Rocket Man

by Melanie Greene

  “Right, hi, Serena, nice. I saw your picture on the Lanigan site. You did their new logo, right?”

  Serena confirmed she had, and Dillon complimented her before turning his eyes (Serena hadn’t decided if they were cobalt or Egyptian blue) and his attention back to Anica. “I feel bad I kept you waiting. My references will tell you, I’m really prompt. Oh, you have my samples there, good. Let me show you a couple of other things. This is recent, similar to what Lanigan did for McMahan Foods, I think. Similar tone. I’ve just done some food writing, and I’m not sure my application materials show you enough of that.”

  They discussed his work, Lanigan’s history, Houston, and the industry.

  “Why are you looking to move from freelance to a permanent position?” Serena asked. Over the course of the day she’d gotten more comfortable with questioning the applicants, but something was tying her tongue a little with this one. She didn’t want to think that it was the fact that he was gorgeous, so she refused to think about it and kept her eyes on his resume and on Anica.

  “It’s what I always wanted. I moved to Houston to be near my sister, she’s having a baby soon, and they’re my only family. Anyway, I came here because she’s here, and I’m staying because she’s here. And I like it. I’m a huge Rockets fan. I’ve been searching for a permanent position since I got here, looking at different companies, and Lanigan is just perfect for me. The size and the team and the work you’ve all done. The location. It’s exactly what I hoped for.”

  His enthusiasm was sweet. And she’d never fault a fan of her hometown basketball team, since she was rather rabid about them herself. Serena remembered her own interview at Lanigan; she’d probably been about Dillon’s age, and was just as eager to be hired on. But she didn’t think she’d come across as open about it. Not that it was a bad thing. He was just so...so there. So tall and happy and that dark hair and those cobalt eyes and Serena was not inclined to gladness that she was so aware of his thereness. But he interviewed well, and they’d liked his work best of the three candidates. As Dillon packed up, Serena and Anica shared a relieved smile behind his back.

  “We should be making a decision in the next couple of days,” Anica said, returning to her desk. “Serena will show you out. Nice to meet you, Dillon.”

  “And you. I’ll look for your call.”

  They strolled to the lobby, chatting. Lanigan’s halls were lined with completed campaigns—not updated as frequently as Serena’s office walls, but still a strong recommendation for the work they did there. And it gave her a secret little smile that several of the pieces Dillon commented on had her graphics. At the front desk, he turned fully towards her. “Thanks, Serena. I can call you Serena? I know I said it, but I can start right away.”

  “That’s great.” Despite being fairly sure Dillon would be their hire, Serena didn’t want to give anything away. Plus she’d caught sight of Philip, their other writer, headed into Margaret’s office with a grim look on his face. Clearly the word of Margaret’s potential replacements and, with it, Serena’s semi-promotion, was spreading through the building. She was mentally running damage control, but Dillon still stood facing her, blue eyes unwavering.

  “I can ask you a question?”

  Serena nodded.

  “I don’t want to come on too hard. And I know it’s maybe stupid of me to mention this. But,” he ducked his head some, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can I call you?”

  “Well, sure. Like Anica said, we’re going to contact all the candidates by early next week, but if you want to just check in, that’s fine.”

  “No. I appreciate that, but...I mean, you, specifically. No matter what happens with the job decision, can I call you? For coffee or something?”

  “I don’t drink coffee.” What a stupid response. Serena sent a mental slap to her forehead, but this adorable puppy of a man was asking a maybe future boss on a date? What if Anica had been the one to walk him out, would he have asked her instead? Was this strategy, or just strange? And why did the idea of his offering Anica a coffee set Serena’s mind at disgruntled alert? “I like tea.”

  “Well, for tea then.”

  “Sorry. I mean, sorry, it’s not the coffee. I appreciate it, Dillon, but I don’t...it’s not....”

  “You’re with someone?” He shook his head. “Never mind. You said ‘no’ and I’ll let it go. I just didn’t want to wait until I started working with you and have to wonder how to fit my asking you out in with the job stuff. Or if I don’t get it, for you to think I’m trying to get a second chance. I mean, when I say it like that, it’s obvious the right answer is to not ask you out at all. Which is what you’re trying to say. I was right to start with and it was stupid to ask. Forget it all, please. What an impression I make. Show up late and won’t go away and incapable of biting back my words when I should.”

