"Just call my name and I'll be there." - I'll Be There - The Jackson 5, 1970

"It's clear, Ellie," I nod back towards the gas station.

"Thanks," she pushes off a dilapidated car and walks towards the building. I turn to see Joel setting up the siphon.

"You want me to take over the driving for a bit?" I ask him as I lean back on the hood of a car.

"It's fine," he says.

"And when you don't sleep much tonight?" I cross my arms over my chest. We were warm in the truck from the sun beating down on it all day, so I'd taken off my jacket. I'm already regretting coming out here without it. Joel looks up at me and sighs. He stands up from the ground and slips his jacket off before he hands it to me. "I'm fine-"

"I'll let you drive for a bit," he says and I immediately take the jacket from him. He shakes his head as he kneels back down and opens the gas cap.

"Maybe we can work out a system," I say as I shift the jacket to cover my arms and the front of my body. I hold it up around my neck as Joel looks from the car to me.

"A system," he repeats.

"Yeah, maybe we can take turns, one naps while the other drives-"

"No."

"Let me finish." He doesn't say anything. "When we get near cities or we need to refuel, we wake each other up."

"I'll drive in cities."

"You will," I agree with him. "I always hated driving in a city, anyways." He looks up at me for another second before he's shaking his head and turning back to the siphon.

"You always get what you want?" He asks as he unscrews the gas cap.

"No," I say as I shift my weight on my feet. "Let me know if I'm being too annoying about it. I just want to help." There's silence for a few minutes.

"Ya ain't bein' annoying," he says. His southern drawl comes out more than it has before and I have to look away. I move his jacket up to hide my face and try to blink the tears away.

It's been so long since I've heard it.

Joel sounds like home.

"If you start askin' questions every five seconds, then you'll be annoying," he says before I hear him blow into the siphon to get it going.

"It's a good thing Ellie only asks them every six, then." I hear Joel choke and I wipe my eyes quickly before I look over at him. He coughs, hiding his face in his arm and I'm off the car and next to him in seconds.

I put my hand on his chest but he waves his hand.

"'M fine," he says.

"You're coughing up a lung-"

"Cause' you gotta say funny shit at the worst times," he says, his voice gravelly. I feel heat burn across my cheeks.

"Oh, just wait till you're drinking something, then," I grin up at him and he shakes his head.

"Go on, I'm fine."

"Take a breather before you go again."

"Ha, ha," he deadpans.

"What?"

"Breather?" He just looks at me and I snort.

"I didn't even-" I break out into laughter. "Didn't even realize what I said!"

"Jesus," Joel says under his breath and it just makes me laugh even harder. "Alright now, go on," he pushes me towards the car I was sitting on as I struggle to catch my breath.

I watch Joel as he goes to blow on the siphon again and I have to cover my face with the jacket. I hear him snort and I lose it again. I peek out behind the jacket and see his head is down and turned to the side. His shoulders are shaking as he slaps the side of the car.

"You want me to-" I try to get out around my giggles.

"No, don't need you blowin'-" I snort before he finishes his thought and I see his head hit the side of the car lightly.

"Jesus, no wonder she's so bad," he says under his breath.

"No," I say, my voice still wobbling with my amusement. "We're kindred spirits, met Ellie a little over a week ago."

"You're a bad influence."

"I'm a bad influence? You're the one talking about blow-"

"Charlotte," he cuts me off and I feel sick. "What?" He asks when I don't say anything. It sounds wrong when he calls me by that name.

"Don't call me that," I say quietly and he raises an eyebrow.

"Well, that's the fake name you gave me."

"Call me Char," I say quietly. I hate how small my voice sounds, he looks at me for a second too long, but he nods. "Thank you."

"Ain't got to thank me for callin' you by the name you give me," he says as he goes back to the siphon.

"You know that's not what I'm thanking you for." He doesn't turn back to me as he blows into the tube. A minute later I hear footsteps and see Ellie walking back over. She looks down at Joel and sighs.

"Do we really have to do this every hour?"

"Gas breaks down over time. This stuff's mostly water," Joel says as he shifts the tube. "Back in the day we could drive ten, twelve hours on one tank of gas."

"Really? Where'd you go?"

"Pretty much nowhere," Joel says and I try to muffle my laugh in his jacket.

"And where'd you go?" Ellie turns to me and I shrug.

"School and work, work and school."

"Boring," she says as Joel starts blowing on the siphon again.

"Nice! How does it work?" Ellie asks and Joel looks up at her.

