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The pool on Magnolia Street is the best stop on Daryl's route.
It's not the easiest, nor the quickest, nor the first or last stop. It's average all around, in every way. Just a couple of machines, refilled weekly, in a quiet suburban parking lot with plenty of space for him to park the van close. Product moves pretty quickly and the machines don't often break down or get vandalized.
Except for the one thing that sets it apart. The one thing the pool has that no other stop does, something that puts it miles ahead of any other stop on his route, or any route in the world.
The pool has Beth.
It takes nearly two months of deliveries before he even learns her name.
She's a lifeguard. Or the manager of the lifeguards, he's pretty sure. She wears her long blond hair in a ponytail every day. She's friendly, and nice in a type of way that goes deeper than just some customer service duties, and she is so far out of his league that he's almost surprised they even share a planet.
But every Monday, he gets to go and fill up one drink machine and one snack machine at the pool, and he usually gets to talk to Beth.
Well. He gets to listen to her. Stare at her. Sometimes he manages a whole sentence or two of his own.
It's the highlight of his week, every week.
That he has to undergo the humiliating torture of a truly pathetic grade school crush on her is an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect.
It's embarrassing as hell, how much he looks forward to seeing her. Mondays are his favourite day of the week. When he clocks in on Mondays, it's a fight between heading straight to the pool first thing, and delaying it as long as he can so that it isn't over too soon.
This Monday is no different. He makes it to 2PM.
He forces himself to drive as slowly as he can down Magnolia Street. He’s driving a company van and the last thing he needs is a speeding ticket.
He pulls into the wide parking lot that spreads out before a low, brick building. The lot is pretty full today; there are loads of SUVs and minivans, because school is still out. As he turns, he catches a glimpse of bright blue water beyond the high chain link fence. A pair of vending machines stand against the side of the building, facing the parking lot, and he pulls around to them, parking alongside and turning on his hazards.
When he gets out of the air conditioned van, the heat hits him like somebody just dumped a hamper of hot, damp towels on his head. Shrieks and laughter and the sound of splashing water come from the other side of the fence.
Daryl takes his time unloading the stock onto the hand truck and wheeling it over to the machines. He unlocks them and collects and secures the cash inside the van, then starts reloading the machines.
He tries not to rush, but the work itself is light and easy, and it doesn't take him anywhere near as long as he'd like to finish up.
After locking the machines, he puts the hand truck away and locks up the back of the van.
He stands in the shade of the van and has a cigarette, but she doesn't come out.
She doesn't always. Sometimes she doesn't have a reason to, and they don't cross paths.
Daryl pulls his phone out of his back pocket to check the time.
He's gotta go.
He walks down the sidewalk to the edge of the building where the tall chain link fence begins.
As he walks up, a woman trying to wrangle four little kids leaves through the gate, followed by a group of middle schoolers.
He steps aside to let them all go by, then goes to the fence to take a look up and down the pool.
To look for her red bathing suit and visor and her bright blonde ponytail.
She isn't hard to find; she's over on the far side of the pool, standing with another lifeguard, eyes on the pool.
He only lets himself look at her for a moment. Just long enough to find her. Just long enough to see the shape of the way she stands, arms crossed, keeping watch.
Creep. Loser.
Daryl turns away and returns to the van. He starts it up and pulls away, headed to his next stop.
This part, though. This part is the worst part of his week. No question.
But he has to go. He can't linger any longer than necessary. He's still got stops to make before clocking out, and anyway, the last thing he wants is for her to notice him skulking around like some stalker.
It just would have been nice to see her face and talk to her, is all. See how her week went.
So he tries not to think about the disappointment pressing painfully against the insides of his ribs, and he tries not to think of this stupid crush at all, and he drives away.
***
It's nearly 6PM on Friday, and Daryl's thinking about the cold six pack waiting for him in the fridge at home when the dispatch line calls his cell. He has to pull over and call the line back; he can't ever get the damn hands-free Bluetooth bullshit to work for him.
“You’ve got a last minute refill,” Tara says on the other end of the line.
“You kiddin’?”
“Don't blame me, I'm just the dispatcher,” she replies.
“Okay, well, I'll hit it Monday.”
“No, it's gotta be tonight.”
“Huh? What the hell for? Runnin’ out of Cheetos ain't exactly an emergency.”
“Tomorrow's Saturday.”
“And?”
“There's a baseball tournament at the field over there tomorrow.”
Daryl goes quiet.
