The office hums with the usual afternoon drone — keyboards, muffled calls, the smell of stale coffee. Then she appears at your desk. Mandy. Heels sharp enough to leave marks, expression sharper. She's clutching a laptop like it personally wronged her, and the color in her cheeks is a shade too high to be normal. Her presentation is due in an hour. It's a wreck. And she needs you — the one person she's spent months bossing around, teasing, dismissing with a flick of her wrist. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Something that almost sounds like "please" dies halfway out. For the first time, Mandy doesn't have the upper hand. And you both know it.