"It's a siphon," he says. "It's when liquid travels against gravity-"

"You have no clue-"

"I know it works," he says as Ellie starts to laugh. She starts to walk away, but Joel and I speak at the same time.

"No wanderin'," he says.

"Don't go walking off," I say. She looks back and forth between us before she huffs and throws her pack on the hood of the car beside me.

"Fine, you brought this on yourselves," she says dramatically as she searches through her pack. I hide my face in Joel's jacket. The last thing I want to do is to poke the bear that is Joel Miller when he's focused on something.

But I really want to see how he reacts to this.

"It doesn't matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery." I peek out from behind Joel's jacket to see him looking up at Ellie, pain clear in his eyes.

"No Pun Intended Volume Too by Will Livingston." I hide back in the jacket as she explains the joke of the title of the book.

"Jesus," Joel says and I hear his boots move in the gravel. I look to see him standing up and leaning against the car, looking away from Ellie.

"What did the mermaid wear to her math class?" Ellie pauses. "An algae bra!" She starts to giggle and I bite my lip to stop my own laughter.

"I stayed up all night-"

"No-"

"Wondering where the sun went and then it dawned on me," Ellie moves the book in her hands for emphasis and I finally snort.

"Feel free to wait in the truck," Joel says.

"Ugh, okay," Ellie says as she closes the book and waves it at him. "You can't escape Will Livingston. He'll be back. There's nothing you can do to stop him."

Joel has his arms crossed as he looks down at the ground. I move my body slightly to peek around at his face and see a tiny smile.

"What, is he secretly Arnold Schwarzenegger?" I ask Ellie as she packs the book into her bag.

"Who?"

"Nevermind," I say as she throws her backpack on and starts walking towards the truck. "Kids," I sigh as she walks away.

"You're a kid," he says as he fiddles with the tube on the siphon again.

"I'm thirty-six," I deadpan.

"Still a kid."

"Cause' you're a dinosaur." His head whips towards me and I laugh. "You literally said back in the day!"

"I didn't," he says.

"You did! And don't lie, you were trying not to laugh at those jokes, too. They're such old man jokes."

"Char," he says as he shakes his head and I grin. "This dinosaur gets to choose the music while you drive."

"You say that like I won't like it," I say as I hop off of the car. I go to hand him his jacket but he waves me towards the truck. I follow his directions and start walking over. When I get to the truck and open the back passenger door, Ellie stares at the roof.

"We're about to head out, you need anything before we take off?" She shakes her head as I lean over and buckle her in.

"When can I ride up front?"

"How about we switch the next time Joel drives? I have a feeling he'll want to be up front when I'm driving."

"You're driving?" She asks and I nod. "Is he choosing the music?"

"He is."

"Ugh," she throws her head back and I laugh as I climb out of the truck and shut the door behind me.

"What's so funny?" Joel asks as he walks up to the truck.

"Nothing," I say as he unscrews the gas cap. He just looks at me as he starts pouring the gas and I hold my hand out expectantly. He doesn't move to grab the key. I reach forward to go into his pocket, but he moves his hips away.

"You're supposed to ask if you want somethin' Char," he says and I feel heat bloom across my cheeks.

"Can you give me the keys please, Cowboy?" He rolls his eyes and reaches into his pocket. I go to grab the key but he moves it before I can. "What now?"

"Don't start the truck while I'm fillin' up the tank."

"I drove before everything went to shit-"

"Didn't stop people from drivin' off with the hose in the cars."

"I never did that!" I put my hands on my hips and he looks so proud of himself. "Oh you play dirty," I say as I grab the key from his hand. He smirks at me as I walk around the truck towards the driver's side. Of course he'd try to get me worked up after I let Ellie torture him with the joke book.

Jokes on him, though. I've got even way worse puns to torture him with, later.

"Must've been some truck," Ellie says as she turns around in the back seat.

"Yeah," Joel says as I start to drive away. "They used to stick big-ass plows on them and clear the roads for their tanks and-"

"I wanna see a tank!" Ellie says, I can see her eyes are wide from the rear-view mirror.

"You will," Joel says. He keeps talking but I can tell Ellie isn't really listening with how she's digging through the back seat pockets.

"I got somethin'!" She says. I see a cassette in her hands before I have to maneuver around a car that's halfway in the road. "Here," she hits the top of Joel's arm as she shows it to him. "This make you all nostalgic?"

I look down to see Hank Williams on the front and bite my lip.

