He holds her resume like it's already a formality, the paper barely pinched between his thumb and forefinger before he sets it on the blotter without a glance. "A face people trust," he repeats, and the words hang in the air between them, warm and somehow wrong, like a compliment that's also a diagnosis.

Jessie's fingers find each other in her lap, weaving tight. "Thank you, sir." The drawl slips out thicker than she meant it to, and she feels heat creep up her neck.

"Sir." Steve's smile deepens, showing teeth. "I like that. Not many young people say sir anymore." He leans forward, elbows on the mahogany, and the movement brings his cologne with it—something expensive and woodsy, the kind of smell that probably has a name she can't pronounce. "Where are you from, Jessie? Originally."

"Georgia, sir. A little town called Bainbridge. About an hour from the Florida line."

"Bainbridge." He says it slow, like he's tasting it. "And what does a girl from Bainbridge, Georgia, want with Las Vegas?"

She's rehearsed this answer. Practiced it in the mirror of the hotel room she's sharing with Stacey, the one with the peeling wallpaper and the AC that rattles. "I want to build something, sir. Something real. My degree is in biomedical sciences, and I believe in the work you're doing here—helping hospitals serve their communities better. I want to be part of that."

It sounds good. It sounds like the cover letter she rewrote six times.

Steve's eyes don't leave her face, and that smile hasn't changed—easy, practiced, the kind of smile that's been used so many times it's worn smooth. "That's a very good answer. Did Stacey help you with it?"

The heat in her neck blooms into her cheeks. "No, sir. I wrote it myself."

"I believe you." He says it like it's a gift. "But I also believe you're nervous, and nervous people reach for the safest answer." He tilts his head, studying her. "So let me ask you something else. Not a safe question."

Her stomach tightens. "Yes, sir."

"What do you want, Jessie? Not what you think you should say. Not what sounds good on paper. What do you actually want?"

The question lands in her chest, unexpected and sharp. No one's asked her that before—not like this, not in an interview, not in a way that seems to actually want the truth. She opens her mouth, and the safe answer is right there, waiting—to help people, to serve, to make a difference. But his eyes are patient, unhurried, and something in her throat loosens.

"I want to be someone," she says, and the words come out smaller than she expected. "Back home, everyone already knows who I am. The preacher's daughter. The good girl. The one who—" She stops, bites her lower lip. "I want to find out who I am when no one's watching."

Silence. The hum of the climate control fills the room like a held breath.

Steve's smile changes—fractionally, almost imperceptibly—and she catches a glimpse of something beneath it, something that watches back. "That's the most honest thing anyone's said in this office all week." He looks down at her resume, finally, his eyes scanning the page. "Biomedical sciences, summa cum laude. Three internships. A letter of recommendation from your department chair." He looks up. "And you're worried about being seen for what you are."

"I'm not—" She stops. "I don't know what I am yet. That's the point."

"No," he says softly. "You know exactly what you are. You're just afraid to let anyone see it." He sets the resume aside and reaches for a crystal paperweight—heavy, faceted, catching the low lamplight. "Do you know what I look for when I hire someone, Jessie?"

"Experience? Qualifications?"

"Those help. But they're not what closes deals." He turns the paperweight in his hands, watching light fracture through its edges. "I look for someone who can walk into a room and make people want to trust them. Someone who doesn't have to try." His eyes lift to hers. "You have that. You walked in here five minutes ago and I already want to tell you things."

Her heart beats harder. It's a compliment—it has to be a compliment. But the way he's looking at her makes her feel like she's standing in a beam of light, exposed, every shadow visible.

"I don't mean to pry, sir."

"You're not prying. I'm telling you." He sets the paperweight down, and the sound is heavier than it should be—a soft thud against the blotter. "The med-tech industry runs on relationships. Doctors don't buy from a catalog. They buy from someone they trust. Someone who looks them in the eye and tells them the truth." He spreads his hands. "I can teach anyone the product. I can't teach them to be you."

The words settle around her like a warm blanket, and she realizes she's been holding her shoulders tight. They drop, almost without permission.

"So here's what I'm offering, Jessie. A three-month probationary period. Base salary plus commission, full benefits after sixty days, and a company car after the first month if you hit your targets." He names a number that makes her breath catch—more than she'd hoped for, more than Stacey said to expect. "But I'm not just offering you a job. I'm offering you a chance to become whoever it is you came to Las Vegas to find."

Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. "That's—that's very generous, sir."

"Generous has nothing to do with it. It's an investment." He stands, and the movement shifts the balance of the room—suddenly he's taller, broader, taking up more space than the chair suggested. He walks around the desk and leans against its front edge, close enough that she can see the silver threading through his dark hair, the small lines at the corners of his brown eyes. "I invest in people who have something special. And you, Jessie Miller, have something very special."

She should say thank you. She should say she's honored. Instead, she hears herself ask, "What about Stacey?"

His expression doesn't change, but something in his eyes sharpens. "Stacey Martinez. Your roommate. Applied together, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir. We've been friends since freshman orientation."

"She interviewed this morning. Bright girl. Good instincts." He pauses. "I offered her a position in inside sales. Base salary, commission structure, no travel."

The distinction lands like a stone in still water. "Inside sales."

"Phone work. Email campaigns. Supporting the outside team." He says it like it's a promotion, but they both know it's not. "She'll do well there. She's got a voice that sells."

Jessie's hands are still in her lap, but they're not still anymore—her thumb is tracing the edge of her thumbnail, back and forth, a nervous habit she thought she'd outgrown. "And me?"

"Outside sales. You'll be on the ground. Meeting with hospital administrators, surgical coordinators, procurement officers. Face to face." His smile returns, that easy, practiced curve. "That's where the real money is. And where your gift matters most."

She thinks of Stacey's face when she tells her. Of Stacey's sharp brown eyes that miss nothing. Of the way Stacey had looked at the hotel room's peeling wallpaper and said, "We're gonna be fine. We're gonna get jobs at the same place and we're gonna kill it together."

And now they won't be together. Not really. Stacey will be in a cubicle, and Jessie will be in the field, and the distance between inside and outside sales is wider than a floor plan.

"I'd like to accept the position, sir." The words come out before she's fully decided, but they feel right—or at least they feel like forward motion, which she's learned to trust more than certainty.

Steve pushes off from the desk and extends his hand. "Welcome to the team, Jessie."

She takes it. His palm is warm, dry, and his grip envelops hers completely—not crushing, but complete. He holds it a beat longer than a handshake should last, his eyes on hers, and something passes between them that she can't name. A current. A question she doesn't know how to answer.

"I'll have HR send you the paperwork," he says, releasing her hand. His thumb brushes across her knuckles as he lets go—a ghost of a touch, so brief she could convince herself it didn't happen. "Can you start Monday?"

"Yes, sir. Absolutely."

"Good." He turns back toward his desk, and the movement dismisses her, but his voice stops her at the door. "Jessie."

She turns. "Sir?"

"Friday night. I do a welcome dinner for all my new hires. Just a casual thing—get to know each other outside the office." He picks up her resume again, finally looking at it the way he should have in the first place. "Seven o'clock. I'll send you the address."

"Oh. Should I bring Stacey? Since we're both—"

"Just you." His smile is warm, paternal, unobjectionable. "I like to get to know my outside team one-on-one. Build that trust from day one."

The door is half-open behind her. The hallway is bright, fluorescent, full of the sound of phones ringing and keyboards clicking. Normal. Safe.

"Yes, sir. I'll be there."

His eyes hold hers for a moment longer, and then he looks down at her resume, and she's dismissed.

The hallway swallows her. She walks past cubicles where people her age are hunched over phones, past a break room with a humming vending machine, past a water cooler where two men in polo shirts are laughing about something she doesn't catch. The elevator doors slide open, and she steps inside, and only when the doors close does she realize she's been holding her breath.

The exhale shudders out of her.

The elevator descends. The numbers tick down. And Jessie presses her palm flat against the cool metal wall, feeling the vibration of the cables, the machinery, the whole vast building around her.

She got the job.

She got the job, and she's having dinner with her new boss on Friday, and Stacey is in inside sales, and none of it is what she expected, and all of it feels like a door swinging open into a room she can't see yet.

The elevator reaches the lobby. The doors slide open onto polished marble and a reception desk the size of a boat. And waiting by the fountain in the center of the lobby, phone in hand, scrolling with furious concentration, is Stacey.

