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The Wedding Date

Chapter 1

"Name: Carol Peletier. Sex: Female. Age: 43. Eyes: Blue. Hair: Grey, but don't let it fool you. Blame my ex-husband," Carol muttered as she typed at her laptop. A snort on the other line had her grumbling.

"That was funny."

"Are you kidding me?" Carol snorted, hitting the backspace key on her laptop. "I'm not putting that in there."

"Oh, no, that was good! It shows your sense of humor."

"Mich, I don't know about this," Carol said with a heavy sigh, pushing her laptop away and flopping back onto her bed.

"Come on. It's been a year since you kicked Ed's ass to the curb. You need to get out and get some."

"Who says I haven't gotten any?" Carol asked with a laugh.

"Well, any worth keeping around for more," Michonne offered. At Carol's snort, Michonne laughed. "Come on. This site's worth a try. It's where I met Rick."

"Yeah, well, you're lucky. Being my luck, he'll end up being a serial killer. Or he'll like blue grass and drink milk from the carton."

"Those are the only two extremes, after all," Michonne laughed. "Ok. Ok. Fine. But you're the one that said she had to find a date for the wedding, which is in two weeks, may I remind you."

"I know. And I'll find one. Hey, Daryl said he's not bringing Christy, because she's got plans with family."

"Well, why don't you call him and ask him to be your date?" Michonne asked with a grin. "Come on, the only thing that would top my wedding day would be seeing my two best friends finally hook up. Don't tell Rick. His ego is so fragile ever since I caught him singing Oops, I Did it Again in the shower."

"You're crazy," Carol laughed.

"Aren't you even curious? I mean, you've been friends for, what, longer than you've known Ed?"

"And it just never happened."

"Did you ever want it to happen?"

"Michonne, he's taken!"

"Well, come on. You can't blame a girl for being curious. I didn't join the party until you and Ed were on the downward spiral, and Daryl looks at you like the sun shines out of your ass, and you always change the subject when I ask if you two have ever bumped uglies."

"Oh my God. I'm hanging up now."

"Wait. Wait, ok. I'm sorry. I've been spending entirely too much time with Tara. You know how she is."

"You're forgiven," Carol snorted. "And, just to make things clear, there's never been any bumping of anything between me and Daryl. He's been my best friend since high school. He's just not a relationship kind of guy. This thing with Christy will be over in a few weeks, if not sooner."

"How do you know?" Michonne asked.

"Well, the relationships he's been in have never lasted more than a month or two. I mean, he seems to be happier when he isn't with somebody. He's always miserable when he's with somebody. For example, he brought Christy over the other night, and he looked so bored with her."

"Hmm."

"What 'hmm?'"

"Well, did you ever think that maybe he's miserable, because he knows he's dating the wrong person?"

"What are you talking about?" Carol asked with a sigh.

"Well, I mean, isn't it possible that he seems happier when he's single, because when he's single, he's always hanging out with you?" A pause. "Or maybe not." She sighed. "Haven't you ever thought about what it might be like? To try things with Daryl?"

"No…no, of course not," Carol lied, feeling her mouth go dry.

"Well, maybe I'm just imagining things," Michonne offered. Carol sat up when she heard the familiar rumble of Daryl's motorcycle outside.

"I've gotta go, Mich."

"Alright. But don't forget. Tomorrow. Picking up the dresses and hitting the gym. I've got to work off these last ten pounds."

"You look great. You always do," Carol reminded her. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you," Michonne offered cheerfully, before Carol ended the call.

She quickly got up and moved to the mirror, running her fingers through her hair, thankful that her lazy afternoon hadn't completely taken the style out of her short, grey locks. The knock came to the front door, and she took the stairs down two at a time, breathless by the time she opened it up to see him standing there with his helmet in one hand and a pizza in the other. She laughed at the image that popped into her head of him riding across town with a hot pizza in his lap.

"How on earth did you get that over here?" she asked.

"Very carefully," he smirked. "Got your favorite." She lifted the lid and took a whiff, inhaling the wonderful aroma.

