AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol could barely keep from laughing at Daryl.
His happiness and enthusiasm were contagious and, honestly, he was just about the bubbliest that she'd ever seen him. He hadn't stopped smiling since they'd left the house and there was a distinctive bounce to his step that wasn't always there.
It made Carol feel good that she could bring him that much happiness by simply "being." After somehow being able to make Ed furious by simply existing, making Daryl happy by doing the same thing was something so foreign to her—a concept so unbelievable—that it did cause her to start, every now and again, with worry that it wasn't true or couldn't last. She had to remind her inner voice that Daryl wasn't Ed, and she could trust him. She had to trust him, because she didn't have it in her heart to do otherwise.
Still, she was grateful because she also knew that, if she told him everything, he'd understand the voice, too, and he wouldn't be angry with her that it sometimes came through and made her have moments of worry and uneasiness that the happiness around her could somehow begin to crumble.
Daryl had worries, too, and she accepted them. More than that, she loved him for sharing them with her.
She loved him, if she was being honest, for absolutely every aspect of himself that made him Daryl.
"My wife prefers a booth, if you got one," Daryl had loudly and proudly announced when they'd chosen a restaurant for a late dinner and it was their turn to be seated. Carol didn't mind where they sat at all, but Daryl wanted to say it. He needed to say it. And she needed to let him say it.
And when the waiter came to take their orders, Daryl had already taken hers, and he requested her beverage and her food for her, proudly smiling at the waiter like he anticipated some kind of response from the man when he realized they were married. Of course, he got nothing more than the customary acknowledgement of the order and the promise that they wouldn't have to wait long for the food.
The dessert, at the end of the meal—a brownie and ice cream split between them—had been Daryl's idea. It wasn't wedding cake, he said, but it would do.
And Carol decided, without telling him, that one of the first things she'd do when they got home was bake them a small cake—a wedding cake—to surprise Daryl.
She was sure, after all, that Daryl would appreciate such a surprise.
Daryl appreciated everything she did. He appreciated everything about her. It was another distinct difference from what she'd known before. That appreciation only made Carol that much more eager to provide, in any way she could, things that Daryl would find pleasing.
So, she would make sure that, though it wouldn't be the full, traditional cake, Daryl would have the experience of having a wedding cake.
And even though they'd already consummated their marriage, and even though she hadn't prepared for a wedding when she'd packed her bags in Living Springs, when they got back to the little beach house, Carol did her best to make sure that Daryl also had the full experience of a wedding night.
On the drive the next day, Daryl held her hand for the long stretches of highway where it wasn't really necessary to keep both hands on the wheel. Just for the fun of it, they stopped at a roadside stand—the old man's goods advertised with misspelled words painted on wooden signs—and they bought boiled peanuts and some of the summer's last produce.
It was dark when they made it back to Living Springs and parked in Carol's driveway. Daryl insisted that she wait in the truck, and he took the key to let himself into the house. He turned on lights and checked, perhaps, to make sure that nobody had broken into the house in their absence. When he was satisfied it was clear, he came out to the truck.
"Can I come in?" Carol asked, leaning against the driver's side door and smiling at him. He'd turned on the porch light, and the street light kept the yard pretty well illuminated.
Daryl smirked at her. She saw him reach his hands toward her, and she made it easy on him. She stepped forward so that, by the time he reached her, there was no effort involved in wrapping his arms around her. He pulled her into a hug and squeezed her gently. She smiled to herself and brushed her face against him.
"You didn't think I was lettin' you run into a dark ass house on your own," he mused. "The hell would you have done if they was someone in there?"
"I've been in dark houses before," Carol said. "I would've done the same thing you'd have done. Hit them with something and made a run for a kitchen knife."
Daryl laughed to himself, but he didn't let go of her.
"Hell—your plan was better thought out than mine," Daryl teased. "I was just gonna hit 'em and hope I done enough damage to get time to call the cops and get out here to get my hands on the gun in the glovebox."
"So, you should have let me go in," Carol insisted, tickling his sides. He jerked, surprised by the sensation, but didn't let go of her. He did laugh, though.
"That was the only part of the plan I was sure about," Daryl said. "They weren't gettin' you."
"What if I don't want them to get you either?" Carol asked, pulling away enough to look at him.
"You in luck," he said. "'Cause here I stand. Not gotten in the least."
"Can we unload?"
"I think you know we got stuff to do, first."
Carol smiled and nodded.
"However you want to do it," she said.
Without hesitation, Daryl lifted her, bridal style. She barked at him, surprised, and wrapped herself around him to help him out. He apparently thought it was funny, because he simply stood there laughing for a moment instead of actually carrying her into the house.
"I thought you'd wait until we got to the door," Carol offered.
"Why would I do that?"
"Save your strength?"
"Don't worry," Daryl assured her. "I got plenty to go around—especially for you."
At the door, he tipped her so that she could turn the knob and push the door open. He stopped, straightening up, and puckered his lips at her before he stepped inside. She accepted his kiss, and he somewhat held it—faltering only a little—as he turned sideways and stepped them into the house.
"We're home," Carol said when the kiss broke.
"Mmm hmm," Daryl said.
"Our home," Carol added with a smile.
"Mmm hmmm," Daryl confirmed, staring hard at her. She felt his fingers shift against her skin.
"We're married and—we're home…and I love you."
