Popcorn had just been placed in the microwave in preparation for the start of the movie marathon when Pam heard the sound of someone moving about in the bullpen.

She was somewhat sure it couldn't be Packer yet. They'd only been up in the office about twenty minutes. In that same time frame, Michael had been to the bathroom twice and was in there for a third time eating his words about the Triple Whopper.

But it seemed too early for the goon to be there, unless he like them, had been waiting for Dwight and the guard, whose name already slipped her mind, to leave. However, her gut told her he wouldn't show up until much later.

It would be convenient if it were him out there. Then they wouldn't need to stay up all night keeping watch for him.

Sleeping would still be a challenge. Between the lack of a bed and the overload of worries, she'd was well aware she might not get much anyway but at least the Packer Patrol, as Michael had cleverly named their night of surveillance, would be behind them.

Whether or not it was him in the bullpen now, she was sure it was going to be a long night either way.

Before stepping over to look, she gave the men’s room a rap and then tiptoed to the door to peek through the blinds. It wasn’t just a single person she spied through the slats, but two bodies mulling about, however neither were tall, bald and obnoxiously loud. Instead, it was two women, one dragging a cart full of rags, spray bottles and other supplies, and one, almost as petite as Angela, wearing an industrial vacuum on her back. Both were busy at their job of cleaning the office.

“They keep coming later and later,” Michael remarked as he walked up to join Pam at the window ducking down so the pair wouldn’t see him.

Pam had her suspicions as to why, confirmed by his next statement.

“And they always seem unhappy to see me here when they show up. I don't get it.”

Pam did. She was sure he got in their way or made offensive comments or otherwise found ways to make their task more difficult than it needed to be, just as he often did with his own staff.  

“Come on, before they see me and yell at me again. I have no idea what they are saying but it's scary as hell, especially when that little one gets going. Now's a perfect time to show you the future site of Café Disco and then we can take cover in the warehouse until they’re done.”

Pam hardly thought it mattered to hide out. Being here with him she could prevent Michael from being the nuisance she knew he could be and angering the women as they worked. But what would they think that she was here so late with him? Might they suspect an affair?

On second thought maybe we should make ourselves scarce for the next hour, she mused to herself.

It was silly to worry what two cleaning ladies might think, but the just idea of anyone assuming she was involved that way with Michael made her decide it was best to hide. It was probably better to get out of their way.  Without two extra bodies around, they could be done faster.

Besides, Michael hadn't stopped talking about the secret room downstairs he wanted to show her and this would be the only time they could get away to see it without leaving his office unattended.  

««««««««

“So over here, I plan to put the sound system and here I’ll set up a coffee bar with expresso machine.”

“Espresso, Michael.”

“That’s what I said, expresso.”

It wasn't unusual for Michael to get a word wrong. Her hair clip was a 'baguette'. He often called her into his office after his 'epipheries' and there was her favorite, when she would hassle Jim why he hadn't yet landed the 'liberry' account. Every time he said it, Jim would flash her a look and rub his belly, making her crack up. One time he even stuck a post-it with a bold Li- written on it over the 'Mixed' on her Mixed Berry flavor yogurt. She felt a little silly when Angela caught her laughing by herself in front of the 'refridgerfrator', but lucky for her she had Michael's mispronunciation of the appliance to blame, and even got a nod of understanding when she explained it was thinking of how he said it that had her amused.

She almost felt bad about correcting Michael’s pronunciation when they went to the library last week. Jim was going to be so disappointed when next Michael pestered him about the account. Of course, there was the chance they wouldn't remember any of this, and he'd be back to saying it as if it was a fruit.

But this was one of the rare times when Pam understood why he said expresso as he did. Until Oscar corrected her, with his actually, though commonly thought to be pronounced with an ex, the proper pronunciation is espresso, she herself had made the mistake of calling it that too. 

Of course, she immediately looked it up. She thought for once, Oscar must have been wrong. It really made no sense, not only was the drink made by expressing the beans but also was made quickly, so why it was pronounced as such, with an ess instead of an ex, was beyond her. But the Internet confirmed what Oscar said was true.

Feeling a little like the pedantic accountant in doing so, she also corrected Michael.

“No, Michael, there’s no ex.”

“Are you sure? There should be an ex.”

“You know what Michael, in this case, I think I agree.”

Validation spread over his face in the form of an effulgent grin, which in turn made her smile too as she continued to looked around the small room, spying the wall with the shower unit which then wiped it away.

