The next day, Daryl vanished before sunrise, as usual. When Carol went to make the group breakfast, she found slapped up on the refrigerator, beneath the Fun Kingdom bottle opener magnet, a small sheet of notebook paper:
Gone exploring.
Back by late afternoon.
– Daryl B.
She smiled.
Shane and Rick danced tensely around each other at breakfast, while both showed efficacious concern for Lori. Andrea was clearly annoyed by Shane's attentions to his ex-lover. She asked T-Dog if he wanted to go fishing with her, and T-Dog grinned.
"We need you on the fence work," Shane insisted tensely while glaring at T-Dog, to which Andrea replied, "Well, maybe I'll work on the fence, too. The more the merrier."
"I'm helping," Glenn said. "Nobody cares that I'm helping."
Rick took Carl off to "do chores," which meant tearing up the dead flower beds and turning the soil in preparation for planting gardens once they had seeds. Lori rested at home.
Meanwhile, Carol made Sophia help her do the laundry in the lake and hang it from clothes lines – mostly undergarments and pants, because there were scores of shirts and socks in the stores they could grab brand new. Carol had set out a laundry basket in the downstairs hallway for people to throw in anything they really needed washed. She wondered if any of the boxers she was scrubbing were Daryl's and decided he probably went commando.
Around three in afternoon, Daryl reappeared as she was clipping the last item of clothing to the line she'd erected between two trees near the lake. "C'mon. Knife lesson time."
Carol glanced at Sophia.
"I'll be fine, Mama. I'll go back to the house. The Grimes are there. I'll go in and do my homework. And then I'll help get dinner started if you aren't back in time."
"Good kid," Daryl said as he walked away with Carol.
"I like to think so," Carol agreed. "That I was a decent mother in some ways, even if not in the most important way. I should have left Ed long ago, for her sake, if not for mine."
Daryl glanced at her and then looked away as if he had no idea what to say to that.
"Do you wish that? That your mother had left your father?" she asked.
"Hell no. Wasn't the perfect mother, but that don't mean I wished she was gone."
"I meant that she would take you with her, of course. When she left."
"Oh. Don't reckon she would have."
Carol felt her gut twist with compassion. Did he really think that? That his own mother would have abandoned him? "Why not?"
"My mama checked out. Long before she checked out of this world. She was there, but…" He shook his head. "She wasn't there. She wasn't like the other mothers. Didn't come out to yell suppertime. Didn't read me stories at night. Didn't tuck me in. Didn't notice when I was gone. Didn't notice when I was there."
"I'm so sorry."
"Guess she was depressed. Who the hell wouldn't be, living with my asshole father? Merle said she wasn't always like that, though. That she was different when he was a kid. He said she started checking out when I was around two and Merle was around twelve. Wish I could have known her back then, the way he did."
"I wish you could have, too," Carol said softly.
He took her to the carnival dart game. He'd blown up a dozen balloons and stapled them to the board.
"I had this idea before," she told him. "I practiced stabbing on the balloons."
"Yeah, well, now yer gonna practice throwing." He handed her a medium-sized folding knife with a rose carved on the handle. "This is your new throwin' knife. Other one's for stabbin', This is your backup, 'case you lose your knife, or ya got two walkers comin' at once."
She ran her finger over the painted emblem emblazoned on a silver oval attached to the black handle - a single red rose. "Is there are story behind the rose?"
"The rose used to have no color."
"No color?" Carol asked.
"Yeah. Got its red color from the blood of Aphrodite. She cut her feet on the thorns of a rosebush when she was rushin' to her dyin' lover Adonis."
"That's considerably less uplifting than the story of the jasmine."
"Yeah, well, let it be a reminder to ya to always have your partner's back so he don't end up dyin'."
She smiled. "Oh, are you Adonis in this scenario?"
"Stahp. Just meant whoever you're out there with. Now open it."
She pried on the blade to pull the knife open. It took a moment.
"That's one way to do it. Ain't the best or fastest way. Hand it here."
Carol handed over the knife and he closed it again and then showed her how to flick the blade open with a sharp flick of his wrist. She had to try three times before she could get it to open once that way. He made her practice several more times.
Then Daryl told her the parts of the knife, at least the ones that were different from her "stabbing knife." She recited them to herself: flipper, bolster, pivot, thumb stud, lock.
Throwing was next. They worked at it until she complained her wrist was sore. He showed her how to clip the knife to her pocket for easy draw, and then took her hand, bent it up, and began rubbing her wrist.
She tried not to scare him off with a smile this time. She just kept her eyes closed. The massage lasted a good while, but eventually the rubbing slowed and stopped, probably because his fingers were getting tired. She could still feel his fingertips, warm on the bare flesh of her wrist, resting gently there.
When she opened her eyes, his eyes were on her lips. She thought for sure he was going to lean in and kiss her, but instead he bit down on his bottom lip, cast his eyes to the ground, and let go of her wrist. "Guess 's 'bout dinner time," he murmured.
