Emily, a new hire

"Y'all ever notice how people *stare* at you like you've got barbecue sauce on your face?" Emily tugged self-consciously at the hem of her sundress, her voice dropping to a whisper as she leaned toward her coworker. "I swear, every time I go to the grocery store, it's like I'm walkin' around with my skirt tucked into my pantyhose."

Maggie snorted into her iced coffee, nearly ****. "Honey, that ain't barbecue sauce they're starin' at." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, grinning. "You could wear a potato sack and still stop traffic."

Emily blinked, her big blue eyes widening in genuine confusion. The afternoon sun filtering through the office windows caught the gold in her hair, turning it into something that looked more like spun light than actual strands. At twenty-two, fresh out of Texas A&M with a finance degree and a nervous habit of twisting her class ring around her finger, she moved through the world with the kind of oblivious grace that made men trip over their own shoelaces.

Her desk at Silver Financial was meticulously organized—color-coded sticky notes, a precisely angled keyboard, a framed photo of her parents' ranch where the Longhorns grazed under wide-open skies. She'd grown up in a town so small the gas station doubled as a post office, where everyone knew your business before you did. The city still felt like a foreign country, all honking horns and strangers who didn't wave back when you smiled at them.

That afternoon, Kevin poked his head out of his glass-walled office, loosening his tie with one hand. "Emily? Got a sec?" His voice had that *I’m-asking-but-not-really-asking* tone all managers mastered. She jumped like she'd been caught snooping, nearly upending her coffee. "Yessir!" she chirped, scrambling up so fast her chair rolled halfway across the room. Maggie mouthed *breathe* at her as she passed.