Daryl knew he was entering extremely dangerous territory as she said those words. He didn’t need to hear what she meant exactly by those words to know that it was something that he might not be fully ready for. That did not stop his stomach from clenching in his gut or his heart from stalling in its fucking beating for half a second. His throat grew inexplicably dry suddenly, and he used the weight from Carol’s shoulder next to his to keep him upright as he tried not to read too much into what she had said, but he was. There was no doubt about that. She was asking for something that he wasn’t sure that he’d ever be able to give her.
His eyebrows knitted along his slightly creased forehead with a touch of worry, and he pursed his lips together tightly for a moment before he let out a breath. It was now or never. “Like what?” he whispered. It was like he was a goddamned masochist. He couldn’t wait until he knew why he was a failure once again in this life, too. How he’d failed her all over again or would fail her. He wasn’t looking at her, his gaze focused more toward the stone walkway than her, but his ears were all hers as he waited for that answer. In their closeness, their hands were practically on top of one another, but he stalled just shy of grabbing hers in his own.