One thing Pam knew for sure - if Jim was hers, she wouldn’t let him wander around alone as much as Katy did. More often than not, Jim was alone when the office gang went to Poor Richards after work. He seemed to have a lot of extra time to spend with Pam, and Katy didn’t seem to mind. When he was asked if Katy was coming for drinks, or if he had to get home to the “old ball and chain” he’d usually just mutter something about Katy being busy, and no one really noticed. No one except Pam. 

Once Katy started working at Dunder Mifflin, Pam despaired of ever having time with Jim again. She’d come to rely on the moments he spent standing at reception chatting with her, or the pranks they played. Once she’d even convinced him to join her on the roof for pizza. Sitting beside him in the darkness, listening to his low voice telling her stories about the trouble he and his brothers got up to as kids, she’d almost convinced herself that he felt something for her. But at the end of the evening when, her hand on her car door, she’d tossed out, “Thanks for tonight. It’s the best date I’ve had in a long time,” he’d chuckled awkwardly and said, “Not sure it’s a date if one of us has a girlfriend.” 

After that she worked hard to keep her words light and platonic with him. She fired up her Tinder account and went on a couple of dates. Even slept with one guy a couple of times. But when she realized that she was thinking of Jim the whole time she was in bed with someone else, she went back to being single.

But Katy working there didn’t change things, because she didn’t seem to be around the office that much. True, she did work back in the annex with Kelly, but Jim didn’t seem to change his habits. Katy appeared for lunch a few days a week, but not all the time. When Pam asked Jim if Katy was running errands or something, he just answered, “Or something” and went back to his ham sandwich. 

In any case, Pam figured that Katy and Jim must have one of those mature relationships where they each had their own friends and hobbies. Isabel disagreed. “I dunno Pam, that seems weird to me. Like, sure, have a girl’s night every now and then. But it seems like this chick is just never around.”

Did Pam feel guilty about lusting after a man who was in a long-term relationship? Of course. It wasn’t like she’d chosen to fall in love with someone else’s boyfriend, and she didn’t make a habit of sleeping with men who weren’t single. But her feelings for Jim had launched her past the guilt long ago.

It wasn’t just lust either, although she fantasized about him all the time. She wondered how it would feel to kiss him, and whether he liked to talk in bed, and what it would be like to see him lose control. Sometimes she couldn’t stand the thought that she’d never know any of those things.

But it was him - who he was and how he made her feel - that kept her answering the phones every day at Dunder Mifflin, when she knew it would be way better for her to get a new job and delete his number. He was her friend in a way that even Isabel had never been. He cared about her in a million tiny ways. He remembered things, and asked her about them, and really listened when she answered. She’d never known another guy - another person - like him.

She needed him in her life, there was no question about it. And she sensed that somehow he needed her too.

Against her better judgement, she let Isabel talk her into hosting a games night for her coworkers. It was deep into February, and everyone was bored with winter. Isabel had a bizarre obsession with Dwight. Yes, weird as it seemed - and Pam really couldn’t wrap her head around this - Isabel was dying to meet Dwight. 

“Maybe I’ve made him sound too interesting, Iz,” Pam said with a frown. “Because he’s really, really weird. And not in a good way.”

“I just have to meet him,” Isabel answered with a smile. “I mean, Pam, come on. He owns a huge beet farm, plus he’s the number one salesman in your company? The guy’s gotta be loaded.”

“Yeah...money isn’t everything,” Pam said with a shiver at the thought of Dwight being some kind of millionaire playboy.

Pam invited everyone in the office, including Jim and Katy. She already knew from past experience that having Jim’s company was worth having Katy there. Jesus, that’s just pathetic, she told herself. She’d started to look at job listings, and half-heartedly updated her resume. She knew she should get away from Jim for her own sanity. 

The night of the party arrived. Her house was loud with voices and music by the time Jim arrived, on his own.

“Where’s Katy?” Pam asked, working hard to keep the hope out of her voice.

“Oh, she had to do something with her sister,” Jim answered, and Pam felt her face stretch into a wide smile.

She took his coat, noting almost unconsciously how nicely his long sleeved t-shirt pulled across his broad chest. When she made a move to go up the stairs to put it in the pile in her room, Jim moved to follow her. “Don’t I get a house tour?” he said with a cheeky smile.

Pam felt her heart pound like it always did when he talked to her like this. There was no question, she beckoned him to follow her, and felt his presence close behind her up the stairs.

The noise of the party receded when she stepped into her bedroom where she’d left a lamp burning on the bedside table. She slid Jim’s coat onto the pile on the floor and turned  to him with a bright smile. 

He was gazing around the room as if he was in a museum, taking in her framed art on the walls, the ticket stubs and mementoes tacked to her bulletin board, and the books on her little shelf. She watched him, resisting the urge to hug herself with joy at having him alone in her bedroom. She was alone with Jim in her bedroom! She felt like she was fifteen again. 

“So this is the inner sanctum,” he said, grinning at her and shaking his head. “I finally get to see some of this art you’re so shy about.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not a big deal,” Pam could feel her cheeks heating up as he stepped closer to a watercolour she’d done last summer of her mom’s flower beds. 

