There are really two ways he can write this.  Now, if he were a real writer he would say that there were an infinite number of ways to write it, but he can't really call himself that anymore, not with the shit he writes now.  So there are two ways: boy meets girl, followed by obstacle, followed by reconciliation; or, boy meets girl, followed by... okay.  Okay, so there's really only one way.

He meets her on the first day of summer. That's a good enough line to start off on, right?  Well, okay, it's a shitty line obviously, but good and good enough are two separate matters.  So, yeah, he meets her the first day of summer.  Before it's even far enough into June to be too hot out to walk the fourteen blocks to meet a friend for lunch.
 
Well, not a friend, a girl.  But not a girlfriend, so, yeah - a friend.  She stands him up anyway, via text message no less, which is just as well because he was planning on ending things before he had to start making up excuses about why he never invited her out to his place in the Hamptons.  The waitress comes by to ask if he's ready yet, so he goes ahead and orders himself a break-up sandwich. 
 
She's sitting at the table next to his, also alone, hunched over some piece of paper she's scribbling on.  They're practically at the same table though because, well, it's New York and tables are close.  If he were writing this for his editor he'd have to mention something about how she came to his attention because of her overwhelming beauty, or something lame like that, but really he just notices that she's pretty.  She's pretty, and she she sticks the tip of her tongue out just a little when she's concentrating (there, that's what he'd write about, her tongue). 

Also, there'd have to be some reason for him to talk to her.  Like maybe the waitress gives him her turkey on wheat, and gives her his tuna sandwich.  Something cute.  But she's a good waitress, and what he actually ends up doing is just looking kind of awkwardly towards her until she notices him.  He's usually better at this.
 
"I like that," he says when she finally half looks up.  She's sketching her iced tea.
 
She rolls her eyes then, just a little, but not in that way most of the pretty women in this city do when they realize you're trying to hit on them.  She's not rolling her eyes at him, she's rolling her eyes at the sketch.  "Yeah, well, I need the practice apparently," she says.       
 
If he were writing it, things would go from here.  Maybe he'd make a joke she'd laugh at, she'd tell him her name and he'd tell her his.  He'd ask if he could join her at her table.  Really though, it doesn't.  She goes back to sketching and he eats his lunch, and all that is fine.  He needs to get home and get some not-hypothetical writing done, anyway.
 
Sometimes even he's not sure what his frickin deal is.

**
 
The weirdest part is eating dinner so much later.  It's a totally stupid country mouse in the big city thought to have, but really, everyone in New York eats dinner so freaking late.  There's that old adage about it being the city that never sleeps, and, at least in her case, it's kind of true.  Nights are like this whole new undiscovered part of her life where she has more friends than she knows what to do with and they laugh and drink and stay up late - because who needs sleep when you've got all this? 

The best part though?  The best part are the cameras, or rather, that there are none - well, not usually.  She hadn't even realized how much of her personality had depended on how cameramen reacted until she moved here.  Like her whole world was framed within someone else's imaginary TV set, even when it wasn't. 

New York felt bigger than all that, it felt like more. 

It was mostly overwhelming at first, this new life of her very own.  She went home the first few weekends, opting to stay in bed with Jim for two days straight before dragging herself back into the city, back to classes where everyone was younger and maybe more talented.   Sometimes on the phone Jim would make up nicknames for her classmates based on the stories she told him, names that would make her laugh the next day when she remembered them, when she was alone again. 
 
It took her nearly a month to finally push down that voice in her head that screamed Go home, you really want to go home! before she had finally realized that no, she really didn't. 

Weeks can get stressful, trying to play catch-up with classmates who have more experience than she does.  She finds herself working later nights on projects, blowing off steam by going to dorm parties (dorm parties - is this really her life?) with her hall-mate, who is actually turning out to be pretty cool and doesn't think their seven year age gap is a big deal at all. 
 
