1. Him (edited)

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The alarm went off twice before Leah Walters got up to snooze it. The red numbers said it was an hour till she had to go to work, so Leah woke up with a lazy stretch and dallied to the bathroom. With a toothbrush stuffed in her mouth, she went across the short hall to the kitchen to get her coffee machine started. Her short hair was already dry from her night shower, now it was only just a matter of picking clothes.

After a ten minute search of her closet, she decided on a black dress that was a little above her knees, and picked a pair of strapped sandals that worked well with it. The belts on the dress were pretty heavy in detail, so she simply went with a gold bracelet to accessorize. It was late summer's cooler days, and she would have gotten chills if she walked the ten minutes to work, on heels, but thankfully she had a car.

It was fun to have your house so close to work, especially if you were new in town, but that meant she also took it for granted. Her coworkers who lived an hour away were at work before her. It didn't help that she was the new boss, her tardiness was beginning to make an impression on her employees, like they needed more reason to envy her. At her age, she was one of the youngest to hold such an established position, but she'd definitely earned it no doubt. In her home town, Leah was always punctual, mostly in part that her grandmother woke her up at 6 saying it was 8. Leah had worked at the Minnesota branch of United Financials for 8 years before they decided to move her up to manager in the Meridian branch.

Disposable items were a blessing; who had time to wash all those dirty dishes? and this was coming from a single woman who lived alone. Leah prepared her coffee in a disposable coffee cup and left her house in a pair of ballet flats, her heels swinging by the strap in her other hand. The coffee went up on the roof of her old car as she dug her purse for the keys, and the first time, she forgot the cup outside. Leah had turned the engine on by the time she realized her coffee was on the roof, and chuckled at her own stupidity as she got out and picked up the cup.

The drive to work was fast, it was only 10 minutes at most, and she'd made it just before the rail crossing guards came down behind her. She parked in the spot outside her office window while her employees had parked across the entrance. She glanced at the open curtains as she put on lipstick in the mirror of the sun shade, smacking her lips to make sure it stayed. Leah switched her flats for the black sandal heels, stowing the first pair in the feet of the passenger seat. She got out the door and came around the other side to bring out her bag, but as she leaned in, someone bumped her behind and she toppled into the car.

"You're lucky I wasn't holding my coffee!" She whined over her shoulder to her best friend Jennifer, who also worked at the bank.

"You know, I live like 50 minutes away, and I'm still before you!" Jen reminded as she helped her boss collect her things. For someone who lived 10 minutes away, Leah was very disorganized; half her files were spilled on the passenger seat.

"I need a new alarm clock," Leah casually said as she swung her paper filled back onto her shoulder.

"What you need is to be more organized."

"Sure sure, I'll start on it tomorrow. Now come on, let's go make people's dreams."

You dream it, we make it.

That's the motto of United Financials bank. Mondays were the busiest day of the week, with the bank having been closed on the weekends. All the businesses rushed in to deposit their weekend gains. The second day of the week brought in all the people who'd consciously skipped Monday to avoid the rush. Tuesday was also when more of the elderly came in. Since their age didn't permit them long travels, they usually happened to live nearby, in Leah's neighborhood. They'd lived in the area for quite the while, and were always vary of the newcomers, and Leah was the newest resident in a long time. For whatever reason, Leah was always drawn to old people, probably because she lived with her grandmother her whole life. But the people here also had a hand. They'd been very welcoming of her, and always asked how she was adjusting whenever they stopped by.

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