"Ooh, pepperoni and bacon. You're the best. I wasn't expecting you today."

"You got plans?"

"Well, now I do," she said with a grin. "Pizza and a movie sound good?"

"Sounds good. You were that bored that you came all the way across town?"

"My place needs to be decontaminated." At Carol's bewildered expression, Daryl rolled his eyes. "Merle crashed at my place last night. And he brought a girl. They were both drunk."

"Oh," she chuckled.

"Besides, it's gonna rain. Best time for pizza and a movie."

"There isn't a cloud in the sky, Daryl," she murmured, thought secretly, she was glad he'd found an excuse to come over to hang out. Then again, he always seemed to find even the flimsiest of excuses to hang out with her. Was there maybe some truth to what Michonne had said?

They were halfway down the hall toward the kitchen when Carol paused and turned, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I thought you had plans with Christy."

"I broke up with her," he muttered.

"Aw, that's too bad. She was sweet."

"You met her, right?" Daryl asked. Carol couldn't help the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she turned her back to him, stepping into the kitchen and grabbing a couple of glasses out of the cabinet.

"Is this a beer breakup or a scotch breakup?" she asked.

"Beer. I ain't that broke up about it."

"Yeah, I can see that," she murmured. "Just didn't hit it off?"

"It was alright, but we were havin' dinner last night, and she starts talking about what she wants to name her first kid. And she starts coming up with names that go with Dixon, and that's when I realized I don't want to pick out names with her, let alone have a kid."

"Well," she chuckled, "that seems like a pretty good reason to break up with someone."

"Well, it's Saturday. I'm sure there are plenty of girls at the bar willing to help you get over her." She could feel his eyes on her as she stood on her tiptoes to reach the plates on the top shelf. When she looked over her shoulder, he cleared his throat and looked away.

"Don't feel like goin' out."

"Oh," she shrugged. "Well, I guess if you'd like to spend your Saturday evening with me, I'm not going to stop you."

"What's wrong with spendin' the day with you?"

"Nothing," she laughed, serving a slice on each plate before grabbing two beers from the fridge. They sat on barstools across from one another at the kitchen island, and she chuckled after taking her first sip of beer. She'd never cared for beer or hard liquor, but Daryl had introduced her to some local brews that she'd taken a liking to after her divorce. She often joked that being married to Ed was enough to drive her to drink, though in reality, she wasn't much of a drinker.

"What's funny?"

"Oh, nothing," she replied with a grin. "Just that I'm supposed to go with Michonne to the gym tomorrow. She wants to work off a couple more pounds before the wedding. She'd kill me if she knew I was sitting here drinking beer and eating pizza." Daryl smirked at took a bite of pizza. He looked at her again, and she felt her face tingle with warmth. "So, do you guys have your tuxes ready?"

"Yeah. I'll look like a penguin, just like the rest of 'em." Carol grinned at that. "Don't know why they had to go formal when they're gettin' married on a fuckin' yacht." He snorted and sucked down a gulp of beer. "Probably gonna be a hundred degrees. Hope it rains."

"Don't be mean," Carol laughed.

"You ask Tobin to go with you?" Daryl asked.

"What?" Carol asked, nearly spitting out her swig of beer.

"Thought you were gonna ask that Tobin guy. You know, the one that took you to lunch that one day?"

"You mean Tobin, the tech guy from the library?"

"Well, yeah. Thought you were gonna go out with him."

"Daryl, the guy bought Chinese for the whole office. It wasn't like it was candlelight and jazz music." She grinned at the blush on his cheeks. "Did you think I was seeing him?"

"Well, hell, you said somethin' the other night when Christy was over, and I thought maybe you liked him. You said he was funny."

"He's funny in a dad-joke kind of way, but he's not my type." She shook her head. "No, it appears that I'll be going alone."