After a few weeks she starts coming up with excuses to stay in the city on weekends, reasons to keep out of that box she had been in for so long.  Jim makes day trips there and holds her hand while they walk through the park.  It's nice.  Like having the best part of home here. 

He pokes fun at the way she orders coffee now like she's in a race, instead of standing in front of the counter wavering like she used to.  When you take too long people behind you get annoyed, which he learns the hard way. 
 
At the end of their days together she wonders briefly how the documentary would edit it all together, one big happy montage of young love in the city, or something.   She wishes she could stop thinking like this.  

Someone picked up their show.  A deal that's been in the works for months apparently, ever since that strike last winter.  It's only some obscure channel, one that you can probably only get with some kind of special cable package, which, it's fine.  She's totally fine with that.  But it's just that they've been sending her episodes.  All summer. 
 
One night she puts in the first disc and there's Roy, and there's Jim, and there's her with literally no makeup in really bad lighting, and it's all so much that she has to turn it off and doesn't go back to it for days.  Even though she has her own room, she watches it at night on her laptop with her headphones on, her chest caving in every time she presses play. 

It's her life.  And this is all of it. 

Pam and Roy.  Pam and Roy and Jim.  Jim and Pam.  Jim and Karen and Pam.  And that's all she is here.  Just that.  And how is it even possible that so many of her major life-changing moments in the past few years have been at work?  At a job she hates, no less.  Is that stupid receptionist job really all she is when she's in Scranton?
 
She and Jim don't talk about the episodes much, except for funny things Dwight did, or Angela said.  They don't watch them together, but sometimes on the phone she can tell he's been watching it.  She can hear it heavy in his voice somewhere when he says goodnight.  Sometimes she wonders what it would look like if the cameras were here when she hangs up the phone - how her face might look when they zoomed in. 

Some nights she stares into the bathroom mirror, and pretends.

**

When he really can't write he has this habit of just typing.  Either he does it to jump start his brain or he does it so that he can at least pretend to be productive.  It's what he imagines he would be doing if he was working in some office instead of at a desk that just so happens to be less than ten feet from his own bed.  Basically, he fake-types in case the boss happens to walk by.  Never mind that the boss is actually him.

He sits back and stares at the jumbled document on his computer screen.  It stares right back.  He never wins this game. 
 
Lately he's been keeping his book out on the desk, so he reaches for that to relieve himself from the staring contest.  He only keeps it out as a reminder that this is what they want from him, another one of these.  He thumbs through a few pages, his eyes scanning the words that he can barely remember writing. 
 
His publisher had optioned a second book (well, third if you count his first flop, which they don't) based on the "promising success" of the one in his hand.  He closes it with a snap, the illustration of a city skyline and a woman in heels laughing up at him, and throws it across the room, as he's apt to do anywhere between one and twenty times a week.  Or, okay, a day. 
 
Piece. Of. Shit. 
 
He turns back to the monitor in front of him, back to the complete fuck-up of an excuse for a next novel.  If he hadn't written that second book he wouldn't be in this predicament, but then again, he also might not have a book option at all.  He'd still be begging publishers to take him seriously. 
 
And the book hadn't started off as yet another banal piece of chick-lit, but that's where it had ended up, after a few strong "suggestions from" his editor, of course.   What had started out a fairly dark humored (albeit thinly-veiled) story of an average guy falling for his much more successful colleague had warped into that book lying face down on his hardwood floor.  The one that ends with the career super-woman having it all, and the guy who loves her coming to terms with living in her shadow. 
 
That's not how he wanted it.  In the end he wanted the guy to realize they aren't right for each other.  And not because he's jealous or wants to be the one up front, the one throwing the party, but because maybe he just wants someone that wants to sneak out of there as badly as he does.
 
It's his own goddamn fault for writing basically about his own pathetic life, anyway.  God, sometimes he feels like one of those guys on TV shows who only succeed by re-writing their own lame history.  It's like picking at an old scab, or something equally gross.  Jesus, he can't even come up with a decently interesting metaphor lately, what is his deal?
 