“It’s the pool on Magnolia?”
“Yep.”
Daryl drums his fingers against the steering wheel.
“Fine. But I'm clocking the OT.”
Tara guffaws.
“I mean, you can certainly try.”
Daryl rolls his eyes and hangs up.
He heads off towards Magnolia Street.
When he turns into the pool parking lot, he finds it mostly empty, only a couple of lingering minivans surrounded by moms and a bunch of kids in various stages of being herded away from the pool for the day.
There's one unattended car in the parking lot, a late ‘90s Camry, parked over by a line of young trees planted on the grassy embankment at the far edge of the lot.
Daryl drives up alongside the building, parking in his usual spot before flicking on his hazards. He unloads the hand truck and gets to work on the machines, emptying and securing the cash boxes, then filling each empty row with bags of Doritos and chocolate chip cookies and bottles of coke.
The heat of the day is starting to ease off a little, and the building’s overhang offers just enough shade from the early evening sun that Daryl doesn’t have to roast in his skin while he works.
He’s about halfway done the second machine when the windowless metal door in the side of the brick building a few feet away from him swings open with a bang.
Out comes Beth, hauling three huge black trash bags. She's so busy trying to maneuver them through the doorway while toeing a nearby cinder block over to prop the door open that she doesn't see him right away. When she does, she startles, dropping the bags on the pavement.
“Oh my god!” she exclaims. “I didn't know anybody was out here!”
She's wearing her usual red bathing suit, but with a pair of denim cutoffs on top. Her hair is pulled back in a braided ponytail that was probably tidy when she put it up hours ago, but which is limp and loosened now, her face haloed by escaped tendrils of frizzy curls.
Shit, she's cute.
Jailbait. She's jailbait, you fucking loser.
“Sorry,” he croaks, his throat dry. “Didn't mean to scare you.”
But she doesn't look scared. She smiles like she's happy to see him.
“Daryl! What are you doing here so late?”
“Somebody called in a restock.”
“You came this late, though? It could have waited.”
Daryl shrugs his shoulders and keeps loading bottles of root beer into their row.
“Ain’t my call,” he says. “I just go where they tell me.”
“I'm so sorry,” Beth says, looking genuinely regretful. “I called, but I figured somebody would come tomorrow or something. I feel terrible!”
“Don't worry ‘bout it,” Daryl says. “It's no trouble. Anyway, what're you doin’ here so late? Don't you get to hit the road once everybody clears out?”
Beth gives a wry sort of laugh.
“I'm in charge of a lot of lifeguards, but not a lot of trustworthy closers, unfortunately. They're all high school kids, couple of college kids. It goes with the territory.”
He squints at her. Does that mean she's not in high school? Because that'd be a goddamn relief.
Not that there's any decent way to ask. Not that he's gonna do anything with whatever information he gets.
He swallows dryly.
“You, uh, been doin’ this long?”
“Yeah, since high school. Started as a lifeguard every summer, then came on full time when I finished college.”
Daryl peers at her.
“You're older than you look, you know that?”
Beth guffaws, her eyebrows raised.
“Thanks,” she says, sounding amused. “I think. Or, I'm sorry?”
Daryl blanches and shakes his head.
“No, no, that ain't — I'm not — I didn't mean — I'm not disappointed or nothin’, Jesus.”
Beth snorts a laugh.
“Okay,” she says, smiling at him and still sounding amused and not at all like she's just discovered he's a creep.
Daryl has no idea what to do with that, so he keeps loading bottles of 7-Up into the machine.
Beth props the door open with the brick, then grabs one of the trash bags.
“Might as well accept that I’ll be doing three trips,” she says lightly, like she’s trying to fill the awkward silence between them. She walks around him with the bag, heading down the sidewalk to the dented green dumpster at the far corner of the building.
Daryl looks at the nearly full vending machine in front of him, then back over at Beth's back. He shoves the last few bottles of lemonade inside, then stands up and locks it.
He grabs the two trash bags Beth left behind and hauls them down the sidewalk, getting to the dumpster just as she’s unlocking the lid. She looks up at him.
“Oh!” she exclaims. “You don’t have to do that, I can do it, I just can’t do it all at once, is all.”
“Ain’t no trouble,” he replies as he pitches the bags into the dumpster.
The lid closes with a bang and Beth locks it up with one of several keys on a purple lanyard hanging around her neck. She brushes her hands off on her shorts and smiles at him.
