"You are bringing your boyfriend tonight, right?" Jim asked, covertly looking around as if to make sure they were alone, though his tone was playful.

"Yes, I am bringing D-"

"Wow there!" Jim interrupted. "No need to get into details and ruin the surprise for anyone. Just, can you give me a heads-up when you arrive?"

She looked at him suspiciously. He was being entirely too gleeful. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing really. I just need to find the perfect vantage point of view to see Dwight's face when you arrive with him."

It finally dawned on her what he was getting at. How had she not considered that bringing Danny to a Dunder Mifflin party would mean exposing herself to Dwight’s comments about loyalty and corporate espionage.

"Oh god."

"I don't think that Michael has ever met him, so that might be more of a delayed reaction. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one."

"Oh god."

They had not entered the warehouse for more than two minutes before she saw Dwight sprinting towards them like a hellhound on a mission.

“Karen, what is the meaning of this? Why is he here?” he asked in a rush, looking at Danny with open hostility.

“Hello, Dwight. Nice to see you again,” Danny greeted cheerfully.

Karen spoke before Dwight could respond. “Hey, Dwight. This is my boyfriend, Danny. I believe you’ve met before?”

“Do you even know who he works for?”

“Believe it or not, it has come up, yes,” she answered already wary of this whole conversation. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jim standing a few feet away from them, grinning like the asshole he was.

“Yes, she stole a client right from under me the first time we met,” Danny added, clearly enjoying himself too. “It was like fate.”

Dwight groaned like he was physically in pain. “You probably let her win this one to stroke her ego and to lure her into a false sense of security.” That preposterous jackass. He turned to look at her with a sense of urgency. “Karen, he is most certainly trying to steal important information about Dunder Mifflin from you. Don’t let your weak female impulses blind you.”

She was fighting her weak female impulses to knee him in the junk. She turned to Danny, putting on an air of concern.

“Is that true, Danny? Is that why you were asking about our market prices the other night in bed?”

“No!” Dwight exclaimed.

“No, that was just general curiosity,” Danny said at the same time. “When I asked you about your client list, that was to spy on you.”

“Dear god.”

“Was any of it real?” she asked imploringly, wondering if she could get Dwight to faint on the spot.

“Well, you see, during the honey pot training, they teach you to compartmentalize your feelings.” Dwight was buying this wholesale. You’d think he would get wiser after being pranked for years by Jim. “However, I fell for you anyway,” Danny delivered this looking straight into her eyes.

“Oh good, that’s fine then.” She reached out and kissed him gently on the lips. She could feel the weight of Dwight’s horrified stare on them. She smiled at Danny. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”

Danny smiled back and kissed her once more. He then turned to Dwight. “It was good to see you again. Let’s catch up later, okay?”

They headed towards the bar leaving a sputtering Dwight behind them.

“Danny Cordray! My reputation precedes yours, as they say.”

Michael had appeared out of nowhere as they were enjoying a drink after losing spectacularly at the blackjack table.

Danny shared a brief side glance with her before chuckling.

“That it does. Michael Scott, I presume?” He asked politely. She had tried to prepare him for this, but there are things you can only experience first-hand.

“The one and only,” Michael laughed delightedly. “Dwight has been talking my ear off for the last hour about needing to be careful around you. Something about James Bond and jars of honey? I just tuned him out after a while.”

“Don’t we all?” Karen muttered but Michael went on, blissfully unaware.

“So, Danny, what do you think about Dunder Mifflin? Not too shabby, huh? When was the last time that Osprey Paper had an event of this caliber?”

“I can honestly say that we never had anything quite like this,” Danny managed to respond completely earnestly.

Michael couldn’t look more pleased.

“Quite right. And who knows, we might convince you to join us, right?”

Karen could feel the dread from this whole encounter fill out her entire body. Even Danny, usually unflappable, laughed somewhat nervously, though he never lost his smile. “That’s an interesting thought. Still, I am happy at Osprey’s right now.”

“Come on. I’m sure that Karen would enjoy having her man working with her every day.” He winked at her, and it would require so much alcohol to block out that image from her memory. He turned back to Danny. “Don’t tell Ryan I told you this, but we could use another good-looking man in the office. What do you say?”

Did Michael even understand the concept of awkwardness? Without looking at Danny, she knew that he was struck speechless. As much as she would enjoy this in other circumstances, she felt it was her duty to get them out of this mess.

