He sets his mug down immediately. “Yes.”
I look away from the screen, inhaling deeply. “When I was eight, the—” I catch myself. “The place where I was living was undergoing renovations. One night, there was an electrical malfunction. A fire started in a room down the hall from mine.”
Theo doesn’t move or interrupt.
“The door to my room jammed,”I say, my fingers curling into the sofa cushion. “It only took a few minutes for someone to get me out, but when you’re that small and the air is turning black... time just stops. I learned really early what it felt like to be trapped in the dark.”
I take a slow, steadying breath. “I had night terrors for weeks after that. I couldn’t close my eyes without smelling smoke or hearing alarms. My parents tried everything—doctors, specialists, you name it.”
I pause, a faint, genuine smile touching my lips as the memory shifts from dark to light. “And then, they took me to Tokyo Disneyland. It was the first place I remember feeling safe again, mostly because it felt like I’d entered a world where nothing could go wrong. That trip stayed with me for years.”
I look at my hands, my thumb tracing the edge of my tablet. “Funnily enough, it wasn’t the Disney magic that got me. During the trip, I got a glimpse at the Imagineering workshop. Seeing all the tool, gears, and wiring they had lying around to literally build the park fascinated me.”
I look back at him, meeting his eyes. “I wanted to understand how everything came together, and that curiosity led me here.”
Theo shakes his head once. His voice is low when he speaks. “Your resilience to pivot from something like that speaks to how strong a person you are.” After a beat he adds, “I’Il admit, I’m a bit jealous. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s ever seen the Imagineering workshop. They don’t let just anyone in. How did your parents manage to get you in?”
The question catches me off guard. I glance down, fumbling for words. “They’re . . . um . . .”
He watches me with mild curiosity, his head tiltingslightly. “What? A family member? A friend who works there? Diplomats?”
“Something like that,” I say, hoping the vague answer will be enough to steer us away from the reality of who they are.
Theo studies me for a moment longer, but to his credit, he doesn’t push. He just nods, accepting the boundary. “I’m just glad you chose to work for us instead of becoming an Imagineer.”
“What can I say? I wanted to start working on projects like Silver Comet, Drakon, and Trident’s Run.”
Theo’s mouth twitches, the faintest hint of smug amusement. “You’ve got good taste.”
It takes me a beat to connect the dots, and then my stomach drops faster than a launch coaster. “You had a hand in designing Silver Comet and Drakon, too, didn’t you?”
His grin is unapologetic. “Yes.”
I groan, scrubbing a hand over my face as my cheeks go hot. “And here I am, lecturing you on why they’re great. I’m basically reciting your own portfolio back to you.”
Theo leans back in his chair, looking more relaxed—and clearly pleased with himself. “Don’t stop on my account.”
As I shift, trying to laugh off the embarrassment, something on the shelf behind him catches the light. “Wait,” I say, squinting at the grainy feed. “Is that a miniature of Trident’s Run behind you? Without the tanks?”
He glances over his shoulder, caught mid-sip. “This?” He sets his mug down and stands, lifting the model into view. “No. It just looks similar.”
My heart jumps anyway. “Then what is it?”
“It’s the frame of Vortex Rise. The current bane of myexistence. Its non-traditional launch,” Theo says, a spark of the inventor returning to his eyes. He rotates the model, pointing to a drum-like structure at the base. “It’s a vortex start. The train sits in a spinning centrifuge to build g-forces before it ever moves forward. Then, at peak velocity, the hatch opens and slingshots the train out.”
I whistle low. “Like a fighter jet catapulting off an aircraft carrier.”
“Exactly.”
“And the problem is?”
“It’s been fighting the math.” He taps a specific curve right after the launch. “On paper, it’s perfect. But in practice, the lateral forces spike right here every time. We’ve had two different teams working on the issue. They’ve tweaked the banking, the radius, the track length—nothing works. It’s why I’m here. I thought it’d be a simple fix,” he admits, his jaw tightening. “Like maybe we were just over-rotating the roll. But so far, nothing’s working. And it’s driving me mad. I’ve never had a coaster outwit me before.”
That, I can well believe. Seeing him this frustrated is like watching a grandmaster stuck on a basic chess opening; it’s not that he isn’t capable, it’s that he’s too close to the board to see the obvious. “You’re being pulled in too many directions,” I say quietly. “You need a vacation.”
“I don’t do vacations.,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “But once I wrap things up here, I think I will take a weekend off. A real one. And turn my phone off.”
I’m about to launch into a lecture on burnout—to tell him that a vacation doesn’t have to mean sitting on a beach doing nothing. He could do something like work on his own passion projects. Or take me to see and test some of the other coasters he’s worked on.
