Pam was surprised at just how nervous she was as Jim opened up the car door and ushered her into the cramped environs of a Toyota Corolla. Well, cramped for Jim, she realized, distracted for a moment by his long legs sliding into the driver’s side, but actually remarkably roomy for someone like her. She could see Jim and his buddies (he had buddies, right? She was pretty sure he’d mentioned playing basketball at the Y on weekends) cramming four six-footers in here, so for her much more minimalist needs in terms of legroom the car was actually very spacious—or it would be if there wasn’t junk everywhere in the back seat, which put a damper on the idea of Jim hanging out with his buddies.

But this was all a distraction, the kind of distraction she was so used to finding to stop herself from thinking about her real emotions. With Roy, it had always been “what can I make for dinner” or “I wonder why that car from Washington state is all the way out here in Pennsylvania” or “ooh, a purple Mazda” to stop herself from noticing how emotionally distant she and Roy had become. She wasn’t going to let stupid sexy Jim and his imaginary basketball buddies distract her from what she was thinking and feeling. She was…nervous. Because she liked Jim, and what did that say about her? Did it say that Roy was somehow right? No. No, it didn’t, not at all, because for all she liked Jim she had never thought about him that way until the day Roy had decided to punch him. She’d thought about him a lot before that, of course, but it was always as her outlet, her friend, her lifeline, not as…well, not as stupid sexy Jim whose legs seemed to stretch all the way out under the hood of the Corolla and whose shoulders were almost touching hers even across the center console.

She realized this was because she had instinctively begun to lean towards him while he turned to look out the rear window and back out of the parking space, and hurriedly adjusted herself in the seat.

But even if liking Jim didn’t mean Roy was right (and Roy was, she was beginning to discover, basically never right) it was still an uncomfortable feeling churning in her gut. She hadn’t ever liked someone before, not like-liked. If she hadn’t known that before, she could tell it now, both because the feeling was itself new and vaguely nauseating (“what is this feeling, so sudden, and new?” she started singing in her mind before cutting it off—Roy didn’t like Wicked—and then defiantly if still silently finishing the verse because she wasn’t with Roy anymore) and because, well, she was using terms like “like-like” instead of what it probably was, which was (deep breath) probably a potent mix of liking, lust, and maybe the first stirrings of a crush. Make that the deeply definite stirrings of a fairly hard crush, she amended as Jim turned back around and she was caught by the amusement twinkling in his eyes.

“So, Beesly,” she loved it when he called her Beesly, it made her remember that she was never, ever going to be Anderson and at the moment that felt very important for reasons it hadn’t necessarily felt before but she couldn’t imagine not feeling again, “you’re probably wondering where we’re going.”

Actually, she hadn’t been. She’d just been staring at him, finally letting herself recognize just how appealing she found his, well, everything about him. Shit, he was pausing like she was supposed to respond. How did this work? She wasn’t used to an actual dialogue, Roy usually monologued enough for the both of them. Wait, this wasn’t Roy, this was Jim, and she knew what to do when Jim asked her a question: make a joke.

“Oh no, Jim, do you not know either? Is the car in charge? Is it, like, one of those S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles that takes control away from the driver when you least expect it?” she grinned at him, because this was Jim and she could tease him.

He snorted. “If my car is going to be anything, it’s going to be the Batmobile, thank you very much.”

“In maroon? What, did Bruce Wayne go to the University of Chicago?”

“Maroon is a very nice color, thank you very much! And besides, it was like $500 cheaper if I didn’t get it repainted,” he mumbled.

“Ah, a fine financial decision.”

“Thank you.” He rallied and grinned back at her. “So anyway, did you want to know where we’re going, or were you just going to let me kidnap you?”

“Hmm…” she tapped her chin. When he opened his mouth to continue she made a shushing gesture. “I’m deciding!” He snorted again.

“Well, in case you decide you’d like to know…”

“Fine, you can tell me, if it’s so important to you.” She mock-pouted, and realized that she somehow knew that Jim, who had only known her a few weeks, would definitely realize it was a mock-pout, when Roy hadn’t been able to figure that out over all the years they’d dated and then been engaged. Stop comparing them, she chided herself. He’s probably not into you. Roy was wrong about everything, remember? He might not have a girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean he’s looking for one, or at least not you. Wouldn’t he have made a move by now if he were?

 “We, Miss Pamela—what’s your middle name?”

“Morgan.” Why?

“Miss Pamela Morgan Beesly,  are going to check out two apartments I think you’ll like.”

She sat up—as much as one could sit up in the passenger’s seat of a Toyota Corolla—and stared at him as he drove. “But you said we’d need the internet to look up places.”

“We still might,” he admitted grudgingly, “but you forget: Mark and I just moved in together.”

“Right.” Shit, is Jim gay? I’d know, right? By now? Please tell me I’d know. “So…”

“So while the needs of two youngish men—and Mark’s girlfriend Janine, not that she’s living with us but she did come along on the tours—as I was saying, the needs of two youngish men might not be the same as one young woman, but well, we viewed a lot of apartments, and there’s a couple I think you’d like.” Was this Jim babbling? She was pretty sure this was Jim babbling. Now the interesting questions were: 1) why was he babbling, and 2) could she get him to continue? It was cute. She decided to say nothing and see where it went.

“So, um, I don’t really know what you do in your spare time, not that it’s entirely my business or anything, but, uh, it seems to me that you probably want some space to do, uh, whatever it is that you do want to do in your spare time, and you just strike me as, well, as one of those people who like natural light, you know? Like, not everything fluorescent like in the office or even normal lightbulbs, but you know, light.” He was definitely babbling, and so she decided to take pity on him.

“Yeah, I like to draw and paint, so…” she shrugged. “Natural light is key.”

“Exactly.” He threw her an obviously relieved grin. “And there’s just the one of you, and well, it’s not like I know exactly what you make as a receptionist, but I’m assuming it’s not like twice what I make as a salesman, even though you’ve been working there a little longer than me obviously, and it’s not like you don’t do the work or anything, but um,” now he had progressed from babbling to flailing and she decided to go beyond taking pity and put him out of his misery. She touched his shoulder, surprised at the shock that traveled through her at that light touch.

“Jim. Don’t worry, I do not make twice what you’re making. I assume you’re suggesting that the places we’re looking at aren’t ridiculously expensive?”

“Yeah.” This time the relieved grin was twice as relieved and also somehow twice as wide. “Just…there were a couple of places that were cheap enough for one person, great natural light, but just…cramped for two? We looked at them because, well, two guys just out of college, the cheaper the better, and I wasn’t sure I was getting the Dunder Mifflin job 100% or anything, but once I did get it…we didn’t want to live on top of each other. Especially with Janine, of course.” He gulped. “But anyway, I think you’d like them, if you’d like to see them? I’m pretty sure they’re still on the market, I drive by them every day on the way to work and the signs are still up.”

She smiled, and realized her hand was still on his shoulder—but left it there anyway. “I’d love to.”