“Was it Jan I saw, Michael?”

“Huh? Oh yeah,” Michael smiled sheepishly. “I sort of invited her.” He laughed nervously. “I also invited Carol. Actually Danny, you might be able to help me with this. I’m sure it happens to a guy like you all the time. How do you deal when you invite two women to the same event? And they both turn up.”

How was that possible? Why?

“Michael, that is a very tricky situation you find yourself in,” Danny said in a serious tone. “One that only the most skillful of men can come out of unscathed.” Michael was hanging on his every word. Karen herself couldn’t wait to hear what type of bullshit he would come up with. “I will give you the best advice I’ve ever been given.” Michael nodded fervently. “Let love guide your way.”

Michael looked like he had just found religion. She finished her drink in one go.

Karen stepped out of the restroom when she saw Pam rushing outside in her blueish dress. Karen followed to see if she was okay, only to see Pam and Jim standing in the car park, looking at each other like they were the only beings in the universe. She knew she should leave them alone, but she saw the camera guy hiding behind a bush, and that was justification enough for her tipsy brain to stay where she was and see what would unfold.

“Pam. You have to know, right? I understand that you need space right now. And I would be happy to wait for you as long as you need. But tonight, I just need to know that you know,” Jim said imploringly.

You couldn’t make this shit up. These two were straight out of a Shakespearian play.

“I know, Jim. Can you tell me anyway?” Pam responded, getting even closer to Jim.

“What are we doing?” a voice behind Karen said. She jumped slightly and turned to see Danny standing right behind her.

“Shit, you scared me.” She gripped his arm and waited a second for her pulse to calm down. He smiled. He had such a great smile.

“Sorry about that,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “So, the spying?” he asked nodding towards Jim and Pam who were now holding hands.

“Shut up, I am weirdly invested in the love lives of my friends.”

He laughed. “Okay.” He put his arms around her and they both watched as Jim and Pam figured their shit out. They finally closed the remaining distance between them and kissed. Karen was almost moved to tears.

“Come on,” Danny said. “Let’s give them their privacy. And you can always watch the playback later.” He pointed in the direction of the cameraman still filming from the bushes.

Jim couldn’t stop giggling as she recounted their encounters of the third kind of the night. Pam had the decency to try to hide the fact that she was laughing.

“Shut it, Halpert. I’m pretty sure Dwight is planning to kidnap me at some point to stage a deprogramming or something.”

“Yeah. I don’t think it helped when I told him I saw you staring blankly at your monitor and muttering in Russian.”

Pam nodded before adding. “He seemed very interested when I said I saw you lurking in the office after hours.”

They looked at each other in acknowledgement of their respective cleverness. To say they were glowing was the understatement of the century.

“I hate you both. Meanwhile, Michael has mentioned something about having us over for dinner.”

Jim tore himself from Pam’s eyes long enough to answer. “That sounds exciting.”

“Laugh it up, but I am pretty sure the two of you will be invited too.”

She was hoping to knock some of the smugness from his face, but instead he looked back at Pam, obviously amazed at being associated romantically with her. God, they were nauseating. She smiled against her better judgement regarding indulging this type of behavior. She felt Danny reach around her and squeeze her arm gently. She turned to him, and he kissed the corner of her face. She let herself bask in the contentment of the moment.

Later, after Pam and Jim had left to go flirt some more at the poker table, she and Danny were sitting together enjoying some time alone.

“Any idea when you’re going to tell them about your new job?”

Karen glanced around, making sure no one was within earshot.

“I am planning to give Michael as little time as legally required. You saw how he was. Plus, now I am sure that Dwight will be convinced this is somehow because of you.”

“You don’t think you’ll be able to explain to him I had nothing to do with it?” he asked with a smirk.

“Sure, Dwight is a reasonable type of guy.”

“Alright. What about Jim and Pam?”

Yeah. As much as she complained about the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin, she wasn’t looking forward to telling the two friends she had made there that she was moving on. She had expected to be ecstatic about the prospect of leaving it all behind, but it was proving more difficult than she had originally thought.

“It’s okay that you are going to miss them,” Danny reassured her gently after she failed to respond. “And you’re not moving, you will still be able to see them socially.” This was not the first time they had had that conversation.

“I know. I guess I was waiting after tonight. It’ll be nice to have this one good memory. Weird and ridiculous, but nice nonetheless.”