  “No. It’s fine. Nice of you to ask.” Unsettling, but nice. Serena was not looking to date. The post-Joey list of things to avoid was too long, and she had a promotion to chase, and Dillon was too young and too handsome and too likely to be her subordinate and too much a whirlwind and anyway, Serena was not looking.

  He took her hand in hers, squeezed. Serena resisted pulling away from the warmth of it. “I’ll leave now. Thanks for your time today. And when you choose someone else for this job, I’d still like to hear from you. If you want. I won’t pester you. Thanks, Serena. You’re really nice. And pretty. But mainly nice. I’m going, I promise. Bye.”

  And like that, he slung his messenger bag around his neck and strode away, shoulders set, not looking back.

  Chapter Two

  Friday’s happy hour at Frijoles, where the Lanigan crew usually went, doubled as Margaret’s farewell party. They took over a couple of tables, and it didn’t escape Serena’s notice that Philip maneuvered so that they were sitting together. She prepared to be grilled. It was her own fault for avoiding Philip all day, even after Dillon had accepted Anica’s job offer.

  But Philip bored Serena half to death. He was a fine, even a clever writer, but dull. Same turkey club and bag of chips every day. Annually updated studio portraits of his family. Made a fuss if he ran out of medium point blue ballpoints. Serena never understood why someone so entrenched in his routines even wanted a creative job, but apparently, at some point, Philip had made that decision. And upon deciding something, Philip stuck with it, and was willing to expound on why. So she’d put off the obligatory gossip as long as she could, and as a result she was stuck in a corner with only a frozen margarita to hide behind while Philip tried to persuade her to recreate every line of Dillon’s resume.

  “Toots, leave her alone,” Janice interjected, finally. Janice called everyone but the company’s owner ‘Toots.’ “The poor woman’s given you all the details she can. Unless you want her to draw a picture of him, but you’ll meet him for yourself on Monday.”

  Serena stopped herself from saying that the set of markers she carried in her bag didn’t include the right shade of blue for Dillon’s eyes. And then she got distracted thinking about doing a pencil sketch, with a heavy line, and the only color the pop of his eyes. Purely as a creative exercise, not because she remembered how the blue glinted when he asked her out.

  Philip was not leaving her alone. “I only wanted to know if he’s worked on any annual reports before? It’s just that my team has been given more of them than yours, and Anica said she was going to redistribute them. But then Margaret’s husband was transferred and now I don’t know if Anica will stick to that.”

  “You’re really going to have to bring that up with her,” Serena said, shooting Janice yet another exasperated look. She should have just taken Dillon’s portfolio and dropped it on Philip’s desk.

  “A toast to Margaret!” Eddie burst in before Philip could think of any more questions. Not that Eddie was trying to spare Serena; he was just grandstanding as usual. Fantastic head of sales, Eddie was, but overwhelming in social groups. “Drink up, Margaret, this is the last good ma
rgarita you’re ever getting. Do they even have tequila in Birmingham?”

  “I’m pretty sure they do,” Margaret replied placidly, but she was smiling.

  “Well, just in case, let me buy another round.”

  “None for me, thanks,” Serena said, sliding back her chair. “I’m meeting my realtor first thing in the morning.”

  She gave Margaret a final hug, and avoiding Philip’s eye, Serena escaped.

  Dillon showed up uninvited at his sister’s house Friday evening. It was typical of him, but also typical of Shannon and Justin to include him in whatever they had going on. This time, it was nursery arranging. Shannon and Justin’s long-anticipated first baby was due in mere weeks, and Shannon was finally feeling confident enough to set up his room.

  “Why is it so yellow? You know he’s a boy, you could do blue walls.”

  “Because I like yellow,” Shannon said, tossing a stuffed rabbit at him. “Put that on the shelf next to the changing table.”

