"I'm starting for tomorrow's game," Carl tells Rick on Thursday night over dinner. He's trying to be casual about it, like it's no big deal, but Rick can tell Carl is ecstatic.
"That's great. I'm proud of you."
Carl hides a smile, staring down at his plate and pushing food around with his fork. "You didn't... say anything to Coach, did you?"
"Me?" Rick gasps, playing coy.
"I heard he got arrested last night," Carl says. Rick doesn't bother correcting him. "While you were on duty."
"We exchanged words."
Carl sighs.
"Not everything's about you, y'know. Negan and I talked, sure, but it had nothing to do with you."
Carl studies his father's face. In his defense, it does sound pretty suspicious. "So what else could you guys possibly talk about?"
"Y'know, stuff... Things."
Somehow, Carl is not convinced, but he offers no argument and eats in suspicious silence.
Rick notices activity at Carol's house. Curious, he rises from the table and heads to the window for a better view. There's a man heading up the front steps of Carol's house, a man Rick recognizes as Morgan Jones, the owner of the local diner. Morgan is dressed in a crisp khaki shirt and blue jeans, but what's surprising about him isn't what he's wearing, but what he's carrying: a bouquet of white roses.
Hello.
"What's wrong?" Carl asks.
"I think Carol has a date." Rick tries not to get sucked into the town's gossip mill or treating his neighbors' lives like soap operas, but, hey, he ought to know what goes on next-door, at least. For his kids' sakes.
"With who?" Carl's not getting up from the table, just craning his neck to peek out the window.
"Morgan, from the diner."
"Huh. Weird," Carl says, sounding like he could not possibly care less.
Morgan rings the doorbell. After a few seconds, Carol opens the door. She's wearing a flowery blouse and a long, flowing skirt. Rick can see the glint of her small earrings under the porch light. Morgan hands her the roses, and she accepts them with a wide smile. Then they disappear inside, and Rick is left a little bewildered.
When the game starts on Friday night, Rick finds an empty seat next to Carol and her daughter Sophia, which spares him from Jessie's uncomfortable flirtation. He's got Judith with him tonight, which means if he sat alone he'd be swarmed by single women looking for a conversation starter. Better to stick with Carol.
Sophia's texting or browsing Facebook or whatever teenage girls do on their phones.
"Sophia," Rick says in greeting.
"Hey," she says without even looking up from the screen.
Carol smiles at Rick as he sits beside her. "So who's Morgan?" Rick asks.
Carol sighs like she's sick of being asked, but there's a smile at the edges of her mouth. Carol divorced her husband, Ed, five years ago. Rick thinks this might be her first foray into dating since.
"He's just a friend," Carol says, her face reddening with chagrin.
"You had him over last night."
"He wanted to try my cookies."
"Is that what they're calling it now?" Rick jokes.
"Ugh, gross," Sophia whines.
Carol chuckles and playfully nudges Rick with her shoulder. "Stop it. It's nothing serious. I went to the diner the other day and offered him a bit of friendly critique on the cookies. I said he should try to make them with applesauce, and we got to talking. It's no big deal."
"Guys don't bring roses for 'no big deal.'"
"You were snooping? Peeping's a crime, Sheriff."
"He was at the door," Rick protests. "Plain sight."
Carol gives him a look that tells him to stop while he's ahead.
"Should I find someone else to watch Judith, then? I mean, if this is—"
"No, no, please, keep bringing her. She's a delight. No trouble at all. What about you?," Carol says, steering the conversation away from her love life to Rick's. "Have you thought about... It doesn't have to be serious."
Rick shrugs, surreptitiously glancing around at the surrounding moms. Not that he would get involved with a married woman, but a lot of them are what most men would consider attractive, and Rick's trying to see if any particular woman jumps out at him from the crowd, even if being with her was impossible. Just the spark of desire again, the need to be with someone.
But none of them are Lori. None of them have her smile or her laugh or her eyes or her weird obsession with collectible plates.
He shakes his head, coming up empty. "I don't... I'm not interested in anyone."
"Have you tried online dating? There's a whole big world out there beyond King County."
Another shrug. Sometimes Rick thinks Lori's death broke the part of him that develops attachments to people beyond those he already cares for. It's not so much an unwillingness to go there or feeling like he's betraying Lori by becoming interested in someone else, just an incapability. An emotional handicap.
"Maybe that part of my life is over," Rick says simply.
Carol pats his knee. It doesn't feel flirtatious, just friendly. "Oh, stop it, you're too young to be thinking like that."
During the game, Carl pitches five innings and strikes out two, giving up only four hits and two walks. Rick can tell leaving Carl in that long was probably a struggle for Negan, who tends to take pitchers out once they start throwing balls instead of strikes.
The Saviors don't win, but that's clearly the fault of the relief and closing pitchers, who seem to work in tandem to allow the Wolves to score the winning runs.