"Makes two of us," he muttered, taking another bite of pizza. Carol thought back on her earlier conversation with Michonne, and she took a deep breath before strumming her fingers on the counter top. She went to open her mouth, but he spoke first. "Hey, why don't we go?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, we're already goin', but why don't we just go together?"

"I…you…uh, you want to go with me? Like a date?"

"Well, no," he stammered, cheeks brightening as he looked away. "Just sayin', we could ride together and sit together. I mean, we were probably gonna do that anyway, right?"

"Right," she said slowly. Her heart jack-hammered against her ribs. "So we can show up, pathetic and single…together?"

"Sure," he offered with a shrug, getting a little smile out of her.

"Alright," she agreed. He looked up at her, as if he hadn't been expecting that answer. "Being single together sounds better than being single alone." Daryl gave her a grin then before chomping down another bite of pizza.

They continued to eat, and Carol felt herself relax a little. Of course they were going as friends. It was her earlier phone conversation with Michonne that had her feeling so strange. It wasn't that she didn't care for Daryl. Of course she did. He was one of her absolute favorite people in the world. And yes, she'd had feelings for him once upon a time, and yes, she'd found her mind wandering at work from time to time, having harmless fantasies that were certainly sexual in nature, but…oh.

She swallowed down the thought with a swig of her cold beer, and she looked over at him, watching as he got up for another beer out of the fridge, making himself right at home. They were that comfortable with one another. And he wasn't interested in her in the least. She was certain of it. If there had ever been romantic or sexual feelings at all on his part, he'd done a damned good job of hiding them. And she'd thought, once upon a time, that maybe there could have been a spark there. She'd tested the waters, even opening herself up to him before her wedding to Ed, expressing her doubts. And he'd been the dutiful best friend that had talked it through with her. Ultimately, he'd never made a move or tried to convince her not to marry Ed, thus convincing her that his feelings were strictly platonic. So, she'd convinced herself that they were simply good friends, nothing more, and marrying Ed had been the right choice at the time. She'd chalked up her feelings to just being afraid of marrying the wrong person and missing out on something better. It wasn't like she'd been in love with Daryl, right?

But, now she was divorced, and Ed was getting ready to marry his mistress, and Carol was enjoying the single life, dating and testing the waters of new relationships, playing the field a little. But, just as she felt Daryl was miserable in every relationship he got himself into, she felt no spark with any of the men she'd dated or brought home. There was no magic, no spark. Sure, there was some good sex from time to time, but it was nothing life-changing, earth-shattering or worthy of continuing.

It was then that she realized that, just as Daryl always ended up at her place for pizza and movies when his relationships went south, she always found herself more excited to call him at the end of the night after a particularly bad date or awkward sexual experience. Ok, so she didn't really call him about the sex stuff, but he was the one she thought about, wanted to talk to when it was all over with.

"You ok over there?" he asked, eyeing her as she sat there in silence with her hand wrapped around her beer bottle.

"Huh?" she asked, taking a deep breath and blinking herself out of her thoughts.

"What's up?"

"Nothing," she said with a shrug. "I can't eat another bite." She cleared her throat, finished her beer and pushed the stool back, hopping off and moving around to put her plate in the sink. She turned then, nearly smacking right into him when he leaned over to put his own plate in the sink. Her breath caught, and she got a whiff of him, smoke and a hint of cologne, and damn, why did he have to smell so good?

"Sorry," he murmured with a little grin. "You sure you're ok? You're jumpy."

"I am not," she insisted, sliding out from between him and the counter and starting off toward the living room. Then she hollered back at him. "It's my turn to pick the movie."

"Aw, hell," Daryl muttered. "Guess it's time to take Baby outta the corner again."

"I heard that!" she replied, as he shook his head and joined her in the living room. "And it's not Dirty Dancing this time. I can't find it. I'm still convinced you hid it."

"Did not," he snorted, sitting down on the couch and quickly checking under the cushion to see if the DVD was where he left it last time. Yep. He quickly put the cushion back in place, leaning back to throw his arm over the back of the couch as she turned to glare at him.

"Well, Pretty Woman it is."