THE UNEXPECTED

21

Soon, Joel came back with a smug smile on his face,

"Come on through, ladies." Ellie goes first with me following behind her and I'm just glad that Joel's okay. I don't know what I would've done if he wasn't.

"Hey, I was thinking I would've wanted to be an astronaut." The teen says out of the blue which has me chuckling a little, she sends me a look in return which makes me snort at her.

"That a fact?" Joel raises his eyebrows to which Ellie shrugs nonchalantly,

"Yeah! Can you imagine being out there all by yourself?" I personally couldn't think of anything worse but that's just my opinion, "Would've been cool, I'm just sayin'." She looks at Joel first. "What about you? What'd you want to be?"

I already knew the answer but I sat up a bit on Clarke, suddenly interested in the conversation to gage Ellie's reaction, "Oh, well...when I was a kid, I used to want to be a..." He paused, then exhaled, "A singer." It was silent for a moment but as soon as I noticed Ellie's baffled expression I grinned,

"Shut up." Ellie laughs with a shocked smile.

"I'm serious, ask her." he tells Ellie, gesturing to me.

"No way, really?" She then turns from the back of Callus to ask me, I nod which earns another shocked laugh from her. "Sing something." She then requests, and Joel shakes his head rather quickly.

"Ah, no." He chuckles.

"Come on, I won't laugh." His eyes meet mine momentarily and I smile reassuringly, I'm quickly reminded of the time he sung to me all those years ago. My heart bursts in remembrance and I think he remembers too. I look away all flustered.

"I don't think so." I can't help but be a little disappointed, I miss hearing the sound of his voice all husky and deep when he sang. It was beautiful.

"Not to flex on you, Ellie, but Joel has sang to me before." I say smugly, teasing her a little. Ellie's head whips round so fast to stare at me with a parted mouth.

"Shut up! That's so not fair!" She whines and Joel immediately shakes his head at me which earns a laugh from me.

"So, Emily, what did you wanna be?" Joel quickly changes the conversation from him over to me, he knew the answer to my question already so I knew it was calculated from him.

"It's a little embarrassing but I always loved to dance when I was younger and I performed in these competitions growing up...so maybe that if the outbreak didn't happen." I trail off, feeling my cheeks heat up a bit. It felt so juvenile to talk about.

"That's so cool, so what, are you like pretty flexible then?" Ellie asks excitedly, once again so interested in what I was saying.

Joel perks up at this, looking at me suggestively which has my cheeks flush even more. Was he hinting at what I thought he was? His eyebrows raise and he runs his tongue over his bottom lip, wetting it before turning back ahead of him. Suddenly, I feel all flustered and I have to calm myself down before returning my attention back to Ellie.

"I mean I was very back in the day, but I guess I've still got it." I shrug, eyes trained on Joel as he stiffens momentarily before relaxing again. My lips tug into a smirk at that.

"Aww...are those monkeys!?" Ellie abruptly exclaims, her finger pointing into the distance. Squinting a little, I just about make out a cluster of monkeys playing and running not far from us.

"Yeah, a whole mess of 'em." I say, smiling a little at the girl's excitement.

"First time seein' a monkey?" Joel asks,