"Wow!" Carol says, and bends forward to set her empty martini glass next to her bare feet on the coffee table. Daryl didn't want his second half glass, or the second half of his first glass for that matter, so she's actually had two and half glasses of these vodka-heavy appletinis. If it were anybody else but Daryl, she'd think he was trying to get her drunk. "I guess it's been a long time since I drank like that," she admits. "You might have to carry me to bed."
"Lightweight."
She lays her head back against his shoulder, where it's been a good part of the evening. They've been talking, on and off – well, mostly she's been talking, filling him in on the going-ons of the Kingdom and asking questions about what's been happening at the Hilltop, which he's answered like he was rationing words. But he's seemed content. Relaxed. Not bored.
She closes her eyes and can see the outline of the pattern from the oil lamp beyond her eyelids. "After you put me to sleep," she tells him. "Don't sneak out in the middle of the night to Cassandra's bed."
"Stahp."
She giggles.
"Damn. Them drinks did go to yer head."
"I know. I'm being silly." She opens her eyes and turns her head toward him. "You don't even like sex."
"What?"
She pulls slightly away, her head now up. "You're not really that interested in sex."
"Hell's that mean? I ain't gay."
"I know." What is she saying? Whatever's in her head, apparently. "It's just, you've never been with a woman since I've known you. Have you?"
"Ain't no one wants to fuck me."
"I'm sure there are plenty of women who'd be happy to sleep with you, Daryl. Cassandra, for one."
"'S married," he says. "'N I think she gets 'round."
"That doesn't stop most men."
"Yeah, well, condoms ain't no good no more 'n Eugene ain't growin' that penicillin fast enough."
Carol chuckles. "Okay, so not Cassandra. Then that woman at the Hilltop."
"Who?"
"The one who was complimenting you on your hunting skills last time I was there. Sarah? Shannon?"
"Sharon don't wanna fuck me."
"Oh, I think she does," Carol says. "I think she very much does." She yawns and covers her mouth. When she drops her hand, she asks "So you do like sex?"
"Who the hell doesn't like sex?"
"Tell me when you lost your virginity."
"Yer drunk. On just two 'n half martinis."
"Come on! It's just us. Tell me." Daryl gets a peeved look on his face, but when she smiles sloppily, it softens, and when she says, "Who? When? Where? Inquiring minds want to know," elongating the ooooo, he snorts. "Does that mean you're going to tell me?" she asks.
"Ain't interestin'."
"I'm interested," she insists.
"Fine. M' high school girl. When we was sixteen. 'N the back seat of 'er '76 blue Ford Mustang."
Carol jerks her feet from the coffee table and sits straight up in surprise. In the process, she knocks over her empty martini glass, and it rolls left. "Your high school girl?"
"Mhmhm." He takes his feet off the table, reaches over, and rights her martini glass. "Ya a'ight?"
The terms high school girl and Daryl do not compute. "I thought you dropped out of high school your junior year?"
"Yeah. Kept goin' with 'er though."
The terms going with and Daryl do not compute.
"How long?"
"Two years. Well, three, countin' that year 'n high school."
"Three years!" The idea of Daryl ever having had a serious girlfriend – let alone a high school girl – let alone someone he dated for three years – does not compute.
It simply does not compute.
"What happened?" she asks.
"Hell ya mean, what happened? I tried to get in 'er pants, and she let me."
"No, I mean…why did you stop dating after three years?"
"Knocked her up."
Carol blinks.
Daryl's a father?
"So, what…" Carol struggles to process this new information. "You ran off?" Given the man he is now, she can't imagine him doing that, but an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old Daryl? Maybe.
"Didn't run off! Mean…not right away."
"What do you mean?"
"Hell, asked her to marry me. Was gonna take care of 'er 'n the kid. Somehow. Already had two jobs. Was gonna get a third. But…" He grits his teeth together. "She killed it. Didn't even tell me 'til after. Her mama took her to the clinic. Said it'd just tie 'er down, and I wasn't the kind of guy to get stuck with anyhow."
Carol's hand falls on his knee. "I'm so sorry. That must have been terrible for you."
Daryl's jaw grows rigid as he looks toward the far window of the trailer. "Couldn't look at 'er after that. Just…couldn't. She didn't even tell me she was gonna do it. Didn't even…" He swallows. "Merle told me not to get all bent out of shape 'bout it, that I was better off without a kid, that Dixons need to be free to roam, that our daddy was a shit daddy 'cause he got stuck at eighteen with a knocked-up girl. We left town right after that. For some job Merle lined up for us. Never saw 'er again. Probably for the best. Would have been a shit father."
Carol shakes her head. "No. No, Daryl, you wouldn't have. You're great with Judith. You have been from the start."
"Wouldn't of been at nineteen, though. Merle was right. I'd of gotten restless, stayed out late. I'd of lost my temper one too many times. Ended up like my own daddy."
"No." Carol shakes her head, but she doesn't know, not really. She has no idea what Daryl was like at nineteen. But she does know that even before he grew into the man he is now, even when she first met him…he never hurt anyone innocent, not even in a world where he would have had free reign to do so. "No. You wouldn't have."
"Don't matter anyhow," he murmurs. "Long time ago. 'Nother life. 'Nother world."
