Chapter 6 – The First Months at Kane Aerospace

Jack’s transition into formal aerospace work proved both exhilarating and genuinely difficult, the technical culture at Kane Aerospace considerably more structured and collaborative than the solitary, independent research he’d conducted for years in his uncle’s workshop.

Willow, working closely with him during the transition, found herself increasingly impressed not just by the technical insight that had first drawn her attention, but by the practical, hands-on problem-solving instincts Jack’s years of actual mechanical work had given him — instincts that proved surprisingly valuable in an engineering culture sometimes prone to overly theoretical solutions that didn’t account for real-world manufacturing constraints.

“You keep catching things the rest of us miss,” she told him, during a project review several months into his tenure, “because you’ve actually spent years with your hands inside engines, not just modeling them on a computer. That’s not a lesser kind of expertise. It’s a different one, and honestly, one this team badly needed.”

Their working relationship deepened, over these months, into something Jack found himself increasingly reluctant to name directly, uncertain whether pursuing a personal relationship with the woman who’d recruited him professionally represented wisdom or a genuinely bad idea he’d regret.

Willow, navigating the same uncertainty from her own side, found herself equally hesitant, though the easy, comfortable rhythm of their working partnership made the growing personal attraction increasingly difficult to simply set aside as professional inconvenience.

Neither of them addressed it directly for several more months, both too cautious about the professional complications to risk what had become, regardless of the unspoken tension, a genuinely valuable working relationship.