Chapter Text
Over the years, Ellie has decided foster parents come in three main categories. There’s rich people doing it because someone told them charity was a good thing. Those are almost always people who live in way too white houses and prefer if they could forget she exists until they drag her out to show off to their friends. She’s never stayed long in one of those places. There’s people who are only doing it for the money. They usually have small, cramped houses and a couple scams on the side going on. Like the rich people, they also prefer to forget Ellie exists. And then there are people who are actually doing it because they care about kids and want to help.
Ellie hasn’t really had a lot of experience with that last one.
This definitely isn’t a rich people neighbourhood. It’s nice, but it’s normal nice. There hasn’t been a single house that could be described as a mansion.
Must be for the money, then. Truth be told, she sorta prefers those. Rich people are weird. Granted she’s only been put with rich people a couple times － she’s not the kind of kid rich people want －but it has happened, and she talks to other kids. The last time it happened, she was only seven or eight, and they gave her back after she bled on their white carpet.
Who has white carpet anyways?
“What are their names?” Ellie as Marlene parks, putting her comic book away in her backpack. She’s learned over the years that people like when she calls them the right thing. She doesn’t always do it, but it helps sometimes. Plus she’s curious.
“Ah…” Marlene digs through her bag, distracted. “His name is Joel. Joel Miller.”
Ellie stops. “Wait, it’s just a dude?”
That’s weird. She’s been in homes where it’s just a woman, but never just a guy.
“Mm.” Marlene takes a folder out of her bag. “He initially applied with his wife, but she passed away a few years ago.”
“And they let him keep fostering? No one thought that was a little weird?”
Finally, Marlene turns to look at her. The inner corners of her eyes are dark, despite the concealer she tried to cover it up with. “Ellie, I don’t have anywhere else to put you. You’re out of options, kid. It’s this or group. You need to make this work.”
“I know,” she says, and tries not to feel hurt at the anger in Marlene’s voice. She’s heard the lecture enough times already. “It was just a fucking question.”
Ever since she can remember, Marlene has taken her to McDonald’s for lunch before a new foster placement, even times when she’s only spent a night with a family. She still has one of the little toys from a Happy Meal when she was ten on her backpack. When they went today, Marlene just got like three cups of coffee, no food. She was on her phone through the whole thing.
It would just be nice if Marlene didn't remind her that everyone gets sick of her sooner or later.
Marlene turns the car off. “Let’s just go inside.”
Ellie hangs back a moment, sighing, before she grabs her backpack and follows her out of the car.
Joel Miller turns out to be an incredibly grumpy looking old guy. “Come in,” he says when he opens the door.
The house looks nice. It’s a little empty, with not a lot of decorations, but maybe Joel Miller is just into that minimalism thing. It’s not empty the way the mansions rich people have are, and it’s not super cramped and small, either. Clean, too, in a way that looks like it’s an all-the-time clean, not a hastily tidied clean.
He shows them into the kitchen. “You, wait here. Get a drink out of the fridge if you want. Marlene, we need to talk.”
Weird. Usually the private adult talks happen after she’s fucked something up. It’s a little early for her to have done that already.
She gets a can of Coke out of the fridge and immediately goes over to the kitchen door to eavesdrop. Marlene would hate it, but Ellie doesn’t really give a fuck.
She has a right to know things about herself.
“This is a bad idea,” Joel is saying when she gets there. “Tess wanted this, not me. I didn’t even know the license was still valid until you called.”
“Joel,” Marlene says. “She has nowhere else to go. I can’t even put her in basic group. If she goes into a group home, it’s a high security one. Lockdowns at night, bars on the windows type of place. She’d be miserable.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s a runner. Impulse control issues. Bad with authority. It’s only for a couple weeks until I find somewhere better. Just keep her alive until then.”
Ellie creeps away from the door and back to the table. Maybe she doesn’t actually want to know things about herself.
They argue for a bit more, keeping their voices low enough all she hears is the sound with no actual words, before coming back into the kitchen. Marlene looks pissed and Joel looks murderous. That’s always a good start.
“Do you want me to stay while you get settled?” Marlene asks.
Ellie scoffs. “Do I ever?”
“Okay. I’ll be back for a visit next week, then. If either of you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.” Marlene hesitates at the kitchen doorway. “Joel? Don’t fuck this up.”
And then they’re alone.
Joel pinches the bridge of his nose for a long moment, then sighs. “Alright. Is that all you got?” he asks, gesturing at her backpack.
“No, all my shit’s in the hallway.”
“Grab it. I’ll show you where your room is.”