He smiled. He nodded, though, and chewed at his lip, and for the first time, Carol realized that he was, perhaps, feeling just a bit overwhelmed. His words, maybe, were choked off, and he wasn't sure how to deal with it.
"You can put me down if you want," she said softly.
Daryl stared at her a second longer, and then he lowered her to her feet. Immediately, she caught his face with her hands, and she kissed him. She held the kiss, turning it into one of the long, fun, and lingering kisses where they experimented with different ways of tasting each other's mouths. By the time she allowed him his freedom, he seemed to have regained control over his vocal cords.
Carol didn't point out that she'd noticed that he'd lost that control for even a moment. Instead, she simply grabbed his hand and tugged him back toward the door so that they could bring their things inside and settle in for the night.
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Carol used one of the two ovens in the back to bake the cake. Instead of a wedding cake, she made a simple two-layer cake. When customers commented, just after breakfast, on the delicious smell of cake, she assured them that cupcakes would be coming out soon, and she used the second oven to bake cupcakes for the café.
She decorated both the cake and the cupcakes with the special icing she made, and she presented the cupcakes as "wedding cupcakes" that she'd chosen to sell to commemorate her recent nuptials.
She got a great deal of congratulations, and even a few hugs, from the customers who bought up the cupcakes, but Jacqui seemed most impressed by how fast the sweets moved.
"That's it. We're baking cupcakes for every occasion," Jacqui said, bringing Carol the empty tray to fill with the next batch that she was icing. "We'll be putting them out with signs saying these are our special Tuesday cupcakes. These are moving faster than our apple turnovers do."
"I can bake cupcakes every day," Carol agreed. "We'll decorate them."
"Good idea. Charge twenty-five cents extra once you start putting more than just that white icing on there," Jacqui said.
"What's the lunch crowd looking like?" Carol asked. "Any more food orders I need to work on?"
"We're slowing down for now," Jacqui said. "Cookies, cupcakes, and coffee. That's all that's moving now. All that's left out there are the people that don't have to go back to work and the ones that are wondering how bad they really need that job."
Carol laughed to herself at Jacqui's assessment of their current clientele. The café, really, had busy hours and then it had quite slow hours. As a result, they always took advantage of the slow hours to stockpile the things that they knew would go quickly when the waves of customers rolled in.
After lunch, their next biggest bustle came around three when the schools would let out and the teenagers would flow in for coffee, hot chocolate, and sweets.
"You putting that cake out for later?" Jacqui asked, gesturing toward the cake that Carol was working on in between her other tasks.
"That's my wedding cake!" Carol responded.
Jacqui raised her eyebrows at her.
"I don't know how to break it to you, sweetie, but you got married two days ago. You don't get to celebrate it for the rest of your life."
Carol laughed to herself.
"I thought—maybe you could celebrate your marriage for the rest of your life," she mused. "If it's good enough to celebrate forever."
"Your marriage, maybe. I mean—if you want to. But your wedding?"
"There wasn't a cake," Carol said. "And—Daryl loves tradition so much. It's really just a cake, Jacqui. But—he's bringing our wedding rings home tonight and I thought…you know…he'd really appreciate a cake. You really have no idea how much tradition and things mean to him. And I want him to have it. I'm just decorating it to make it a little special for him." She hummed to herself and returned to icing the cupcakes in front of her to arrange them on the tray for the students that would trickle in later. "After what I went through before, Jacqui, I want to celebrate my marriage every day. As ridiculous as you or anyone else might think that sounds. After Ed? If I could regret my marriage every day, why can't I celebrate it?"
"You really are head over heels for Daryl, aren't you?"
Carol smiled to herself.
"Did you doubt it when I agreed to marry him—overnight?"
"I'm not going to lie. Michonne might have presented the concern that you felt pushed into it. That—you said yes because you didn't want to upset him, but maybe you weren't really that dedicated to marrying him right away."
"There's one in every crowd," Carol teased. "We've only been married—like you said—three days. Not even three whole days. But…" She stopped and shrugged. "I'd marry him again, every day."
Jacqui squeezed her shoulder.
"I'm happy for you," she said. "And maybe I'm breaking some kind of sacred secret telling you, but Andrea and I are already putting together a bridal shower."
"I don't need a bridal shower," Carol said.
"Nobody needs a bridal shower, Carol," Jacqui said. "But if we're going to celebrate your wedding every day for the next month, we're going to have a bridal shower so we can buy you ridiculously inappropriate gifts and have an excuse to eat more than our diets allow. So, you might as well not argue with us, because you know you won't win this one."
Carol smiled at her.
"I'm not going to argue," she said. "I'm just going to say—thank you."
Jacqui smiled at her.
"You want me to pipe some roses on that cake for you? Spruce it up a bit while you get those cupcakes going and start another urn of coffee?"
Carol smiled. She could pipe the roses herself. She and Jacqui had taken the same cake decorating course. In fact, so had Andrea and Michonne. It had been something that they'd all done together.
Still, she thought she understood the meaning behind the offer—all of Jacqui's meaning—and she appreciated it.
"Thanks," Carol said. "You always make the prettiest ones."
"Red or pink?" Jacqui asked. "Which one you think fits your man's traditional tastes a bit more?"
"Pink," Carol said.
"He's got good taste," Jacqui mused. She winked at Carol playfully. "But I knew that already. Put in another tray of chocolate chip cookies, if you don't mind. We're almost out of those, too."
