I think this is the funnest chapter I've ever written. Stella makes some major - MAJOR! - progress.

"Fuck! Goddamn motherfucking piece of shit car!" I pounded my fist into the steering wheel. Try as I might, I couldn't get my damn car started. The engine chugged and chugged, but the fucking thing would not turn over. I had gotten no sleep last night, my final essay was complete garbage, I was running late for class, and now my fucking car wouldn't start. I turned the key viciously, slamming my foot on the gas pedal. "Come on you fucking whore! Oh my fucking God, you goddamn bitch, start!"

"Need some help?"

I jumped, banging my head on the ceiling of the car. "Holy mother of God, Daryl, you scared the living shit out of me!" Daryl was leaning in the passenger side window, extremely amused by my tirade of profanity at my car. "Why the hell are you always sneaking up on me?!"

"Ya really shouldn't talk to her like that," he teased. "Prob'ly why she's not startin' for ya."

"Oh shut up. Can you help, or are you just here to harass me?" I grumbled at him.

"Pop the hood." I did, and he stuck his head in to check out the situation. "Hang on. Lemme grab a coupla tools." He was gone for a minute, leaving me to marvel at the sexiness of a man who can fix things - not like Daryl needed any help in the sexiness department. All the guys I knew were hopeless when it came to anything with a motor. He returned with a wrench and a screwdriver and set to work. I got out to watch, not because I had any idea what he was doing, but because I knew his being bent over the engine would definitely be something worth seeing. Let me tell you, it certainly helped lift my foul mood, that's for damn sure. "OK, try startin' it now," he told me.

I got back in, turned the key, gave it a little gas and it started right up. Daryl dropped the hood closed with a thunk. "Jesus, you are handy to have around," I said to him as he came around to the window again. "Thanks. You totally saved my ass." He stood there for a second, looking in the window at me, and I suddenly realized he was nervous about something. This was an intriguing development so I just looked at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to say whatever it was he was trying to get out.

"So, uh, the Braves are in town this weekend. You wanna go?" Daryl asked, his gaze on the gear shift.

I don't know what I was expecting to come out of his mouth, but that sure as hell was not it. "Oh, uh, sure." I stuttered. "Yeah, absolutely!"

"Cool. Game is tomorrow at 4:20. I can come pick you up 'round 3:30?" Now that I'd accepted, his usual easy confidence was back.

I smiled at him. "I'll see you then. Now I have got to get my ass to class; I'm so fucking late as it is. See you tomorrow."

"See ya," Daryl replied and loped back over to the construction site.

I watched his butt in my mirror until he was out of sight, then immediately called Marie. I was pulling out of the cul-de-sac when she finally picked up with a sleepy, "WHAT?"

"Holy shit, Marie, you are not going to believe what just happened."

0000000

I was letting Marie do my make-up and hair, but under some very strict guidelines. "I'm going to a fucking baseball game, not a cocktail party, remember."

"I know, I know," Marie said. "Going for the natural look, don't worry. I don't understand why you won't wear a cute dress at least."

"Nope, tank top and shorts," I insisted. "Which reminds me, you need to slather some sunscreen on for me so I don't fry."

"Good thinking. So do you think you'll finally be able to seal the deal? I mean, he must be interested if he asked you out." She frowned at me for a second, pulling the pins out of my hair and starting over with it.

"I guess? I don't know. He knows I like baseball, so maybe he's just being friendly," I said doubtfully.

"Well, I can say that he was totally checking out your ass the other night when I made you get out of the pool," she told me.

"Yeah, only because you made such a big deal about it," I pointed out, but was secretly kind of excited to hear that. "So what do you think of your older man?"

Now Marie laughed. "Jimmy's gorgeous and a sexual Jedi master, but good lord the guy is a fucking box of rocks."

"At least the sex is good. Are you learning anything to use on the boys back at school?" I tried to get a glimpse of myself in the mirror, but Marie planted herself in the way.

"Oh hell yeah. They are going to be lined up around the block." She stepped out of the way. "OK, now you can look."