“Pam, this is...amazing. You’re really talented,” he said, a note of wonder and maybe pride in his voice. When he turned to look at her she couldn’t answer, just pressed her lips together and shook her head quickly.

“I’m serious Pam. I mean, I know absolutely nothing about art, but I know this is good.”

He moved to the book shelf, and gave a little shout of excitement. “A yearbook? Oh, this I’ve gotta see!”

He pulled the book off the shelf and settled on the corner of her bed, flipping the pages.

Pam couldn’t figure out how to react, it was all happening so fast. Not only was Jim in her room, he was sitting on her bed. Looking at her yearbook. 

“Jim, um, you should know that I wasn’t super-cute in high school.”

“I don’t believe it,” he said softly, looking up at her. “I bet you had all the guys following you around.”

Her heart was beating out of her chest. What did he mean by that? He held her gaze for a beat longer than really necessary before looking back down at the glossy pages.

“Where would I find young Miss Pamela Beesly?” he wondered in a fake British accent that made her giggle.

“I’m not telling you,” she said with a grin.

“Hmm...what did Pam like to do in high school?” he pondered, and when he looked at her his smile was so mischievous that all Pam could do was shake her head. When he was like this, so playful, she couldn’t resist him. She’d do anything to just freeze this exact moment in time.

“Art club!” he crowed, flipping through the book. 

“Jim!” she shrieked, moving to pull the book from his hands.

“Uh uh,” he said, laughing and holding tight to the book. “I need to see where it all started.”

She laughed, sitting back on the bed. Their knees were so close they were almost touching, and Pam wondered what would happen if she nudged her denim-clad leg just an inch closer and made contact.

Before she could decide to try it, Jim let out a snort.

“Pam Beesly! Wow, check out that hair!”

He turned the yearbook so she could see, and brought his finger to the small photo of her with the art club. Yeah, her hair was something back in high school. Not her best feature, that’s for sure.

“Jim, I can’t believe you’d mock me,” she took on an injured tone. “My art was clearly more important than my hair.”

“Clearly,” he said, still laughing.

“I bet you were no prize in high school either,” she said, poking her tongue between her teeth at him, trying not to get lost in imagining teenage Jim.

“I’ll have you to know I was the skinniest guy on the basketball team in junior year,” he said with fake pride.

“The skinniest, huh?”

“Yup,” he grinned, pretending to crack his knuckles. “I was a real catch.”

Suddenly it felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room, and Pam didn’t know where to look. She bent, pretending to smooth some non-existent wrinkles out of the blanket.

“Well, obviously Katie thought so,” she said quietly.

“That didn’t, um, happen until senior year,” Jim answered just as quietly, and Pam glanced up quickly to catch his expression, but his eyes were glued to the yearbook page.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Pam said, but it didn’t make any sense at all. Why was he so weird about the woman he was supposedly in love with? Before she could form another question, Jim tapped the yearbook picture.

“So, I’m gonna need...at least three copies of this picture,” he said definitively.

Jim insisted that Pam didn’t need to know any details, but if she suddenly received a lot of weird calls, she should know it related to where he’d displayed the photo. In the fit of giggles that followed this, Pam felt her knee press against his. He didn’t make any attempt to move away.

By unspoken agreement, they knew they couldn’t stay in her room all evening. They both seemed to know exactly where the line was that they couldn’t - or shouldn’t - cross. Where their friendship ended and some mysterious, unknowable (but achingly intriguing) place began.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t think about it all the time. She was so curious. What would it take to bring Jim over that line, just once?

Pam took a mental snapshot of Jim standing in her room, thinking this image was going to need to last a long time. Maybe forever. She couldn’t imagine a situation like this happening again.

He excused himself to the bathroom across the hall, and Pam set the yearbook aside, already making a mental note to get her hands on one of Jim’s high school pictures.

She’d just turned off her bedroom lamp and was about to step out in the hallway when she heard another voice. 

“Hey Jim, what are you doing up here?” Phyllis asked, her tone playfully suspicious.

“Just, um, visiting the facilities,” Jim answered, and Pam imagined him gesturing to the bathroom he’d just exited.

“Hmm, are you sure? I thought maybe you and Pam were up here hanging out alone.” Phyllis’s voice was still playful, but her words had a bite. “Where’s Katy tonight anyway?”

“She had something else going on,” Jim answered, and Pam could hear a stiffness in his voice.

“I bet she did,” said Phyllis knowingly, and Pam could imagine her smiling as she said it. “Well, when the cat’s away, the mouse can play. Isn’t that right?”

Wow, Phyllis can be a real bitch, Pam thought. She didn’t question why she was staying hidden in the shadows in her own house. 

“I actually have no idea what you mean,” said Jim, and Pam could picture him rubbing the back of his neck with one hand the way he did when he was feeling nervous or awkward.

“Secrets are hard to keep in a small office, Jim,” said Phyllis, and then Pam heard the bathroom door close. Jim let out a breath with a loud woosh and then she heard him mutter, “Fuck” under his breath before he walked slowly down the stairs.

Pam waited a moment and then quickly headed down the stairs too. The last thing she wanted was for Phyllis to snoop around and find her here. What did she mean by secrets?