Chapter 11: Northbound
The decision to explore a second location in north Austin was met with characteristic pragmatism by the DLAR team. Marcus saw it as a tactical expansion of their operational range. Anya produced spreadsheets comparing demographic data, commercial density, and competitor saturation. Mack just grunted and said, "More miles, but more jobs. I'll need a co-driver for the long hauls."
For Damien, it was the next logical step, but it also represented something else: a need to see the landscape himself. He believed in boots-on-the-ground reconnaissance. A spreadsheet couldn't tell you about the vibe of an industrial park, the condition of the roads, or the feel of a potential community.
This desire for firsthand intelligence conveniently aligned with a pressing familial obligation. Lily's best friend since middle school, Chloe, had moved with her family to a suburb just south of Georgetown, north of Austin, nearly a year ago. The promise of a weekend visit had been perpetually postponed by Damien's business chaos and Lily's own whirlwind of cosplay and design work. With a week left in summer break, Lily presented her case with the fervor of a lawyer before a hanging judge.
"Chloe's birthday is Saturday. I have her present. It's fragile. Mossberg's suspension is… spirited. The Pilot is the family car. Your truck has that fancy adaptive suspension thingy you geeked out about. It's the only vehicle suitable for precious cargo. Also, I need a chaperone/DD, and Mom and Dad have that teacher conference, and Diana is 'in seclusion' with her gemstones. You're it. Plus," she added, deploying her ultimate weapon, "you said you needed to 'scope out the north Austin corridor.' Chloe's dad works in commercial real estate. I may have already hinted you'd want to pick his brain."
It was a masterstroke. Damien couldn't help but laugh. "You're getting scarily good at this."
"I learn from the best,"she said, grinning. "So? Road trip? We can leave Friday after your last class. Come back Sunday. It'll be fun! I'll even let you control the music for… one-hour blocks."
The plan was set. Friday afternoon found Damien loading his truck. Lily's "fragile" present was a large, shadow-box frame she'd built herself, containing an intricate collage of their friendship: movie tickets, photos, pressed flowers from their old middle school courtyard, and tiny, meticulously painted miniatures of their favorite anime characters. It was a work of art, and Damien handled it with the care of a museum curator, securing it in the back seat with ratchet straps against the leather.
He packed a duffel with practical clothes. Lily arrived, heaving a suitcase large enough for a month-long voyage into the truck bed. "What is in there?" he asked.
"Options! Chloe and I have a whole aesthetic plan. Friday night is 'Cozy Nostalgia.' Saturday is 'Birthday Adventure.' Sunday is 'Melancholy Departure Chic.' It's complicated."
They hit the road just after 4 PM, crawling through Austin's infamous northbound traffic. Damien let Lily commandeer the audio, and she curated a playlist of hyper-pop, anime soundtracks, and show tunes that made his teeth itch but made her happy. As they cleared the city limits, the landscape opened into rolling hills dotted with live oaks and new housing developments.
The drive settled into a comfortable silence after the first hour. Lily, scrolling through her phone, looked over at him. "You're actually kinda quiet. Not in a stressed way. Just… thinking."
"Recon," he said, glancing at the passing exits. "Noting the truck traffic, the density of strip malls versus light industrial. Seeing where the 'old' north Austin bleeds into the new sprawl." He nodded toward a cluster of warehouses off the highway. "That park looks full. Good sign. Means demand for space is high. Probably means disposal contracts are locked in, too. We'd be competing with established players."
"You see warehouses. I see where I could find awesome vintage signage," Lily mused. "Different lenses."
"That's why you're the VP of Aesthetics," he said, smiling.
Chloe's family lived in a well-kept neighborhood in Sun City, a community that straddled the line between suburban and semi-rural. The house was a two-story brick traditional with a meticulously landscaped yard. As Damien pulled up, the front door flew open and Chloe, a whirlwind of curly brown hair and energy, launched herself at Lily the second she stepped out. The squealing was of a pitch and duration known only to teenage best friends reunited.
Damien carefully extracted the shadow box. By the time he carried it to the door, a man in his late forties—Chloe's father, Mark—was there to greet him. He had a firm handshake and the relaxed posture of someone who spent a lot of time on golf courses or construction sites.
"You must be Damien. Lily's infamous brother. Come on in. I've heard a lot. Mostly about you being a 'capitalist wizard of junk.'"
"That's… one way to put it," Damien said, following him into a cool, tastefully decorated home. It spoke of comfortable, established success.