"This is actually before my time," he says as he shakes the cassette. "It's a winner, though," he says as he swaps out the cassettes in the radio.

I relax back in my seat when Alone and Forsaken starts to fill the silence in the truck. I look over to see Joel with his eyes closed, finally. The setting sun highlights the bits of gray that run through his hair.

"Oh shit!" Ellie whispers.

"Oh no," I murmur under my breath. "Ellie-"

"Oh come on. Bill was prepared for everything!" I frantically look back and relax when I see it's just another magazine.

"Jesus Christ, Ellie," I say as I turn back to the road.

"What?" She asks. "What do you think I found?"

"Nothing," I say quickly and turn up the radio.

"Oh, you're worse than Joel, come on, what did you think I found?" She asks.

"Ellie-" I say as Joel turns down the radio. "You traitor," I whisper to him as he turns down the radio even more. He shifts in his seat, and pulls his jacket further up to cover the bottom half of his face as he keeps his eyes closed.

"Oh, there's advertisements in these things? What would a magazine like this want to sell- oh."

"Fuck me," I whisper under my breath.

"That's what these things are for! How does that even fit?" I feel my cheeks heat up as I sink lower in my seat. "Do you think he hid one in here?"

"Don't go looking for anything, Ellie!" I say as she starts looking around in the back seat.

"Oh come on, maybe he had some-"

"Ellie!"

"He'd need something if he was using this as a spot to-"

"Oh my god," I whisper before I hear it. A choked, muffled laugh under Joel's jacket. It just spurs Ellie on even more.

"How much do you know about these toys anyways? Are they the same for girls?"

"Ellie-"

"Wait, you need batteries for that?" She asks and I have to fight the urge to slam my forehead against the steering wheel as Joel's shoulders shake. "People did that in cars?"

"Yes, for some teens it's the only somewhat private space they had," I finally answer her, hoping that the questions stop. They don't.

"You were a teenager before all of this happened," Ellie says.

"I was."

"Did you ever-"

"No," I cut her off. I feel Joel's eyes on me as my cheeks heat up.

"Wait, do you think he did that back here?"

"Jesus."

"Joel!" Ellie yells. "Answer me!"

And then there's the warmest laugh I've heard in my life. Joel's body shakes as he tries to contain his laughter as Ellie continues to whine in the backseat. I hear her seat belt come undone and immediately pull over.

"What did I say about your seatbelt?" I try to ask her, but she's already slamming the back door and opening the passenger door.

"What are you doin'?" Joel asks but she ignores him and starts to climb in. "Hey!" he says as she tries to sit down on the maps. I slip them out of the way before she sits down between us, relaxing back in her new seat.

Joel sighs as he leans over and buckles her in. Once he's finished I hand him the maps before I start driving again. It's quiet except for the Hank Williams cassette that plays in the cab. I drive for about forty more minutes before I see the gas tank starting to get low again.

I look over and see both Joel and Ellie passed out. Ellie leans against Joel, his jacket covering her and part of his chest. His head rests against the window as soft snores escape him.

I pull off into a gas station before I turn off the truck. Joel's snores stop as he moves his head to look over at me. He starts to move but I shake my head.

"I can-"

"Nah," he says and he expertly moves out from under Ellie and motions for me to move to his seat. "I'll fill it up and find us a place to sleep for the night."

"You can just say you don't like my driving," I tease and he rolls his eyes as he walks back to grab the siphon. I slide out of the truck and stretch my legs for a minute before I walk back over to the passenger side and climb in. Ellie's head immediately falls on my shoulder.

I lean down and kiss the top of her head before I rest my head on top of hers. I fight falling asleep the entire time Joel works on siphoning out the gas and putting it into the truck's tank.

"You could'a slept," he says as he slides back into the driver's seat.

"We came up with a system," I say as he buckles himself in. He raises an eyebrow at me and I pull my seat belt over me, too. Careful not to jar Ellie.

"Hopefully she actually sleeps tonight," I say as Joel starts the truck. He makes a noise of agreement. We drive in silence as the sky starts to turn a dark blue color.

"We there yet?" Ellie asks, her voice cracking.

"Not even close, kiddo." I say quietly. She groans and buries her face in my shoulder.

"Alright," Joel says as he slows the truck down. "That's enough for today." He pulls off the road through a gap in the trees and drives across a field towards the woods. We drive through the trees until we reach a small clearing. As soon as we get out of the truck, I hear birds chirp and relax.

We'll be okay for tonight. We have to be.