“These old houses, they can be a real crap-shoot,” Dwight says to no one in particular. 

Of course, no one in particular usually just happens to be Jim. 

“Oh yeah?” Jim takes the bait reluctantly, part of him actually sort of relieved to have a distraction from the bustling party, part of him disappointed that it has to be Dwight. 

“Yeah… just look at that staircase,” Dwight shakes his head.  “That thing does not look sturdy.  I’m thinking termites?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he sighs as Karen calls him to her side.

The night stretches out like a bad movie and he can’t help but wonder just how many of the party-goers his have boned his girlfriend… and how recently, for that matter.

He could be at home right now, watching basketball and drinking a beer, but instead he's stuck here amongst sweaty suit jackets and shrimp feces.  He doesn't usually drink wine, but tonight seems as good a night as any to start.
 

“God I hate these parties.” 

Jim turns his head and finds himself yet another someone’s no one in particular. 

“You want to sneak out back and shoot some hoops?”

He doesn’t have to phrase it as a question.  He’s the CFO for fuck’s sake.  His boss’s, boss’s boss.   And, he probably realizes that because he doesn’t exactly wait for an answer.

“Meet me outside in two minutes,” he says and disappears into the crowd, breaking the mirror image they had going of one another, leaning on opposing ends of the doorway. 

He finds Karen and tells her to “stay here and have fun,” surprising himself with his tone.  Like he’s telling her that he’s sneaking off with another girl so, have fun blowing the men you haven’t already done it with while I’m gone.

Was it thirty-seven dicks?  That sounds about right.
 

 
When she says what she says about the CFO still having “feelings” for her he can’t help but lose it a little because he  is pretty tired of feeling like the chump of the evening.  The words have barely left his lips when it dawns on him that she's joking. 

Yeah, real funny.  Hah.  Hah.

He walks away from her with a smile.  A little because maybe he didn’t realize that she could surprise him like that, and little because… well, what the hell was that anyway?

The air is cold outside in a good way.  It counteracts the stuffiness going on inside the house.   He wonders if it’s okay to take his jacket off, but doesn’t. 

How long is two minutes in CFO time anyways?  Is it, you know, two minutes?  Or is it…

“Heads up!”

His old reflexes kick in and he catches the ball without really having to anticipate it. 

“It’s Jim, right?  So what do you think… a little Horse maybe?  Your ball.”

As the CFO claps his hands together and smiles at him like an eighth grader that’s not used to being picked first for the team, he starts to look a little less like a bunch of letters and a little more like, well, a guy. 

Jim goes with an easy lay-up for the first round, not wanting to look like he’s trying to show off.  He may be a guy, but he’s still a guy that’s his boss.

As they take turns dribbling and shooting he finds the most inane questions coming out of his mouth.  You know, things like “What’s the commute like?” and “You do your own landscaping?”  He’s practically boring himself senseless, but this is what’s considered “small talk” isn’t it?

“You know, you can call me David,” is when Jim realizes that, not only has he been calling him Mr. Wallace for the past twenty minutes, but that he’s been referring to him only as “the CFO” inside his head this entire time. 

It’s not difficult to pick up on the low hum of his cell phone against the blanket of suburban quiet that's surrounding them. 

“One sec,” he tosses “David” the ball and digs into his pocket.

“Got a voicemail?  My house is like a black hole for cell phone reception,” he laughs.  “I kind of like it that way actually.”

“I know what you mean,” Jim chuckles. 

1 missed call.  1 new message. 

It would probably be rude to check a message, so he clicks on the Missed Calls. 

Pam.

He’s not exactly sure why, but something in him kind of snaps and he clicks the phone shut a little too abruptly and tosses it into the grass. 

“You alright?” Wallace stops dribbling.

“Yeah… sorry.  Just some personal stuff,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair before catching the ball.

He sinks a shot well behind the three-point line, but it doesn't make him feel much better.

"I think you've been holding out on me," he grins and tosses the ball back.  "You don't have to go easy on me, I'm not that old am I?"

 
"Right, sorry, I just..." he sighs.  "Its been kind of a long night."
 

The CFO (why couldn’t he stop calling him that in his head?  He does have a name) seems to stop and consider him for a second. 

“Give me two minutes,” he adds and walks back into the house. 