After dinner – which Sophia and Lori and Carl had made – Daryl disappeared outside the house again, supposedly to smoke, but he was gone a long time.
When Carol came out of her shower later, however, his door was wide open and the dimmed electric light was aglow between the two beds. Still drying her hair, she slipped inside and sat down on the bed opposite his to make her three guesses. He closed his book and lay it aside.
"Barry."
He shook his head.
"Baylor."
"Nah."
"Beau."
"How ya spell it?" he asked.
"Either way," she said, thinking she must have hit on it this time. "B-E-A-U or B-O."
"Nah. Neither."
She chuckled and shook her head. They talked a little more, about the group's plans for the camp, about what they'd both done that day.
Carol rose and walked over with the intention of kissing him goodnight by once again pressing her lips to his forehead, but when she bent down with a single hand restng on his strong shoulder to steady herself, Daryl abruptly raised his head up, and her lips landed on his lips instead.
She pressed down decisively anyway.
His lips were chapped yet unexpectedly soft and when he opened them slightly she could taste his smoky mint breath.
"Sorry," he murmured after sliding his lips away. "Know you weren't going for that."
"I don't mind," she assured him. "I liked it." She kissed his forehead then. "Goodnight, Daryl."
"'Nite, Miss Murphy."
[*]
Daryl had never kissed a woman like that before. Softly on the lips, without any expectation that they were about to fuck. He'd pretended it was an accident, but it wasn't. He'd meant for her to miss his forehead and hit his lips.
She'd said, I liked it.
I liked it.
It hadn't been a long kiss, or a hard one. It hadn't gone anywhere. But he'd liked it, too. A hell of a lot more than he wanted to admit. The softness of it. The feel of her lips. The taste of her breath. The little hum he was sure he'd heard her make.
He tried not to think about it too much as he struggled to fall asleep, but it kept him up for another hour.
[*]
The note on the refrigerator the next morning read:
Gone squirrel hunting.
Back in time for lessons.
- Daryl B.
He came back earlier this time, around two in the afternoon, with three squirrels, which he threw, heads and tails chopped off and skinned, on the top shelf of the refrigerator, directly on top of the cans of beer, before taking Carol for knife throwing lessons.
After lessons, he disappeared again. She cooked the squirrel meat into a rice casserole using some of the Spanish rice they'd gotten at a restaurant in the Aztec Kingdom.
After dinner, Sophia talked Daryl into playing Dungeons and Dragons with her and Carl on the living room coffee table. Carol listened to them talk while she washed and dried the dishes and the rest of the group lingered, socializing, in the dining room.
"This is your character," Sophia announced, handing Daryl a slip of notebook paper, which he took and glanced over. "You're a rogue. Your weapon is a crossbow."
"Aww…yeah. I got the best weapon."
"It has poison arrows," Sophia told him.
"'Course it does."
"And you have a quiver of 20 arrows and a short sword, leather armor, two daggers, and thieves tools."
"I'm a wizard!" Carl told him.
"What's it mean 1d8 per level hit points?" Daryl asked. "And hell's a constitution modifier?"
Carol smiled as she scrubbed beneath the warm water, her back to the stovetop island and the living room.
"Why's my charisma so damn low?" Daryl wanted to know a few minutes later when Carol was drying a plate.
"Rogues don't have much charisma," Sophia told him. "But you have dexterity and intelligence."
Daryl tolerated the game for about thirty-five minutes before he excused himself for a smoke. "Finish playin' with y'all tomorrow," he told the kids.
"Oh, no, this game takes days," Sophia told him as he slipped his unlit cigarette between his lips.
Daryl made a doubtful murmurr as he opened the front door. Carol could see him light up through the kitchen window and then walk off into the night.
Later that night, when Carol came out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth, his bedroom door was open and the electric light was aglow.
She slipped inside and made her three guesses: Benedict. Bishop. Boris.
No.
She went to kiss him goodnight on the forhead, and he shifted abruptly again. She let her lips linger longer this time on his.
"Goodnight, Daryl."
"Nite, Miss Murphy."
[*]
The note on the refrigerator the next morning read:
Gone bird hunting.
Back in time for lessons.
- Daryl B.
He came back around two in the afternoon again, with two grouse, which he threw, heads and feet and tail feahters chopped off and plucked and skinned, on the top shelf of the refrigerator, directly on top of the beer, before taking Carol for knife throwing lessons.
After lessons, he disappeared again. She cooked the grouse into a green bean stir fry using soy sauce and seasonings from a Kingdom of Japan Cafe. Daryl returned two minutes before dinner was served.
After dinner, Lori, saying she felt exhausted from her pregnancy, turned in early, and Rick joined her, probably futilely hoping to get laid. T-Dog cleared the dishes to the sink, but left Carol to do the washing and rejoined Glenn, Shane, and Andrea in the dining room for decaf coffee and idle chatter. Carol scrubbed and dried the dishes while she listened to Daryl and the kids resume their game.