She grabs the bag and follows him up the stairs. The upstairs is as sparsely decorated as downstairs, but just as tidy. The place isn’t new looking, exactly, not like things have been replaced every few years, but it’s all in really good shape, like broken things get repaired right away and someone’s cleaning it all regularly.
“My room,” Joel says, pointing at the first door. She peeks into it, curious, but he’s already moving onto the next door. “I don’t care when you go to bed, but don’t stomp up and down the stairs all night. This one’s yours.”
He walks into the room across from his.
She hesitates in the doorway.
It’s bigger than most bedrooms she stays in. Double bed, a nice desk and dresser, and still room to move around. There’s more decorations and it’s painted a soft, pale blue. It’s almost white, but not so harsh. The decorating is pretty generic, just things like a fluffy rug and some lamps and stuff, but it’s nice.
“There’s more sheets in the closet,” Joel says, opening a door. “Pick a different comforter if you want. I don’t care. Bathroom’s here.” Another door. “It’s a jack-and-jill, so the other door leads into my office, but it locks on both sides and I never use it. While you’re here, keep it reasonably clean. Should have everything you need, but if it don’t, just ask.”
She waits. And waits. And then, “Is that it?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You expectin’ more?”
“Usually there’s more rules.”
“Don’t drink my beer, don’t order porn on pay per view, and don’t ask personal questions.”
She screws up her face. “What the hell is paper view?”
He leaves her alone after that. She thinks about not unpacking, but when she’s moving her stuff into the room, the trash bag catches on the door hinge and rips. She ends up just throwing everything into the top two dresser drawers without bothering to sort any of it. Not like she’s gonna be there long enough for it to matter.
Then she looks around the room some more. There’s a little bookshelf she didn’t notice before tucked in the corner by the desk. It has everything from board books to novels. Weird, thinking about a baby in this house. She can’t picture Joel Miller doing baby stuff. The desk drawers have paper and pencils in them. Coloured pencils even. Another has a few colouring books and crayons. Not exactly her medium of choice, but they’re the good ones, not the cheap off-brand ones.
Every single piece of furniture in the room smells like lemon furniture polish and there isn’t a speck of dust to be found.
Jeez, she thinks a moment later in the bathroom. There’s even name brands there. She’s going to enjoy not brushing her teeth with Crost tonight.
The weirdest thing though, is probably that the bedroom door locks. It feels pretty solid, too, when she tests it, not like one of those button locks that you can pop with a butter knife.
She sits on the bed, giving a little bounce. The mattress is nice. It’s not sagging at all, but it’s still soft on the top.
Ah, what the hell. It’s only like six. She’s got a bit of time before she’s got to eat an awkward dinner with the grump downstairs. She grabs a book from the shelf and curls up on the bed to read for a bit.
Ellie wakes up to light streaming into the room. She didn’t realize until now that there were two windows, one over the desk and another over the bed. They have light white curtains, almost sheer, but also shades. When she played with them earlier, they pulled down smooth and blocked out all the light, nothing like the cheap ones she’s used to.
She stumbles into the bathroom to pee and wash the drool off her face. It’s not until after she’s washed her hands that she looks at her phone and realized it’s not the hour later she thought it was. It’s seven in the morning － she slept through the entire night.
Fuck.
Hastily, she rushes through brushing her teeth and pulls on a clean shirt. She’s still pulling her hair up into a fresh ponytail as she hurries down the hall. Joel’s bedroom door is open and his bed is already made.
“Shit,” she mutters, rushing down the stairs. Some foster people are weird about meals. She really hopes she hasn’t managed to get in trouble on her first fucking day in this place. Marlene’s already being a bitch about it — if he kicks her out after a single day, she’s going to group for real.
Joel is already sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Like an actual, paper newspaper. She didn’t know they still made those.
“Quit starin’.”
She jumps. “Fucking sorry.”
He sighs and folds the paper, standing up. “You want breakfast?”
“Sure,” she says, expecting to be handed a granola bar or generic Pop Tart, or told where she can get her own food.
“Do you like eggs?”
“Yeah.”
He walks over to the fridge and gets a carton out, then gets a pan out of the cupboard next to the stove. “How do you like ‘em?”
“Uh… cooked?”
“Don’t be a smart ass.”
For once, she wasn’t actually trying to be. People don’t ask her how she wants her food or what she likes. She shows up when someone says it’s time to eat, and either she eats whatever is put in front of her or she bitches about it until they make her leave the table.
She goes over to the island and lifts herself up onto one of the bar stools. “Can you do the thing where it’s fried but the yolk is still kinda gooey and shit?”
“Sunny side up,” he says, turning the heat on under the pan.
“Huh?”