"I don't like it," Rachel (that's his editor) had said about the original ending after a nano-second of thought.  "It makes him sound like a prick."
 
So, whatever.  He did it their way and, okay, it earned him some money, some success, but he hates it.  He hates writing about some dressed up version of himself.  Hates the flowery script and light-hearted illustrated cover.  Hates seeing his own name staring back at him from the "Fun Summer Beach Reads!" table at Barnes & Noble. 
 
And it's not that he has a problem with this kind of book in general, he's not some kind of literary snob, but just that he has a problem being the one who writes it.  And being expected to write more of it.
 
He closes his laptop without saving any of his typing gibberish and pulls the stack of papers out from underneath his desk lamp.  He's now two months behind his publisher's initial deadline and the book's barely even halfway written, but this in his hands, this is a full first draft of the book he wanted to write this time around. 
 
He can't bring this in, though.  It's not what anyone wants from him.  Hell, when he had mentioned to Rachel that this time he wanted to try writing something a little darker, her only suggestion had been doing some kind of rape storyline, or teenage suicide. 
 
"Very Jodi Picoult. I love it," she had said.  He shudders just thinking about it and puts the manuscript back under the lamp.

He had made some foolish goal with himself this morning that he'd write at least another chapter by the end of the weekend, but the way things are going it's starting to look like maybe he shouldn't have been so quick to turn down Billy's invite for some party uptown. And it doesn't help his mood much that his apartment is equipped with a thirty-five year old air conditioner. 
 
He turns the fan beside his desk a notch higher, but the button thing that makes it stay put is busted so the fan is revolving achingly slowly from side to side, amounting to around three seconds of relief plus at least ten seconds of waiting.  God, August sucks.  And it's only the beginning of August - just wait till late August.

He opens his laptop back up, clicking on a minimized web browser to type in a search for flights to O'Hare.  He made up his mind about moving to Chicago last week, he even bought the plane ticket.  Well, he kind of bought it.  Actually, he had just looked up flights on Orbitz and left the web page minimized for a week.  First it was to Philadelphia, then San Fransisco. Now Chicago.  But fuck, he doesn't even have a good winter coat right now - maybe Phoenix.  Arizona is at least supposed to be more of a dry heat, he thinks.

He takes a gulp of ice water and puts the glass back down on a book that's become his go-to coaster.  As though decorating its shiny cover with water rings some kind of revenge tactic, when really he's painfully aware how pathetic he is for not only owning it, but for keeping it out on his desk all this time.  Maybe he does it out of narcissism, or maybe it reflects some kind of masochistic need to punish himself by seeing it every day.  He hopes for the former.

He had known about being in her book way before he knew knew - they have the same publisher for Christ's sake.  Okay, well maybe had would be the more accurate term there, but still, people talk.  And before her book released he had even clung to the idea that maybe he would get off easy, that he'd be a quick mention - at most a chapter.  That he'd be decimated quickly, but that then things would just move along.  Besides, who on Earth wants to read a book about Jack Berger: failed writer?
 
But really, even back then he knew he was kidding himself.  It had been nearly two years by then and his friends still hadn't let him live down the night they had a run-in with Carrie at some club.  That was a fairly decent indicator that the release of her book was just a ticking shit-bomb waiting to go off all over the city.
 
And he didn't make it out with only a chapter.  He got three and a half, so, it must have been a slow year. 
 
And while by now two years and another Carrie Bradshaw bestseller had come and gone, he still feels doomed to walk the streets of New York branded by that fucking yellow break-up post-it on his forehead.  Everywhere he goes, every woman he takes out to dinner, he has this overwhelming dread that they all see him the way she had apparently seen him: insecure, childish, cruel.  Maybe it bothered him so much because he felt it was an unfair portrayal, or maybe it just hit a little to close to the truth.
 