It was not what she envisioned when he told her about it. Although he said it was rusty and exposed, she hadn’t expected it to be a section of dirty tile with a few knobs and a nozzle jutting out from it. But from what Michael told her, it ran both hot and cold water, and on top of that, the pressure was heavenly. She supposed in a pinch she could use it but only after she tested that the lock on the room's door worked.

After the tour, they made their way over to the warehouse while Michael continued to outline his decorating plans to her and talk up how fantastic his café was going to be.

Pam had to admit it could be a nice spot to take a break from work and quite frankly, him, if done up as he was describing, but for now it was just an old closet that she was happy to get out of.

Based on Michael's experience from the last two weeks, they had another 30 to 40 minutes to wait out in the warehouse before the cleaning staff were finished and they could go back upstairs. Although she'd been down to the warehouse plenty of times, he seemed equally excited to show her around it as he had the secret space.

A blast of cold hit Pam the moment they stepped through the door and with each step down it only seemed to get colder. She knew from Roy that the large doors remained open all day as they loaded the trucks. As such, the air inside was nearly as frigid as the temperature outside but that wasn’t an issue during his day. The workers liked it brisk with all their physical labor to do. It was hard to see how but even in the dead of winter, Roy and the guys got sweaty and smelly as they loaded and unloaded boxes, and, as she knew, played basketball in the down time. The odor coming off him when she got in the truck at the end of the workday was not always masked by the body spray he often doused himself with before they drove home. The warehouse guys might appreciate learning about the shower in the nearby room.

On the few occasions she went down to see Roy during working hours, she always took a sweater, knowing how cold it was but even so after the visit always went straight to the kitchen afterward to make a cup of tea, the chill in her bones after seeing her fiancé hard to shake without something to warm her back up from the inside.

Tonight, though the loading deck door had been shut for a few hours now, it seemed colder than usual without the extra bodies working in the space creating their own source of heat.

Having left her sweater behind and with nothing more than a thin cotton tee, she began shivering. It was the kind of cold that got inside and stayed there even after the surrounding temperature warmed back up. The cup of tea she was already thinking about having once they could get back upstairs might not be enough, and she feared she’d never be able to get rid of the chill if she spent too long down here.

Seeing her quaking, Michael offered to take off his top for her to wear.

“That’s sweet Michael, but then won’t you be cold.”

And bare chested, she thought. She knew his shirt would not be enough to offset the frosty temperature, and she definitely didn’t want the extra discomfort of a half-naked Michael keeping her company.

She was just about to head back up, the cleaning ladies could think what they want. Besides, if Michael stayed behind to explore as told her he liked to do every night, they would have no reason to suspect anything unusual was going on between them.

“Hmm, well I can see if there’s a flannel or something in one of the guy’s lockers.”

It was a good idea, not as good as going back upstairs, but she didn’t think it was safe to leave him alone in the warehouse. Even though he’d been here every other night without incident, as least that she knew of, she also knew that it was just luck that nothing catastrophic had happened and there was only so much of that luck left.

But rather than take Michael’s shirt, leaving him to wear Lonny’s or Glenn’s, she assumed Roy would have something she could put on in his locker.

“Or I can see if Roy has something.”

Michael upon being given his reprieve took off towards the rolls of clear plastic on the wall, no doubt to test out the bubble wrap dance floor he told her was part of his plan for the office discotheque, while Pam hurried over to where the lockers stood on the other side.

The first thing she noticed when she opened Roy’s was the tangy odor, a mix of musk and sweat, simultaneously offensively pungent and alluringly sweet but it was what taped up to the inside of the door that took her breath away. She had to blink a few times before she could truly trust what her eyes were seeing, but there it was. The holiday card with the hand-drawn Wave Runners, the one she’d searched the house for but never found, because all this time it had been here in his locker.

Where she had been shivering from the chill of the air less than a minute ago, she’d all but forgotten how cold she was, focusing only on the one thought that sang in her head.

He did keep it.

Her card was here all along, and it was all she needed to know the art she created meant something to him; that he appreciated it and was impressed by her creative talents. Why else would bring it to work to hang in his locker if not because he liked it so much, he wanted to see it every day?

Finding it was enough to make her forget all the other stuff she found.

Almost.

But with all the other worries still locked in their boxes for now she could only feel the elation of the moment, glimpsing at what he gazed upon every day during the time they were floors apart.

Below the card, also taped to the door was a photo. Not of her or even of them, but of him alone at the helm of his 300-horsepower water scooter, a white crest of spray shooting up behind him as he straddled it.