“That’s what it’s called.” He puts a bit of butter into the pan and gives it a swirl. “In case you ever wanna order ’em at a restaurant or somethin’.”
“Good to know,” Ellie says. She plans on going to restaurants one day, when she’s old enough to get a job and has her own money. And not just McDonald’s — real restaurants. “It’s the best way ‘cause then you can dip the toast into it.”
“I happen to agree.”
The eggs are a surprise. The glass of juice he pours and sets in front of her is even more so. He doesn’t say anything, though, so she doesn’t either.
He even butters the toast for her before putting the plate down in front of her.
Huh. The toast is cut into strips. “You cut up my toast?”
His shoulders go stiff. “Habit. Sorry. Do you want mine instead?”
He didn’t cut his at all. How is it a habit?
It doesn’t matter, though. Food is food, and this food looks better than most food she eats anyways. She can’t even remember the last time someone made her breakfast. She certainly isn’t going to bitch about how her toast looks.
“No, it’s cool.” She picks one of the strips up and pokes it into the yolk of her egg. It bursts and oozes perfectly onto her plate. “Oh, that’s really good for dipping.”
“Yeah. Slow down.”
“This is slow,” she says around a mouthful of egg and toast. “I’m starving.”
“Next time don’t sleep through dinner,” he says, but he also slides one of his eggs onto her plate so she’s pretty sure he’s not actually pissed. She relaxes a little.
Just Joel is a big guy, really fucking tall and broad, thick through the shoulders in a way that says he’d hit hard. She’d really rather not find out just how hard he hits if she can help it.
“Where are you from?” she asks.
He’s got like a southern accent, but she’s bad at placing them.
“Texas.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Pass. No more questions about me. Eat your food.”
She rolls her eyes.
He eats standing up, reading an article in the paper on the counter. After a minute, he opens it and hands her the comics.
“I’m fourteen, not five,” she says.
She reads it anyways. Newspaper comics are lame, but they’re still comics. It’s kinda nice, reading them while he reads the paper. Quiet, but not lonely.
He doesn’t even make her wash the dishes.
Weird.
“Do I gotta get you to school or somethin’?”
“It’s August.”
“Do I look like I know when school starts?”
She supposes he has a point there. “Not for a couple more weeks,” she allows. “I go to a charter school over in Dorchester. They give me a bus pass.”
“Long bus ride.”
He isn’t wrong about that. Ellie doesn’t really like the school she goes to, but she hates changing schools more. She’s been the new kid way too many times already. At least this way she can keep going to the same school. At least she knows what to expect there, even if it is people like fucking Bethany who has never learned anything about Ellie she hasn’t made fun of.
Ellie shrugs. “Not like I’m gonna be here long enough for it matter.”
“I suppose not. Alright, I have to go into work for a few hours today.” Joel digs something out of his pocket and sets it down in front of her － a keychain and a business card. “I wrote my cell on that. You don’t lose that.”
“Yeah, I’ll put it in my phone.”
“No, you hold on to it, too. Phones die.” He taps the card. “You use it if you need to. If you go wanderin’ around, I expect you to be home by six for dinner. No stayin’ out all night. There’s food in the fridge and the cupboards and you’re old enough to feed yourself. Just don’t burn the house down making lunch.”
“Got it,” she says. “Burn the house down after lunch.”
She grins without thinking and her lip splits open again. Blood immediately starts pouring down her face.
“Shit!”
Joel grabs a handful of napkins and presses them against her face. “Lean forward. You’re fine.”
She pushes him away. “I’m good, I’m good.”
“What happened to your face anyways?”
She glares at him. “What happened to your face?”
He holds his hands up and steps back, pulling his phone out. Ellie lifts the wad of napkins carefully away from her mouth, checking to see if it’s stopping bleeding yet. It hasn’t, but it’s slowing down. She wishes it would just fucking heal already, same as the bruises on her face. It makes people look at her too much.
She picks up the keychain. It only has one key on it, and it’s a boring keychain, just one of those stretchy plastic bracelet ones that look like hair ties.
But it’s still a house key.
“You’ve known me for less than eighteen hours.”
“Highlight of my life,” Joel mutters.
Ellie politely ignores that. “You’re really gonna leave me alone in your house?”
“You’re old enough not to need a baby-sitter, ain’t you?” Joel puts his phone back in his pocket. “Look, kid, you don’t want to be here and I don’t particularly want you here. Stay here or don’t. As long as you’re home by dinner, I don’t care where you go.”
That’s not exactly what she meant.