“Well, thank you,” she says. “I guess I owe you double now.”
“Double?”
“One for refilling the machine on short notice, and one for the trash bags.”
“Pfft,” Daryl says, giving his head a shake. “You don’t owe me sh— nothin’.”
Her smile widens and she nods.
“Fine,” she says. “Be stubborn. I’ll just have to bide my time and repay you when you least expect it.”
Daryl scoffs as they turn to walk back towards the machines. She sounds almost like she’s flirting with him, or something, but he guesses she’s probably just nice to most people, even nobodies like him. She’s that kind of person.
She walks beside him, her flip-flops slapping the pavement. When they get back to the vending machines, they both stop, and she turns to him, her hands on her hips.
When she smiles at him again, there's something expectant in her smile, like she's waiting for him to answer a question she's asked, even though she hasn't actually asked him anything.
Daryl grabs the hand truck and loads it up into the back of the van. When he comes back around the van, Beth is still there, standing by the open door, hands clasped in front of her, swaying in place.
“So,” she says as he approaches, “big plans tonight?”
“Nah, just headin’ home to have a beer on the porch with my dog, probably turn in early.”
“That sounds nice,” she replies, still smiling. “I don't really have plans either.”
Daryl nods, scratching the back of his neck.
“You workin’ tomorrow? I hear there's a big baseball tournament at the field.”
“Yep,” she says. “I'm the manager on call for the weekend, but I don't actually have to come in unless there's an emergency.”
Daryl nods, taking in the still expectant look on Beth's face with some confusion. After a moment, she clears her throat.
“So, other than your date with your dog tonight, which is obviously very important, do you have any plans for the rest of the weekend?”
Daryl shrugs.
“Nah, not really. Might go to Lowe's on Sunday. I got a door at my place needs fixin’. Nothin’ else, though.”
Beth, still smiling, nods at him like she wants him to continue, but there's really nothing else to tell her. Truth is, his life's boring and lonely as shit and he almost never has plans.
He's not exactly thrilled with the prospect of saying that to this girl, this bright and beautiful girl, kind and friendly, who's probably never had an empty weekend in her life.
Instead, he clears his throat and cracks his knuckles.
“All right, well… See you Monday,” he says.
“Okay,” Beth replies with a light laugh, as though he's said something funny. Her face is all flushed. “See you Monday, Daryl.”
He hops up into the driver's seat and lights a smoke as he pulls away. When he pulls out of the lot and sits at the intersection, waiting on the light to change, he looks back at the pool building.
Beth's still right where he left her, standing on the pavement in the golden evening light, hands on her hips and face upturned to the sky.
***
Two weeks later, on Friday night, Daryl’s driving home late from a barbecue at his friend Rick's place.
The sun has just started to sink below the tops of the trees to the west, but the heat is relentless, barely coming down from the peak of the day.
His route takes him down Magnolia Street, and he stops his pick-up truck at the red light across from the pool.
That same Camry is the only car in the lot. Beside it stands a familiar, slender blonde in a white t-shirt and denim cut-offs. She crouches down and examines the rear driver’s side tire for a moment, then stands up, her hands on her hips, her body projecting exasperation.
Something must be wrong with her car.
But that's not his problem.
It's after hours, and he's pretty sure whatever is wrong can't be fixed by cramming the car full of Diet Mountain Dew, anyway, which means it most definitely is not his damn problem.
The car behind him honks their horn impatiently. Daryl startles and sees the traffic light has turned green. He waves a hand out the window and presses on the gas, crossing the intersection before flicking his turn signal on and pulling into the parking lot.
He'll just make sure she's got a way home. That's all.
Daryl pulls up alongside the car.
Beth is watching his truck's approach warily, but her expression changes when her eyes meet his. She grins at him.
His heart leaps, thrilled.
“Daryl!” she exclaims. “What brings you here?”
“Was drivin’ by and saw you out here. Car trouble?”
“Yeah, I've got a flat.”
Daryl looks and sees that yes, obviously she has a flat. He can't believe he didn't see it before.
He turns off his truck’s engine and gets out, but then he hesitates. He probably shouldn't assume she needs help; maybe she's changed a flat before and doesn't need him to come to her rescue at all.
He stands beside his truck, feeling awkward.
“Uh,” he says, before clearing his throat. “You want some help with that?”
“You don't have to,” Beth says, shaking her head. “Really, it's awful kind of you to offer, but I can do it. I've done it before. Or I've watched someone do it before, at least.”
