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Story Notes:

Some of my favorite stories on this site are college AU’s, and so I decided to throw my hat in the ring with this one. Big shoutout to WanderingWatchtower for beta’ing the first few chapters and giving me ideas. This story is partially inspired by the song Rainbow’s Cadillac. I do not own that song or any of the characters in the story. Those rights belong to Bruce Hornsby and NBC, respectively.

Author's Chapter Notes:
LCAD stands for Laguna College of Art and Design, and UC stands for University of California. (There are nine UC campuses, and UC Irvine is one of them.)

Tuesday, October 8

I yawn for the eighty-fifth time that evening and write another sentence in my world history essay. I probably shouldn’t have decided to drive over to UC Irvine on the heels of a six-hour animation lab just because Angela wanted to study with me, but I hadn’t seen her in like three weeks, so I couldn’t really say no. And in fairness, the UC Irvine Science Library is way nicer than any library on the LCAD campus, so I always get a lot of work done. Something about being on a mainstream college campus gets me motivated to do my work for my gen ed classes.

Angela is working on some type of finance presentation. She explained it to me on the way over, but I know that even if I had tried to pay attention, I would only have understood some of it. I’ve been combing through an article on Ancient Persia for the last half hour, but I’m kind of exhausted, so I’m not holding myself to a very high standard right now. And honestly, it doesn’t really matter how well I do in my gen ed classes. As long as I pass them, I’m good.

My ponytail is starting to hurt my head, so I take it out and shake out my hair with my fingers. I look up from my computer and gaze out across the room. My eyes land on the guy sitting at the table diagonally across from us. Shit, he is really good-looking. Great bone structure, gorgeous eyes, nice thick hair, strong arms. Okay, this is why I’m taking a class on figure drawing.

He looks up and smiles in my direction, and I instinctively look behind me to see who he’s looking at, but there’s no one there. When I turn around, he raises his eyebrows and points at me. Oh. I wasn’t expecting that. I smile back, probably looking like a colossal dork, and look down at my computer.

I look up again to see if he’s still looking at me, and he isn’t yet, but he does when he catches me looking at him, and I quickly look away. We play a game of eye contact tag for like five minutes, I swear, before he introduces himself.

“Hey, I’m Jim.” He raises his hand in a small wave.

I’m really embarrassed at this point, but I do my best to hide it. “Hi, I’m Pam.”

“Hi, Pam, nice to meet you.” He smiles again, and I swear someone turned a heater on directly behind me. He turns his head slightly and notices who is sitting across from me. “Oh, hi, Angela!”

“Jim,” she says with a slight nod.

“Angela and I had an accounting class together last spring,” he explains.

“Oh, cool,” I reply. “Are you an accounting major, too?”

“No, business and marketing, actually. You?”

“Oh, I don’t go to this school. I go to Laguna College of Art and Design, if you’ve heard of that. It’s up in Laguna.” I cringe. “Obviously.”

He grins. “Hey, you never know. UC Irvine isn’t exactly in the middle of Irvine. Did you know it was almost called UC Newport?”

“No, I didn’t. That’s a fun bit of trivia.”

“Uh, I don’t know how ‘fun’ it is,” he teases.

“Hey, I’m just trying to be friendly,” I say, holding up my hands.

“You could be friendly more quietly,” Angela mutters, scrawling something in a notebook.

Jim smirks in my direction and sits up in an austere, exaggerated way, which makes me laugh. He’s definitely poking fun at her, but he’s doing it with such a kind look in his eyes that I feel like he has genuine respect for her. Which is really cool.

I don’t consider myself to be very boy-crazy, and I definitely don’t believe in love at first sight or anything, but I feel a sort of spark with Jim that I’ve never felt with anyone before. Definitely not with my high school boyfriend Roy, and definitely not with any crushes I’ve ever had. I kind of really want to go sit at his table because our eyes meet a few more times and each time he smiles at me, I can feel my insides melt just a little bit. And I really want them to melt some more.

But Angela is right because it’s not like we’re the only ones here. I slowly eke out another paragraph, and even though it’s not that good, I decide I’m at a good stopping point when I see Jim putting his computer in his backpack.

“Hey, Ange, I’m gonna take off,” I whisper. If I hurry, maybe Jim will hold the elevator for me.

She knowingly glares at me, but she can’t keep the smile off her face for long, and I whisper her a thank you before trotting towards the elevators, where he’s just about to step inside.

“Hey!” I call out as loudly as I can without disturbing anyone nearby.

“Oh, hey, Pam. I’ve got the door,” he says. I say thank you and step inside. “First floor?” I nod, and we ride in amicable silence. He pulls the door open for me as we leave the building, which is just the icing on the cake. “Where you headed?”

“Just to my car,” I reply. “I parked next to the recreation center.”

“Oh, I live near there. Can I walk with you?”