The thing is just… Ellie eavesdrops a lot. No one ever tells her anything so it’s the only way she can find stuff out. And even after being her caseworker for fourteen years, Marlene has yet to figure this out. So she hears stuff Marlene says about her that she’s not supposed to. She’s not supposed to know all the things it says in her file about her level or her trauma or whatever. She’s not supposed to know that one of her foster families unironically asked the question about her burning down the house, or that people have refused to take her because they think she’s violent.
People don’t usually trust her at first. Or ever, sometimes.
She’s usually only left alone if they want her to take care of other kids or if they kick her out of the house and don’t let her back in until the sun goes down.
Her mouth stops bleeding, so she gets up to throw the bloody napkins away. She picks up the card and puts it in her front pocket. She’ll put in her phone later. “What do you do anyways?”
“Didn’t Marlene tell you?” When she shakes her head, Joel sighs. “I’m a contractor. I’ve gotta go to a site today and talk to some people.”
Normally that would work perfectly fine for her. But…
She’s not entirely sure why she asks, but she ends up saying, “Can I come?”
Joel gives her a look. “It’s not gonna be fun.”
Ellie shrugs.
“Alright, go get your backpack and bring a book or somethin’. I’m not gonna be able to entertain you.”
She’s plenty used to keeping herself busy, but she humours him and runs upstairs to grab her bag. She didn’t really unpack it, so she dumps some stuff onto the bed to make room. The important stuff never leaves her bag, but she’s got like extra clothes and shit in there from moving. Once that’s out, she has room for the book she fell asleep reading, a few comics, and, on a whim, one of the sketchbooks and some coloured pencils from the desk drawer.
She really doesn’t want him to change his mind, so she throws everything into her bag as fast as she can and runs back downstairs.
He’s leaning against the counter, squinting at his phone. “You good?”
“Yep.”
“Alright, come over here and let me see your bag for a minute.”
She instinctively clutches it tighter. “Man, I didn’t take any of your shit!”
The sketchbook doesn’t count. He said she could use the stuff in the bathroom, so the stuff in the bedroom has to be the same.
He looks up. “What?”
“I’m not letting you look through my fucking backpack.”
“Jesus, I wasn’t－” He shakes his head and moves away from the counter. Behind him, there’s a couple bottles of water and a bunch of snacks. “Just do it yourself, then.”
Oh.
“Get movin’,” he prompts.
She feels kinda bad for assuming. And she feels a little worse when she sees the snacks he laid out. Much like in the bathroom, there’s like actual name brand stuff. The good fruit snacks and granola bars that don’t taste like cardboard. There’s even a pack of those chocolate cupcakes with the little icing squiggle that she doesn’t think she’s ever actually been allowed to have in her life.
She shoves everything into her backpack as quickly as she can and follows Joel outside into the driveway. While he gets into the truck, she tosses her bag and jacket into the backseat. It’s hot already, but she doesn’t like not having her jacket with her. It was her mom’s and she doesn’t like it being out of her sight.
“Cool truck,” she says as she climbs in.
“No, it ain’t,” he scoffs. “It’s a piece of shit Chevy S10.”
“Why do you have it, then?”
“It gets me where I need to go,” he says. “Seatbelt.”
Yeah, she’s learned that lesson.
“A contractor means you build stuff, right?” she asks. “What do you build?”
Despite Joel’s disdain, she still thinks the truck is pretty cool. It’s old, and she tends to think old cars are cooler than new ones. Touch screens will never be as cool as buttons you can push.
“Houses, stores, that kinda thing. Stop touchin’ things.”
She closes the glove box and turns on the radio. His presets are all boring, mostly country music and oldies.
“Leave it － Ellie, will you leave it alone?”
She waves him off, eventually finding a station that doesn’t totally suck.
Turns out Joel was underselling the whole thing. Ellie might know a lot about contractors but she knows that they don’t tend to own big businesses.
“Wait, so you’re like the boss?” She scrambles out of the truck, grabbing her backpack and swinging it over one shoulder. “How many people work for you?”
“Enough.”
“How many is enough?”
“You ask a lot of goddamn questions.”
“I do,” she agrees. She looks around. “What is this gonna be?”
“Condos.”
“Cool.”
“Not particularly. But a job site is still dangerous. You stay in the trailer and you don’t go wanderin’, or I take you straight home. Understood?”
“Sure.”
Despite what people say when they think she’s not listening, she’s not actually stupid and she doesn’t really have any desire to have a wall fall on her head or something. Playing with power tools seems like it might be fun, but she can already tell there’s no way Joel would let her do that.
The trailer has air conditioning so she won’t even be sweaty all day. It isn’t very big, just big enough for a desk, mini-fridge, and loveseat, which she immediately parks herself on and gets her book out.
