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Author's Chapter Notes:

“I have a little dreidel/I made it out of schmaltz/And when I tried to spin it/It did a little waltz” – (I Have a Little Dreidel, by Schmuel Eliezer Goldfarb, additional verses)

Playing dreidel with Jim was fun.

Hanging out with Jim was fun.

Frankly, pretty much everything she did with Jim was fun, and it was making her a little bit worried.

She had never really enjoyed basketball that much, but she was very familiar with the concept of a “rebound,” and she was worried that she was doing exactly that with Jim.

Ending things with Roy was still raw and fresh—he wasn’t even back in the state yet—and so it was too soon to start thinking about having feelings for someone else.

Wasn’t it?

She thought about the party at Jim’s, and the way that Phyllis had simply assumed that she and Jim were the secret office romance. Thinking of basketball, she thought about how it had felt watching Jim and Roy play in the office game, and how she’d had her heart in her throat when Jim had taken Roy’s elbow to the face—and that hadn’t been concern for Roy. She thought about jellybeans, and visits to her desk, and the way she and Jim had jumped apart when they’d been pranking Dwight with fake disease names and Roy had come up the stairs.

Maybe it wasn’t a rebound after all.

She didn’t like to think it, because it felt like she’d been emotionally unfaithful to Roy even though nothing had happened, and she wasn’t a cheater. If she’d suspected that she was…

Well, she had, hadn’t she? She’d jumped apart from Jim even though they hadn’t been doing anything wrong. She’d avoided bringing up Jim at home even though they’d been best friends (though to be fair, she’d mostly avoided bringing up most of her friends, hence the absence of people she could invite over for her Chanukah party). She hadn’t even really talked to Roy about the party at Jim’s place, even though all the people there were coworkers and he always liked a good story about Michael being stupid.

So she had done her best. She’d even kept it from herself, let alone from Roy, and she’d tried. She’d tried so hard with Roy. She refused to let that relationship make her feel guilty about having other feelings after it was done, no matter when they began.

So, not a rebound then.

But then, even if she wasn’t rebounding, was Jim even interested?

She’d seen the kinds of girls he dated, when he dated: the one closest to her as a “type” was Katy, and well, hadn’t Kevin told her Katy was Pam 6.0? Jim didn’t date girls for very long, as far as she could tell, and he didn’t really tell her about them, but she’d caught glimpses—times when someone had pulled up and driven off with Jim after work, a girl who’d dropped off things for him at the front desk when he wasn’t there, one memorable time he’d been greeted at the door by an enthusiastic brunette with a tackle-hug and slung her around giggling.

That last had turned out to be his sister Larissa, but still: Jim hung out with women who were way out of Pam Beesly’s league.

Could she stand it if Jim, her best friend, rejected her?

And could she stand the office if she didn’t have Jim?

But also, could she stand herself if she just…didn’t ask?

Probably, she had to admit. She could probably just drag this out forever, enjoying the part of Jim’s attention she got, looking over at his profile at his desk, filling her bowl with ever more interesting varieties of jellybean (and maybe gelt) in order to attract his sweet tooth like a moth to a flame.

She could be content that way.

And honestly, thinking about the last three years with Roy from a new perspective, content would be an upgrade.

She was doing her best to be strong in this until the day of the office Secret Santa exchange.

Michael being Michael, he did the most Michael of things and made it a Yankee Swap just because he’d gone absolutely ridiculous in his own attempt to woo (if that was the right word) the intern, Ryan.

And that meant that she didn’t get to keep the absolutely lovely teapot that someone—obviously Jim, her heart said, and then, miracle of miracles, he said something about there being more to it, which meant it was Jim—had given her. It meant that other people out there could steal it, did steal it, were holding her teapot from Jim in their grubby little hands (all right, she might have gotten a little bit overexcited).

And that meant it was time for her to go on the warpath.

Oh, she had the video iPod? Who cared. Someone needed to steal it. She was loud. She was excitable. She bragged. And it worked. Kelly stole the iPod.

And she got the teapot.

She grinned at Jim and danced towards her desk.

And then stopped.

Loose leaf tea for Chanukah.

A teapot for Secret Santa.

She might be wrong, but she didn’t think she was.

And if she was right, she was doing this at Jim’s desk.

He winked at her as she danced over.

“The great thing about this gift, Beesly, is that it comes with bonus gifts.”

She ignored him for a moment, though the idea of “bonus gifts” certainly made her thrill. There was a card. She was going to read the card.

She didn’t care about the teapot.

She didn’t care about the bonus gifts.

(OK, that was a lie, but…)

She did care about the card.

She leaned over the desk, interrupting Jim’s very cute explanation (which they would definitely return to afterwards) of why there was a golf pencil inside the teapot with a kiss.

Later, she would wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t broken up with Roy the previous week (and thank her stars that she had her own Chanukah miracle that she had).

Christmas was definitely a time to tell people what you feel, but it turned out Chanukah had been a perfect time to do the same—if in the opposite direction.

Chapter End Notes:
And there you have it! Thanks for reading and reviewing, and I hope you noticed the little Holiday Fic things in there!


Comfect is the author of 25 other stories.

This story is part of the series, Holiday Fic Challenge 2022. The previous story in the series is A Dandy Daddy Christmas. The next story in the series is The Beacon.

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