind if I walk with you?"

Beth shook her head and he found himself to be relieved. He hadn't been sure if she would have wanted him to or not.

She tossed her paper wrapping out in the trash and he pushed the door open for her, letting her step out first and he stepped out behind her. They walked side by side for a couple of minutes, neither talking. From the corner of his eye, he saw the way her lips wrapped around the green straw as she took sips of her cold coffee drink. Daryl made sure he didn't watch her do that. It gave him a whole bunch of other ideas of her lips wrapped around something else and that definitely wasn't following policy.

"Donnie did good in class this mornin'," he said, breaking the silence between them, and Beth looked up at him with a smile across her lips.

"I'm glad," she said genuinely.

"He said that you had some of 'em get together to read the assignment?" He asked.

She nodded. "Yes. I had an impromptu meeting in the library before first bell with some of the players. I just wanted to make sure that they did the reading for you."

Daryl didn't know what to say to that. "Thanks," he finally decided on and she gave him a small smile before turning her eyes away and taking another sip of coffee. The walk from the Starbucks back to the school wasn't long at all and they were almost there and as he walked beside her, Daryl felt disappointment at that. It was an odd feeling for him to have – especially when he felt that because he wasn't going to be spending as much time with this woman next to him as much as he would have liked to. "Have you lived here all your life?" He heard himself asking.

"Yep," she smiled and sounded proud of that. "After graduating from high school, I went to Nashville, but I was only there for a few months before I came back."

"Didn' like it?" He asked, curious.

Her smile was gone now and she took a long sip of coffee as if debating whether to answer his question or not. He nearly apologized for prying into her business. He didn't like when people did it to him and he normally didn't do it to other people. Something about Beth though just made him want to find out everything about her.

"It was fine," Beth finally said. "Just not for me."

They reached the school now and climbing the front steps, Daryl reached the door first and opened it for her. She gave him a smile as she stepped past him and he followed her inside. The office secretary, Carol Peletier, was standing behind the counter in the front office and when she saw them enter through the front doors, she smiled at them and Beth smiled and waved in return.

He didn't ask if she was walking to her office or if he could walk with her. He just stayed at her side and went to her office door with her. He stood there as she pulled out a key and unlocked it and then pushed it open, showing her small, clean office. There were college binders and books crammed into the bookcase against the wall, there were papers stacked on her desk in neat piles, and there were three cactus plants on her windowsill.

"Thank you for walking me," Beth smiled up at him.

"Thanks for doin' that with my students this mornin'," he said and the words still felt insufficient, but he didn't know what else to say about it.

Beth just shrugged as if she didn't see it as a big deal and she kept smiling.

"You go to Starbucks every day?" He asked without thinking how he probably shouldn't. It might not be considered a good idea, but it was too late to take back now.

"Yep," Beth smiled with a slight laugh in her voice. "As you said, I'm an addict."

"You mind if I come with you tomorrow?"

He really had no idea what the hell he was doing or saying and going to get coffee with Ms. Greene really would just lead to nothing but trouble, but he couldn't get himself to retract the question. It was just coffee. There was no policy about it being against the rules for coworkers to get coffee together. And Beth was smiling even brighter now that he had asked and he couldn't take it back now that she was smiling up at him like that.

Ms. Greene had to have had the prettiest smile he'd ever seen on anyone.

"I would like that," she said.

"A'righ'," he said immediately as if he thought she would change her mind and he was worried about her doing so. "Have a good day, Ms. Greene."

"You, too, Mr. Dixon," she said, still smiling, and as he turned and headed towards the staircase to go back to his classroom, Daryl could still feel Beth looking at him and smiling. And it made him smile a little to himself, too.

…

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