  Nursery arranging took the form of Justin—and now Dillon—wandering around the room as directed, while Shannon sat in the rocking chair taking things out of the succession of storage bins the guys placed on the table beside her.

  “But I got him that spaceship mobile, and the glow-in-the-dark stars. Yellow walls don’t look like outer space.”

  “Wait, are you saying that if the baby was a girl you wouldn’t have given her space toys?”

  “No. Have daughters. I’ll give them cool sci-fi stuff, too. Paint all the kid rooms blue, is what I’m saying.”

  “Maybe my kids won’t be a sci-fi geeks, Uncle Dillon.”

  “Maybe your kids won’t be cool, you mean? Why don’t you want your kids to be cool?”

  “Justin, explain to my brother that his version of cool is skewed.”

  “Justin, explain to your wife that everyone knows that space is the final frontier of coolness.”

  “Justin, explain to my brother that even the sci-fi geeks no longer think Star Trek is cool.”

  Justin was about to break in, but Dillon had already upended a bin full of onesies and tiny socks over Shannon’s head, so he wisely took his usual course when the siblings started bickering, and retreated. Shannon was pelting Dillon with the rolled up socks, laughing, and Dillon was dodging them as well as he could, but also scooping them up and shooting them into the open dresser drawer.

  “You are such an idiot.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I’m nine months pregnant. You can’t insult me or I’ll burst into tears.”

  “And what are you going to hide behind when my nephew shows up?”

  “Postpartum hormones.”

  “Come on, Shan, eventually that’s not going to work. You may as well let me insult you now. It makes me happy, and you know there’s nothing in the world you like more than making me happy.”

  “Idiot,” she replied, but didn’t deny it.

  Not that she could. They’d been through a hell of a lot, he and Shannon, since the night a decade before when a drunk driver ran their parents off the road. He’d been sixteen, Shannon twenty-one, in her third year of college, but fortunately for Dillon, still in LA. She’d rearranged her whole life so she could move back home with him, whereupon she made Dillon’s emotional equilibrium her life’s mission. Her very new boyfriend Justin had ended up at the house, too, as often as not, exhibiting his uncanny ability to solve every practical problem in their lives.

  Shannon had fallen in love with Justin for—well, for whatever reasons women fall for smart, decent, intuitive guys—but Dillon loved him because he’d kept the house from being silent, and kept their meddling Uncle Bob supplied with information without making Dillon talk. Plus he got Shannon stop asking Dillon how he was doing seven or ten times a day.

  “Dinner in fifteen minutes,” Justin said, stopping short in the nursery doorway to watch his very pregnant wife attempt to stack tiny refolded outfits on the shelf of her belly.

  “That gives you two just enough time to finish emptying those boxes,” Shannon said, beginning to rock forward in the chair.

  “Where are you going? Why do we have to keep working when you’re leaving?” Dillon asked, but he’d already taken the clothes from her and was helping Justin lift her.

  “I have a baby on my bladder and you don’t, that’s why. Don’t forget to put the empty boxes in the hall closet.”

  “We’re not idiots,” Dillon said, but Shannon only snorted as she slow-walked away.

  Once they’d served themselves lasagna and shooed the kitten out of the dining room, Justin turned his ‘I know you’ve got something on your mind’ look on Dillon. “Go on. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got news.”

  “You got the job,” Justin said, nodding.

  “You got it! Dillon, that’s super!”

  “Thank you, sis. That’s the kind of excitement I was looking for.” Dillon side-eyed his brother-in-law.

  “It’s not like we didn’t expect this.”

  “And what if I’d lost it, what then? Wouldn’t you feel bad for me?”

  “Nope. If you didn’t get it, it’d just because you fucked up the interview.”

  “Justin. Language,” Shannon said, rubbing her baby bump.

  “He can’t understand.”

  “He can hear your voice and your inflections,” she said.

  “Wait. Hold up. Are you seriously going to stop cursing when he isn’t even here yet?” Dillon asked his sister. “No fucking way I’m stopping cursing, you know that, right?”

  Justin said, “You want to be near my baby, you stop cursing.”

  “You just now said I fucked up the interview!”

  “So you did fuck up the interview. Thought so.”

