I can't tell you how much I love writing this story.
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Chapter Six.
Beth Greene was asleep. On his couch in his trailer as if she belonged there. She had only been there for a couple of hours but already, he could smell her everywhere.
After she had eaten a bowl of the stew and had complimented him yet again on how delicious it was, she offered to help him clean up but he just shook his head, telling her he'd take care of it. The rain continued outside, thunder rumbling and now crashes of lightning and every time it did, Beth jumped slightly.
"You scared of storms?" He asked.
She shook her head. "No. It's just in here, it sounds like it's right on top of us," she said, looking up to the ceiling as she spoke. "I like it in here," she then said and Daryl couldn't help but frown a little at that.
"Why?" He asked.
She shrugged and looked at him with a small smile, her cheeks tinted pink as if she was embarrassed. "It's cozy. I've never had my own space like this before. You're lucky. Your very own place that's just yours."
Daryl shrugged, too, silently agreeing with her. It was nice. He liked coming here after work and being home. Just him and his stuff with no one yelling or breaking something or making him uncomfortable just by being in their presence. It may have been a trailer but it was his trailer and it was nice and dry and clean. It was perfect.
"Your house is big," he felt the need to point out to her. "Can't find space in there for yourself?" He took the bowls and spoons to the sink and turned on the water to hot.
Beth shook her head, slowly lowering herself down onto the couch as if unsure whether or not she could do that. "I lived in Atlanta for a little bit but I had a couple of roommates. And then, coming home… my sister thinks she needs to babysit me."
Daryl wasn't sure what to say to that so he didn't say anything. He grabbed the dish liquid soap and squirted a drop into the sink so he could soak and wash the dishes. He turned back to the stove and grabbed a plastic container from the cabinet overhead, beginning to scoop out the rest of the stew and save it for leftovers. He'd probably take it to the garage tomorrow for lunch.
He had the fleeting image of Beth being there with him and as soon as it entered his head, he shook it out again because it was completely asinine. Beth Greene living in a trailer? Beth Greene living in a trailer with him? He almost snorted. Everyone knew her old man – Hershel Greene – a successful vet who owned a successful farm. Beth had been born into a good family and had a good life. A girl like Beth didn't take the steps down to live in a trailer with some redneck like him.
And it wasn't as if he wanted her to live in this trailer with him. Why the hell would he want that? There was only one bedroom; a bathroom nothing more than the size of a closet. They would be living right on top of each other and it wasn't as if they were together. Far from it. He knew he had something of a crush on her but he was probably going to always keep that to himself because he didn't have the right to have anything towards her. Not a girl like her. He was some dirty high-school dropout mechanic who lived in a trailer and she obviously had her own problems but she was still too good for a guy like him.
He turned back to the sink and began washing the dishes and when he was done, he looked over to see her still on the couch. But instead of sitting, she was now laying down. He turned off the water, put the bowls in the drying rack beside the sink and dried off his hands before going to the couch.
He stood there for a moment as if he didn't really understand what he was looking at but Beth Greene was lying on his couch and she was asleep. He frowned but he didn't wake her. There was no reason to. The storm was still raging and if he did wake her up, what would they do? Talk? He made sure the blanket was covering her because the trailer was feeling a little chilly to him and he didn't want her to be cold. He then took the book at the top of the stack from the table beside the couch before slowly sitting down in the recliner chair, moving as if he didn't want to make too much noise that might disturb her.
He leaned back and turned on the lamp beside the chair, creating a soft glow in the small space and it cast upon Beth's peaceful sleeping face. He found himself watching her for a minute before he forced his eyes away and he opened the book. He wasn't even halfway through Frankenstein yet and he wanted to make a dent in it that afternoon. He had seen her looking at the books earlier but she hadn't asked about it and he definitely wasn't going to explain why he was reading them.
She didn't need to know that Carol – who worked at the library – had seen these books in the library's book sale room and gotten them for him because they were required reading for high school students and Daryl had never read them himself the sporadic times he had attended class. He wasn't entirely sure why he wanted to read them now. Carol had smiled and mentioned bettering himself but that had just made him scowl before muttering a thanks for the books and taking them home.
He tried to concentrate on the words in front of him but he kept looking over to Beth, sleeping on his couch as if she took naps there all of the time. He didn't want to think about how natural or comfortable she looked. Or how pretty. It blew his mind how pretty Beth Greene was. Sometimes, in the garage, his eyes would trail towards the office and he would look at her through the window as she sat at her desk and he felt like he was doing something wrong; that someone was going to call him out on it because he had absolutely no business looking at Beth.
He had heard things about her. It was a small Southern town and there seemed to be rumors about everyone. That was why he hadn't ever really listened to anything. But hearing her on the phone with her brother, and hearing what she had said, he had figured it out pretty fast. Those weren't just rumors.
He personally couldn't understand it. Why someone would willingly starve themselves was beyond him. When he was a kid, he remembered the only meal he sometimes got was from the free lunch he would get at school. He knew what it was like going to sleep with nothing in his stomach and he couldn't believe anyone would want to actually feel like that when they had food right at their fingertips.
He tried to focus on the book again though he realized he had been on the same page for quite some time and none of the words were settling in his mind. When he looked at her again, her eyes were open and she was looking at him.
