The rest of the morning actually went surprisingly well, all things considered. If by “all things considered” you meant “ignoring the way that Izzy kept feeding Dwight Schrute attention and he kept responding to it.”

Which Pam did. Because she was doing her best to ignore that, and to focus on the feeling of fuzzy warmth in her stomach every time she sipped on the tea. That feeling could just have been the feeling of a hot beverage sliding down your gullet and into your stomach, tracing a path of fire as it went, but she rather suspected it wasn’t since it didn’t dissipate when it hit her stomach but intensified, as if a family of butterflies had set up residence in her insides and was forced to flutter away to safety every time she took a sip.

So, it was either love or sudden-onset stomach cancer, and she knew which one she thought was right.

She and Jim stayed flirting (she could call it flirting now, right?) at the counter while Izzy and Dwight were over at his table, and she was distinctly torn between wondering if her friend was all right and being extremely grateful that she’d been distracted from Pam’s love life by her own.

Dwight was making sounds with his mouth that were apparently what it sounded like when you drove a tractor the wrong way through a beet field but which sounded to Pam like he had been taught how to beatbox while wearing noise-cancelling headphones in a sealed room by someone standing outside of it who hated him.

When she shared this observation with Jim, it made him snort. She felt good about this for about a half nanosecond until she realized he had been actively drinking boiling-hot tea at the time.

One quarter-roll of paper towels and an ice-pack later, she had finally gotten to see Jim shirtless, but not for the reasons she’d imagined.

“I will be calling the health department.” Dwight’s clipped tones cut across the room, belying Pam’s sense of safety from him and Izzy. “It is unsanitary for a worker to be unclad in close proximity to foodstuffs according to the Scranton Municipal Code.”

“I was just demonstrating how capitalism demands the shirt off the worker’s back,” Jim insisted. “See, it’s back on now!” To Pam’s grave disappointment it was. “I hope you took pictures, because otherwise the health department is never going to believe you. And I should know—this will be you third complaint this week.”

“Hmph.” Dwight sniffed. “I did not take any pictures because unlike some people, James, I am not such a petit bourgeois as to carry a smartphone camera on my person at all times like some kind of status symbol.” He pulled out an old, battered Nokia. “This cell phone has been in the beet fields during harvest and survived. I dare your newfangled cellular devices to manage that.”

“He does realize that the Nokia 3310 is still a modern invention, right?” Pam whispered to Jim.

“I’m not sure. I think he may think it was handed down by his Nazi grandpappy,” Jim responded. “But where does he get off thinking I’m petit bourgeois? Michael is petit bourgeois, I am the working class.”

“Mmm…” Pam hummed. “How much do your parents make again?”

“Fine.” Jim rolled his eyes. “But at least I don’t own a farm. That makes Dwight a capitalist.”

“And proud of it.” Dwight had apparently overheard that comment. “The possession of capital is what separates the predator from the prey.” He shook his head. “In the Serengeti of life, you are the gazelle, and I am the lion.”

“Are you?” Pam couldn’t help but ask. “And what kind of lion? Male or female?”

“Male of course!” Dwight puffed out his chest. “My mane is the pride of my pride!”

Pam raised an eyebrow at Izzy, who had made the mistake of admitting she was a biology major in college one night, with an interest in feline zoology. They had bonded over one particular fact about big cats when Pam had called Izzy right after breaking up with Roy, and she was not about to miss the opportunity to use it now. “Hey Iz, what do male lions do?”

“Lounge around and do nothing while the women make the kill.” Izzy sighed. “Come on, Dwight, let them be.”

“Fine. But you’re on thin ice, Jim. One more shirtless episode and I will call the health department again!”

“I know you will, Dwight.” Jim rolled his eyes. “I know you will.”

“And this time they won’t let it go to voicemail!”