The bell above the door chimed as Beth hurriedly wiped down the counter, the noise a distant sound as she mopped at the coffee that coated the countertop. In one of her clumsier moments, she had tipped over a customer's coffee, the hot liquid spilling on to the floor. Ms Lynch was now seated in the corner, alternating between scowling at her cup of coffee and at Beth.
The cloth in her hand was now sopping wet with coffee, and she glanced up before she turned to throw it in the sink just inside the doorway to the kitchen when her body froze in place.
Daryl stood just inside the door to the diner, hovering awkwardly by one of the tables.
Before her brain could catch up with the sight, her arm kept moving and she flung the cloth towards the sink and it hit the wall instead with a wet slap. She felt a flush creep up her neck as she stared at him, faintly hearing Carol tsk behind her as she must have caught sight of the cloth.
"Beth –"
"I'm just gonna…serve –" Beth gestured vaguely, without looking around at her boss. Daryl was still standing at the door looking wary.
As she crossed the diner, she could feel her palms start to sweat and a pit open up in her stomach. It had been weeks since she had last spoken to Daryl. It still hurt when she remembered that night when they'd argued, she had felt so vulnerable and exposed and it hadn't been enough. Her summer holidays thus far had been quite busy as she tried to keep her mind off that night, taking regular shifts at the diner and hanging out with her friends as much as possible.
There had been a day early in her summer break where she had been called in to the Sheriff's department to give a formal statement and sit with a sketch artist for the assault that had occurred, and she had sat in the interview room nervously while she relayed the events to Sheriff Grimes again. Thankfully Officer Walsh did not sit in with her that time. She'd kept thinking every time the door to the interview room opened that it would be Daryl, and they would question them together, or he'd be sitting out in the corridor when she finished. Every time she looked though, he wasn't there. Beth had lasted until Sheriff Grimes was walking her out until she had finally asked about Daryl's statement. The man had explained they had already taken it a couple of days beforehand.
She had pondered what she would say to him when she spoke to him again. Most of it had sounded silly and fell short of anything she felt could adequately express how she felt, or what she wanted. Foolishly, what had hurt almost as much was that he had let her go, and he hadn't called after her. He hadn't tried to contact her. Well, until now. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest as she approached the object of her thoughts.
"Hey," she greeted him quietly.
"Hey." He shifted a little on his feet. "S'okay if…" he trailed off, looking at her enquiringly. Beth frowned, watching as his eyes darted around the diner before resting on her face again and then it clicked.
"Oh, um, of course," her eyes widened in realisation. "You don't have to stop coming here…" It was her turn to trail off lamely and in the ensuing silence he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
"'Kay. I'll just take a seat."
.
.
The next day when he walked through the door, bell chiming, she was possibly more surprised.
If anything, the previous day had confirmed that they should probably continue avoiding each other.
Beth had spilt coffee two more times, both times in front of Daryl while trying to serve other customers and both times Daryl had tried to assist in cleaning the mess spilling over the tabletops. Carol had hovered nervously holding paper towels while both times the customer had sat bewildered as three people tried to help mop the coffee up, culminating in smashed crockery the second time it happened when Beth tried not to touch Daryl when he reached for the overturned coffee cup at the same time she did.
Beth could only thank the heavens above that Ed wasn't in the diner that day, but that didn't stop Carol from getting nervous. When Beth had gone on her break, she had ducked over to the grocery store where they had a miniscule selection of cups and plates and bought a cup to replace the broken one. The chances of Ed noticing were slim but Carol still worried.
Hopefully nothing would be broken during today's visit.
.
.
While nothing else broke, his visits to the diner became a regular occurrence. She could feel his eyes on her sometimes, when he thought she was distracted. Sometimes he had a book with him that he read after he finished eating, the covers creased and worn.
He said hello to her every day, and a few times he asked how she was going, to which she would always respond in a friendly but short fashion. Sometimes they would exchange amused glances over the other patrons' bickering and she would feel herself flush.
She stared at her reflection in the mornings as she applied her make-up, wondering what on earth was wrong with her. It wasn't, it couldn't go anywhere. And yet, there he was almost every day sitting in the corner. It was driving her crazy.
Sometimes she wondered if he wasn't right about…well, everything. He was older than her, and apart from making her weak at the knees what did he have to offer her? That stupid, stupid part of her (some people called it a 'heart') said everything that mattered. Money honestly meant nothing to her. That white picket fence he talked about…sounded nice, sure. However, the fierce loyalty, strength and bravery he possessed spoke more to Beth than any display of wealth or showmanship.
The tentative relationship that they had been cultivating, initially of friendship, had been so fragile but Beth knew – or had known – that it was worth the effort. Now though, she wondered if she had been seeing things that weren't really there. Which left her wondering every time she saw him in the diner.
Once she had realised that he planned on coming by regularly, she had let – well, told – Carol to serve him. It helped that it was usually busy when he came and she could keep herself occupied.