It was one of many photos she took that first day when they took the new jet skis out. While she waited on the shore for Roy and Kenny to finish with their pissing match of dangerous stunts and driving too fast for her comfort, she snapped away with the new camera she received as a recent birthday gift from her parents. 

By the time Roy had finally come back to take her out for a spin, she’d used the up the whole SD card with photos of him, the lake and the cloud formations of the late day sky. The one he had pinned up was her favorite of the bunch too and the more she thought about it, the more she read it as another appreciation of her artistry. She likened it to how in Clueless, the character Elton kept Tai’s photo, because Cher had been the one to take it. Roy must be doing the same, displaying the best of the photos she shot during the beach outing.

All this time she wasn’t sure he even noticed her talents. He never acknowledged out loud what she could create with a pencil or a paintbrush or a camera. He never said anything complimentary when he caught her doodling. He never oohed and ahhed over the drawings she sketched during her down time at the reception desk that she would sometimes show him in the truck before they drove home. When on the rare times she would take out her paints at home, his only comment was, ‘I see it’s artsy fartsy time again’.

He never even seemed to even recognize that the cards she gave him every birthday and holiday were personally created, each one made from her own hands and heart and tailored to suit him—from the first one, a Christmas card with a snowman donning a football jersey and helmet both with his number, to this last, with the jet skis he couldn’t wait to return to the lake with every summer after the long stretches of winter.

But maybe she’d been mistaken to think that Roy wasn’t proud of her artistic side.

It was easy for her to read his attitude the wrong way. Her love of drawing and painting was one of the things he still teased her relentlessly about, just as he had back in high school when she took advanced studio art as her elective instead of home economics with the jocks and cheerleaders he ran with. Because he was constantly mocking her, she kept her aspirations mostly to herself. Sure, she made cards for him and showed him her sketchbook from time to time, but she never tried to talk to him about how she wanted to do something more with it.

The teasing, she figured that was one of those things boyfriends did, like how he made fun of her being a lightweight or when he pestered her in the morning to hurry up and get her contacts in so he didn’t have to endure her nerd look any longer than he had to, even after she went out and bought more stylish frames. She knew it was always in jest because of the smile he said it with, but she didn’t always find it funny.

But it was that he also never praised her, never followed with a serious comment to say how impressive her cards were or asked to see what she was drawing when she pulled out her pencils, that kept her silent and even caused her to doubt herself.

But maybe she was looking at his mockery all wrong.

She’d long ago stopped reading into everything he said and did, trying to figure out what he really meant. Once they got engaged, she no longer felt the need, the ring on her finger was all she needed to know.

Roy was to a large degree, still a child. He hadn’t grown much since high school, in some ways since middle school. And like a little boy, she knew he had trouble with straight out saying what he was thinking.

When he was upset about something, it came out as hostility and anger.

Apologies were made with silly faces and tickling.

Even when he proposed, he didn’t say much as he pushed a ring box across their breakfast table one morning. Pam had been too excited about what was happening to notice how few words he said as they got engaged.

The way he was about her art, maybe he was proud but his childlike mentality and inability to share his true thoughts had him expressing himself in the only way he could, with juvenile heckling.  Maybe the ribbing was his way of showing her, the equivalent of a little kid pulling on her ponytail in the kindergarten schoolyard because he liked her.

He did notice her talent. He was proud of her.

The photo and the card there in his locker were the proof.

Despite the temperature of the warehouse, a new warmth came over her as she looked again at the two representations of her artistry and this time she also saw the small third item taped up a bit separated from the other two. It was her, a photographic representation of the girl that once existed back some years ago, a snapshot from their high school days. In it, her hair was shorter but just as frizzy, her cheeks fuller, her smile wider. She had on his football jersey over her turtleneck, the garment so big it seemed to dwarf her smaller frame.

The old photograph was faded, the colors now muted and broken down from the years of exposure. Still seeing it was like a having another Time Turner in that it had her traveling further back in time to when their romance first began. When she felt like the luckiest girl in their school because he, who could have dated his pick of girls, had chosen her.

She passed her fingers over the photo, smiling as she did and then did the same to the more vibrant one of Roy among the waves. As she did, the chill of the cold air returned to her body, a shiver passing through her as if she were in the water with him being splashed by the cool surf.

Her body stiffened again and she ran her hands along her arms in attempts to create heat from the friction, before bringing them to her face over her nose to make a cavern of warmth from her breath. Neither effort did as much as putting on the large sweatshirt that she spied once she looked past the items on the door.

