The next two weeks were very confusing for Jim. To a certain extent, this was not surprising. He had a new job; he was moving into a new apartment (lots of high-fives with Mark were exchanged on the day they finally toured a house they could both afford and stand after many, many failures); his sister and parents were still trying to use him as a hypotenuse as they negotiated their triangular relationship; he was in love for the first time.

Well, that last one was the real problem. Not the in love part—true, love was notorious for being confusing, what with the rush of hormones and the apparent novelty of such otherwise mundane behavior as watching your crush do simple things like eat yogurt. But honestly, he was OK with that. It wasn’t confusing or difficult or disorienting to enjoy seeing Pam Beesly do normal things, because he derived too much pleasure from the experience to be confused or half-hearted about it. Nor was he confused by the fact that he was in love with an engaged woman. That was awkward, to be sure, and he was doing his absolute damnedest not to let anyone know about it, but it wasn’t confusing. Roy was a dick, a feeling that was confirmed every time they crossed paths, and besides, as long as he wasn’t actively causing infidelity it didn’t really harm anyone for him to be in love with Pam. So, no conflict. No confusion. Just certainty that Pam was the right person for him, even if she didn’t know it yet.

No, the confusion came entirely from that one perfect person, who was definitely confusing him by the way she acted around him. Most of the time, she was great: the same awesome, inventive, hilarious woman he’d met on the phone (was it only) three weeks ago. But, seemingly randomly to him, about 10% of the time she’d suddenly turn…off. Not as in becoming a turn off (that would be too convenient—no, she was always gorgeous) but more like turning off a light switch. The kind of jokes that made her giggle without fail would suddenly…fail. The bright smile he adored would go dim. The shining eyes would flatten, and the attention he’d hoped to coax out of her would not materialize.

The worst part of it was that he couldn’t find the trigger. It wasn’t anything he said. It didn’t seem to be anything he did. He even spent one whole day barely talking to her (not intentionally: blame Michael’s insistence that he personally call every person in the client list he’d inherited and check their contact information) and that didn’t do anything either, because halfway through the day he caught her looking at him and she abruptly turned away and started ignoring him again.

Wait.

That was it.

It wasn’t anything he did. It was what she did. Specifically, where she looked.

He started counting. Every day where she looked over at him more than five times, she stopped. Abruptly.

He’d just have to stop her at five then. Or maybe four; he couldn’t be sure he’d always caught every glance, although his Pamdar was becoming extremely strong.

He put this plan into action and got…well, not immediate results, but something better than what he’d had. He’d saunter up to her desk in the morning (thus ensuring that she didn’t glance over at him, because he was already in her space). He’d tell her whenever he was heading out, tapping his knuckles on her desk to mark the fact to draw her attention and (he hoped) make sure that she didn’t glance over there when he wasn’t around to count, because she’d know where he was. He developed a positive addiction to jellybeans. And all of this resulted in the proportion of the time she shut off dropping down to…about 5%.

Well, if he could have 95% of a happy, engaging (though sadly, also still engaged) Pam Beesly, he’d probably die happy.

He really did try not to let it bother him.

It bothered him anyway.

He took to spending his afternoons at the YMCA, hoisting shot after shot and taking on all comers: teenagers desperate (like him) to get out of the house, retirees missing their glory days, fellow young professionals (a term he despised, but had to concede applied to him) needing to blow off some steam. Sometimes Mark even accompanied him, though he did hear some grumbling about how when they actually moved into the house together (T-minus-one more week!) he’d probably see enough of Jim’s ugly mug that he wouldn’t need to hang out with him at the gym.

He took this as a sign, and that night they went out to Poor Richard’s instead.

It was a mistake.

Poor Richard’s, he had somehow forgotten but now never would again, was the hangout for the warehouse staff. In particular, it was the hangout for one very drunk Roy Anderson and a much less drunk but nevertheless enabling Darryl Philbin. If the drunkenness had been in the other order, he might have been able to make his way in and out from the bar with his and Mark’s drinks and had a nice night hanging with his bestie. It was not, though, and Darryl was sufficiently aware to notice him, and sufficiently drunk to yell his name at a sufficiently high volume that he could definitely not pretend not to notice (and that Mark definitely did notice). And so he found himself squeezed into a bar booth with two coworkers, one of whom was decent and the other of whom he really really hoped for Pam’s sake was also decent. But he had his doubts.

Fortunately, it did not at first appear that this was the night when those doubts would be either confirmed or put to rest, because Roy started snoring two minutes after Jim and Mark sat down. A strategic poke in the chest (well, more like a shove) simultaneously showed that Darryl had done this before and resolved the problem to their mutual satisfaction, so much so that Jim found himself wishing that he could have done the honors.

It turned out that Darryl was actually really worth knowing, when not accompanied by Pam (who entirely eclipsed him) or a wakeful Roy (who did so in the opposite direction). Jim and Mark ended up making plans with him to have a poker night at their place “once it was up and running,” and they all shook hands on it simultaneously—which prompted a fit of mutual laughter at how ridiculous they looked, which in turn woke up Roy

For about ten seconds, before he started snoring again and Darryl had to shove him.

But that was enough time to break up their conversation and move them all towards their cars, except that Darryl and Roy were still in no condition to drive. Jim and Mark would have offered to transport them, except that the backseat of Mark’s car had been somewhat overly optimistically filled with IKEA furniture for their new place the night before and he hadn’t managed to unload it into his parents’ garage yet for the last week of storage. That meant that Darryl went to the bar to call someone while Jim and Mark kept watch over Roy, and that they were back into deep conversation when that someone showed up.

To Jim’s undeserved surprise, it was Pam Beesly.