Until one day a few weeks later, the lunch rush which in any other town would be called a slump, had finished and the sound of the bell chiming made Beth look up with an easy smile as she wiped down the counter. Her smile faltered slightly when she saw Daryl stepping into the diner, but she recovered quickly enough. She smiled at him before quickly looking down at the counter as she wiped up invisible stains. She had already cleared all of the tabl-
"Reckon that's clean enough," Daryl's voice startled Beth and her hand jerked slightly across the counter.
Beth gave up the pretence and huffed a small laugh, looking up at him sheepishly. He smiled wryly back for a moment before his expression shifted into one of uncertainty. "You had your break yet?"
"Nope," Carol answered for her before Beth could even open her mouth. She glared at the older woman standing behind the register, who continued looking down at the change she was counting all too innocently.
"Um," she looked back at Daryl. "No, I haven't. I get twenty minutes."
His eyes flickered over to Carol before back to her, and she understood his unspoken question.
"I'll be back in twenty," she said, suppressing a sigh. Carol smiled but didn't look up.
"Take your time," she called after them. Beth grabbed a sandwich from the display by the counter, while the taller man made his way out of the diner. She closed the glass door carefully and followed the path the man had taken.
Beth found him standing at the back of the diner where the garbage bins were in a narrow concrete lane. She slowed upon approaching him, eyeing the bunch of flowers he held clutched in his fist that had been absent in the diner. They were a colourful bunch of pale pinks, purple, yellow and orange. They didn't appear to have been purchased from a store but rather hand-picked wildflowers.
She looked up and saw him watching her closely, before he looked around the lane and nudged an overturned crate towards her in a gesture to sit.
Beth only hesitated for a second before she sat on the crate, despite how uncomfortable they were as seats. Daryl spotted another crate and nudged it over so that he could drop down on to it.
It was silent for a minute apart from the snap of the plastic container that held the sandwich Beth had swiped for lunch when she pried it open.
"I'm sorry."
Beth paused, the sandwich halfway to her mouth. She stared at him.
He shifted on the crate and winced slightly. "I never," he began before clearing his throat, looking at the ground. "Never intended to…make decisions for you, map out your life."
Beth felt a funny, hot feeling in her chest. It wasn't the good kind. Of course, he'd been coming to the diner to try and apologise, that was all.
She stared at the ground. "I know."
"I wanna…try."
Beth held her breath and didn't dare look up. "You wanna try what?"
Daryl was silent for a minute before exhaling heavily. "I wanna try…this, me an' you." He gestured with the fistful of flowers between them agitatedly.
She looked up at him in shock.
"I'm no fuckin' good at this, you might've noticed." He muttered, looking up at the exit to the little alley they sat in.
"Yeah, I did," she commented wryly. His eyes snapped to hers, but softened upon seeing her smile. They looked away from each other, before each sneaking a peek at the other. Beth's heart was beating fast in her chest, but there was something holding her back. As hard as it must have been for him to reach out to her, she was hesitant to respond in kind. This at least felt different to when he'd kissed her (both times) as he had clearly thought about it, and it wasn't a knee jerk reaction or just pure physical attraction.
Attraction did not seem to be the problem, here.
Yet at the same time, it felt as dangerous as it did when he kissed her. If not, more. None of those issues that he had brought up in his cabin had been resolved or even addressed and try as she might she could not deny that some of his arguments had wormed their way into her mind.
"Are you sure about this?" She asked tentatively. "I mean, nothing's changed."
He sucked in his lower lip, nodding as he stared at the ground. "I know."
"So why now?"
"I just," he started, then swallowed, looking about as nervous as she'd ever seen him. "You make me wanna try." He looked up at her warily.
Beth felt that feeling in her chest leap up into her throat. Still, she hesitated. "Daryl, you have to be sure. Beyond today, I mean. I'm not sure…" she trailed off as he stood up, and offered his hand to her.
She stared at it before looking down in her lap and putting her sandwich back in the plastic case carefully then placing it on the ground beside her crate. She looked up and extended her own hand to grasp his tightly as he pulled her upright.
"I'm sure." Daryl murmured. "If you'll have me."
"Oh." She breathed, looking up at him. He handed her the bunch of flowers and the butterflies came back in full force as her lips twitched into a hesitant smile. "Okay."
A/N: A bit of a short chapter, I've been frustrated with it for some time but for the sake of moving it along I'm posting it. No one except myself reads this before I post it, and I've noticed lately that I seem to be slipping into present tense so if you see any errors please let me know.
A note on this chapter...I don't think that drinking a lot of coffee and showing up with a bunch of flowers is enough to smooth over their issues, so I hope I made it fairly clear that they're still not exactly on the same page entering into a relationship. The point of this was that prior to this chapter, Daryl wasn't really initiating anything, and he needed to take that next step. Anyway, if you have any feedback please leave a review!
Thanks to everyone for following, favouriting, reviewing and reading! I'll try not to take as long next time but I can't make any promises.