"I fell asleep," she said in a soft voice.
"Yeah," he said because he didn't know what else to say.
"I'm sorry about that," she said and sat up, smothering a yawn behind her hand. "It's lessened a little bit," she said, turning and looking out the window behind the couch, seeing the rain had gone down to just a gentle fall.
Daryl nodded and he ignored the disappointment bubbling in his stomach. "You wan' me to take you home now?" He asked.
"Not really, if I can be honest." She looked back to him. "But I know you want your home back."
He shrugged. "Don't really matter to me," he said truthfully and he wondered why it didn't matter because he had been trying so hard for the past three months to always keep distance between himself and this girl and now, he actually didn't care that she was in his home, making the air smell like her?
She looked at him as if she was surprised and confused as well but then she gave a small smile, her eyes lowering down to her hands in her lap and he noticed the faint pink on her cheeks. He exhaled a breath. Damn this girl. It would all be so much easier to avoid her if she wasn't so pretty or so genuinely nice and reminded him of something sweet.
"Are you liking it?" She asked him and for a second, he had no idea what she was talking about. But then he saw her eyes glance down to the book in his hands before back to his face.
"Oh," he said and then after a moment, he shook his head. "Not really," he answered truthfully and watched as a shy smile bloomed across her face.
"I liked it but I didn't love it," she said. "I think you would really like Jack London."
Daryl didn't want to admit to her that he didn't know who that was but it seemed like she had already suspected that. Her smile wasn't cruel or judgmental.
"He wrote The Call of the Wild and White Fang," she said. "A real outdoorsman."
Daryl grunted something but didn't say anything and she didn't anything else either. He closed the book and tossed it onto the couch cushion beside her before standing up, his knees cracking.
"Want somethin' to drink?" He asked, already heading towards the refrigerator.
"Yes, please," she said. She stood up and he watched as she folded the blanket carefully, draping it over the back of the couch where he had first gotten it.
He pulled out two fruit punch juice boxes from the refrigerator and handed her one. She didn't say anything but he could see her looking at it, confused and surprised. He told himself that it was none of her damn business and if she didn't want it, she didn't have to drink it but he tore the plastic around the straw and heard himself explaining it to her anyway.
"When I was a kid, I always wanted juice boxes. Never got 'em though," he said. He stabbed the straw through the top of the box and then turned, leaning against the counter, watching her as she tore at the plastic and inserted the straw much more gently than he had. "Got to be makin' my own money and I realized I could buy anything I damn well pleased," he said.
"I think I'm like that with chocolate. Hershey's chocolate has always been my favorite." She leaned against the counter across from him and smiled, taking a sip. "I think this is one of the best afternoons I've had in my life," she then said and he snorted at that.
"You must lead a pretty damn borin' life," he replied.
She shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips around the straw, taking a drink. "I don't know. I like your life, Daryl Dixon," she then told him in a soft voice, her eyes hesitantly looking over to him.
He frowned though. "Don't know what the hell you're talkin' 'bout," he said and finished the juice box, tossing it into the trash can. "Come on. I'll take you home."
And without waiting for her, he grabbed the keys to his truck from the bowl on the counter and went outside, pushing the door open harder than necessary. He waited for her in the truck and he watched as she came out, closing the trailer door behind her. She hurried through the rain still falling and climbed into the truck beside him.
Neither of them said a word as he drove them back to her farm and he pulled the truck to a stop next to the front porch steps. Beth turned her head and looked up at the house and Daryl looked, too, seeing that a woman with short brown hair was standing past the screen door. He then looked to Beth and saw that way she seemed to deflate, her lips downturned in a frown. She looked at him and did her best to give him a smile though it didn't reach her eyes.
"Thank you for everything this afternoon, Daryl," she said.
And he heard himself say "Anytime," before he could stop himself. While he couldn't quite believe himself that he had just said to her, he looked at her and didn't necessarily feel like he should take it back.
She gave him another smile now – this one coming a little easier – and she then eased out of the truck. He sat there and watched as she hurried out of the rain and up the steps. He assumed the other woman was her sister and she pushed the door open, saying something to her as Beth brushed past her into the house. Daryl sat there and almost felt bad for taking her back home so soon.
The next morning, he was the first to arrive at that garage as usual but after only an hour of work, Dale had him take the tow truck to go pick up a stranded motorist who's engine had crapped out on them.
Back to the garage, the driver went into the office to speak with Dale and Beth would be in charge of assigning the car to whichever mechanic had the time but Daryl knew it wasn't going to be him and he returned to his bay. Before he returned his head to under the hood of the car he was working on, something on his toolbox caught his attention. He looked and saw that it was a book, the breeze blowing that day rustling the pages. He frowned as he went to it. It hadn't been there when he had left. He picked it up and looked down to the front cover. White Fang.
His eyes instantly lifted and he looked to the office but Beth was still talking with the customer. Daryl looked down to the paperback and flipped it over to read the summary. He admitted, this sounded much better to him than the other books he was trying to read right now. Again, he looked towards the office and this time, Beth was back by herself, typing something down in the computer. But it was as if she could feel his eyes on her because she turned her head then and instantly met his eyes through the glass, across the garage.
He held up the book and was the one to smile first at her – just a small one but a smile nonetheless. And Beth beamed back.
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