"Shit, Marie, you have done it again." She had twisted strands of my hair all around my head, and everything was pulled back into a messy bun. The make-up really was perfect for an afternoon at a game. A little mascara, a little powder, a little tinted lip gloss. "Perfect."

0000000

So I was on the way to a Braves game with Daryl, trying to determine if this was actually a date. Under normal circumstances, I would have assumed that, yes, what we were doing would qualify as a date, but I still had no idea how to read him. I thought I might have hit upon a subtle way to find out. "So, how much were the tickets?" I asked, grabbing my purse.

"Damn, you musta never been on a date with a Southern boy before. We don't do that 'dutch' shit 'round these parts," Daryl informed me.

Perfect. "Oh, OK, cool." What to talk about, what to talk about? "What's your last name? I just realized I don't even know that about you."

"Dixon," was his response. "What's yours?"

"Marshall." Well, that was a conversational dead end. As my nerves began to act up, my mouth began to run. "Daryl Dixon,"I said. "DAryl DIXon." Daryl glanced at me curiously out of the corner of his eye. "It sounds like the name of the regular guy alter ego for a superhero. DARYL DIXON," I stated in a TV voiceover kind of voice. Jesus Christ, why can't I just fucking shut up?

Daryl just laughed."Yeah, right, Redneck Superman."

Unfortunately, his laughter only encouraged my weirdness. "Faster than a 1985 Mustang! More powerful than a fifth of Jack Daniels! Able to leap a double-wide trailer in a single bound! It's Redneck Superman!" Then I winced, realizing that I may have gone a little too far.

But he was cracking up now, which was a truly glorious thing. "Have ya been drinkin' already?"

"Watch as Redneck Superman keeps greater Atlanta safe from..." My train of thought was suddenly catastrophically derailed. I had just discovered that merging on the interstate with Daryl Dixon was like making the jump to light speed in the Millenium Falcon. The cars that we had been keeping a nice, sensible pace with quickly turned into little streaks of light as we flew past them. And if you've never been on the interstate in Atlanta, let me assure you is a complete shit show anyway, with about a zillion lanes and people going every which way at the last minute, which only added to my terror. I was rendered speechless and watched helplessly while we raced up to a mere fraction of a centimeter from the bumper of the car in front of us and then whipped around them without so much as a turn signal or a glance over the shoulder. Accompanying this Indy 500-style maneuvering was a steady stream of profanity hurled at the cars that made the mistake of getting into our lane.

"Goddamn fuckin' slow-ass motherfucker! Stay in your fuckin' lane you piece of shit!" Then in a regular conversational tone: "So what were you sayin' 'bout Redneck Superman? You got a weird sense a' humor, Funny Girl." He actually took his eyes off the road to glance over at me, and I covered my face with my hands. "Hey, you OK?"

"Yeah," I said weakly. "It's just...can you...holyfuckingshit!" I squealed as I saw brake lights in front of us. Throwing my arms up over my head, I ducked down in my seat.

Daryl just swung over into the next lane, casual as can be. "Motherfuckers need to learn how t' MERGE, assholes!" he shouted through the glass. Then he said to me with a chuckle, "Guess you're not useta Atlanta highways," and he put his hand on my leg(!) for a microsecond, squeezing it.

Now I wasn't sure if my dizziness was from that way too brief physical contact or his completely batshit crazy driving. Thankfully, we were nearing our exit, so once we raced up past the line of ballpark traffic that was building up on the exit ramp and zipped in in front of a semi, we slowed down to a sane pace. Of course, after witnessing that little stunt on top of being mere seconds away from a fiery death for most of the drive here, I was seriously questioning why I agreed to go out with Daryl in the first place. He managed to park the car without it turning into a brawl with any other drivers, and we joined the throngs of people heading into the ballpark.

"This is what I hate 'bout these fuckin' games. Too many fuckin' dumbasses," he muttered to me, as we were trapped behind a line of teenage girls who were strolling along with their noses glued to their cell phones. He grabbed my hand and we went on a ride very similar to the one that we had just taken in the car. I tried not to make eye contact with any of the people who threw annoyed glances at us as we wove our way through the crowd. When we made it to the gate and Daryl dropped my hand to fish the tickets out of his pocket, it dawned on me, shit, he was holding my hand. Despite my irritation with him, I had to work hard not to grin at my realization.