In the living room, the gift presentation provoked more happy tears from Chloe and a detailed dissection of every element with Lily. Mark's wife, Susan, emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She was warm, with intelligent eyes that quickly assessed Damien. "So you're the one responsible for the amazing Forester I've heard so much about? And the business? Lily says you're building an empire."
"Just a business, ma'am," Damien said, feeling uncharacteristically off-balance. The family setting, the normalcy of it, was a stark contrast to his warehouse world.
"Well, Mark's been looking forward to picking your brain. He's always got an eye out for up-and-coming ventures." She smiled. "Dinner's in thirty. Girls, go unpack the melodrama upstairs."
As Lily and Chloe thundered up the stairs, Mark led Damien to a home office lined with books on Texas history and commercial development maps. "Lily mentioned you're scouting north. Smart. The growth up here is insane, but it's creating problems. Demolition waste from teardowns, clutter from people moving in and out, small businesses popping up and failing fast. The existing waste services are big, slow, and expensive. There's a niche for someone agile and ethical." He pointed to a spot on a map. "This area here, near the new tech campus going in. It's ripe."
They talked for twenty minutes. Mark was sharp, his information practical and grounded. He offered to send Damien listings for potential warehouse spaces. It was a productive, adult conversation. Damien felt the familiar click of professional rapport.
The click of a different kind came just before dinner.
The back door from the garage slid open, and a woman walked in, accompanied by a rush of evening heat. She was in her mid-to-late twenties, tall and lean, dressed in functional hiking pants, dusty trail runners, and a moisture-wicking tank top. A heavy backpack was shrugged from her shoulders with a grunt. Her skin was sun-kissed, her dark hair pulled back in a messy but efficient ponytail. She had Chloe's bright eyes and an air of focused exhaustion.
"Hey, all," she said, her voice pleasantly husky. "Just finished the Barton Creek greenbelt. Who died?" She was looking at the tearful, happy girls hovering over the shadow box.
"No one, Selene," Susan said, coming over to kiss her cheek. "Lily's here. That's her gift. This is her brother, Damien. Damien, our eldest, Selene."
Selene's gaze shifted to him. It was a quick, comprehensive scan—not judgmental, but observational. She saw the dust on his boots (from loading the truck), the functional watch on his wrist, the way he stood slightly apart, taking in the room. Her eyes held a quiet intensity, the kind earned by staring at distant horizons or complex data sets.
"Damien," she said, nodding. "The wizard of junk. I've heard the tales." A faint, tired smile touched her lips. It didn't reach her eyes, which held a reserve he recognized.
"Selene," he replied, nodding back. "The greenbelt survivor. Which was more treacherous, the rocks or the crowds?"
That got a real smile, brief but bright. "The tourists in brand-new hiking boots clutching iced lattes. The rocks are predictable." She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, draining half in one go. "I'm going to go de-funk. Try not to solve all the world's logistics problems before I get back." She headed for the stairs, moving with a loose-limbed grace.
Dinner was a lively affair. Selene returned, dressed in simple jeans and a soft t-shirt, her hair damp. She listened more than she spoke, interjecting with dry, witty observations that often skewered the conversation's pretense. She was a geologist, Damien learned, working for a private environmental consulting firm. Her current project involved assessing groundwater risks near new developments.
"So you read rocks," Damien said during a lull.
"I listen to them,"she corrected. "They tell the story of everything that's happened. The pressure, the fractures, the fluid inclusions. It's all data." Her tone was matter-of-fact, not bragging.
"Like reading the wear patterns on a machine,"he found himself saying. "Tells you its history, predicts its failure."
Her eyes met his across the table,a spark of interest finally cutting through her reserve. "Exactly. Just on a few million year timescale."
Later, as Damien helped clear plates (a habit ingrained from home), Selene was beside him at the sink, rinsing.
"Lily says you built your company from nothing in less than a year,"she said, not looking at him, focused on a stubborn bit of cheese.
"I had…startup capital. And a good team."
"That's the modest answer.The real answer involves solving a thousand tiny problems every day without panicking." She handed him a clean plate to dry. "Geology is the same. The big picture is just an aggregate of a billion tiny, precise interactions."
It was the most someone had understood the essence of his work without him explaining it.
The evening unfolded. The girls disappeared into Chloe's room. Mark and Susan retired to watch a movie. Damien found himself on the back porch with Selene, the sounds of cicadas providing a thick blanket of noise. She was sipping a glass of wine; he had a beer.
"You're not what I expected," she said after a comfortable silence.
"What did you expect?"
"Some slick,fast-talking entrepreneur type. Or a grimy, anti-social gearhead. You're neither. You're… quiet. You watch. You process." She took a sip. "It's unnerving."
