“I don’t think Gavin tells you a lot of things.” Rachel forced herself to smile but it felt weak. “Let’s leave the piloting to those with training. My experience with playingX-Planewith the boys never ends well for my virtual passengers.”
“You playX-Plane?” Travis asked.
“She’s super bad at it,” Brady announced, substantially louder than necessary.
Could the seat just open up and swallow her until they got to the lake house?
“Sometimes being a copilot is rewarding,” Travis said, but it felt like he was talking about a lot more than the flight to Twin Lakes.
He could just go on talking about rewards and she’d just go on pretending that she didn’t know him.
Kellan somehow managed to wear his seat belt and still get up on his knees in the seat beside her. Rachel immediately adjusted the strap to prevent so much freedom.
“I know myself,” she said. “Therefore,I do nottrustmyself to fly anything larger than a kite.”
The edges of Travis’s mouth twitched. “Fair enough.”
“That’s it?” Rachel asked.
Because with Travis that was never it.
Travis shrugged. “I’m not going to force you to do somethin’ you don’t want to do. I’ll just give you a little crap about it and move on.”
“I wanna sit in the cockpit.” Brady bounced in his seat, raising his hand like he was volunteering for the first round of chocolate cake instead of sitting in one of the first seats to go down in a crash.
Absolutely not. She opened her mouth to figure out a way to say that without breaking the kid’s heart. “I don’t—”
“He loves airplanes,” Kellan declared. “He never stalls onX-Planelike you do.”
“This plane is a Gulfstream G550,” Brady said, still bouncing even though the seat belt remained clipped across his lap. “It has dual Rolls-Royce engines, but not the Tays. Those were phased out after the g-four.”
Airplanes? For real? That was going to be histhing?
No. This was a phase. That’s it.
He could just like soccer or join the math club. A hobby that wouldn’t kill him. Fractions never killed anyone.
Rachel’s mouth parted as her son continued—
“This plane can go up to fifty-one thousand feet, but we won’t go that high,since we’re not going too far. Twin Lakes is close.” He leaned back in the chair, kicking his feet against the edge. “I hope Uncle Travis will take me someplace farther someday, so we can go higher.”
Rachel glanced at Bob and Evelyn,whose expressions of shock must’ve mirrored her own because, apparently, her son was an aviation savant and she never—literally never—suspected it.
Yes, he loved flight simulators, but they were video games,and he seemed to be an equal opportunity video game enthusiast.
She flipped through the memories she had of his games, searching for whatever she’d missed.
“What else do you know about airplanes?” Travis asked, resting his arm against the back of Brady’s chair. Nonchalant, like this was not a big deal.
“I know lots.” Brady shrugged, still kicking his feet against the edge of the chair. “What do you want to know?”
“What else do you have in your noggin’ about the trip today?” Travis asked.
“The airport we’re landing at is the highest commercial airport in North America,” Brady replied immediately. “The approach is one of the hardest to manage, but you did it last year without any problem, so I think we’ll be fine.”
Hold the phone, Travis flew them last year and Gavin knew about it? He’d have had to because he was on the plane.
Travis grinned at Brady. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