After about a mile of walking, we reached our seats in the outfield pavilion. Daryl turned to me and asked the question I'd been dreading since it occurred to me this morning that I would not be able to drink while we were here: "Ya want a beer or somethin'?"

It wasn't that I needed a drink to get through this date, but I didn't want anything to remind him that I was, in fact, a lot younger than him. I tried to be casual when I said, "Just water sounds good." Which would have sufficed, but then I had to go and add, "Don't want to get dehydrated or anything. Ha-ha!" I cringed slightly as I could see, even with his face half hidden by sunglasses that he had just recalled that I was, in fact, a lot younger than him.

"A'right. Be back in a sec," he told me and began working his way back through the crowd.

"Ugh," I said out lout as I flopped down in my seat. It was blazingly hot, and I was glad that I'd remembered to pack my sunblock. I had wanted to bring the giant beach hat that I liked to wear on days like today, but Marie had threatened that I would come home to find all of my shit out on the curb if I left the house in that thing. My phone beeped, and I dug it out. It was Marie, checking to see how things were going.

Me: he went to get a beer. water for me of course. ugh so embarrassing

Marie: can't be that bad. talk about anything interesting on the drive

Me: OMG he is such an asshole driver. wondering if that's a sign of a major character deficit

Marie: yr not looking for a bf just fun. don't forget that

Then Daryl was back, so I shoved my phone in my purse. "Updatin' your Facebook status?" he asked, handing me my water.

I had to laugh at that. "On that piece of shit? Hardly."

"Pretzel or hot dog?" he asked, holding out the tray. I took the pretzel because it was the less messy of the two, and I was sure I'd be wearing the mustard if I went with the hot dog.

A baseball game is actually a really good place for a first date. You don't have to sit there staring awkwardly at each other, and there's a built in distraction in front of you. It's also kind of funny, if you're a person with a weird sense of humor like me, to be talking about your college major and then suddenly violently cursing a bad call by the umpire. The game was against the Washington Nationals who I could care less about, so it was pretty easy for me to root for the Braves. I think Daryl was kind of surprised that I hadn't been lying about being a baseball fan because he looked fairly pleased that I cheered and cursed just as much as he did.

Between the screaming and yelling, I was able to get to know him a little better, which helped me forget about his assholish driving. I found out that Daryl liked to hunt and race cars (no surprise there) on a dirt track in the area. "Spring an' fall, I spend as much time as I can out campin'," he told me.

"Oh man, that's cool. Camping is the reason why I decided to buy my car. The four-wheel drive is awesome when you get farther off-road, and I've got a ton of space to stow all my gear." I was happy to see the hint of another approving smile pass over his face. "You ever go to the Red River Gorge?"

Daryl shook his head. "Don't get out of Georgia a whole lot, actually."

"If you ever are in Kentucky for any reason, you have to camp there. It's amazing. It's so undeveloped and uncommercialized, and it's super easy to find a spot where you are totally off the beaten path." I laughed. "And there's a shitload of hippies if you forget to pack your weed." I figured it didn't hurt to throw that in and maybe make myself seem a little less innocent.

He just chuckled at that. "You're gettin' a little pink there, Funny Girl. You wanna find some shade?"

I just noticed that he'd given me a new nickname. Wonder if that's a good sign? "Nah, I brought sunblock." I spread some across my nose and forehead. "Do you mind getting my shoulders? This is a time when some of Marie's Puerto Rican genes would come in handy."

Daryl was happy to help, and it was quite delightful to feel his hands slide across my shoulders. Apparently, I left a streak on my face because when he was done, he took his thumb and swiped it gently across my cheek. Because this was Daryl, the move was somehow so sexual that I had to fight the inexplicable urge to bite his thumb.

By the seventh inning, it became apparent that the Braves were never going to win this one, so Daryl suggested we head out. The walk back to the car was much less frenetic than the race to the ballpark. He took my hand again, and I was able to appreciate this time how nice it felt; calloused and broad, it made me feel quite dainty which, let's face it, is always a sweet feeling. "So how did you get into racing cars? I'm guessing something about 'a need for speed'?"