"You're not what I expected either,"he offered.
"What?The spinster geologist sister who smells of rocks and solitude?"
"The competent professional who's tired because she spent her Saturday doing field work for a job she clearly cares about,and who finds her family endearing but exhausting."
She let out a soft laugh."Okay. You're observant. I'll give you that."
They talked more. Not about business or rocks, but about the traffic on MoPac, the best tacos in Austin (a fiercely debated topic), the absurdity of HOA rules. It was easy. There was no pressure, no agenda. She was sharp, cynical in a way that felt earned, and beneath it, he sensed a deep, unwavering integrity. When she talked about seeing a new development plow over a unique limestone formation, her frustration was professional and personal.
He felt a pull. It wasn't dramatic. It was a quiet recognition of a similar wavelength. A shared preference for substance over show, for the truth of materials and systems, for the satisfaction of hard work that meant something.
The next day was Chloe's birthday. The plan was a day at the natural spring-fed pool in nearby Georgetown. Damien, the designated driver and chaperone, found himself on a poolside lounge chair while the girls splashed. Selene appeared, wearing a sensible one-piece swimsuit and a wide-brimmed hat. She spread a towel on the chair next to his.
"Parental mandate," she said, lying down. "Ensure the wizard doesn't die of boredom or heatstroke."
"I'm good at waiting,"he said. "Comes with the job."
They lapsed into silence,watching Lily and Chloe attempt absurd synchronized swimming moves. It was peaceful.
"You're good with her," Selene said quietly. "Lily. You're not just indulging her. You're… scaffolding her. Giving her structure to build her own thing on. You don't see that often."
"She's easy to believe in,"Damien said simply.
Selene turned her head on the towel,looking at him. The sun was in her eyes, making her squint. "Yeah," she said, almost to herself. "I bet she is."
That night, after a chaotic birthday dinner, Damien was in the guest room, reviewing warehouse security logs on his laptop. A soft knock came at the door.
It was Selene.She held two mugs. "Decaf. I figured you might be wired from all the sugar and teen spirit."
He let her in.She leaned against the dresser, watching as he finished typing a note to Marcus about a scheduled equipment service.
"You never really clock out,do you?" she asked.
"The business doesn't sleep.But this is just maintenance. Keeping the machine tuned."
"The machine,"she repeated. "Your life is very… mechanical. In the best way. Ordered. Purposeful."
"It has to be,"he said, closing the laptop. "Otherwise, it falls apart."
"I get that."She put her mug down, not leaving. "I'm leaving tomorrow morning, early. A site visit in Waco. I won't see you before you go."
"Ah,"he said, an unexpected pang of disappointment hitting him. "Well. It was… really good to meet you, Selene."
"You too,Damien." She pushed off the dresser and, on an impulse that seemed to surprise even her, stepped forward and gave him a quick, firm hug. It was friendly, but it was solid, real. She smelled like sunscreen and sage. "Stay safe on the roads. And good luck with your north Austin invasion."
Then she was gone,the door clicking softly shut behind her.
The drive home on Sunday was quieter. Lily, exhausted and happy, slept for the first hour. Damien's mind replayed the weekend. The business intel from Mark was valuable. But his thoughts kept circling back to a sun-hat shaded face, dry wit, and a hug that felt like a grounding wire.
"You like her," Lily's voice, sleepy but smug, came from the passenger seat.
Damien didn't bother denying it."She's interesting."
"She's awesome.And she's, like, actually smart. Not just school-smart. Thing-smart. Like you." Lily yawned. "She broke up with her last boyfriend like a year ago. Some finance guy who thought her rocks were 'quaint.' She hated him. Mom says she's been married to her work since."
Damien filed the information away,a strange protectiveness rising in him. "Don't meddle, Lil."
"Who,me?" she said innocently, before falling back asleep.
A System notification pinged, a mundane reminder of his other reality.
[Reconnaissance Data: North Corridor Viable.]
[Recommendation: Lease acquisition for Satellite Facility (6,000-8,000 sq. ft.) within 90 days.]
[Capital Allocated.]
The future was mapping itself: a new warehouse, new challenges, growth. But for the first time, the map included a faint, intriguing landmark he hadn't planned for—a woman who listened to rocks, who saw the scaffolding beneath the surface, and whose goodbye hug had left a lingering, warm imprint on his senses. It was a slow burn, just an ember, but the air around it felt charged with new, unanticipated potential. The road ahead stretched north, both for his business and for something else, just beginning to stir.