Kelly walks confidently in front of me and pulls open the floor-to-ceiling frosted glass door, revealing the conference room with its long post-modern table. At the head of the table sits a man with perfectly windswept chestnut hair and a luscious beard.
You havegotto be kidding me. FuckingDustin. My smile sits heavy on my face and I can feel my cheeks twitching under the exertion.
"Good morning, everyone," he says without looking up from his computer.
"Good morning!" Kelly sings out. I can barely manage a strangled grumble.
Dustin looks up from his computer at the weird noise, and his eyebrows nearly disappear to his hairline. His jaw drops open a half-inch, and his eyes sweep me from head to toe. Just as his staring becomes less than socially acceptable, he clears his throat.
"Perfect. Everyone is here. First of all, it's great to meet the both of you," he says a little forcefully. "I'm Dustin Sanders, head of Engineering Onboarding. Today's meeting is simply to explain what Atmosphere is all about and where DropTop fits into our puzzle. Please, sit."
"Well that sounds just wonderful, Dustin!" Kelly beams as we slide into opposing chairs. "We have the best teamthis side of the Mississippi and I'm sure you'll be incredibly impressed with our expertise."
"Gluh," I blurt out. Kelly whips her head around to stare me in the face. She smiles brightly and raises her eyebrows, the classic "fix your face" mom-glare. "Apologies. Great to greet you. I mean, great to meet you. I'm Brooke, and I manage the UI Engineering team."
"Yes, I was just reading about that. Great stuff. Your team is responsible for the intuitive design, right?" He steeples his fingers and seems perfectly content to pretend he had no idea who I am until this very moment. I can work with that.
"Correct, together with Product and UI. We rely heavily on collaboration and client feedback, which the Product teams in turn triage and assign priority to. From there, my team and I produce the modules and integrate with the back-end functions in order to create a seamless experience for the end user," I rattle off my corporate speech.
"Great. Now, Kelly?" He notes something down on his laptop.
I'm sure he says something after that, but my pulse is whooshing in my ears, and I can only focus on the faux wood grain stamped onto the table. This isn't happening. This can't be happening. My job, and my team's jobs, are in his hands.His. If it were anyone else in the world, I'm sure I could win them over. But him?
We're toast. But god, I have to try.
Two hours later, I practically stumble out of the conference room in a daze. If I look at this objectively, Dustin really grew up well. His perfectly trimmed beard is thick—men all over the internet would probably pine for facial hair like that. Especially considering the chiseled jawline I know that beard is hiding. And there's no sign of premature balding like his Uncle James. Good for him.
But his attitude? Jesus. He's such a dick. It's like he kept all of the teenage dickishness every boy has, multiplied it by twenty, and called it "personal growth." I bet he posts long-winded paragraphs on LinkedIn about what losing his beard trimmer taught him about B2B sales. I bet he wears University of Michigan shirts unironically. I bet he charms the hell out of boomer parents with his stock portfolio. I bet he listens to those men's dating advice podcasts and negs women.
Okay, maybe that one's a bit of a stretch. He doesn't disrespect women; he disrespects everyone. But he's very good at hiding it professionally. He was disgustingly prepared for that meeting, and I know Kelly is seeing motherly hearts every time she looks at him. Even I have toadmit that his notes (that he shared with us before officially ending the meeting) were precise and accurate.
I still don't like it. And Ireallydon't like the fact that I'll be working so closely with him. Integrating tech stacks—can't we just smash it together and see what happens?
"What did you just say?" Felicity interrupts my train of thought—doom thoughts, really—with a look of shock.
"Huh? WhatdidI say?" Shit, did I say any of that out loud?
"You asked if we could smash the tech stacks together and see what happens—are you okay? Was the meeting really that bad? Is he horrible?" Andrea interjects.
Christ. "That was a joke, guys. The meeting was fine. Everyone's job is safe, I promise."I hope. "Back to work, team."
The team grumbles but turns back to their computers and dutifully type away. I open my laptop again and pull up a blank document. All I can think about is how I'm going to keep the team safe. I'm going to have to apologize. I'm going to have to smile and schmooze. I can do that, right?
Right?
Dustin
Atexactlysix-thirtyinthe evening, my day is finally complete, and I gently close my laptop lid, packing up to leave. Most of the DropTop employees have already left for the day. I watched them from the corner of my eye as they filed past the all-glass conference room, gawking at me. Probably hoping I'm not here for their jobs.
And I'm really not. That's not my decision to make. My job here, as I have explained to everyone I've met with today, is to introduce their new parent company and figure out the best place to fit them within the existing infrastructure of Atmosphere. Sure, there's bound to be some friction and high emotions. Switching out Slack for Teams, migrating from G Suite to MS Office, planning the merge of their internal documentation database to ours. None of that is immediate, though, and none of that will happen this month.
Like I've said so many times, I'm just here to figure out the puzzle of DropTop. This is the part of my job I love: solving problems. I've always been a puzzle guy, and I getto expertly slide the pieces around to find the perfect fit. Except there isonepiece that's nagging at the back of my mind: Brooke.
Brooke Dunne. She must have gotten married at some point, though I didn't see a ring on her finger. Maybe that's why I couldn't find her on social media?
I shut down that line of thoughtveryquickly. This is a professional working relationship, and there is no reason to complicate it further. She is simply one of the hundreds of new Atmosphere employees. So simple. I'm here, I'll do my job, and I'll leave. No strings attached.
"Dustin?" A familiar feminine voice interrupts my thoughts.