"Yeah, somethin' like that. My brother got me into it. He's got a couple old cars that he souped up for racin'. Y'ever been to a dirt track race before?" he said with a smirk which indicated that he pretty much knew the answer.

I laughed. "Nope. Not exactly something that suburban kids get into, I guess."

"Too bad you're not going to be 'round too much longer or I'd take ya. I don't have a car t' race right now, but it's fun t' watch it just the same," he said as he opened the car door for me.

There is definitely something to be said for dating a Southern boy. I couldn't remember the last time - if there ever was one - when a date opened a door for me. "Yeah, too bad..."

0000000

Parked in the driveway at home, I was getting ready to ask Daryl if he wanted to go for a swim when he leaned over and kissed me. Oh hell yeah. When he pulled away, I was panting. Both of us were covered with a sheen of sweat, but that was most likely due to the fact that it was about a million degrees in the truck. "Swimmin' sounds good," he said, reading my mind.

Inside the front door, I had to fight the urge to lock it behind me, in case he changed his mind and decided he'd rather go home. I had the weird feeling that I'd somehow managed to lure this gorgeous wild animal into my house, and if I wasn't careful, I'd scare him off. He headed out the back to the pool, and I grabbed us a couple of beers. By the time I got outside, he was in the pool, his shorts and t-shirt in a pile. I handed him a beer and was about to go back inside to change when the thought returned: Don't give him time to escape. I stripped down to my bra and panties and slipped into the water, figuring that since he was in his boxers, he had no room to talk. Again his sunglasses hid a lot of his expression, but I could see from the raised eyebrow and slight smirk that he wasn't going to complain.

"Where's Mouth?" Daryl asked, taking a sip of his beer.

"She's having dinner with her grandma. If you stick around long enough, you'll get to have some of the killer leftovers Marie promised to bring home." It was quiet for a few minutes, so I went to put music on. Now that I was soaking wet, I realized that my underwear didn't leave a whole lot to the imagination. Fuck it, I thought. No one got what they wanted by being mousy. Of course, that bravery only lasted until I got to where my towel was, and I wrapped that securely around me. "Did you like that Dr. Dog album I played for you last time?"

I kind of expected a half-hearted, "Yeah, it was good," from him. He surprised me by saying, "I liked it. It was kinda laid-back and...groovy?"

That made me feel almost as good as when he kissed me. "OK, well, let's try this one. These guys are the Black Keys." While I did think he would like their garage-y, bluesy sound, in my humble opinion, the Black Keys wrote songs that were just sex, if sex was music. I thought maybe it was time to give Daryl a little push in the only way I knew how. As I dropped the towel and got back into the pool, I watched him checking me out from behind my sunglasses, which gave me just the slightest bit of swagger. Once back in the water, though, I was completely at a loss about what to do next, so for want of a better idea, I closed my eyes and began floating around the pool.

Then I felt a hand clasp around my ankle, and I was suddenly underwater. I came up sputtering, "That was fucking dirty, sneaking up on me like that." I splashed water in his face and he grabbed me around the waist, tossing me into the deep end of the pool. For all of his shit about being so much older than me, he was acting like any teenage boy who found himself alone in a pool with a girl. When I resurfaced again, he was right there. He grabbed me around the waist again and kissed me. It was fucking fantastic, making out with him in a crystal blue pool under the scorching late afternoon sunshine.

Quickly, he had me up against the edge of the pool, his mouth on my earlobe, neck, further south. I grabbed his ass, pulling him tight to me, grinding his hard-on into my hip. Then his hands were on my breasts, his tongue running down the curve that disappeared into my bra. "Come on," I panted, pulling away. I grabbed his hand and drug him upstairs, happy that he was offering absolutely no resistance this time.