"So, I'll just attack it," she heard Daryl say.
"You can't. Not successfully anyway," Sophia told him.
"You don't have enough persuasion," Carl explained.
"Hell I need persuasion for? Just shoot it with my bow."
"You really need persuasion for this one," Sophia insisted. "Your skills are stealth, insight, intimidation, and athletics. Not persuasion."
Carol chuckled to herself. It seemed Sophia had put a lot of thought into creating Daryl's character. This time, he held out for forty-five minutes of game play before excusing himself to smoke.
That night, after her shower, Carol slipped through the open doorway of Daryl's room, still drying her hair. He put his crossbow aside – he'd been doing something with the strings – by propping it against the far side of the bed.
She sat down on the second bed and made her three guesses: Boston. Bowie. Brady.
No.
They talked a little more, and then she walked over to kiss him goodnight. They didn't pretend she was going for the forehead this time. She kissed him straight on the lips, a slow lingering kiss, and this time, she slipped him just a little bit of tongue.
[*]
It was that little bit of tongue that did him in. He'd had women shove a tongue into his mouth before, like they were fucking him with it, but he'd never had one ease it in slowly and softly like that, and then taste his, practically slow dance with his.
It wasn't much, but it had made him hard as a rock. He bent up one knee and draped an arm over it so she wouldn't notice when she pulled back.
"Goodnight, Daryl."
"Nite, Miss Murphy."
He watched her as she slipped out the door, pulling it shut behind herself.
He waited for the sound of her footsteps to disappear down the hall. Then he dimmed the light between the beds to the lowest possible glow, slid his sweatpants to his knees where he sat atop the blanket, and took himself in his own hand. He began to think of all the things he wanted to do to her.
He didn't realize she'd left her towel behind on the bed, or that she'd left the door ever so slightly ajar when she slipped out. He didn't hear her return and push the door open or know she was there until she began to say, "I forgot my tow – "
Carol stopped abruptly and stared straight at his cock in his hand.
Daryl froze in his stroking. He flushed an angry, mortified red, but his cock only throbbed at her presence.
He was sure she'd turn around in disgusted flight, but instead she pulled the door all the way shut behind herself and asked, "Would you like some help with that?"
Would you like some help with that?
He was certain that's what he had heard. Like she was volunteering to help him make the bed. "What?" he grunted, his hand still frozen on his own cock.
"Would you like some help with that?" she repeated, and there was no mistaking the words this time.
"Help!" he cried, his voice a strange squeak in his own ears, and then she was crossing the distance between them, and it was her hand on his cock, not his.
He let out a strangled cry and slammed his head back against the headboard. He closed his eyes tightly and tried his damn hardest not to be Mr. Pop and Stop, but her hand was too perfect, too soft, her strokes too practiced – like she'd done this way more than he ever would have guessed– and soon he was spilling hot into her hand and onto his own shirt and apologizing while he did it.
"It's okay," she assured him. "That's what I was trying to do after all." She wiped her hand on a clean part of his shirt, kissed his forehead, his nose, and then, once, briefly, his lips, and then asked, "Feel better?"
"Uh-huh." He was breathing hard. His orgasm had come quickly, but damn had it been powerful. Not at all like when he did it to himself. Not even like when he fucked a girl. Like something he'd never experienced before. "Uh-huh."
"Goodnight, Daryl."
She'd snatched up her towel and was halfway out the door when he managed to croak, "Nite, Miss Murphy."
[*]
Carol washed her hands in the bathroom and then went back to her room. Sophia bent down the corner of a page in her book and set it on the floor next to her trundle bed as Carol folded back the covers of her own bed, sat up in it, and flipped the covers back down over her legs.
"Did you guess it right this time, Mama?" Sophia asked. "His middle name?"
"No," Carol answered calmly as she retrieved her notebook, crossed off the three names he'd said were not his, shoved the pen in the spine, and returned it to her nightstand. "Not this time. Lights out now."
Carol turned off the lamp and heard Sophia shift in the bed below and roll to her side. Only in the darkness and silence did Carol begin to contemplate what she had just done and ask herself why she had done it.
She had never made the first sexual move in a relationship before, not with Ed, and not before Ed.
Oh, she had flirted plenty, but when it came to actually having sex, she was always the one slow rolling it, resisting the man's pressure, and then finally giving in. But tonight? Tonight she'd been like Ruth uncovering the feet of Boaz.
She hadn't expected to see what she'd seen when she went back for that towel. And she certainly hadn't expected to offer what she'd offered, but the words had simply come out when she'd seen him there, erect and needy and quite possibly thinking of her. At least she thought he might have been thinking of her, because they'd just kissed for the second time.
Now, she supposed, the ball was in Daryl's court.