People come into the trailer and look surprised to see her, but when Joel doesn’t explain, they don’t ask about her. Apparently the grouchiness isn’t just aimed at her. They kinda seem a little afraid to ask him personal questions. Not afraid of him in general, just to ask about her.
She prefers to be a mystery anyways. Way more fun.
Honestly, it’s not a bad way to spend the morning. She reads more of the book she’s been working on and eats an apple, two granola bars, a pack of fruit snacks and a mini bag of chips. She doesn’t understand basically anything Joel or the guys who work with him are saying so she just ignores it. No one’s yelling or anything so she’s not gonna worry about it.
“Ellie,” Joel says a couple hours later.
She looks up from her book. Huh, apparently everyone else left. She got to a really good part and kinda stopped noticing. “What?”
“You think you could do me a favour, kid?” he asks.
“Sure.” She stands up and wanders over to his desk. “What?”
He takes out his wallet and hands her a bill. “There’s a food truck in the parking lot. Could you run and grab some lunch for us?”
“Yeah, no problem.” Shit, is that a fifty? No one ever trusts her with anything bigger than a ten. She tucks it carefully into her front pocket. “Any requests?”
“Coffee. The largest size they have.”
There’s already a crowd forming and a couple of the guys lining up give her an amused look when she joins them. None of them seem surprised to see her, though. Apparently gossip spreads fast. At least no one is asking her questions or being weird. Some adults immediately forget how to treat her like a person when they find out she’s a foster kid. She’d prefer to skip the pity.
It’s a little awkward standing in line behind a bunch of construction guys, but as she gets towards the front she realizes it’s a taco truck and that makes her stop giving a fuck. As far as she’s concerned, tacos might actually be the best food in the world. Even white people tacos are good, and this doesn’t look like white people tacos.
The guy taking orders smiles down at her from the window. “First day?”
“Yeah, I needed a summer job.”
He chuckles. “Getting some lunch for your dad?”
“Uh, no. What’s your favourite taco?”
“The taco de adobada. The pork taco.”
“Can I get that and then also the beef one?” Joel seems like he’d probably prefer that one. He’s Texan, after all. Texas seems like a place where they eat beef. “Also the nachos, please. And Joel said he wants like a bucket of coffee?”
“You’re ordering for Joel?” the guy asks, looking surprised.
Guess the gossip hadn’t reached him yet.
“He’s, um. Taking care of me for a bit. Do taco trucks usually have coffee?”
“Joel lets us park here every day. We make a killing. For him, we make coffee,” he says, giving her a wink. “Do you want a drink, honey?”
She’s not sure if she’s allowed to. Joel gave her fifty bucks, but he probably didn’t mean for her to spend that much of it. Also one of her old foster mothers used to get pissed if she asked to order a soda at a restaurant or whatever.
“How about a lemonade? Real refreshing on a hot day like this.”
That seems reasonable. “Okay, sure.”
She pays, taking the little laminated number he hands her and waits off to the side until it’s called. He hands her a drink tray and then a paper bag.
“Thanks,” she says and heads back towards Joel’s trailer.
The door of which she can’t open, she realizes, with her hands full. She kicks lightly at the bottom of the door until Joel comes to open the door.
He immediately takes the drink tray from her, lifting out the coffee and taking a long drink.
“Isn’t that hot?” she asks, closing the door behind her.
“Very,” Joel says. “C’mon, let’s eat.”
He’s cleared off his desk enough that she can start unpacking the food onto it. The more she unpacks, the more confused she becomes.
“I didn’t order all this. Look, here’s your change.” She digs it out of her pocket and drops it on his desk. “Do you think they gave me the wrong order?”
Joel snorts. He puts her lemonade in front of her along with a handful of napkins from the tray. “Manny’s got four daughters. Probably saw how scrawny you are and felt sorry for you.”
“I told him the coffee was for you. Maybe that’s why he felt sorry for me.”
It’s probably more her slightly fucked up face than either of those.
“Alright, smartass, tell me which one’s mine or I’ll pick for you.”
“The beef one. I thought maybe we could split the nachos?”
She’s a little uncertain about that. She wasn’t sure if Joel would wanna share food with her. Some people are weird about that. But Joel also gave her some of his breakfast this morning and the nachos looked fucking huge on the menu.
“Sure,” he says.
The food is really fucking good. She switches off from her tacos to nachos to taking bites of the churro she didn’t order but is kinda in love with. Joel even agrees to trade one of his three tacos for one of hers so she can try both kinds. She’s honestly not sure which she likes better.
Tacos are just the best.
After, she throws herself down on the loveseat, stretching out with her hands on her stomach. “Best. Lunch. Ever.”
