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The day was so absurdly hot that even the wooden stock on Joel’s shotgun seemed to have expanded in the humidity.
Of course, Joel had chosen this day to forget his water canteen on the kitchen table.
He was on wall patrol. It had been a slow morning. He had watched the sun rise and climb lazily in the sky, turning the chilly night air into steamy, condensed soup. Around noon, Tommy noticed him flagging.
“Alright?” he asked.
Joel grunted. His mouth felt like it was stuck shut.
“Maybe you should go home. You don’t look so good.”
In another time, Joel would have fought him, but it was too hot and his joints ached too much and shit, he was getting too old to be running around with a gun. With a nod toward Tommy, he slung his shotgun over his shoulder wordlessly and walked off in the direction of home.
After three years of living in Jackson, Joel still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of it being his home. Or even having a home. It had always seemed like a foolish pipe dream abandoned to the time before – before he had hardened, before Cordyceps, before Sarah.
Now, as he opened the front door to the cabin he shared with Ellie on the outskirts of town, he couldn’t help but marvel at it. A door. A house. Home.
The air in here was warm, but miles cooler than outside, and for that, Joel was grateful. He hung his shotgun up on the rack by the front door.
“Ellie?” No one answered him, and when he poked his head in Ellie’s room, it was empty, aside form the piles of books and blankets strewn everywhere. He sighed; he hadn’t had the heart to tell her to clean up after herself after she had turned eighteen.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water from the tap. He sipped at the lukewarm water as he stood in the open back door, scanning the wooded acre behind the house for Ellie. When he found her, he froze.
Ellie was sitting under a tree with their neighbor’s daughter, Gemma. Or at least, he thought it was Gemma; both of their faces were close together and hidden behind Gemma’s wild, dark hair.
Oh.
This was some shit he’d never had to deal with with Sarah.
Ellie pulled back from the kiss, and even from this distance, Joel could see the dreamy, hazy expression on her face. He remembered a girl looking at him like that, decades ago. He had probably looked somewhat the same, at some point in his life.
Well, at least I know she can’t get knocked up.
He snorted at his unspoken joke to himself, and at the sound, Ellie’s head whirled around. Her eyes widened when she saw him. Gemma, a look of alarm on her face, grabbed Ellie’s arm, her hand curling around the old bite mark there.
Joel gave her a small smile and an apologetic little wave before he ducked back into the house.
He had almost gotten through sharpening all the knives in the house when Ellie appeared at the back door, hesitant.
“Joel?” she said, her voice high and hesitant.
“Hot out there,” Joel said, putting the last knife on the kitchen table. “You and Gemma want some water?”
He got up to get glasses out of a cabinet.
Ellie cleared her throat. “Joel,” she said again, a little steadier. “What you saw –” She made a choking noise, her eyes huge and shiny.
Joel had never thought of himself as a hugger; not before, not now. But he crossed the room in two long strides and wrapped Ellie in his arms, pressed a kiss into the top of her head.
He didn’t tell her about Frank, about living in Austin, about his favorite uncle’s male partner.
Instead, he said, “I love you, baby girl. Always will. Always.”
He stepped back, hands on Ellie’s shoulders, and looked at her. She opened and closed her mouth several times, looking for words she didn’t have.
“Water?” he asked again.
Ellie nodded silently, and helped him fill the glasses.