In the bathroom the girl’s song is dull and quiet, a displaced sound. Daryl’s holding onto the edge of the porcelain sink, staring hard at the metal drain, noticing the film of grime and hair and mould. Shaking his head, he tried to dislodge Beth’s voice, a sweet lull that circulates through his brain, but he couldn’t. It’s stuck there, reverberating through his chest, tingling in his fingertips, strumming through him. He’s unable to escape it—this feeling, this unnameable affliction.
He looked up at the reflection of him—a blurred mirror image that hides the scars and wrinkles and pain.
The door swung open and Beth’s voice is loud and insistent before quieting.
A man—wearing all black, an example of taste and polish—took the sink closest to him, running his hands under the stream of lukewarm water. “She’s something, isn’t she?” he said after a moment’s silence, turning to address Daryl.
“What?” He’s anchored to the sink, his gut a roiling mass of emotion.
“The girl onstage. Singing.”
The younger Dixon brother nodded once in a curt motion, making it painfully obvious he had no interest in the bearded man or whatever he was talking about—his conversational skills had never something to envy. But the man remained, casual and at ease, talking to Daryl as if he’d known him his entire life. The man’s presumptuous nature and relaxed personality caused a wave of anger to surge in Daryl. He hates people like him—with their perfect lives in order and non-existent emotional baggage.
The bearded man even had a face that seemed to be locked away in the reaches of his subconscious. He had a collection of features that seemed to be cut from rough stone, the flash of a smile triggering a definite memory—Daryl had once glimpsed him on the back of a magazine in a supermarket, the man forever immortalised in a glossy, high-definition snapshot. Rick was his name—Rick Grimes.
“She’s got talent,” the bearded man said, “that’s for sure.”
Daryl reframed from replying, or even acknowledging the man, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He used a paper towel to wipe his hands clean, moving with all the time in the world. “I’m part-owner of a music company, you see”—he pulled a card out of his jacket, presenting it to Daryl with a businessman-like flair—“and I was gonna ask her to send in a demo track. This generation is deprived of talent and voice, but I can see she has spirit. Confidence, skill. She has a future—”
The bearded man’s cell rings abruptly in his pocket, and he placed the card down on the sink to answer it. “Lori, what’s—” A shrill voice sounded at the end of the line, silencing him. A crinkle appeared between his eyebrows, the tension evident in the stiff line of his profile. “Yeah, I’m still here—” He sighed, running a hand through his hair—no longer tame and gel-slick. “The Cherokee Rose Bar, I’m at the Cherokee Rose Bar.”
Daryl glanced at the card resting on the sink, all professional and neat. The girl would lap it up, he thought. Smile and dance and hug the bearded man, thanking him over and over again in a rush, unable to contain her naïve excitement. For a small fraction of a second, Daryl wished talking—like he’d ever be able to do that without Beth turning her pert lil’ nose up at him—to her would be that simple. That he’d just go up and—
YOU ARE READING
Friday Nights
RomanceMusic AU. Beth Greene is a young, aspiring musician, spending late nights singing in dimly-lit bars with an acoustic guitar resting over her lap and a smile on her face. Daryl Dixon is in his usual position: seated on a high stool with a glass of ch...
