Mackenzie makes it back to her office, but the tear in her pants worsens

Mackenzie shifted her focus back to her immediate goal: returning to the relative seclusion of her office. Her brand new office, she reminded herself! But the optimistic thought only served to drive home that she was experiencing some of her characteristic bad luck during her very first week after her recent promotion.

"Keep it together, girl," she muttered to herself as she strode down the thankfully empty hallway. "Just stay calm, get back to your office, and regroup from there."

This wasn't the first time Mackenzie had suffered a wardrobe malfunction while working at EaNF; far from it, actually! But, thankfully, any clothing mishaps had always been relatively minor in the past. And the combination of her preparedness and level-headedness had always helped her escape any serious level of detection by her coworkers. And the career-focused woman intended for today to be no different. A stash of helpful fabric repair supplies was always stashed in her desk, after all.

As the redhead strolled down the hallway, she tried to maintain a stoic and professional expression on her face. She hoped this would offset the fact that the large tear in the back of her pants was only being covered by her hands awkwardly held over her ass. And unfortunately for the newly promoted junior executive, her office wasn't exactly secluded...

It was true that having a small room all to herself was certainly a big improvement from the cubicle Mackenzie had spent the past several years toiling in (especially when it came to covertly repairing one's wardrobe). However, said office was towards the end of the floor, meaning she'd have to pass more than a few of her new coworkers' offices before she arrived at her own personal enclave. And that wasn't the only issue, either.

But for now, all of Mackenzie's attention was put towards simply making it back to her office unscathed and undetected. And she needed her brain firing on all cylinders for the task, too, given how busy things were back in her department. Everyone seemed to be bustling around like crazy, popping in and out of the offices that lined both sides of the hall. The atmosphere seemed to be one of controlled chaos, and Mackenzie could practically feel the increased stress emanating from her colleagues.

She managed to slip by the few employees passing her in the hall with just quick waves or nods of greeting. Each time she did so, she employed a similar tactic to the one she'd used on Mr. Bishop in the elevator, rotating her entire body around them as she passed and ensuring they never got a glimpse of her back. At least, not while they were in close proximity to her. If any of her coworkers were looking at her from farther down the hallway... well, Mackenzie had to simply hope that between her hands guarding her right cheek, and everyone seeming rather busy at the moment, that no one would catch a peek at anything they shouldn't see!

Finally, her office door was within sight. But, just before Mackenzie had the chance to duck inside, a familiar voice called out to her.

"Mackenzie, there you are! I've been looking for you. Have a sec?"

The redhead immediately swiveled her body towards the male voice, practically slamming her ass against the wall behind her.

"Hey Patrick!" she said after taking a moment to recover from the surprise. "Sure, what's up?"

Patrick had been promoted to junior executive at the same time as Mackenzie, so the two were both still trying to get a full handle on their new roles. Luckily, he was a very amicable person, and the two had been able to help each other out so far. It made matters easier that their offices were directly across the hall from each other, too. Already it was becoming a bit of a habit for him to pop over to Mackenzie's office for any collaborative work, and vice versa. And, in apparent keeping with their CEO's vision, it was certainly safe to say Patrick was an attractive individual. With wide shoulders and a sharp jaw line, the dark haired young man tended to make quite a first impression.

"Mr. Queen wanted us to double check these sales reports before the department meeting today. I figured we could split the stack? Or we could just try to blast through them all together if you'd prefer?" he asked, handing Mackenzie a stack of reports.

So far, their immediate supervisor, Mr. Queen, had been pairing them up for a significant number of tasks.

"Um, sure!" she said, accepting the thick folder of papers with one hand.

Mackenzie's mind was preoccupied by the relative safety of her office, the door to which lay a tantalizingly close 10 feet away. She eyed the edge of the door frame and began slowly scooching along the wall, trying to inch closer without giving Patrick a chance to notice the state of her pants.

"Sure to... which?" Patrick asked. "Would you rather divide and conquer on these or take them on together?"

"Yep, together! That's fine!" Mackenzie blurted out, only partially listening as she scooted another 6 inches closer to her office.

Patrick noticed that Mackenzie kept not so subtly glancing at her office and decided to take the hint. She seemed almost **** to get back inside.

"Okay great. I'll, uh, give you a few minutes and then stop by," he said, ready to retreat to his own office also just a few feet away.