Daryl eyes her.
He doesn't want her to think that he assumes she's some incapable damsel in distress, but he's also changed plenty of flat tires in his day, and it's a shitty job to try to do solo.
“Don't be a hero,” he says. “At least let me give you a hand.”
Beth heaves a sigh, blowing loose hairs out of her sweaty face.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I'm sure.”
Beth smiles at him.
“Well, in that case, I'll just say thanks.”
Daryl crouches down beside her car and takes a close look at the tire, feeling along the treads until he feels something out of place.
“Yep, looks like you ran over a nail.”
“Can I just patch it and refill the tire?”
Daryl wobbles his head.
“Years ago, plenty of tire shops woulda done it for you. I can do it, but it ain't the most stable fix. Wouldn't want you to end up blowing out on the highway.”
He looks at the tire again, rubbing his thumb against the worn rubber.
“These ain't on warranty no more, huh?”
Beth smiles and shakes her head.
“Definitely not.”
Daryl nods.
“You got a jack in the trunk?”
“Yep. It's with the spare.”
Daryl stands up straight. As he walks around the car to the trunk, he wonders whether the wrecker near his place has any tires that'd fit an old Camry. He's on good enough terms with the owner; he might be able to get her a pretty good deal if she doesn't mind driving around on the spare for a few days.
“Oh, wait -” Beth says, but he's already popping the unlocked trunk.
He forgets all about the tire and the wrecker, because what he finds in the trunk then puzzles him completely.
The trunk is full of bags of chips and cookies and pretzels, cans of coke and bottles of Gatorade, all of it individual vending machine stock from the machines across the lot; she definitely didn't buy all this from Sam's Club.
There must be a few hundred bucks’ worth of stock sitting in her trunk, at a minimum.
“Um.”
Beth is standing to the side of the open trunk, wide-eyed, her face flushed a deep pink.
“Well, I know you ain't been stealin’ it,” Daryl says, perplexed. “But what the hell? If you're tryin’ to sell ‘em on a markup, your business plan needs work.”
Beth gives a breathless laugh, looking one part amused and one part mortified, and she hides her face behind her hands.
“I'm so embarrassed,” she says, her voice muffled.
“What is this, like, some kinda hoarding thing, or…?”
She drops her hands and looks at him.
“Um, well, the thing is… I figured the more often the machines were empty, the more often they'd need restocking, so…”
“So…?”
Beth wobbles her head and laughs softly.
“So, I was too chicken to ask you out, and I did this instead, and now I'm really rethinking the wisdom in that, because you must think I'm deranged.”
Daryl blinks at her, his mind lagging several seconds behind everything she's just said, because what?
Ask me out?
“Huh?”
Beth grimaces and gestures at the trunk.
“I'm so sorry. It's weird. You weren't supposed to… Ugh. I'm sorry. You don't have to stay, if you're uncomfortable.”
Daryl stares at her. She looks humiliated.
The thing is, he's not really uncomfortable. Confused, sure, he's confused as hell, but it's not like he's scared of her.
“One thing's for sure,” he says.
Beth looks at him warily.
“What's that?”
“You're gonna be the best house on the block, come Halloween.”
“Huh?”
“Full-size candy bars and bags of chips? That's every kid's favourite house.”
“Actually, I think a lot of the candy bars have melted.”
He guffaws, and she gives a hesitant kind of laugh, and the awkwardness between them eases just a bit.
He still has no damn idea what to think about the fact that she’s been emptying the machines to get him to come around more often, but it doesn’t matter. Right now, her car’s got a flat needs changing.
“C'mon,” he says, digging through the junk food stash until he finds the hole in the floor of the trunk that conceals the spare tire. “Let's see if we can't get this tire off.”
It's not a particularly difficult task, especially not with both of them working on it, but it's still time-consuming, and by the time they finally get the spare bolted on, the sun has gone down and the streetlights have long since come on.
Daryl heaves the old tire into the back of his truck. He's pouring sweat and it's not just him by any means; Beth's face is damp and pink, her hair darker at the roots, and her t-shirt is clinging to her back so that he can see through to the red bathing suit underneath.
She stands beside her car with her hands on her hips, then breathes an enormous sigh that blows wisps of hair away from her sweaty face.
“I'd offer you a drink but I'm guessing they're all about the same temperature as bath water right now.”
Daryl snorts.