The conversation is sobering and Carol regrets pricking a bad memory. She can still feel the martinis, but her mind is clearer now. "I'm sorry I brought it up." At this point, she assumes Daryl will go silent until he leaves tomorrow.
But he doesn't. "'S a'ight," he says. "Ain't never told no one 'bout that. Feels kind of good, actually, get it off my chest. How 'bout you?"
"How about me what?"
"Who? When? Where?" He smirks. "Inquiring minds."
She wasn't expecting a return of the question, and maybe she looks a little stunned.
"Sorry. Bad memory? 'S Ed, wasn't it?"
"No. It wasn't Ed. But it was still a bad memory. Ed was unfortunately not an improvement in my taste in boyfriends."
"But Tobin was?" Daryl asks.
Carol looks down at her hand still on his knee. She thinks there's a gentle hurt in his voice when he asks that question. "Tobin was a decent man," she answers quietly. "I needed that, maybe. Needed to know that sex didn't have to be uncomfortable, that it isn't something just to be gotten through, so that next time, when it's with someone who really matters, I can finally just…let myself…just…" She pauses. "I mean…I don't know what I mean."
"Yer drunk," he says.
"Am I?"
He holds up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Little bit."
"Did you love her?" Carols asks. "Your high school girl?"
"Dunno. Maybe. Mostly I just wanted to fuck."
"But not as much anymore?"
"Not just anyone anymore, maybe," he says and looks immediately away. "Better get ya to bed." He stands and plucks up the oil lamp in one hand and holds out his other hand to her.
She lets him help her up. She's not wobbly on her feet, so he lets go and she walks over to the bed. "Do you care which side?"
"Which side ya normally sleep on?" he asks.
"I normally spread myself out over the whole thing like a crucified Jesus," she admits. "But I think I can manage to share the space tonight."
"Then I want the side closest to the door. 'Cause yer gonna be too fuzzy-headed to stop whatever comes in."
She smiles. "I'm not that fuzzy headed. And nothing's coming in, but you're welcome to that side." She goes around to the other side and crawls under the covers while he sets the oil lamp on the night stand and then goes over to get his stuff from the corner of the room.
He returns and sets his hunting knife and loaded handgun on the nightstand, and then he leans his crossbow against the wood. He scratches his chest. "This shirt ya gave me…'S kind of itchy."
"Then take it off.
"Ya mind?"
"Why would I mind?"
Daryl yanks the shirt over his head and tosses it. Carol watches the muscles of his arms flex and feels a sudden tingle between her legs. The shirt flies across the trailer and lands on top of her empty martini glass. The glass wobbles, but doesn't fall over, and the shirt forms a white tent atop it. A thin jagged scar crawls across his left pectoral muscle. Carol's seen him without his shirt a time or two, but she's never noticed that. "Where'd that one come from?"
He follows her gaze and looks down at his own chest. "Ah. 'S just from thorns. In the woods. When I's chasing a deer. Got caught up."
"Did you get the deer?"
"Nah. Just got the scar." He climbs in next to her and turns down the lamp until the trailer is clothed in only faint and filtered starlight.
"Were there a lot of other women?" she asks in the mask of near darkness. "After your high school girl?"
"Nah." Daryl rests his hands on the blanket covering his bare stomach and looks up at the ceiling. "Merle'd throw me his scraps sometimes. The ones he wanted out the way so he could be with the ones he wanted to fuck. A night here. A night there. Never had a regular girl again, though."
"Never wanted one?"
"Used to seem easier that way."
"Used to?"
He doesn't answer.
"Daryl?"
"Mhmmm?"
"Did she see the scars on your back? Your high school girl?"
"Nah," he says. "We always did it in the backseat of 'er car. Left half our clothes on, 'case the cops came 'n told us to move on. Ain't no woman seen my scars. 'Cept you."
'Cept you….
Those two words make her breath catch.
He's so quiet for so long that she's afraid she's made him uncomfortable. "Sorry I talked your ear off."
"'S still on."
Carol rolls to her side, puts a hand on his frim bicep, and kisses his earlobe. "Yep," she whispers. "It still is."
[*]
Daryl's been quiet because he's been thinking. Or, rather, the ghost of Merle's voice has been haunting his brain and chanting one refrain – Dumbass.
She kissed everyone on the cheek at that kissing booth, but she kissed you on the lips, dumbass.
She invited you to stay in her trailer for the whole night, dumbass.
Khalid assumed she was your woman, dumbass.
Why do you think that was, dumbass?
She kissed your cheek when you got the gold, dumbass.
She invited you to share her bed, dumbass.
She asked you to take a bath, dumbass.
She gave you goddamn red silk boxers to wear into her bed, dumbass.
She made you a fucking cocktail, dumbass.
She put her head on your shoulder half the night, dumbass.
She asked if you like sex, dumbass.
She wanted you to carry her to bed, dumbass.
She told you take off your shirt, dumbass.
Carol's voice breaks through Merle's: "Sorry I talked your ear off."
"'S still on."
Her fingers touch the bare and sensitive flesh of his arm, and her soft, vodka-laced lips press against the tender lobe of his ear.
She just kissed your ear, dumbass.
She wants you, dumbass.
That last line isn't in Merle's voice, though, it's in his own, and when Carol begins to draw away from his ear, it's that voice that makes him turn and press his mouth hungrily to hers.
Maybe apple schnapps isn't so bad after all, because Carol tastes fucking fantastic.