After Beth cleared the dinner plates away from the table, she brought over a notebook and a pen she'd found in the girl's bedroom.
The girl, as it turned out, had lots of practical clothing. Beth had never seen a closet so big, and a lot of it was unpractical dresses and skirts, but plenty of jeans and vests and cotton blend teeshirts. The best part was the underwear. Lace, satin, cotton, you name it, it was there. She slipped on a pair of black lace panties that made her feel more like a woman than her old cotton brief ever had. Her daddy never would have let her buy anything like this. Beth found a matching bra and hooked it behind her back. The cups were a half size or so smaller than her breasts, but it wasn't very noticeable.
She grabbed a pair of darkwash lowrise jeans that had an expensive label on them, and found them to be just a little loose. Perfect. She knew she had to gain more weight, and then the jeans would fit perfectly. Beth pulled on a long sleeved grey cotton shirt with a boatneck neckline, and an eggplant colored vest filled with goose feather down vest.
Beth felt pretty. Her hair was back to being the light blonde it usually was, and she'd even found a tube of dry mascara that she'd revived with some Visine. The girl had so much perfume sitting on her boudoir, she didn't know which to use. In the end, she opted for the honeysuckle body mist that reminded her of home.
Now she and Daryl were compiling a list of their necessities, as well as taking inventory of what they already have.
Beth had counted over 50 cans of various vegetables, beans, and sauces, as well as Ramen noodles, canned ravioli, and tons of fruit preserves. Daryl could hunt, so they wouldn't be short on meat. They still had the basement to clear out, but they would do that in a few days.
"We still hafta look around this place for winter gear; it looks like they travelled a lot, so there's probably coats around here somewhere." Daryl said, taking a bite of the apple pie filling they were eating.
"I found a couple of leather jackets in the mudroom closet. I put them on the couch—didn't you see them?" Beth asked. Daryl shook his head. "I figured they might not be your style, but you seem to have a thing for leather…" she trailed off, pointing to the leather vest he put on over the wife beater, the one she'd never seen him not wearing.
"Oh, well, uh, thanks." An awkward silence crept in between them. "Tomorrow, before we go out on a run, we should make this place look run down on the outside." Beth agreed. It would deter other survivors from thinking it was useful.
"We ought to siphon fuel, too, right? I thought I saw some canisters for fuel in the basement."
"Not a bad idea, little girl." Daryl conceded, nodding. Beth glared at him.
"Enough with the 'little girl' already! I think we've both established that I am not a girl anymore." She had to smirk when Daryl went red in the face. "You clearly got a good look." she added snarkily.
"I didn' see nothin'!" he argued, standing up. "You ain't no woman!" With that he stormed off into the living room. His voice carried through to her ears. "An' these jackets are ugly as hell!"
"Yeah, deny there's a problem. Then it'll just go away. I'm sure that'll work." Beth said, mostly to herself, shaking her head at Daryl's hot temper. Of all the people she could have been stuck with, it had to be Daryl Dixon, redneck extraordinaire.
Daryl didn't understand women. Never had, probably never would. They were like another species. Then again, the only women he had ever really been in contact with were the bimbos Merle would bring home, and the occasional drunken bar lay.
None of them looked like Beth.
Shit, he'd never seen anyone quite like Beth. She was a southern belle in every sense of the word, to the point that it drove Daryl mad with irritation. Sure, she'd gotten a little better with the knife, and had held her own against the walker in the country club, but damn it all if she was still a pain in his ass.
Any time he closed his eyes, all he could see was her naked form, standing in front of him. He felt his manhood twitch at the image.
"Sunofa—" he cursed, putting it out of mind. It was so wrong. She was ten years his junior. Not to mention his hard life had aged his face another ten years… he was far too old for her.
Daryl knew he probably shouldn't have lashed out at her after she joked about him knowing she was a woman, but it ruffled his feathers the wrong way.
She was insufferable.
Needing to clear his head, Daryl laced up his boots, grabbed his crossbow, which had been sitting on the ground in the mudroom, and left the house. He hoped Beth would have enough common sense to lock the door behind him, but it was possible she wouldn't.