And sure, she had had the slightest decency to change the "e" in his name to a "u" (he could hardly blame her for not changing his name completely - having a character named 'Burger' really is too good for a woman that relies as heavily on puns in her writing as she does) it seemed like everyone in Manhattan still knew. 
 
Seriously though, if he had known that she was going to focus so intensely on that one fucking detail of their breakup he might have thought twice and at least written his goodbye on a normal-sized piece of paper.
 
For months he had obsessed over every word she had written about him - how could he not?  Everyone else was.  He even got scrunchies sent to him in the mail, strangers telling him that he needed to lighten up.  And although any attention he received (which, honestly, was mostly just teasing from his friends) had died down quickly, it stayed with him.  Looping in his head like a bad song on the radio.  It's why he ended up writing that stupid fucking book too, that much he's sure of.

He leans back in his chair, only to find that the cool air from the fan doesn't quite make it that far, and starts thinking about his bike and how maybe a drive uptown might not be so terrible.  When the phone rings he decides to go ahead and let Billy talk him into it.
 
"Berger - it's Courtney - and do I have news."  His publicist.  She always talks like she's cramming all of her thoughts into a single sentence.  Sometimes, even over the phone, he can still pretty accurately imagine the accompanying hand gestures.
 
"What's up, Court?" He leans back again, absently clicking through the flight information on his computer. 
 
"Well, don't get too excited - no guarantees - but."  She takes a dramatic pause.  She loves a good dramatic pause.  "Lifetime is interested."
 
"Lifetime?  Like, television for women, that Lifetime?"
 
"We're in talks with them for - get this - a movie.  Can you believe it??  Are you thrilled??"
 
He rocks his chair back once or twice.  "So... a TV movie."
 
"Exactly!  But I think they're looking to do it from the woman's perspective instead of the guy's like in the book - makes it more relatable."
 
She's still going on about it, but he stops hearing her after that.  Or at least stops listening after she brings up casting Dermot Mulroney. 

**

"Pam, please?  Please please please?  You have to go with me."

She groans loudly, clutching her pained stomach.  "But I'm hungry, Eric.  Why do you want to go to this so bad anyway?  You said the book sucks."

"Misunderstood.  I said mis-under-stood."  She raises her eyebrows at him, because that is so not what he said before.  "Okay fine.  My mom just wants his autograph, okay?  I can't get away with another subscription to Martha Stewart Living for her birthday this year.  Come on, it'll be fun.  We'll mock?"

She makes a strained sound in the bottom of her throat, twisting on her heels.  "I'll buy you a bagel on the way?" he adds in a last ditch effort.

"Okay, fine," she concedes.  "But it better be an everything bagel, or no dice." 

Eric pumps his fist in the air as they head out of the building and on to the crowded street.  He didn't have to try all that hard anyway, she would've gone.  It sounds stupid, but she just loves having friends of her own for once.  Before her friends had always been Roy's friends too, or his brother's, or Jim's old roommate, or... Kelly.  Now she had friends.  Friends that want to do things and go places and stay up nights drinking and laughing.  Sometimes she has to keep herself in check just so she doesn't dork out over it all.
 
The bookstore is only a few blocks - with a conveniently located bagel place on the way - and by the time they get there it's already pretty packed with mostly middle-aged women.  They manage to find two seats a little closer to the front than she would've liked, but hopefully it'll be short, or at the very least, hilariously bad.

"Oh God," Eric whispers to her.  "It's like an old lady soup in here, I'm not kidding."

She covers her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle.  The woman next to her (the one clutching a book in her hands) gives her a disapproving look when they pull out the bagels, so she isn't shy about purposefully glancing over at her as she takes the first bite.  There's a smattering of applause when some woman steps out behind the podium and starts speaking way too enthusiastically.  Eric pinches her elbow and she has to take another hefty bite to keep from laughing. 