Did he even have to ask? “Yeah, definitely.” I try to downplay the size of my smile because I’m fairly certain it’s taking up my entire face. But it’s okay because he smiles back with a grin that’s equally large, and I instantly feel at ease.

It’s a bit of a walk from the Science Library to the recreation center, but I definitely don’t mind. Now that it’s October, the night is actually really nice, and something tells me that the company is going to be even better.

 “Okay, I have to ask,” Jim says with a shake of his head, “How did you and Angela become friends?”

I chuckle. “That is a good question. Uh, last spring, I was looking for a church to attend on Easter. I just picked this random church, and it happened to be the one Angela attends every Sunday. She was the only girl there my age, and I think we were both kind of looking for friends because we’ve kept in touch ever since.” I shrug. “We don’t have, like, a ton, in common, but it’s fun to study with someone, you know? She drags me to church more often than I’d like though.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I definitely got that vibe from her. Does she show you a lot of photos of her cats?”

“Oh, please!” I reply. “Whenever we FaceTime, she shows all of them to me and has me talk to them. Don’t tell her this, but I definitely don’t know all of their names.”

“How is she able to have pets? She doesn’t live on campus, does she?”

“No, she lives with her parents and commutes to school.”

“Oh, gotcha. That makes more sense.” He jogs ahead and presses the button for the crosswalk. “Do you live on campus at your school?”

I shake my head. “I did last year. Only freshmen and transfer students are allowed to stay in the dorms. So right now I live in an apartment with two other girls.”

“So you’re a sophomore?” I nod. “Me too,” he says.

“Cool,” I say, for the lack of anything better. I tap my foot against the ground. “So, um, where are you from?” Ugh, nice, very original.

“I’m from Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

My jaw drops. “No way! I’m from Pottsville!”

“Oh, wow, that’s amazing!”

“Yeah, it is!” I think for a minute. “So, what made you choose UC Irvine?”

“Oh… um, I’m on the basketball team here. So I got a full ride…”

And at this point I actually get a little bit sad, because I’m starting to think that he’s way out of my league. “Oh my gosh, that’s awesome! Wow, good for you. I mean, you must have worked really hard.”

He smiles modestly. “Thanks. Being over six feet tall helps, but, you know, it isn’t everything.”

I shake my head. “For someone to play sports in college, you have to work really hard. I mean, that says a lot about who you are, so, good on you.” That sounded weird. “I don’t know much about sports,” I add as a bit of a disclaimer, in case I totally said the wrong thing.

“Well, I don’t know much about art, so we’re even.”

We’re even. Wow. I definitely have a crush now.

We’re quiet for a moment as we cross the street, and then I say, “Well, what do you want to know?”

‘About art?” he replies. I nod. “I’m actually kind of curious about your school. What are the classes like?”

“So, I have three art classes right now, which are animation, contemporary art history, and figure drawing. They each meet once a week for six hours.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know, I know,” I say quickly with a wave of my hand. “We get breaks and everything, but yeah, it’s intense. And then my gen ed classes are both online, so I can do those whenever.”

“What gen eds are you taking right now?”

“Economics and world history.”

He lights up. “Oh! Let me know if you need help with econ. I was really good at that.”

He’s offering me help ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod. I smile and try to play it cool. “You know, I just might do that.” I kind of understand economics, but I could probably benefit from some, uh, time with Jim. “What’s your schedule like?” I ask him.

“Well, season hasn’t started quite yet, but it will soon. Right now, it’s basically train, go to class, go to practice, and study. And maybe sleep.”

“Oh, yeah, sleeping. I vaguely remember that.”

We’re coming up to the parking structure, and I’m instantly disappointed because I feel like I could talk to Jim for literally hours. Even though we’re still just learning about each other right now. But he doesn’t make any efforts to leave, and we stand outside the structure and talk for another fifteen minutes or so. He never checks his phone, or looks in the direction of his dorm, or does anything that might indicate that he has somewhere else to be. I feel like he’s too good to be true, and I’m trying to talk myself down because I literally just met him and I’m already dreaming up ways to spend time with him.

But after a little while, my body really betrays me, and I let out a huge yawn. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” I apologize.

“Oh, hey, don’t worry about it. I, uh, I should probably call it a night, too.”

I really hope I’m not imagining his look of disappointment, and I don’t think I am because he asks me for my number. I pull my phone out of my back pocket, and he hands me his.

“Pam Beesly,” he says, reading the screen.

“Jim Halpert,” I echo.

He smiles at me. “It was really nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too!” Before I chicken out, I add, “Maybe we can get together and study sometime.”

“Definitely,” he replies, shifting his backpack on his shoulders.

God, I really don’t want to leave. “Okay, well, have a good night,” I say reluctantly.

“You too,” he says, walking back towards the street. “Drive safe!” he calls.

“I will, thank you!”

He smiles and gives me a final wave before heading down the sidewalk.

I think I might be falling in love.
Chapter End Notes:
Next up: Jim's POV. (Also, the title will make more sense in the next few chapters!)

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