The chill not entirely gone yet but feeling warmer than she was, she went to close the locker, stopping just short of lifting the latch that would seal it shut. She yanked it back open, not realizing when she did the card shifted from under the cellophane strip whose adhesive bond was not as strong as it once was.

In all the years they were together, she’d never gone through this locker, just as she’d never gone through his bedside table, but again, once she breached it she was curious to see more, to learn more of the secrets that his private spaces held.

Where going deeper into the drawer had only revealed more doubt, including the suspicion of his infidelity, she hoped here in the locker, where he’d hung her card and her photo, there might be other hints of his devotion to her.

She started to loot through the jumble on the shelves, moving aside the work gloves and the bottle of Axe, the box of Slim Jims and broken sunglasses. Finding a snorkel among the other stuff confused her until upon closer inspection she inhaled the stale smell of beer. Seems following the boat trip, Roy had purchased his own to do shots with the rest of the warehouse guys who hadn’t been invited on the office retreat.

It was coming upon a book, Marley and Me, that she halted her search.

Roy, reading a book?

At that moment she had another memory of the booze cruise, a vision of sitting next to Katy while both the boys were off elsewhere and that look on Katy’s face as Pam shared things about Katy’s boyfriend the girl hadn’t previously known. She imagined it was same look she had on her own face now.

Except, technically Katy was not Jim's girlfriend. He’d told Pam the following Monday, how they were never that serious and that he called it off that very night on the boat. Katy’s lack of insight about Jim was understandable, they hadn’t dated long and according to him, were never all that compatible to begin with.

But Roy was her fiancé and she thought she knew most everything about him. As far as she knew, reading for pleasure was not something he did. Or was it? Maybe this was him growing, maturing, trying to make a change, maybe even because he knew it would make her happy. That it could be something they talked about and shared as they grew older together. She was sure she had mentioned wanting to read Marley and Me, in fact had dropped the hint for a possible stocking stuffer since she didn’t really need another pair of see-thru underwear or another set of his and hers shot glasses.

She decided this was her gift, he not only bought her the book, but was reading it too. It was just taking longer than expected because he was doing it during breaks at work.

But even finding the card, or her photo or even this revelation couldn’t completely erase the fear she had that Roy was keeping something bigger from her than the fact he was reading a book. That the effort to do something he knew would make her happy was just an attempt to assuage his guilt over the something terrible he had done.

Anxiously, she picked it up to inspect the pages for a clue as to why it was here in his locker. She hadn’t quite convinced herself that any of what she made up to explain its presence was the real reason it was.

As she turned it over in her hands, she noticed a bulge in the middle where a thicket of paper that seemed to be serving as a bookmark held the place. She opened to the spot to see how far he’d gotten, if he was in fact reading it, when it struck her that maybe he wasn't doing this for her, maybe it was someone else he was reading for. That’s why it was hidden away here.

With a lump in her throat to match the one she pulled out from in between pages 34 and 35, she found what seemed to be more than just a placeholder, but a note. A deep black ink seeped through to the other side of what was clearly a hand-written message.

She knew it was wrong to pry, that she had no right to be here going through his locker and reading his notes, but with all her other findings and all her suspicions she knew this might be her only chance to get at the truth.

With only a small measure of hesitance, she began to unfold it and that is when the distinctive blue square wrapper dropped down to the floor. Her head, as if suddenly made of lead, also nosedived with her eyes to follow the fallen condom to where it lay on the ground. It was the same brand as the missing one from the box and while yet unused, its turning up here left her with more questions than before.

The note, she hoped would answer them.

The first thing she noticed was the sloppy scrawl that covered the page. Her best guess told her it was a not a woman who wrote this and even if it was, the handwriting did not match that of the message she’d found in his drawer with the phone number.

In all likelihood this was from one of his warehouse co-workers and with eyes darting to the bottom she discovered it was in fact from Darryl. Understandable, Darryl was his boss and his friend and the note was likely some work thing or about their fantasy league and Roy stuck it in the book to save his place.

Except why was there been a condom wrapped inside of it?

Swallowing nervously, she returned her eyes to the top of the page.

Hey buddy, Thanks for letting me use your place. That girl was hot to trot. Here’s a condom I owe you, man. Hope it wasn’t a problem I broke into the box you had it the bedside drawer. This girl was so horny, she wanted to go again and I only had the one. I think this is your brand.

You know, you ought to get your woman on the pill. No reason you still need to be using condoms after all this time if you’re monogamous.