She looks up the moment Jessie steps out. Her eyes are sharp, scanning Jessie's face before she even speaks.

"Well?"

Jessie crosses the polished marble, her flats making soft sounds against the stone. The fountain burbles behind Stacey, catching the light from the chandelier overhead, scattering it across the lobby in moving patterns.

"I got it." The words come out lighter than she expected, buoyant. "Outside sales. He offered me the position."

Stacey's face breaks into a grin—wide, genuine, the kind of smile that's been her signature since freshman orientation. She throws her arms around Jessie, pulling her into a hug that smells like coconut shampoo and something floral. "Oh my god, Jess. That's amazing. I knew you'd nail it."

Jessie hugs her back, burying her face in Stacey's shoulder for a moment, letting herself feel the relief. "He offered you inside sales. Did he tell you?"

Stacey pulls back, and something flickers across her face—there and gone, quick as a blink. "Yeah. He mentioned it this morning. Said I'd be a good fit for the phone team." She shrugs, but the motion is too casual, too practiced. "It's fine. It's a job. We're both employed, which is more than half our graduating class can say."

"Stace—"

"No, seriously. It's fine." Stacey's smile is back, bright and sharp, her default setting. "Inside sales means I don't have to wear heels. That's a win." She loops her arm through Jessie's and starts steering them toward the glass doors. "Come on. Let's go celebrate. There's a diner three blocks from the hotel that does milkshakes the size of your head."

They push through the revolving door, and the Las Vegas heat hits them like a wall—dry, shimmering, carrying the distant sound of traffic and the faint jingle of slot machines from somewhere down the Strip. The sun is high, bleaching the sidewalk white, and Jessie squints against it.

"He invited me to dinner," she says, the words tumbling out before she can stop them. "Friday night. A welcome dinner for new hires."

Stacey's step falters. Just barely, just a hitch in her rhythm, but Jessie feels it through their linked arms. "Just you?"

"He said he likes to get to know his outside team one-on-one."

"One-on-one." Stacey repeats it flatly, her eyes on the sidewalk ahead. "At dinner. On a Friday night."

"It's probably just a formality. A get-to-know-you thing." Jessie hears how thin her own voice sounds, how defensive. "He seems like a good boss. Really invested in his people."

Stacey stops walking. They're in front of a pawn shop now, the window full of guitars and watches and a single wedding ring on a velvet stand. She turns to face Jessie, her brown eyes unreadable. "Jess. Can I say something? And I need you to hear me, not just listen."

The seriousness in her voice makes Jessie's stomach tighten. "Okay."

"That guy? Steve?" Stacey lowers her voice, even though no one's near them. "He looked at you during my interview. I was talking about my sales experience, and he was watching the door, waiting for you to walk in. I saw his face when you did."

Jessie's throat goes dry. "He was just—"

"I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I'm not saying don't take the job." Stacey's hand finds Jessie's, squeezes. "I'm saying be careful. You're not from here. You don't know how men like him operate in a city like this."

"Men like him?"

"Men who look at women like they're reading a menu." Stacey holds her gaze. "I've seen that look before. My mom taught me to recognize it when I was twelve."

The heat presses down on them. A taxi honks somewhere. A group of tourists spills out of a hotel across the street, laughing, clutching plastic cups.

"I'll be careful," Jessie says, and she means it. "But I also think maybe—maybe I'm tired of being careful all the time. Maybe that's why I came here."

Stacey studies her for a long moment. Then she sighs, the tension draining from her shoulders. "Okay. Okay, fine. But I'm coming with you to pick out what you're wearing Friday night. And if he tries anything, you text me the word 'pineapple' and I'll call the cops so fast his head spins."

Despite everything, Jessie laughs. "Pineapple?"

"It's memorable. You won't forget it in a panic." Stacey hooks her arm back through Jessie's and starts walking again. "Now come on. Milkshakes. And you're telling me everything—every single word he said, every look, every pause. I want the full transcript."

They walk down the Strip, past souvenir shops and wedding chapels and a man dressed as Elvis handing out flyers. The sun burns down, and Jessie's blouse sticks to her back, and she feels lighter than she has all day.

But underneath the lightness, something settles—a small, cold stone in her chest.

Stacey saw something. And Stacey doesn't scare easy.