“Mm,” Joel says.
She looks over to see him leaning back in his desk chair, his palms pressed over his eyes. “You okay?”
“Ah, this job’s a mess,” he says. “If it’s not them sending the wrong fittings for every goddamn pipe in the lot, it’s shorting us on everythin’ from tile to carpet.” He drops his hands. “That don’t mean a thing to you, sorry.”
“It’s okay. Sorry you’re having a bad day.” She reaches down and digs blindly in her backpack for a minute. “Want a cupcake?”
“How the hell are you still hungry?”
The next day works out about the same. Once again, Joel puts out snacks for her in the morning before they leave the house. Then he spends the day talking to people and Ellie spends the day reading and, eventually, sketching. She goes and gets lunch, gets another churro she doesn’t pay for, and they eat together. She could sorta get used to this.
On Friday, again, she goes and gets lunch, putting some of the change into the tip jar the way Joel told her to do. It makes her feel kinda grown up.
She’s almost back at the trailer when someone grabs her arm, knocking her food out of her hands. She doesn’t drop the drink tray, but she can’t get her knife with her arm still in some asshole’s grasp.
Ellie tries to twist away. “Let me go!”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Get the fuck off me!” she snarls and then screams, “Joel!”
The trailer door slams open right as she kicks the guy in the knee hard enough that he lets go of her arm.
“Ow!”
“Get away from me, you fucker!” she yells and aims another kick at his leg.
She’s about two seconds away from flinging Joel’s coffee at him when Joel grabs her and pulls her away.
“Stop!” He pushes between her and the guy, forcing space between them, then points at the guy. “You done?”
“Am I done?” The guy stares at him. He’s an older guy, probably older than Joel, but he doesn’t look exactly frail. “Some snot-nosed kid sneaks onto my site and damn near breaks my knee. Who the hell is this punk and what’s she doing here?”
Ellie tries to lean around Joel. “I am none of your goddamn business and this is Joel’s site.”
“Listen here, you little－”
“No, fuck you! You attacked me!”
“Enough,” Joel interrupts. He nudges her back another step and lowers his voice. “I need you to stop. Alright?”
She scoffs. “Fine.”
“Bill works for me,” Joel says. “And Ellie － she’s allowed to be here. She’s with me.”
Joel keeps kinda pushing her back behind him. She’s not entirely sure if he’s afraid she’s gonna try to attack that guy － Bill, apparently － again or what, but it means he can’t see her.
And he definitely can’t see her flip Bill off
It’s not exactly a mature response, but sue her.
“Bill…” Joel sighs. “Take a walk or somethin’. I’m on lunch.”
“You never take lunch.”
Joel leans down and grabs the bag of food Ellie dropped. “I’m on lunch.”
He puts a hand on her back and presses her forward into the trailer. It’s not pushing, exactly. Just pressure, not too hard. Earlier, he didn’t even really push her away from Bill, really. It was more that he just got between them and she stepped back. The only part where he sorta pushed her was when he kept pushing her behind him, and it wasn’t — well, it didn’t hurt or anything.
It’s strange, is all she’s saying.
She drops into one of the chairs at Joel’s desk, still a little annoyed at the interruption to the actually not shitty day she was having.
Joel sits more slowly behind the desk. “Are you… okay?”
“Am I okay?”
“Bill, he wouldn’t’ve done anything to hurt you, but I know that still must have been… scary. Havin’ a strange man grab you like that.” He winces. “I’m terrible at this.”
She grins. Her mouth has finally stopped splitting open when she smiles too big. “Yeah, you really are. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“I could be less fine if you wanna give me one of your tacos to make me feel better.”
Joel scoffs. “Alright, you little shit, eat your lunch. Bill’s not exactly a patient fella.”
Yeah, that doesn’t surprise her.
Joel’s meetings run later than the last two days, long enough that basically everyone else heads home while Joel’s still doing paperwork and stuff.
Eventually, he looks up at the clock on the wall and mutters a low curse. “Didn’t realize it was that late already. You ready to go?”
She’s been ready to go for a while, but she didn’t want to whine like a little baby.
She slides off the couch and grabs her backpack. “Maybe you should get your watch fixed so you actually know what time it is.”
It’s meant to be a joke. She noticed almost right away that his watch was broken, but he kept wearing it so she kinda just ignored it.
But his face changes, turning so cold that she takes an instinctive step back, fast.
“That ain’t none of your business,” he says.
“It was just a joke,” she protests. “What’s your problem?”
“Ellie－” He takes a breath. “Go wait in the truck. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Asshole,” she says under her breath and goes.