  “I did not fuck it up.”

  “Stop saying ‘fuck,’” Shannon said.

  “Now the baby heard his mommy say fuck,” laughed Dillon, glad that Shannon was across the table, and therefore out of hitting range. He’d forgotten to fold his legs out of her way, though. “Ouch!”

  “Serves you right for making me say bad words. How exactly did you mess up your interview, anyway?”

  “I did not mess up my interview. I got the job, didn’t I?”

  “But?” asked Justin, who was way too perceptive.

  Dillon shoved more lasagna in his mouth, but then his plate was clean and Justin pushed the casserole out of his way so he couldn’t have seconds.

  “Aw, Dill, it’s okay. What happened? Are you okay?”

  She had to have done it deliberately. Shannon knew how much he hated when she asked him that. Dillon closed his eyes a second, sighing, but when he opened them, Shannon was just watching him. They had the same blue eyes—their father’s—and the same square jaw—their mother’s—and he could read her concerned love as well as if she’d shared every thought in her head.

  “Aw, Shan. It is okay,” he echoed back at her, lightening his tone. “I was ten minutes late, but they were cool about it. Anica and Serena, those are the ones who interviewed me. Anica’s my boss now. Well, starting on Monday.”

  “Ten minutes?” Justin was a banker, and had a knack for turning into a serious professional the second the suit jacket went on. Normally he didn’t burden Dillon with fatherly-seeming advice, but when it came to work, he had his standards, and readily passed them along.

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Did you at least call to let them know?”

  “It was just a freight train. I didn’t think it would stop traffic that long.”

  “So you didn’t call?”

  Dillon reached for the lasagna. “I said I was sorry when I got there. Anica said it was fine. Serena, too, she walked me out and was really nice.”

  Justin shook his head, still clearly flabbergasted that Dillon would allow himself to be late to an interview. And sure, Dillon had felt like an idiot about it. More than an idiot. He’d covered okay, mostly. He’d gotten the job. Nothing else really mattered. Certainly n
ot impulsively asking out the cute interviewer like some sort of impulse-asking idiot.

  “Who’s Serena, then?” Justin, naturally, picked up on everything. “If Anica’s the boss?”

  “She’s so cute.”

  “Dillon!” Shannon kicked him again.

  “Stop that.”

  “It’s only fair. The baby keeps kicking me.”

  “That doesn’t make it fair. Your feet are a lot bigger.”

  “Plus she’s wearing shoes,” Justin added.

  “Hey, whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, always.” Justin refilled Shannon’s water glass. “But I want to know about the cute girl.”

  “She’s not—she’s just someone at work. I mean, she’s a graphic designer, so I’ll be working with her, but not like she’s my boss. Anica’s my boss. I double-checked, after.”

  “After?”

  He stabbed a forkful of food. “After I asked her out.” And then he shoved the pasta in his mouth, so he couldn’t answer any of Shannon’s questions.

  Justin knew how to wait, though. He stretched across to the sideboard to snag the container of baklava Dillon had brought over, and he didn’t even look up until Shannon had stopped her barrage of words and Dillon had drained his beer.

  “You didn’t bring any chocolate ones?”

  Dillon shrugged. “They were out.”

  “Your sister’s going to have a baby. You bring her chocolate, idiot.”

  “Yeah. Idiot.”

  “They were out.”

  “And speaking of out. Why did you ask Serena out? Are you an idiot? Why did they even give you the job? Did she say yes?”

  Damn Justin and his calm and reasonable act. It’s not like his questions were any different from Shannon’s. It’s not like they were any different from the ones he’d been asking himself for the previous twenty-nine hours. But Justin had some sort of mojo that made it impossible for Dillon to be evasive.

  “Look, it’s no big deal. It just happened, okay? The interview was over, and she was walking me out, and I felt like I’d screwed up too much by being late—yeah, and not calling—so I figured I’d never get the job. And she’s really pretty. And I like her designs, I mean, the ones I’ve seen, and her hair smells nice and she was wearing this orange shirt. Remember how Mom always wore orange? I just liked it. And then, I don’t know, I just asked her out for coffee.”