The sun had dipped to just below the treeline, and the street was just as deserted as it had been when they emerged from the woods into the development. They weren't clone houses, but it was very clearly a ritzy neighborhood. It made Daryl sick.
He slipped through the trees and back into his hunter mindset. It was several minutes before he encountered a walker; it was an easy kill, it hadn't known Daryl was there until the knife was buried in its skull. As of late, a few of his arrows had been splintering and at the country club, one had finally broken in two. He needed to use them only for animals, or an emergency situation.
He spent a long while in the woods, walking around, killing the stray walker with his knife, and using his bow to string up several squirrels that he had spotted. By the time he noticed his breath in front of his face like a cloud of smoke, several hours had passed and it was far past sundown.
He knelt down and listened to the sounds of the forest, hearing a herd of deer several years away. He wanted to string one up for jerky, and maybe make Beth squeamish with venison.
Daryl decided his best option was to conceal himself up in a tree and wait for his prey to come to him. He didn't have long to wait, as almost immediately a deer crossed his path. Crossbow loaded, he aimed at the largest—a young buck. His antlers still only a foot or so long.
The arrow shot silently through the air and was a dead on kill through the torso. As the buck collapsed, the other deer scattered. Daryl hopped down from his branch and strung the deer up with his bow string. He hoisted it up with minimal difficulty and began to head back to the house.
The walk didn't take much time, and he thankfully encountered no walkers wanting his kill.
The kitchen light was still on. Of course, when he jiggled the doorknob, he found it unlocked.
"Stupid little girl," he muttered, opening the door and shutting then locking it behind him. Daryl took the buck immediately downstairs where the cool temperature would keep it from smelling until he could break it down. He noticed, when he returned upstairs, the buck had bled all over the wife beater. Begrudgingly, he removed it and threw it downstairs, not knowing where else to put it.
Daryl went to shut off the kitchen light and found Beth sitting in the chair, her head resting on folded arms on the table. Their list sat beside her, having been ripped out of the notebook. She'd written something on the next page in the journal.
I don't understand why he's so mean. I thought things would be different after the moonshine house, but he's gone back to being just as hard and cold as ever… maybe I should try to get him drunk again. Maybe then he'd pluck up the courage to just kiss me already.
I'm being stupid. He obviously doesn't feel that way. Otherwise he wouldn't keep calling me a little girl. He thinks I'm a child, still. Just because I didn't just give my virginity to the first person to ask doesn't mean I'm not a woman… I shouldn't have goaded him. I'll apologize in the morning.
Daryl suddenly felt guilty for reading it, because it was clearly a diary entry. He wasn't sure exactly what he should do, so he gingerly hoisted Beth up off the chair and carried her through the house, upstairs, into the master suite.
As he walked up the stairs, he realized he hadn't removed his boots, and was tracking dirt. He didn't know why, but that made him feel even guiltier. Maybe in the morning he'd find some stain remover and…
No. What the hell? She was just a girl with an obsessive compulsive nature. It wasn't like this was a permanent setup, although it sure could pass as one, with some fortification. What was she doing to him?
They were going north. It really was a great idea, the more Daryl thought on it. They could get as close to the Great Lakes as possible without hitting a major city. He'd mapped it all out during dinner, and they decided to head toward the Cleveland area. Beth had mentioned something about learning the winters there were particularly brutal because of the lake effect snow and the freezing wind brought down from western Canada.
Beth was snoring lightly in his arms, and he laid her down on the king sized bed. She had a more serene expression than the night before… she felt safe. Daryl had to admit, he did too. At least, safer than spending the night in an unprotected cave.
He went into the guest bedroom and dropped onto the full sized mattress, feeling the exhaustion in his muscles. Daryl was asleep in minutes, his worries floating into the recess of his mind.
That night, he dreamed of Beth.
Wowsers. I feel like things are heating up with them a little faster than I'd anticipated writing it, but hey, if that's how my flow is working, who am I to resist? It will still be several more chaoters before your mouths go tart from the lemons, but I promise it'll be the tartest lemon you'll read.
Please review; they give me the encouragement to continue writing. For every one of you that reviews, there are like fifty people that don't. That makes me sad, but I know that's how it works here.
THANK YOU FOR READING!