She has the radio on when Joel gets into the truck and she picked one of the channels he hates. It’s a lot of pop music, which isn’t really her favourite either. She doesn’t not like it, but it’s kinda like plain generic potato chips. They’re still chips, but they’re not very interesting.
Joel hands her a bottle of Coke. It’s so cold that it’s already starting to sweat from being in the heat.
She takes it, but she’s still not talking to him yet. She knows a bribe when she sees one.
“Well,” Joel says, turning on the truck and starting the air conditioning. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like makin’ dinner tonight. Why don’t you pick somewhere for us to grab somethin’?”
“Anything I want?”
“Within reason.”
“Can we get pizza?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Okay. Maybe she’s a little bribeable.
Especially when she gets to pick the toppings she wants. She never gets to do that.
And when they get back to the house, Joel tells her to take the boxes into the living room. He doesn’t usually let her eat meals in the living room, but apparently pizza has different rules.
Pizza apparently also means another soda. She had one on her first day here when he and Marlene were talking, but she didn’t know if she’d get in shit if she took one from the fridge. And she’s not opposed to getting in trouble, but she hasn’t figured out exactly what Joel would do if she got in trouble, so she’s trying to hold off on that until she knows. Joel’s kind of a big guy, is the thing, and her face is still pretty busted up.
But she pissed him off earlier with the whole watch thing and he didn’t do anything.
And now he’s giving her soda.
“Not too many of those,” Joel says as he hands over the can. “You’re hyper enough.”
“Sugar doesn’t actually cause hyperactivity,” Ellie says. “That’s a myth.”
“You gonna argue or you gonna pick a movie?”
The arguing is kinda fun, but she takes the remote and turns Netflix on. She’s gonna make Joel watch something really stupid.
She eats way too much pizza and Joel doesn’t even tell her off. When the movie’s finished, Joel goes to put the leftovers away and she expects to be sent to bed or even just for Joel to head upstairs himself. They don’t really hang out after dinner.
Instead, he settles into the recliner and kicks the footrest up. “Pick somethin’ better this time.”
She grins. “I will not.”
Eventually, she curls up with a throw pillow.
“You better not fall asleep,” Joel says.
She scoffs. “I’m not gonna fucking fall asleep.”
When she wakes up a few hours later, the TV is off and so are all the lights except for the one Joel leaves on in the kitchen. And there’s a blanket over her. She tiptoes up the stairs so she doesn’t wake Joel up, whose door is closed already. There’s a little night-light in the hallway she hadn’t noticed before, enough so she can make her way down the hall without tripping or anything.
She’s asleep again almost as soon as her head hits the pillow.
Apparently Joel sleeps in on the weekends. That, plus Ellie falling asleep so early on the couch means she’s up before him. She takes a shower, gets dressed, and is sitting on the counter eating a cold slice of pizza when Joel stumbles downstairs.
“Get down from there,” he mutters, turning on the coffee maker. “Tell me that’s not your breakfast.”
She hops down, still chewing. “I mean, do you want me to lie?”
He waves her off. Pre-coffee Joel is not particularly verbal. Noted.
As soon as the coffee pot is full, Joel pours a cup.
“Do you always sleep this late on Saturdays?”
“No,” Joel says, taking a drink of his coffee. “Never.” He goes over to the fridge and grabs the orange juice, pouring her a glass. “Drink that before you get scurvy.”
She makes a face. Orange juice really isn’t her favourite. It especially doesn’t go with cold pizza very well. “Do you have work today?”
“Nah, I try not to work on-site on weekends. Makes my guys think they have to work weekends, too.” Joel checks the fridge again when he puts the juice away and winces slightly. “What do you think about runnin’ some errands today?”
“Sure.”
They leave as soon as Joel’s done his coffee. Joel doesn’t eat anything, and doesn’t make her eat anything besides her pizza. It’s a little weird. He’s made her breakfast every other day she’s been here. Maybe she’s just been around long enough that the novelty’s worn off.
“You know, there’s a library down the street,” Joel says as she buckles in. “It’s close enough to walk.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll check it out sometime.”
“C’mon, you’re gonna run out of books soon, the rate you go through ’em.” He starts the truck. “You got a library card?”
She hesitates. “Sorta.”
“Now what does that mean?”
“It means I have like a bunch of fines on it,” she admits. “I got moved in the middle of the night once and some of my stuff got left.”
Joel glances at her. “Some of that stuff bein’ some library books?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright.”
A moment later, Joel pulls off the main road and into a parking lot. “Let’s go.”
It takes her an embarrassing moment to realize they’re in front of a library, and a moment longer to scramble out of the truck to follow him.