Then Daryl Dixon, the unbelievably gorgeous god of sex, was naked on my bed. He lay back, propped up on his elbows to look at me. I slipped off my wet bra and undies and stood there uncomfortably for a second. I mean, I'd had a fair amount of sex in my teenaged life, but I had never slept with anyone even close to Daryl's league. I'd managed to get this far, but now I was suddenly unsure of what to do next. Daryl didn't make me stand there for long. He slid back over to me, sitting on the edge of the bed, and pulling me in between his legs. He started with my breasts, running his tongue along their modest curves, finally sliding his tongue around my nipples. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out too loud. He kissed the hollow above my hips, a place I had never in my life imagined would be so fucking delicious. And then - and then! - he switched places with me, settling me on the edge of the bed, his mouth now finding it's way between my legs. There are no words to describe how un-fucking-believably amazing that was. I moaned and writhed and came so hard that I think I stunned him just a little bit.

Daryl sat back on his heels while I just lay there, breathing heavily, a smile playing across his lips. Then he asked, "D'you have a condom? I have one but it's in m' pants which are out on th' deck."

"What?" I asked, dazed. "Oh yeah, hang on." Marie had optimistically stocked both of our bathrooms with kind of a ridiculously large quantity of condoms, so I went to fetch one. I had to brace myself on the wall because my legs did not want to work. Daryl was stretched out on the bed when I returned, arms behind his head. Holy mother of God, this man is perfection. My knees buckled again just a little. I tossed the condom onto the mattress, not exactly sure what to do with myself again, so I sat back down awkwardly on the bed. So how should I-? I didn't have time to finish the thought, because Daryl was then kissing the back of my neck, another undiscovered-for-me erogenous zone. A moan escaped my lips.

"So, you wanna keep goin'?" he growled in my ear.

"God yes," I groaned. He grabbed me around the waist again, laid me down on the bed, and then holyfuckingshit he was inside me. And oh my God was it incredible.

Afterwards, I lay next to him, tracing my fingers along the ridiculous muscles of his arm. "How are guns like this even possible? Wait...maybe you are a superhero." We heard Marie come in rather noisily downstairs, probably wanting to give us fair warning. "Oooh, are you hungry? I'm going to guess you haven't had Puerto Rican food before either."

Daryl sat up. "Yeah, I'm fuckin' starvin', and nope I ain't had Puerto Rican food before." He looked around the floor before remembering his clothes were out on the deck. "Well, unless ya want me paradin' around in my boxers, I'm gonna need you to fetch my clothes for me."

Marie might not mind that as much as you would. "Oh yeah, I'll get them. Hang on." My clothes were also downstairs, so I threw on a sundress that was hanging in my closet. "Be right back." I headed downstairs, running into Marie who was unpacking a pile of tupperware full of leftovers. "Oh my God, that smells sooo good! I'm starving!"

"I bet you are." She looked me up and down with an amused grin on her face. "Well, it's about fucking time! I was wondering when I saw the piles of clothes out on the deck if you finally got lucky." She leaned in and whispered, "So...how was it?"

"My mind is blown," I told her. "I'm surprised I'm still able to form a coherent sentence."

"You realize you are going to have to fill me in on the gory details later, right?"

"Oh, of course." I went out and fetched our clothes and ran back upstairs. Daryl was still laying right where I'd left him, so I paused to enjoy the view for a second. I tossed the pile of clothes on the bed and then crawled across it to kiss him. "I'm going to go downstairs. See you down there?"

0000000

I could hear a phone ringing, but it wasn't my ringtone. Sleepily, I picked up my phone and looked at it, just in case. I pushed on Daryl's shoulder to wake him. "Hey, I think that's your phone."

"Fuck," he said sleepily. "What time is it?" He swatted his hand on the nightstand a couple of times until he located his phone.

"3:30," I told him.

"Shit." Answering the phone, Daryl said, "What the fuck do you want?" Then his tone changed completely. "Shit...yeah, I know...sorry...don't worry, I'm takin' care of it." He laughed. "Yeah, that too, asshole. Yeah, see ya." He hung up the phone and rolled over, pulling me to him. "Sorry, was m' brother. I borrowed his truck, and he was worried 'bout it."

"Oh, OK." The phone call was already fading from my mind now that Daryl's warm body was pressed up against mine. It had been a while since I'd actually slept with someone, and I guess I had forgotten just how nice it felt.