Swan Song

Seven

"Hey," I said as I slid into a seat behind Jake and Javy. "My dad wanted me to see if you'd want to come over for dinner with us?"

"Yeah, dinner would be great," he replied with a chuckle.

"Fair warning, my entire family will be there," I quickly muttered as the different teams filtered into the room so they could get more information on the days festivities.

My dad was the last into the room and we all stood until he told us to do otherwise. Each team was instructed on when their time would come and, to nobody's surprise, we were all excited.

As everyone filtered from the room, my dad grabbed my arm to pull me aside.

"You're not dressed?" He questioned.

"I'm dressed to work," I replied, a brow raised in question.

On his way out of the room, Owen stopped to talk with my dad and I and I was still confused.

"Are you both ready?" He asked again.

"Ready for what?"

"You and I are doing an F-18 duo demonstration," Owen replied, his own brow now raised in confusion. "Aren't we?"

"Nobody ever told me that," I replied, glancing from Owen to our dad.

"I swore I've mentioned it to you," dad quickly replied. "Since you guys didn't practice yesterday, can you do this?"

"Of course I can," I replied. "I'm sure it just slipped your mind, dad."

I offered a smile and went to the locker room to get dressed and get my gear on before meeting my brother outside near where our twin jets sat.

Bradley had already been running a preflight check for me as Owen and I stood between our aircraft and watched as the Blue Angels took off and I felt my heart flutter. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to make it to be able to fly with them but this demonstration was likely as close as I was going to get, which I was okay with.

We watched their team demonstration before giving one another a fist bump and climbing into our own respective aircrafts. I took off first, staying low before making 90° turn upwards, hitting seven g's before leveling out and my brother taking off after me.

After some time playing in the sky, we landed and watched the rest of the air show. When it ended, I quickly left without a word to make it to rehearsal for the skate competition before dinner with my parents and Jake.

Once rehearsals were done, Jake had blown up my phone and I ran home to shower before picking him up and making the drive to my parents house.

"Fair warning, Owen and Oliver are extremely overprotective so they may mess with you," I warned as I parked my car on the street.

"I think I can handle it," Jake replied with a reassuring smile, gently patting my hand that sat on the gear shift. "C'mon, Oh."

Jake and I got out of the car and I took a deep breath before opening the front door. Dinner was already on the table as we entered the house and it smelled divine.

"About time you show up," Oliver groaned. "Some of us actually had to work today and I'm starving."

"Owen and I worked," I countered with a laugh.

"Yeah, doing an air show demo hardly counts as working," he chuckled.

"Jake, come in. Make yourself at home," my dad said as he gestured to an open seat by him.

Jake and I took the two open seats nearest to my dad and I looked around, noticing an extra setting at the table.

"Who's that for?" I asked, my brows pulled together in confusion, glancing from my mom to my dad.