“What are we doing?”
“How long ago was that?”
“Like three years.”
“You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault.”
She doesn’t really get what that means until they’re at the reference desk and Joel asks for a manager. He repeats the age she was several times, and that she wasn’t responsible for where she went or what happened to her things.
He’s kind of a little scary and it’s kind of a little cool. Ellie’s never really had anyone to defend her before besides Riley - an adult doing it is different.
Eventually, the librarian bumps all her fines down to ten bucks which Joel pays, along with the three dollars for the replacement card.
“Go on,” Joel says when she’s holding her shiny new card. “Go get a few.”
She finds the teen part of the library, and better yet, finds the comic and graphic novel section. There’s a good selection and between that and the novels she picks up, she ends up with a big stack of books. The librarian even gives her a cool ass tote bag to carry her haul.
Joel has somehow managed to find a newspaper since she left him. God, he’s such an old man.
“Ready to go?” he asks, folding it.
She nods.
She puts the bag on the floor behind her seat in Joel’s truck and kinda regrets it when she wants to read one immediately. This is so cool. She’s missed going to the library so much. There’s the one at school, but it’s not the same, and she can’t go there during holidays or on weekends.
Honestly the day only gets better when Joel pulls into a McDonald’s drive-through and buys them breakfast. Even when he shoots down her request for a soda and she somehow ends up with a chocolate milk like she’s five or something.
Chocolate milk is delicious though, so. Joke’s on him.
Joel’s errands get a little boring after that. They go to the hardware store first and Joel spends like three hours looking at nails. They all look pretty much the same to her.
“Stop touchin’ things,” he says.
“You can’t even see me,” she complains and puts down the… thing… she was touching. She doesn’t actually know what it is, but it looked cool.
Then they have to go get the tires on Joel’s truck rotated. She grabs her backpack for that one － she wasn’t sure if she’d need it, but she’s spent enough days being dragged along to do errands that a book and some snacks seemed like a good idea.
“What the fuck does rotating your tires even mean?” she asks in the mechanic’s waiting room. “Don’t they kinda do that while you drive?”
“No,” Joel says, sounding slightly pained. “You gotta swap them around on the car so they wear evenly. It makes them last longer.”
“How does that work?”
“It… redistributes the weight and…”
She grins. “You don’t know, do you?”
He gives her a flat look. “I know it works.”
She giggles and gets up. There looks like there’s cool stuff across the shop.
“No wanderin’.”
She sits back down. “Okay. This is your fault then.”
“Hm?” Joel mumbles, distracted.
She pulls out her pun book.
After some very excellent puns, they leave the mechanic and end up at a Target. Target is way more fun. Joel grabs a cart and she immediately jumps onto the end of it.
Joel slams his foot down on the back to keep it from tipping. “Jesus Christ, kid, you’re gonna break your neck. Get off.”
“You’re no fun.”
He turns towards the seasonal section, which is a weird mashup of summer crap and early school supplies, eventually coming to a stop in front of the sunblock. “Which one of these would you actually wear if I bought it?”
“None of them. Sunblock sucks.”
“Ellie. You make Wonderbread look tan. Pick a damn sunblock.”
She sighs and picks the first one she sees that isn’t the cheapest generic. It looks… fine.
“Alright.” Joel nudges her with the cart. “Go on and get anythin’ you need, but if you disappear for more than ten minutes, I’m makin’ them page for a lost child.”
“You’re a lost child,” she replies, but she’s already bouncing on her toes. “Does anything mean like… anything as long as it doesn’t add up to more than twenty bucks?”
“Get what you need,” he repeats.
Well, that’s… a little scary. She owns like five things tops that aren’t kinda crappy －her backpack, her jacket, her knife, and not a whole lot else. Her clothes are always either hand-me-downs or from Goodwill. Her other foster homes take her to the dollar store when she needs something. Target’s not exactly the fanciest place, but everything is still a lot more expensive than she expects. But she does desperately need a few things.
And Joel said it was okay, so…
There’s a little bit of an incident, but it’s okay eventually. Joel makes her stay closer in the grocery store, which she would chafe at more if she wasn’t still a little spooked, and anyways, he goes up and down every aisle and lets her pick out things she wants. She doesn’t go crazy, but Joel says she’ll need snacks for the week, so she puts a decent amount of stuff in the cart.
Back at his house, she tries to help put the groceries away but mostly gets in the way since she still doesn’t really know where things go. Eventually, she takes her library books upstairs and puts them on the desk, sitting down at it and gazing out at the yard.
Today was kinda nice, even for a day spent running errands.
She wonders if this is what kids with real families feel like all the time.