In his defense, the plan was accidental, yet ingenious. The fact that it even happened was a miracle, for a number of reasons. The first being that he honestly didn’t think Pam would allow herself to get this close to him outside of work, knowing what multiple boundaries had been constructed between the two of them. The second being that he wasn’t sure that Pam would even believe him, for whatever reason. The third being that the talk that started it all off was merely light conversation at lunch. 

It was no surprise that it had been a long, relentless day. So they were both desperate to let off some steam during lunch. There were only so many bathroom breaks and front desk trips he could make within an hour, whilst there were only so many bathroom breaks and silly faces she could pull at him likewise. Especially since he’d run out of things to casually say whilst pretending to grab a couple of jellybeans and she’d run out of faces to pull.

The current topic of discussion revolved around weekend plans. Jim listened to her rattle on about Roy taking his truck into the shop for a somewhat spontaneous servicing, something about the tire being slightly flat, as he nodded along in the appropriate parts.

“I’ve been thinking about getting a car of my own,” she confessed. “I mean, just the one vehicle between the two of us right now isn’t practical. I mean, I’d understand if we had kids or something, but we don’t, and I can’t see us having any before we get married. Heh, like we need that kind of pressure.”

‘Whenever that may or may not be,’ Jim added mentally, his tone rather dark. Instead he simply nodded along. “Might not be a bad idea.” He murmured casually before swigging on his water. She looked over at his lunch; ham and cheese sandwich, bottled water, an apple, carrot sticks and, for the first time in possibly forever, a brownie. Pam cocked her head to the side slightly upon seeing this. “Is that a brownie?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I made them myself last night. They came out pretty well. Though as you can imagine I received no help from Mark, who instead opted to shoot sarcastic comments and lick the batter when he thought I wasn’t looking.”

“He’s like a devolved version of you.”

“Add on ‘unfunny’ and that’s accurate enough. It’s probably why we get along so well.”
She giggled, and his heart melted, as it so often did whenever she did just about anything. He picked at said brownie with his plastic fork strategically for a few seconds. “Well, honestly, this is the second batch. I forgot to add eggs to the first one and if my life were a cartoon, Mark would have literally exploded from laughing at me.” This earned another unladylike but adorable snort from her. “I’m lucky the second batch turned out as well as it did.” Pam eyed his food, though she attempted to hide this fact. 

He smiled, knowing he had her by the neck (though he wished this could be said physically and not just metaphorically too). “Lucky for you I have a couple in my bag.” Jim said, observing as her eyes lit up upon hearing this news. “Wait here.”
A minute later, he re-entered the break room with a tub of brownies. Pam sat up, clasping her hands together. “Yay! Thank you!”

‘I love you.’

“Anytime.” Jim said instead, choosing to ignore his brief internal monologue, then sat down beside her once more and cracked the tub open before handing her the biggest piece he could find in the small plastic container. She bit into it then gasped. “It’s sho good!” She said through a mouthful, though she looked embarrassed a second later upon realising what she’d just done, then swallowed. “I didn’t know you were such a good cook.”

“I try.” He shrugged half-heartedly. Pam continued to chow down for a minute or two before she spoke again. “Mm, this just gave me even more of an incentive to get myself a car. Roy’s truck is full of junk. Everytime I get out I always end up nearly breaking my neck falling over some McDonald’s packaging or another. It’s so unclean, and usually I’m not bothered by junk in people’s cars, but it’s like an infestation there. Pfft, I’m starting to think this is a better idea every day.”

“Well, maybe it can be good for you. I imagine you guys spend a lot of time out, so I bet you argue over who’s having the car for the day.”

She chortled. “Yeah, like you wouldn’t believe it. Only setback would be the cost of it all…as it is with most stuff.” Her face fell all of a sudden. “Still, I can dream. Hey, here’s a hypothetical.”

“Oh, these are my favourite pastimes.” He teased, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Shut up. Anyway. If you could have any car in the world, no matter the cost, what would it be?”

“Actually, I take back what I said. That’s not a bad hypothetical.” He rested his head on his hand and looked off into the distance. “Can’t say I’m much of a car guy, but…maybe I’d go for a Saab or something. They’re practical enough.”

“See, now there’s a sensible answer. When I asked Roy the same question, he said a Lamborghini.”

“Nothing if not ambitious. That’s somewhat commendable. Plus, you did say no matter the cost.” He pointed out, and she nodded thoughtfully, having not come to this conclusion herself previously. “It’s still kind of unimaginative though.”

“Yeah, that’s my issue with it. I’d probably go for a Yaris.” She mumbled dreamily.

“Hey, they’re not too bad. A little small, mind you. My sister has one, and when I tried to get in the car shook.”

“That’s cuz you’re about 8 foot tall.”

“Hey, at least I’m not a gremlin.” He teased, and she giggled. “Whatever, green giant. Anyway. If I were to get a Yaris, it’d probably be manual. Maybe then I could finally teach Roy to drive stick. He doesn’t believe I’m an effective teacher, which only hurts a tiny bit.”

And that’s when it hit him.

“I don’t know how to drive stick,” he mentioned as casually as he could, following it up with a drink of water.

“Huh? You don’t?”

“Nope. I have an automatic. Every car that I’ve ever owned has been automatic.” Realistically, this was on the lower end of most impactful lies he’d ever told, and yet it still felt like the largest. “It kinda sucks too, since I’ve always been interested in driving both. I’ve just never got around to it though.” He chose not to eye her suggestively in an attempt to garner free needless lessons out of her, but allowed the pause that followed to linger. He looked down at the table, hoping she’d get the message.

“Well…I would teach you. But like I said, there’s no way I can realistically get another car. "

“Mark has a manual.” He blurted out, probably a bit too quickly. “Um, I don’t think he’d mind if…we borrowed it.” Jim felt too shy all of a sudden to look her directly in the face. Besides, he had a pretty clear understanding of what would be said next; something along the lines of ‘oh, I don’t know, I just have a lot going on right now’ or ‘I’m not sure Roy would like it’. And yet, no such thing came. 

“Um…okay. Yeah. Yeah, why not?" Pam mused in a surprisingly cheerful tone, smiling at him. "When do you want your first lesson? I'm a little busy tonight." By that she meant that it was the one night of the week where Roy didn't go out drinking or to a poker game or to Lonny's apartment, and instead spent actual time with her (though here there was a sparing use of the phrase, since he usually paid more attention to the TV, especially if a football game was on). This was also usually their takeaway night, and because so, the evening usually played out like this; they'd eat, watch whatever generic sitcom rerun or sports game was currently entertaining the screen ahead of them. After this, depending on whether Roy had had a beer with his dinner, they'd either have extremely monotonous sex (which she supposed got the job done, so to speak, but wasn't exactly the most thrilling experience she'd ever sat through) or he'd pass out on the couch and drag himself off to bed after he'd woken up hours later. She almost always preferred the latter.

"Um...tomorrow?" He queried, still in a state of shock upon hearing her approval. 

"Okay, great!"

This was definitely going to be interesting.