Rick debates going to the dugout to talk to Negan after the game. It's not like Negan's busy talking to other parents; most all of the dads give him a wide berth, probably because he looks like a bouncer at an S&M club. But Rick wants to thank him for giving Carl a chance to play. He's got a slight feeling that decision had something to do with their conversation.
Rick lets Carol hold Judith for a moment while he heads over to the dugout. Negan's lighting up a cigarette when Rick approaches. "You allowed to smoke here?" Rick wonders, because he highly doubts that. But it's not like anyone else here would dare call Negan on it.
Negan offers a shrug, exhales a gust of smoke. "You off-duty?"
"I'll let it slide this time," Rick says with a half-smile, putting his hands up as if to say 'take it easy.'
Negan leans against the fence and takes another long drag, holding the smoke in his lungs.
"I wanted to thank you for letting Carl play."
"You think that had somethin' to do with you?" Negan chuckles. "Hate to break your heart, Rick, but I'm gonna go ahead and take all the credit for that one."
Rick tilts his head. "So you just happened to put Carl in the game after we had our little talks?"
"Abso-fucking-lutely. It's called a coincidence."
"I don't believe in coincidences."
"Well, you sure as shit better start. 'Cause they're real." Negan takes another drag, blowing out the smoke in Rick's face.
Rick winces, his eyes stinging, but he doesn't back down.
"Dad!" Carl jogs up to them, trying to look casual, but Rick can see the panic on his face as his gaze flicks from him to Negan. "C'mon, let's get Judith and go. I've got homework."
Carl only uses the homework excuse as a last resort escape hatch out of an awkward or boring situation. For some reason, Carl doesn't want Rick talking to Negan.
Rick meets Negan's eyes and gives him an appreciative nod before walking away. He can still smell the lingering smoke even when he gets in the car.
Rick goes to the diner the next afternoon for lunch, because he's curious about Morgan's side of the story regarding his not-date with Carol. Rick usually feels like a doofus rolling up off-duty in a vehicle with "sheriff" plastered across the sides in big, impossible to miss letters. But there's a sleek, black vintage Impala two spaces across from him, and suddenly Rick doesn't feel like the biggest attention whore in the lot.
When Rick takes his usual seat at the counter, there's an insufferable, leather-clad surprise waiting for him a few stools down.
"Well, well, well," Negan says, sounding way too pleased with himself. "We meet again."
Rick sighs. "Negan." It's not like he hates the guy—hearing Negan's tragic backstory certainly softened Rick's opinion of him—but they're not exactly buddies either. And the fact that they keep running into each other is just weird. Sure, it's a small town, but it's not that small.
"Don't sound so happy to see me." Negan actually slides over to take the empty seat next to Rick.
Morgan appears behind the counter to pour Rick some coffee. "Ah, Rick, good to see you again. I see you've met Negan."
"And you've met Carol," Rick says.
Morgan smiles, serene and calming, though that's pretty much his default expression, but now there's a bit of a twinkle in his eye at the mention of Carol. "She's quite a woman."
It's definitely serious, Rick thinks. Good for her. Good for Morgan, too. Morgan divorced his wife, Jenny, last year; they share custody of their ten-year-old son, Duane.
"And she's one hell of a cook," Morgan adds with a chuckle.
"Duane and Sophia get along?" Rick asks.
Morgan gives him a knowing smile. "Baby steps, Rick."
It feels strange having this friendly conversation with Negan eavesdropping like the world's most awkward third wheel. But it's better than being alone with him.
So of course Morgan asks Rick, "What'll it be today?"
Please don't leave, Rick wants to beg, but he orders the daily special—a grilled lemon pepper chicken and bacon sandwich—then Morgan's off to the grill, and Rick is out a comfortable conversation partner.
Damn it.
Negan takes that as his cue. He drinks from his coffee in a long, dramatic swallow and says, "Why don't we just skip this part, Sheriff?"
"What?"
"The part where everything's uncomfortable and weird 'cause we don't know what we're supposed to say to each other. Let's just fast-forward through that shit and be friends."
Is this real life?
"I don't think people can do that," Rick says.
Negan scoffs. "You can do whatever the fuck you want, Rick. It's your life, and you're the goddamn king."
"I don't feel much like one."
"This is King County, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but it ain't a county, and there's no kings. Whoever was in charge of namin' the place missed the mark."
"You've got an awful hard-on for semantics, don't you?"
Rick's just going to ignore that. "Why do you want to be friends?"
"Probably a smart idea to get in good with the sheriff."
"Sounds like you've got somethin' to hide."
"Everybody does. We're all sinners, no saints."
"Even Lucille?" As soon as it leaves his mouth, Rick knows that was the wrong thing to say.