Two minutes again.  This guy seems to live on a two-minute schedule.  Maybe two minutes is the secret to success.

Wait, that makes no sense.
 

Jim tries to shoot around a little more, but all he can see on the backboard is Roy’s face, and for some reason Roy’s face is decked out in a Ben Franklin wig and bifocals… whatever that means.  He ends up hitting it so hard that the ball comes ricocheting back into his chest, sucking the wind from his lungs for a few brief moments. 

He lets out a grunt of frustration and kicks the ball hard, watching it disappear into the dark.  Jim sits down on the grass next to the pavement as the CFO emerges from the house. 

Two minutes to the second even.

“Here you go.”

Jim accepts the glass and happily takes a gulp, the alcohol scorching a path down his throat.  “What are we drinking?”

“Actually, it’s SoCo,” he laughs.  “I kind of hate that expensive scotch I serve out to impress people.  This seems like more of a SoCo occasion.”

“Fantastic,” Jim laughed.

“Women?” he raises his glass in a sort of mock-toast and Jim clinks glass to it. 

“Yeah… women,” he laments bitterly, taking another biting gulp. 

“So, Karen is your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs.  “I mean, yeah… she is.”

“Watch out there,” David laughs, taking another sip.  “She’ll bust your balls if you’re not careful.”

“Yeah,” Jim laughs.  “Wait… what do you mean by that?”

“She’s tough, you know?” he replies before leaning in a little closer.  “Listen, don’t spread this around, but… we had kind of a little thing a few years back.”

“Are you serious?”  Okay, so maybe it’s not so funny after all.

“Yeah, I broke it off once I got promoted to corporate.  I mean, she started to get a little Glenn Close on me, minus the whole rabbit incident, if you know what I mean.”

“Actually, I think I do,” Jim sighs.

“You smoke?” David hands him a cigar.

“Sure, why not?” he shrugs, taking a few puffs of smoke as David lights the end. 

“If this wasn’t my house, I think I’d go home,” he laughs. 

“Yeah, if I didn’t have to drive two hours back with Glenn Close I would too,” Jim replies and they both chuckle.

“I have the worst luck with women,” Jim sighs after a few moments of silence.

“You know, you remind me a lot of me back when I was your age,” the CFO sighs.  “I was so into this girl, but it was just… hard, you know?  Our relationship was just so much work.  We broke up and I found someone else that I could just… be with, you know?”

“Are you happy?” Maybe the question is too personal for your boss’s boss’s boss, but he asks it anyways.

They sit for a few beats of silence and Jim worries that maybe he’s overstepped a boundary.

“No.”

“Me either.”

Jim’s never kissed a man before and he’s not quite sure who initiates, who pulls on who’s tie first, who’s hands are the first on who’s chest.

It’s a moment where thought blends into the taste of cheap whiskey and expensive cigars, and the whiskey reminds him a little of college and a little of Pam.  But, then again, everything usually does, whether it makes sense or not.

It may have been two minutes, but no one’s counting now. 

He pushes for more without knowing why, thinking that maybe for a few moments he can just be.  But, his brain doesn’t quite detach itself in the way that he wants and he finds himself wondering if David’s glasses dig into the bridge of his nose when he moves his head a certain way, or if this is like the small North-Eastern-based-paper-company-equivalent of the director's casting couch, or how the fuck you open someone else’s belt buckle.

 

He hasn’t quite figured it out when he hears a soft hum and they both sit upright like it’s a gunshot going off. 

David reaches behind him and his hand returns with Jim’s displaced cell phone.   He’s out of breath when he takes it.  He hasn’t noticed how his hands have been shaking until now. 

“Answer it,” David smiles at him with that look of someone who maybe knows things that he doesn’t yet.  Things that maybe he never will. 

“Make yourself happy, Jim.” 

And with that he’s back to being a man of three letters, grabbing the basketball (after re-tucking his shirt and straightening his tie) and taking a few effortless shots, like he’s not fazed in the slightest.

The phone shivers in Jim’s sweating palm and this time, he answers it. 

“Pam?”

The drive home is quiet, yet still heavy with a swarm of thoughts, questions, and hypothetical phone calls. 

When Karen asks him why he smells like smoke, he lies.   When she asks him who he was talking to earlier on the phone, he doesn’t.