But, at that moment, Mackenzie suddenly felt the back of her pants get caught on something on the wall. She immediately halted her movement and couldn't help but utter a quick, "Uh!" in surprise. With her free hand, she began blindly feeling around the seat of her slacks, trying to find and free whatever had ensnared her torn bottoms.

However, this also had the effect of stopping Patrick from leaving. Mackenzie's urgent stammer had seemed like she was trying to get his attention rather than let him depart just yet.

"What's up?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mackenzie couldn't move, and now she had her coworker's attention directly focused on her. She didn't want him to notice that her fingers were fumbling around between her ass and the wall, so she tried to distract him with small talk.

"Is it just me, or do things seem extra busy today?" she said, fingers finally finding a metal edge biting into the left side of her pants' tear.

"It's not just you," Patrick chuckled. "There's a high level party going on tonight with some of the big wig investors. Word is, Mr. Queen's trying to secure a last minute invite by having all the upcoming figures ready early to present to Mr. Bishop later today."

"I think I heard about that. Wait... Mr. Queen didn't even get an invite? But he's an executive!" Mackenzie couldn't help but be surprised by this news, her business oriented brain kicking into gear, even as she tried to pull the fabric of her pants free.

"Mhm. Bishop let it be known there were only going to be so many invites available for those at an executive level. I'm figuring it's yet another play to get everyone scrambling to optimize their performance for him, y'know?"

Mackenzie fought back the urge to gasp as she felt the fabric of her slacks rip a bit further. Her covert efforts weren't succeeding in freeing the garment. If anything, it felt like she was only helping to widen the tear!

"Uh, wow," she muttered, thoughts refocusing on her predicament and the conversation carrying side of her brain returning to autopilot. "Guess there's absolutely no chance of us swinging an invite then!"

"The most junior of the junior execs? Not a chance in hell, I'd say," Patrick chuckled. "But it's not a bad opportunity to put us in better standing with Mr. Queen, at least. Speaking of, let's get cracking on those sales reports, yeah?"

"Oh! Uh, right," Mackenzie said, internally cringing as her pants ripped even further open.

As Patrick turned around and headed for his own office, the redhead finally managed to get her pants free from the metal sign on the wall. Though, she already knew, the damage had been significantly worsened. But she resolved to examine and deal with that momentarily. For now, she was just ecstatic about finally making it back to her office. Though it had only been minutes, it felt like hours ago that she'd suffered the initial minor wardrobe malfunction down by Mr. Rook's office.

"Made it," she sighed to herself as she finally ducked into the mercifully empty room.

The embarrassed young junior executive would have happily shut the door behind her if she could. However (as it had been made abundantly clear to her earlier that week), the company took their open door policy VERY literally. Short of some kind of personal emergency, the junior executives were expected to keep their office doors open at all times. And, as much as Mackenzie personally believed repairing her pants would qualify as just such an emergency, she didn't want to draw any unwanted questions from Mr. Queen today. So, she begrudgingly left her door wide open.

Most of her desk, at least, was out of sight of the hallway. Until someone stepped a foot or so into her office proper, they wouldn't be able to see more than the corner of her L-shaped desk. And, even better for her on that particular day, someone stopping by wouldn't even be able to see her lower half at all behind her desk.

So, Mackenzie quickly closed the blinds her in small window to the hallway and hurriedly took her seat. Finally, she felt 100% sure no one could see her from her current position. She let the minor measure of security set her mind more at ease. She plopped the folder of reports on her desk and let herself catch her breath for a minute.

"This is fine," she said aloud to herself. "Made it back safe and sound! Now I just have to try and fix these pants properly and no one will be the wiser!"

With her eyes glued on the doorway, Mackenzie began carefully shimmying her slacks down her hips and then further down her legs. The cold leather of her office chair was immediately noticed as she gently settled her panty-clad ass back down onto it. She shivered ever so slightly as she laid the torn pants on her lap. This left her black panties as the only garments left of her lower half. Other than her heels, which she soon slid her feet back into.

"Now... where did I put those pins?" she muttered to herself, beginning to open her desk drawers.

Mackenzie, though, was still settling into her new office. And that meant not all of her usual supplies had made the journey from her home to her brand new desk. It was entirely possible her outfit repair kit was not quite as well stocked as it had been back when she'd been using the desk in her old cubicle.

And, to make matters worse, Mackenzie seemed to have entirely missed the fact that Patrick was planning on stopping by her office in a few minutes to go over those reports together...