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28

Josh's PoV

As Tyler, Jenna, Aria, and I sat on the couch in the hotel room, the night before leaving back to Columbus, I held a sleeping Aria in my arms.

"Up for a game of Mario Kart, Josh?" Tyler asked, offering the controller to me.

"You're on."

Tyler looked down at Jenna, then at Aria.
"Isn't this a cute scene?" he began. "Look at both of us sitting here with our girls. Our blonde headed, blue eyed girls."

I laughed. It was true — Jenna was curled up the exact same way that Aria was, except Jenna was resting on Tyler.

"Do we have any plans for Aria's birthday?" Tyler asked, his thumb hitting the buttons on the controller.

"She didn't want a birthday celebration. I told her we're celebrating her birthday whether she liked it or not." I said.

"Did she end up suggesting anything?"

"She mentioned a combined birthday with you and her, but that's it."

"That's actually not a bad idea. Think about it — Ri obviously doesn't want all the attention on her, and if it's a combined party, then the attention is divided up between both of us."

I thought about it for a moment.

"Wouldn't there be more people then?"

"Your family and my family — she knows them all, it'd be fine."

"Yeah, we could make that work." I nodded, turning around a corner in Mario Kart.

After playing a few more rounds, I could feel Aria grabbing onto my shirt. Looking down at her face, I could see tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Ari," I lightly shook the blonde headed girl awake.

Aria's eyes opened and as they did, she sat up.

"What happened Ri?" Tyler asked, about to stand up until I signalled for him to sit back down so that he didn't disturb Jenna.

"It was just a bad dream." Aria said, rubbing her eyes.

"Do you need anything?" I asked her.

"No thanks, i'll be alright." Aria said, pushing her hair out of her face. "What time is it?"

"3:40am."

"I'll go to bed then."

"Wait, Tyler — what time does our plane leave for Columbus?" I asked Tyler.

"6:30am."

"Ari, stay awake a little longer. You can sleep on the plane. We should be leaving in like an hour anyway." I said.

"I'll start packing my things then."

Aria's PoV

Waiting to be able to board a flight was possibly the most boring thing I have ever  endured. There's nothing to do apart from sitting there, reading your boarding pass, or counting the tiles on the ground that clearly hadn't been cleaned in months — I could still see a stain on the ground that was here last time we were at this airport.

"Wait, our tickets aren't together." I said, looking from my ticket to Josh's.

"Oh," Josh looked at the boarding passes. "I swear I ordered them together. Are your and Jenna's seats together?" Josh turned to Tyler.

"Yeah they are," Tyler said. "That's weird."

Josh kept reading over the ticket, obviously part of him was wishing that one of our tickets would change with him just staring at it.

"I don't mind sitting alone so you can sit with Jenna if you want, Ri." Tyler said.

"I can sit alone if you want to sit with Jenna. I don't mind." You see, that was a lie. I really did mind — sitting amongst people I didn't know made me uneasy.

"I'd rather sit next to some stranger than one of you two sitting next to a stranger." Tyler said.

Despite what some people might think — this was not a sexist comment. This was a typical Tyler Joseph comment. Tyler had always been fiercely protective over the people he loved, and for one of us to be put in danger — no matter how small — he would always shove himself in front. The saying "I'd take a bullet for you" is very accurate for the type of person Tyler is.

Josh nodded. "Thanks Tyler."

Tyler smiled sheepishly. "It's no problem man."