When the author comes out, he's the definition of a douchey, takes himself way too seriously, New York writer.  And, okay, kind of cute.  In an objective way.  But honestly, he's wearing a blazer over a t-shirt and jeans and didn't even bother shaving for all his adoring fans.  Not only that, but he looks weirdly familiar in a way she can't place.  He introduces himself and ladies clap and swoon and blah blah blah.  Eric's scribbling something next to her, probably already at work sketching a cartoon of him.

"So, uh, thanks for the intro Courtney," he says, shifting on his feet.  Although she can't really tell if he's actually uncomfortable up there or if it's part of some act.  She thinks probably the latter.  "But, uh, maybe we could stray away from referring to me as the 'next Nicholas Sparks' next time, okay?" 
 
Beside her, Eric laughs.  And it's a little awkward because he's kind of the only one.
 
"So this might be kind of weird, but, I'm just gonna level with you guys.  I know I'm supposed to be reading something from the new... book, but to be honest?  It's crap."

The woman beside her visibly twitches and Eric shoots her what the crap is this? look.  Things maybe just got a little more interesting.
 
"So, anyway, if it's alright with you all, I'm just gonna... read something else."

He starts reading and she's a little surprised at how quickly she's laughing, and not in mocking either.  Once he starts going his delivery is relaxed, effortless.  It almost reminds her of listening in on a big sale of Jim's, that kind of easy confidence.  The passage is funny too, like David Sedaris on crack, if that makes any sense.
 
It finally hits her when he catches her eye, and maybe he notices too because his words hitch for a second and he has to glance down at the page in front of him to get back on track.  The coffee place when she was sketching.  Okay, that's kind of weird. 

He keeps reading, keeps glancing over at her every once and a while, enough so that even Eric notices and grins wickedly at her with a not so subtle thumbs-up. 

What? she mouthes at him and he shrugs innocently enough, making a little heart with his index fingers and batting his eyelashes.  She jabs him hard with her elbow, motioning for him to pay attention.  It's his fault they're here after all.  When she looks back up front Jack Berger is looking at her again, smiling this time.  When the actual reading is finished he takes a few questions, most of which revolve around some couple from his last book. 

The woman next to her raises her hand and he points his finger at her.  "I was just wondering if you were going to Carrie Bradshaw's wedding next week?" 

"Uh..." he scratches at the back of his neck uncomfortably.  "No, no I'm not.  But, I really wish her all the happiness in the world.  Next question?"

"Want me to ask for his number?" Eric teases in a hushed voice while more irrelevant questions are asked.
 
"Only if you're getting it for yourself," she rolls her eyes.  Honestly, she has a boyfriend.

"For old ladies, they sure are quick on their feet," Eric mutters to her when they get stuck at about twentieth place in the autograph line.

"If we're late to class I'm blaming you," she laughs.  The line moves quickly, though, and pretty soon they're near the front and Eric keeps giving her this weird look, all smiley and shit.  "What?"

"Get his number," he grins.

"Excuse me?"

"He's been staring at you, like, this entire time."

"Uh, I have a boyfriend, remember?"
 
"So?  Just for fun.  So you can say you picked up the next Nicholas Sparks?"
 
Up front Jack catches her eye again and she has that horrible, completely self-betraying thought. The thought of what'd it be like to kiss him.  The thought she used to get about Jim, back when she and Roy were, well, back when she considered that thought to be harmless and stupid and... shit. 

"I'm going to wait outside, okay?" she says quickly, cutting out of the line and heading for the door before Eric even has the chance to protest.  He won't be able to get out of line now, they've waited too long.
 
The air outside on the street is hot and heavy and, to be honest, smells a little like garbage.  She's not sure how people manage romanticize that particular aspect of city life in the summer.
 
"And here's the magician," Eric smirks at her, stepping out onto the sidewalk with two books in hand.  "Cute disappearing act, chicken."
 
