Pam was later getting to the coffee shop than she had anticipated, partly because the pile of things she had to move had not actually gotten substantially smaller, and partly because her mom insisted that she move more of it than she originally intended to “in case Penny came back home while you were out.” The odds of that were below nil—Penny had been texting her, and knew she was using the hallway, so she was intentionally steering clear—but trying to convince Mom of that wasn’t worth the effort when she’d have to move the stuff eventually anyway.

So it was quite late in the day by the time she peeked through the doors of The Comedy Roasters. Jim had his back to her, making someone something to drink, and she took a moment to admire the simple shape of him, the way just looking at him brought some of the tension out of her shoulders and relaxed her core. He turned around and she was gratified that she could catch the moment when he noticed her: his smile went from customer service to genuine, and she noticed a tiny motion of his hand as if to wave before he remembered he was carrying a hot beverage and stilled it.

She made her way slowly over to the counter as Jim called out the drink and was glad to see that while there were a lot of customers in the shop, for some reason none of them were actually in front of her in line.

In fact, they seemed to be queuing in one corner of the coffee shop, underneath the Eddie Izzard poster, where something was going on.

Well, she could always ask Jim about it—but before she could, he slipped out from behind the counter and approached her, grabbing her hands and pulling her back around the counter.

“Hey.” He grinned at her and she just smiled up at him.

“Hi.”

He squeezed her hands. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” There was a beat where the two of them just looked at each other, and then each visibly startled as Michael burst out from the back.

He paid no attention to either of them, however, as he rushed past and joined the crowd underneath the Eddie Izzard sign, pushing and shoving while yelling “I’m the owner.”

“Is he wearing…” Pam couldn’t complete the sentence, but Jim was looking at the same thing and sighed.

“No. Thankfully, those are not assless chaps.” He bent down and whispered in her ear. “They’re chaps with a picture of an ass printed on them.” She giggled and he squeezed her hand, which made her realize that they were in fact still holding hands. “He had them specially printed himself, though.”

“Oh, no.” She couldn’t believe she was smiling at that, but Jim’s presence was simply too infectious, as was his excitement. Then she thought of something horrible. “Do you think that means…it’s still his ass?”

“Oh God.” Jim stared down at her in horror but she could see the twinkle that was still in the corner of his eye. “Which is worse? That Michael would take a photo of his own ass and print it on his own chaps, or that he would have pictures of someone else’s ass available to him?”

“He has internet access, though, right? That means he has access to infinite asses at any time.” Pam realized what she had just said and flinched. “Oh my god. Michael has access to infinite asses at any time. She glanced over at the crowd, which had finally parted for Michael to make his approach to whatever lay within it. “Do you think that’s Rihanna’s ass? Or maybe Beyonce’s?”

Jim nodded. “It’s probably Beyonce’s. Michael is Beyonce, always.”