They had only started living together for two weeks - and so far it had been pure bliss. Waking up next to Daryl - spending lazy afternoons together, watching TV together wrapped up on the couch, making dinner for each other - it felt like paradise to Beth. The only problem left to solve were all of the boxes they still hadn't bothered to unpack. Living with each other caused a lot of distractions - they could barely keep their hands off one another, and this lead to a disregard of everything else they had to do. The unpacking process was probably going to takemonths at this rate.
"Beth, this whole box just has white shirts in it…"
Beth looked up from her book and over at Daryl, who was staring confusedly into a rather large box he had just sliced open to unpack. She blushed. She really did have a lot of white shirts. She liked clothes - the one luxury she afforded herself in life was having a cute (ever expanding) wardrobe.
"Yeah, I'll deal with those later," she said to him, still pink in the cheeks. "I need to iron 'em and re-fold 'em again and figure out where to put 'em."
Daryl scoffed. He bent down and picked up one of the shirts on the top - it still had a tag sticking out of it.
"Y'never even wore this one," he said, holding it up to look at it. He squinted at the tag. "Holy shit, Beth! You spent $30 on a plain white t-shirt?"
"It's soft," she said with emphasis, as if this explained her reasoning completely, "it seemed worth it at the time…"
"My shirt's soft too, but you can be damn sure I didn't spend no $30 on it, and I actually wear it."
Beth took Daryl in. He was in a tight-fitting, plain white shirt - it looked great on him (but so did everything else he ever wore), and he'd probably spent no more that $5 dollars on it. (As if Daryl Dixon would even care to remember where he had gotten his clothes to begin with, she thought to herself.)
To be fair, Daryl was right - she didn't need to spend that kind of money on clothes - in fact she hadn't. Not in a long time. She was focused on other, more important things now. And of course Daryl knew that too, but heloved to tease her.
"Alright," she replied with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Fine, I'll wear it then."
She nimbly stood up from their couch that she had been lounging on and pulled her current t-shirt up over her head. She saw Daryl actively trying not to let his mouth drop open. She hadn't been wearing a bra under her shirt - but he clearly hadn't noticed until now. The effect was spectacular - she had rendered Daryl speechless with surprise. She stalked over to him, smiled sweetly, gently tugged the t-shirt out of his hands, and slipped it over her head. She pulled at the tag, ripping it off, and tossed it to the side dramatically. Then she did a little spin for him.
"You win," she said, trying not to laugh at how wide his eyes had gotten.
"Hell," he said in a deep voice, "Maybe I should unpack the rest of this stuff for you, too."
It wasn't until later, as they lay tangled together on the floor, now surrounded by Beth's white shirts that she had willingly modeled for him (pant-less, as requested…), that the expensive shirt came up again. Beth had retrieved her other top from earlier, and sat up to begin taking the shirts into the bedroom to stuff into drawers. Daryl had pulled on what he believed to be his white shirt, and stood up to help.
Beth took one look at him and began to cackle.
"What?"
"Daryl, that's my shirt. The $30 one."
He looked down at himself. "It is?"
She nodded, still laughing. It actually looked astoundingly good on him - the shirt had been an oversized, plain white t-shirt. On Daryl it wasn't over-sized, but actually fit him rather well. It didn't look like he was wearing a woman's shirt - but Beth recognized it as hers all the same.
He flushed red. "Well this is gonna sound stupid…but…"
Beth raised her eyebrows at him questioningly.
"Well," he said quietly, looking at the floor, "it is really soft. And comfy. You were right…"
Beth's grin widened. "You keep it then."
Daryl looked up at her, with a grin to match hers. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," she replied. "It looks good on you, plus I obviously don't ever wear it."
Daryl looked down at himself again and let out a gruff laugh. "Alright, it's mine now. You can't get mad when I get it all dirty at the shop."
"Deal," she said. "But at least let me cut off the tag in the back…unless you want the other mechanics to get jealous of your new Brandy Melville t-shirt?"
"Brady who?"
Beth chuckled. Daryl was too damn cute sometimes. She walked over to him and took his face in her hands. "Nevermind," she said before planting a kiss on his mouth. "I've clearly fallen in love with a nutcase. A nutcase who looks better in my shirts than I do."
"Sure have," Daryl responded with a grin. "C'mon, let's put these things away before I decide to steal another one." He poked her in the rib. She giggled and swatted at him with one of the many white t-shirts.
And with that, he grabbed her by the waist, hoisted her over his shoulder, and tickled her all the way into their bedroom.