“It’s all right, I'm good,” he says. He's about to take his leave and let her finally head home when she looks over her shoulder at the pool, then back at him. She squints at him, her face thoughtful.
“Wanna go for a swim?”
“Huh?”
“A swim. In the pool?”
She mimes the breast stroke, which maybe he should find insulting, except he's the one who keeps grunting dumbass responses to her, so he can't really blame her.
“Uh,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “Ain't you all closed up?”
“Yeah, but that's the great thing about being the manager,” she says, pulling her lanyard out of her bag. “I've got the keys.”
Beth smiles at him, then turns and starts walking back towards the building, swinging the keys.
Despite himself, he follows her.
“I don't got a suit or nothin’ on me,” he says, as they arrive at the chain link gate. She unlocks it and pushes it open.
Inside, the pool is still, except for the slight current caused by the skimmers, and perfectly crystal blue under the floodlights that illuminate the parking lot.
“We've got a lost and found,” she replies, stepping aside to let them both in before closing the gate behind her. She turns to the right and opens a windowless metal door that leads into the building. Flicking a lightswitch inside, she goes in and starts rummaging around what appears to be a storage room. Daryl lingers in the doorway.
“Won't you get in trouble?”
“With who, the parks department?”
“I dunno. They your boss?”
Beth finds a box on a shelf and makes a triumphant little sound as she seizes it and returns to the doorway.
“They are,” she says, digging around in the box for a moment before pulling out a sealed plastic packet with a pair of bright red swim trunks inside. “Look, even better than the lost and found — brand new staff trunks. You won't tell on me, right?”
Daryl takes the trunks from her.
It's been a long damn time since he's been swimming, and it’s still at least 90 degrees out.
It's just that the thought of taking his shirt off in front of her kind of makes him want to do a Roadrunner-style exit out of here.
Then again, apparently she's been spending all her spare change on snacks she hasn't even eaten, just to get him to come around more.
“No,” he says. “I won't tell on you.”
She grins, and then leads him over to the changing rooms, unlocking the door for him. She leaves him there, in front of a row of painted metal lockers and long benches.
He stands under the flickering fluorescent lights, and blows out a tense breath.
Somewhere deep in the changing room, a cricket chirps.
Figures. He finds out she likes him for some reason he can't understand, and now he's going to immediately scare her off with his freakshow body.
Briefly he considers keeping his shirt on. People do that sometimes. His isn't a t-shirt, though, just an old buttondown with the sleeves torn off. That would probably be kind of weird, to keep it on.
Fuck it.
Might as well scare her off right away before either of them goes to the effort of an actual date.
Daryl rips open the plastic packet, then drops his jeans and kicks them off. He shrugs his shirt off and leaves his clothes in a heap on the bench before pulling on the swim trunks.
He feels exposed, but what the hell. He's committed now.
When he comes out of the changing room, it's to find Beth doing backstrokes along the far side of the pool. She doesn't seem to notice his return, so he goes quickly to the side of the pool at the deep end and jumps in, feet first.
The water is exactly as cool and refreshing as it looked.
He bursts back up through the surface a moment later, flipping his hair out of his eyes, and he finds Beth treading water near the side of the pool, watching him with a smile on her face.
“How's that feel?” she calls to him as she pushes hard off the wall of the pool and shoots toward him. She stops several feet away from him and treads water, keeping herself afloat.
“Better than tryin’ to change a tire on hundred degree asphalt.”
“A hundred degrees at least,” Beth says, leaning back and letting herself float on her back while looking up at the sky.
Daryl takes the opportunity to look at her.
She's splayed out like a starfish, her long legs and arms outstretched, her body held up by the water. She must have taken out her ponytail, because her hair floats loose on the water, spread out all around her head like a halo of cornsilk.
His heart squeezes and he has to look away, at the empty pool deck, the stacks of chairs and loungers beside the building, the tall lifeguard’s chair by the deep end.
In the distance, a car engine revs and backfires, and tires squeal for a moment before silence falls again.
A couple of nearby crickets start up a chorus of chirps.
“This is nice,” Beth says quietly. “I don't get to do this often.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I think I've been in maybe twice all summer.”
“You're here nearly every damn day busting your ass in the heat keeping an eye on everybody and you don't even get to go for a swim yourself?”
Beth rights herself in the water, treading again so that she can look at him. Her hair sticks to her head, the water making it look a deep honey colour.
“What about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“When’s the last time you went for a swim?”
