There's a brief, cold moment when it sounds like he wants to leave it at that, friendship, and she resigns herself to the fact. It won't matter. They won't speak of it again, to each other or anyone else, and that'll be the end of things.

And then he speaks again, and she can breathe again. They're already nearly out of dishes; for the moment, she wipes her hands off on her jeans and turns a little to look up at him.

"I don't mind that." Frankly, she figured that out a long time ago - it's not hard to sniff out the fact that Daryl'd rather keep his own company than risk someone else making him regret what he did with his heart. It's the second bit that's a little more troublesome. "But I'm not going into anything if it's not what makes you happy, too."

One of the snags that comes with a relationship with Maggie Rhee: It does require wanting things. More than that, it requires acknowledging as much, out loud.