"Whatever," she rolls her eyes.  "What's that anyway, just had to get yourself a copy?"
 
"Nah, it's for you," he grins wildly as he hands it to her.  "Open it."
 
When she lifts the cover there's a phone number scrawled on the inside.  And an inscription that just says Call any time.  And don't make your decision based on this - the book sucks.  Jack.
 
"Jerk," she laughs and hits Eric on the arm with the book.  "So, what, you bought me a book just to get that guy's number?"
 
"No, he gave it to me for free, obviously," he laughs.  "You think I'd spend twenty bucks on you?  Besides, I tried to give him your number, but he said he didn't want to seem like a creep, so."
 
"You tried to solicit my number out to a stranger??" She can't actually be mad, she really just can't stop laughing over it.  He's her friend enough to want to embarrass her in public, which is kind of nice.  Besides, it's not like she has to keep the book anyway.

**

Somehow they break up.  On the phone, even.

She's not even sure how they started arguing, or what about really.  Most TV comedies tend to shy away from the whole break-up argument.  Unless it's Friends, in which case, the thought of comparing her relationship to Ross and Rachel is possibly the most depressing thing she can possibly imagine. 
 
It's something completely stupid actually, one of those late-season plot jumps that make absolutely no sense to anyone watching it.  Like, how could they have been so happy just a second before and then this?  It might have been about her not coming home for Labor Day weekend (that's what the cameras would focus on, her flaws, her fault), but it could have just as easily been about how today she watched Jim tell Karen in a coffee shop that she never meant anything to him. 

For the sake of entertainment, she'll stick with Labor Day.  She can almost picture the whole thing and how it would look.  Maybe there would be a split-screen of both their faces, both hurting in their respective cities.

"Well, I already said I'd go, so."

"Great, fine.  Have a fun weekend then."

"Jim..."

"What? What do you want me to say, that I wasn't looking forward to having you home for three days?"

"I'll come next weekend."

"Yeah, okay."

"Well, you could come here?"

"I've got that barbecue at my brother's, remember?  And I've come up the past three times-"

"Jim, don't make this more difficult."

"Okay, sorry for being so difficult."

"That's not what I meant."

It goes on like this for, well, for a while.  But that's not something editors would show.  On TV people get into these big, blow up fights in two minutes, but in real life they go on for hours, slowly creeping towards that point of no return when someone says something they can't take back.  She's not even sure which one of them does say it, but either way, it happens.

By the time she hangs up her hands are numb, her cheeks sticky with dried tears, wondering what the fuck just happened.  It's maybe the one time she wishes there had been cameras there (Oh god, what if he had a camera with him?) just so she could rewind and figure out how that, how they... on second thought, no.  Cameras would be mortifying.  Like the time she had to watch herself sit alone, crying in a hallway for ... minutes.  No.  No cameras.  Her hands are shaking. 

It's days until she admits it out loud, over three-dollar beers with all of her new friends, in a bar so crowded she has to practically shout just to hear the words she's saying.  There's the obligatory awkward pause, followed by more drinks and the loosening of tongues to the point where they're all telling her what they really think of (well, thought of) Jim. 

She lets herself laugh when they make fun of his stupid haircut, but it still hurts.  And she doesn't mention how she'd always kind of liked it.
 
They get drunk that night.  Like, super wasted in a way she hasn't been in a long time, and it's actually pretty great.  Usually she'd assume that getting drunk to avoid thinking about the huge breakup she just had would be kind of depressing, but with her friends it's just fun and silly and she actually does stop thinking about it.  Well, she kind of does.  At least enough to have a genuinely good time and to not think about how it's Labor Day weekend and how she was supposed to be going home. 
 
"You are such a dork!" She yells at Eric, who's doing some kind of interpretive dance imitation of their DigiPress instructor.  She's not even sure how loud she's being, probably pretty loud, but she's the RA, so whatever.  "Shots!" 
 
