"So, I definitely think there's an office romance happening."
He doesn't quite register what she's said until a few seconds have passed. Once he realizes that she spoke, he very quickly has three thoughts. The first: Pam is on my bed and looking for all the world like she belongs there. The second: yeah of course, it's happening right now. The third: she's engaged she's engaged she's engaged. Thankfully, none of those thoughts make their way from his brain to his mouth. Instead, he says: "what's that?"
"An office romance! I've been observing Dwight and Angela all day."
"Ew. What happened to happy thoughts?"
"I know, I'm sorry! Yes, ew. But also, a little cute?"
"Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Pam?"
Pam laughs and tosses his high school yearbook to the side. She turns towards him and literally flops forward on the bed. She props her elbows up and rests her chin in her hands. Jim's heart stops.
"I'm serious! They're kind of perfect for each other."
Jim just looks at her. His expression, whatever it is, makes her laugh. His heart stops again. There's something about Pam laying across his bed with her chin in her hands and a smile on her face that is...just, it's something. He notices that his heart has restarted, harder and faster than before and somewhere in the vicinity of his throat.
"If you say so, Beesly."
"I do, Halpert. So suck it. Oh! Did I tell you that she bought two Baby Ruth bars today? And guess who was eating one earlier?"
"Could be coincidence. I just can't believe that anybody would actually want to be a relationship with Dwight."
"Yeah. But. Angela is definitely...unique."
"True. Well, keep me updated. You've roped me into this so I have no choice but to see it through."
She laughs again, then leans onto one hand so that she can bring the other one down to pick at a lose thread on his bedspread. "So, um, speaking of relationships." Her eyes meet his, kind of, because her own barely peek up from underneath her lashes. "I was just wondering-"
"Oh! Sorry. Thought this was the bathroom." Jim swings towards the door in time to see Oscar backing away from it. "Across the hall?" Oscar disappears before Jim can answer, so he instead turns back towards Pam to see that she's off the bed with an anxious expression on her face and her right band busy twisting her ring (engagement ring) around her finger.
"Um, yeah, we should-"
"I guess we'll go back-"
"-I'm just gonna head downstairs and get a drink. See you down there?" She doesn't wait for him to respond, just walks past him and hurries out of the room.
Jim sighs. He looks at the spot on the edge of his bed, the spot that he swears still bears Pam's imprint and drags a hand down his face. He's pretty sure that he'll lay awake all night and replay the words "speaking of relationships" in his mind over and over, wondering how in the world she was planning on finishing that sentence. He sighs again and turns to head downstairs.
A drink sounds good.
Pam needs--she doesn't know what she needs. Another beer, maybe. To get away from the cameras, definitely, because what she doesn't need them to zoom in on her face and get footage of her as she tries to process the fact that Phyllis assumes that she and Jim are part of an office romance.
She meant Dwight and Angela, obviously. Obviously. Not...she and Jim are just friends, best friends that joke and prank and have fun in the office. She pushes aside an invasive thought about Angela's ridiculous Pam Pong game and how tries to forget how quick Phyllis was to assume that there was more to their relationship--friendship--than there really was.
Yes. Another beer, definitely.
She usually doesn't like beer, but Jim's is way fancier than the stuff of Roy's that's usually in their refrigerator. She twists the cap off with the edge of her shirt and heads to the corner of the living room. Everyone is watching Phyllis timidly sing karaoke and nobody talks to her and for that she's thankful, because her own thoughts are going a mile a minute and she doesn't think she can handle a conversation.
She takes a drink of Jim's classy imported beer and admits it to herself: they flirt. She flirts. And sure, she often turns to Jim for emotional support, or just support in general. And that's good, right? It's good to have a friend like that, someone to be silly with and tell your worries to and get advice from. Roy has never been that for Pam and she's never been that for him and Jim has stepped into that role nicely and that's fine. It's good. It's normal. Her own mom doesn't rely on her dad for any of that stuff and they had a perfectly healthy relationship, they have best friends outside of their marriage, and that's fine. It doesn't mean that there's some clandestine romance. And yes, fine, okay, she's had some inappropriate thoughts and maybe she's more interested in Jim's relationship status than he himself seems to be, but he's objectively attractive and she wants him to be happy and those things are normal too. Totally totally normal.
Jim sits next to her then and asks about her side project, and she decides it's best to just let the whole thing go. If she really was involved in a secret office romance, she'd want it to stay that way. And besides, just because two people hang out or share candy bars or play pranks or whatever doesn't mean that they're into each other, and that's what she tells the doc crew when they (annoyingly) pull her outside for a talking head and ask what she's uncovered on Dwight and Angela.
She spends the rest of the night sitting on Jim's couch, sometimes squeezed next to Jim himself, and thinks about...things. She thinks about how the two most important men in her life, Jim and Roy, and how they fill such different roles in her life. The little voice asks: shouldn't your fiance also be your best friend? but she reflects again on her own parent's marriage and decides that no, real life and real relationships aren't like that. It's not a fairy tale, it's reality.
Jim bumps her shoulder with his and smiles down at her. She smiles back instinctively. She thinks about what she'd do if she didn't have him in her life, if he wasn't her best friend. If she lost him. She doesn't like to think about that.
So she doesn't.