But Negan doesn't punch Rick in the mouth or tell him to go fuck himself, just smirks wryly, as though remembering something. "She was a dirty girl."
Rick almost protests that Lori was a saint, but he knows that's just the rose-colored glasses of his memory. When he really thinks about it, really digs into the glossed-over archives of his brain, he remembers the quarrels, the silent treatments, her tendency to say shitty things she probably didn't mean just to win an argument.
Morgan arrives with Rick's sandwich, and it looks glorious. He tops off Negan's coffee, and Negan orders a slice of cherry pie.
"Pie for lunch?" Rick asks, incredulous.
Negan shrugs. "Love me some pie."
Rick has a feeling that's a double entendre, but he can't imagine why Negan would offer it up.
The slice arrives topped with more whipped cream than is entirely necessary, which doesn't come standard, and Rick realizes Negan must come here often enough for Morgan to remember how he likes his pie.
While they eat, Rick asks, "What's with the jacket? You tryin' out for the lead role in Grease?"
"It was a gift," Negan says in an oddly quiet voice that tells Rick he's hit a nerve.
"Sorry," Rick murmurs.
Negan glances over at him. "You still wear your ring?"
Rick checks his hands and sees the silver band around his third finger. Sometimes he forgets it's even there, sometimes it's all he can think about. "Yeah. Keeps people away." He looks at Negan's hands. "You don't wear yours?"
"I can keep people away all by my lonesome," Negan says, giving him a sly, toothy grin.
Rick wants to point out that Negan hasn't been keeping him away, though their constant meetings are mutual. But while Rick's intentional run-ins with Negan have purpose, Negan seems to end up in Rick's orbit, like they're magnetically drawn to each other.
"Where did you come from?" Rick wonders, because Negan's origins have been gnawing like a rat at his mind for quite some time.
"Hell," Negan says around a mouthful of pie.
"Well, you dress the part." Rick chuckles. "I'm serious."
"So am I. Hell, Michigan. Look at a map sometime, cowboy."
Rick takes his phone out of his pocket and Googles that to make sure he's not being jerked around here. Holy shit, it's a real place. Negan actually dropped out of Satan's bunghole into King County. What a time to be alive.
Rick shakes his head in disbelief, a little laugh escaping his throat. Of fucking course Negan would hail from a place called Hell; Rick always thought the phrase 'devilish smirk' was hyperbole until he saw Negan.
"I guess you're used to small towns, huh?" Rick says when he can finally find words that aren't you've got to be fucking kidding me.
"You know what they say about old habits."
"So you also know people are probably wondering why we're talking to each other."
"And I could not possibly give one hot, buttery fuck what people think of me."
Excellent demonstrations of profanity, indeed. "Eat your pie."
Negan makes a scowly, pouty face like he is completely done with Rick's sass, and he takes a bite as though the pie has personally offended him.
"The Impala," Rick says, tipping his head to the window looking out at the parking lot. "That yours?"
"It most certainly is," Negan says, prideful. His tongue flicks out to catch a glob of cherry goop on the side of his mouth. "You like it?"
"I've seen better."
Negan doesn't react with anger or wounded pride like Rick was expecting. "At least I don't have to arrest chicks to get 'em in my car."
Rick laughs even though he shouldn't, and the sound feels strange in his own ears. He hasn't had much to laugh about since Lori died. There's an excited hiccup in his chest, like the spark of adrenaline he gets when he has to pull his gun. His body might actually deem laughter worthy of a fight-or-flight response.
Negan finishes off the pie and slaps a few dollar bills on the counter. "Give me your phone," he says, holding out his hand.
Rick opens his mouth in silent protest.
Negan sighs like Rick is being difficult. He wiggles his fingers. "Don't make me ask again."
Maybe Rick should just see where this goes. He takes his phone out of his pocket and hands it over.
Negan watches Rick's face before diverting his attention to the phone, his thumb working the screen. "Oh, unclench already. I'm not gonna send your dick pics to your grandma or your pastor." Negan's typing something with one thumb, then two, then he hands the phone back. "There."
"What did you do?"
"You'll figure it out," Negan says, giving Rick a sleazy grin before slipping out of the diner like a panther.
It's not like Rick has anything dubious on his phone Negan could have sent, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of Negan sending some awful text to everyone on his contact list. He hears the Impala pull out of the lot and briefly watches Negan drive off.
Rick unlocks his phone and checks the most recently used app. In his messages is a conversation with Lucifer.
I see what you did there.
There's a message in a blue text bubble sent by Rick himself, or at least Negan in possession of Rick's phone: Told you we could skip over all that shit.
So now Negan has Rick's number, and Negan's listed under an alias, so in case any prying eyes catch a glimpse of Rick's screen they won't bombard him with curious questions. Smart. Sneaky. Mildly terrifying.
Yeah, that pretty much sums Negan up.