Speaking of Pam, I heard her mention she wanted to read this book. I just finished it so she could borrow it now, save you the trouble of picking it up for her.  It was a good read. You might even consider giving it a try after she’s done. Like I’m always saying, you oughta read a book once in a while.

Oh, and I might have forgotten to put the spare key back in its hiding spot. And bro, your picks that week were pretty good, but not good enough. Still beating you by 42 points.

Anyway, thanks for the use of your place and the extra wrapper.

Pam let out the breath she had been holding. Never could she have imagined she’d be happy to find out there’d been another woman in her bed but because it meant the missing condom hadn’t been used by Roy, she was. At least at first. Until she began to consider what she just discovered.

Curling up her whole face in disgust just thinking of it, she wondered how often this kind of thing happened when it dawned on her how lucky she was that Darryl and his ‘hot to trot’ girl hadn’t come around while she’d been there this past week. Of all the dangers she had considered in going back home, the trip gets cut short, Janet and Bob notice the lights on, she forgets herself and answers a phone call from his mom or hers, having Darryl come by to get busy in her bed was not on the list.

Normally, she liked Darryl. He was a mostly a good influence on Roy in that he was conscientious about doing his job well and had some more evolved interests that Pam could see beyond drinking and sports. Plus, he was a sweet guy, often doing nice things like passing along a book he knew she wanted to read. But he could also be a real pig sometimes and ewww, knowing he’d been in her bed having sex with some random woman, twice, just thinking it made her cringe. She had no idea when this was, but she was positive Roy did not wash the sheets after, since she wasn't sure he even knew how to use their washer. She was the only one who washed the bedding ever and she did it every Sunday, meaning she’d surely slept in Darryl’s sex sheets at some point.

Jesus Roy.

She supposed she should still be comforted to know he wasn’t cheating but the last bit of evidence found in his locker was not exactly delighting her in the same way finding the saved drawing or that he might be reading a book, did. Still, she wasn’t quite sure how to categorize this one, another ding in the bad stuff that comes from messing with time side or should she consider this a plus since it exonerated Roy and put him back in her good graces. On second thought, good graces was an overstatement being he was offering up their home as if it were the Dunmore Motor Lodge which everyone knew as the kind of establishment where rooms were charged by the hour rather than the night.

She decided to put that part out of her mind and focus instead on the other knowledge she came upon from rummaging through his personal space, the good things she learned.

Roy was being faithful, Darryl even said so much in the note.

He was potentially reading a book for the first time since they graduated.

But more than anything else what made her happiest was learning he was prouder of the art she created than she ever knew before.

She made a mental note to start washing her sheets more often and gently shut the locker just as Michael, wrapped like a mummy in bubble wrap, appeared at her side.

“Pam, Pam, check this out.”

He went to drop himself to the ground, but without full flexibility in his knees he struggled, making him look like a bowling pin bobbling back and forth, hovering precariously before toppling over.

Once down, he rolled himself along the floor, the bubbles exploding as he trundled back and forth sounding like kernels erupting similar to the snack still waiting to be popped in the microwave upstairs.   

“I’m popcorn.”

Unable not to, Pam burst out in laughter, so hard that tears formed in the corners of her happy eyes. Her middle shook in delight watching her childlike boss have his fun playing on the warehouse floor. No wonder he was content to spend the week here with no adult supervision.

Her mood so elevated since her discoveries, she was almost tempted to join him when he beckoned her to. It was only the thought of the hard, cold and dirty surface below them that stopped her and giggling she blurted out, “that's what she said.”

Michael stopped his roll at her feet to look at her with a mix of curiosity and pride, not knowing the reason for her comment but his face showing he was tickled nonetheless that she said it.

“Oops, did I say that? I thought I thought that.”

Pam continued to chuckle as she went on to explain her reasons for refusal as well as thinking aloud his catchphrase, “you know since the floor is cold, dirty and hard.”

“A good one my young recruit. I taught you well,” he uttered as he untangled himself from the plastic around him and sat up, gathering up the popped bubble wrap and with it the card she hadn’t noticed had fallen when she secured the locker door.

“What’s a Tiki Barber and why are his services so expensive? He must give a really good shave though cause look at all these other guys that go to him?”

Now it was Pam’s turn to squint her eyes in question as he continued with his reciting of names and corresponding numbers.

However, it didn’t take long before she figured out what he was reading off the back of her card. Without recognizing any more of the other names Michael rattled off, she was well aware these were all players on Roy’s fantasy football team and her handmade art was nothing more to him than a place to jot down his all his picks and their scores.