"God, Pam, you are drunk - this is awesome," Stacey laughs. 
 
They're all back in Sarah Kaya's room down the hall from hers (everyone's so drunk at this point that the whole light-box incident from the other day is water under the bridge) and drinking out of red cups and laughing and, God, this is so awesome having friends.  It's got to be like three in the morning and she's not even tired at all.  This is what college must feel like when you don't go to school with your high-school boyfriend and drop out after just three semesters.
 
"I'm not drunk!" she giggles, and next to her Randi makes the most ridiculous face and so she laughs harder.  Across the room Eric does this retarded impression of her that makes no sense because he's using a Southern accent and she's only from Pennsylvania, so poor form.
 
"I do not sound like that," she crosses her arms across her chest, but everyone else is nodding.  Fuck those guys, she doesn't sound like that!
 
"You can take the girl out of Philly," Stacey starts up again.
 
"Scranton," she corrects him for the hundreth time.  And, whatever, he's from Hoboken, New Jersey, so.  "And I thought I said shots!"
 
They all throw back another round of knock-off Jack Daniels and Randi and Shauna break out the Wii, so she hardly notices when Eric disappears from the room for what she would consider a suspicious amount of time, if she were sober.  She also fails to notice when he comes back, or that he's got a book in his hand, and a cell phone, and - oh, shit.
 
"Eric, no!" She practically stage dives over Stacey's lap, who grabs her around the waist because he's not in on the joke and doesn't get how what's happening here is an awful awful idea. 
 
"Hi, Jack, sorry to bother you at this hour," Eric is saying into the phone, sounding perfectly composed and sober all the sudden.  He's going on about who he is and where they had met and how, don't worry, he's not some crazed stalker fan, while she tries to struggle across all of the people in the room to get to him and kill him with her bare hands. 
 
"Oh you want to talk to her?"
 
"Eric - you're such a little-" And then the phone is in her hand and she's talking to Jack Berger, this guy she's only talked to once and seen twice and she is waaay way too drunk to be doing this right now. 
 
"Uh, Pam?  It's Pam, right?" the phone says at her.  Fuck fuck fuck.  "Hello?"
 
"Yeah, it's me, I'm here," she blurts all at once.  "I mean, yeah.  It's Pam.  Jack, right?  Sorry about my friend, I hope he didn't wake you up."
 
"No, no of course not," he laughs, but his voice sounds all sleepy so he's probably lying.  "It's my own fault anyway, I should have been more specific about my definition of 'any time.'"
 
"So, this is weird," she laughs, because her inner filter is totally out of whack right now, what with the booze and the break-up and the no cameras. 
 
"Yeah, it is kinda," he smiles.  Or, rather, it sounds like he's smiling.  "Hey, maybe you'd like to go out sometime."
 
"I have a boyfriend," she says automatically, and she can feel half the heads in the room snap towards her.  Eric mouthes something to her that she can't make out and, shit. 
 
"Oh, right.  Of course," Jack back-peddles.  "It was kind of weird of me, to leave that number for you and everything-"
 
"No, no, I don't," she says fast, tripping over her words.  "Sorry.  I have no idea why I said that.  We broke up recently, I... and I'm drunk."
 
"I can hear that," he laughs.  "Well, listen, how about you give me a call tomorrow if you feel like it then?"
 
"That... okay.  Yeah, maybe," she says.  "Sorry again, about my friend."
 
When she hangs up Eric ducks and the phone misses his head by an inch.  He's cracking up, and then so is she and everyone else, and it's all whatever.  Just some stupid joke - it's not like she's going to call him.
 
**
 
The next morning (well, afternoon really - she didn't get to sleep until around eight) she wakes up with one of the worst hangovers of her life and a voicemail from Jim about how her pocket accidentally left his work phone a ten minute message last night, so maybe could she please be more careful next time. 
 
She's not sure which one is worse, actually.
 
**