“Whew, no idea,” Daryl replies, lifting a hand to push his dripping hair up off his forehead and out of his face.
Beth watches the movement with great focus, her eyes tracking his arm before dropping down to take in his shoulders and whatever of his chest she can see above the surface of the water. Her cheeks and neck are bright pink, and he doesn’t think it’s from the heat or the water.
Huh.
She’s looking at him like that , and she said she was too chicken to ask him out. She wanted to ask him out. Maybe she still wants to.
If she was looking at anybody else on earth, he’d believe it. Him, though?
Strange and hard for him to believe, but he doubts somehow she’d lie about something like that.
Before he can think of anything to say, she clears her throat.
“So did the candy in my trunk totally freak you out?”
He shrugs.
“Not really. It's not like you had a trash bag full of feet in there or somethin’.”
Beth grimaces and gives a breathless laugh.
“Feet?”
“Well, yeah. Somebody out there's probably opened a trunk to find feet. Just glad it's not me.”
“Glad my weird trunk secret is marginally less disturbing than the trunk of a serial killer.”
Daryl scoffs.
“Yeah, and you've got snacks if you ever wanna take a road trip on the fly. Practical.”
That makes Beth chortle and then she shakes her head. Her cheeks are still bright pink, and in spite of her smile, he can see she’s still embarrassed.
“Hey,” he says, coming closer and treading water right beside her.
She's so close to him now that he can see how the pool water has clumped her eyelashes together and made them look darker. He can see the little blue veins on her eyelids and a couple of tiny freckles on her nose.
“If I was freaked out, I'd leave,” he says. “Anyway, I didn't… The thing is, I dunno if I ever woulda worked up the nerve to ask you out myself. So it's all right.”
Beth eyes him thoughtfully, her eyes made extra blue by the pool water.
“You wanted to ask me out?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, nodding, his heart in his throat. He doesn’t have any skills for this, any game; in fact he’s pretty sure the last time he asked a pretty girl out, he was in junior high and it didn’t go great.
Last time he was with a woman at all was right before Merle got busted for possession and trafficking, and that was nearly four years ago.
He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.
But she doesn’t seem to mind.
“Do you still want to ask me out?” she says, then, probably because he hasn’t said a word in a minute and he’s just been staring at her pretty face thinking about how bad he is at this. She’s watching him, her face more guarded than he’s ever seen it, and suddenly he clues in that she’s the one putting her whole self out there for him to reject, and meeting her in the middle is the very least he can do.
Daryl pushes his hair out of his eyes again.
“Yeah, I do,” he says. “Can I take you out sometime?”
A grin splits her expression wide open, her blue eyes shining. She nods.
“Absolutely,” she says. “I’d like that very much.”
And then she does the damndest thing.
Beth stretches her arms out and gives a quick, hard kick, so that she’s right in front of him again, and then she leans in and kisses him.
Daryl’s so surprised that he doesn’t even have time to freak out about it. All he does is notice that she tastes like chlorine and orange soda, and she smells like sunscreen, and that her lips are soft against his, and that he can feel her smiling.
He doesn’t have any room to think about himself at all.
Beth’s arms go up around his neck, holding on, but when he goes to wrap his arms around her, they begin to sink, their chins hitting the water. He lets go of her and treads water for both of them, letting her hold onto him as she presses her fingers against his scalp and tilts her head to kiss him deeper.
Daryl’s head spins.
Two hours ago, he was just heading home from his friend’s, and now he’s making out with the woman he’s had a crush on for weeks, who’s apparently been wanting him the same.
Beth breaks their kiss, smiling down at him as she pants softly, her warm breath touching his face. Her fingers gently scrape his scalp, and it feels so good it makes him want to moan, and he barely stifles the urge.
He can’t remember the last time somebody touched him, never mind for any kind of good reason.
“Any chance you wanna go have that date right now?” she asks softly.
“There ain’t much open,” Daryl replies, still treading water to keep them upright as he considers her question. “You ever been to that truck stop out by the highway, across from the Chevron station?”
“Nope.”
“They got pretty good burgers,” he continues. “Can I buy you a burger?”
Beth grins at him and nods.
“I’d love for you to buy me a burger,” she replies, and then she leans in and kisses him again. When she pulls back again, she’s still smiling.
“All right,” he says, giving a hard kick to start pushing them towards the side of the pool. “Then for dessert, trunk candy bars.”
Beth laughs, a bright and delighted sound, and she doesn’t let go.
-end-