She was thoroughly convinced that she’d never had less fun at a party in her life.

Pam was nowhere near drunk enough to find the humor in her current arrangement. As it was, she sat stiffly between Andy and Jim. She wasn’t entirely sure which made her more uncomfortable, Andy, with his ridiculous advances, or Jim…  

She sighed quietly and tried to enjoy herself. Phyllis was singing along to the karaoke machine, blushing at the proud look Bob Vance was directing her way. Ryan was staring off into space as Kelly hammered on excitedly about something. A few other co-workers were in the kitchen, refilling drinks. And then, of course, there was Karen. Pam could just see her, out on the back porch, the fog of cool air spilling from her mouth as she spoke to Roy.

It was odd, sort of, to think that Roy and Karen had hit it off so well. After a few weeks of Jim’s waning attention and Pam’s complete disinterest in reuniting with Roy, Karen had simply decided to take things into hand. She’d made a clean break with Jim, and had begun to focus her formidable determination on the poor, unsuspecting warehouse worker. The party itself was, fundamentally, nothing more than an excuse Karen had invented to invite Roy over to her new place. The other Dunder-Mifflin employees were just invited as a makeshift buffer, should anything go wrong. Honestly, though, Pam was happy for her friend. She hoped things worked out for the two of them. She thought she might be able to forgive herself for what she’d done to Roy if she could see him happy with someone as great as Karen.

Pam felt Andy shift beside her, and she froze, her thoughts immediately redirected to the conversational minefields he kept trying to engage her in. She wanted nothing more than to turn completely away from him and make it as obvious as possible that she was uninterested, but there was nowhere else to turn. To the left, disaster, in the form of pig-latin, frisbee golf, and ass-kissery on steroids. To the right, heartbreak, in the form of a dream she had let slip through her fingers. She and Jim had gone back to a semi-normal state since his split with Karen, albeit an incredibly uncomfortable one. Neither really seemed to know how to deal with the other anymore. Their relationship right now was a badly xeroxed copy of the friendship they’d once had.

Resigned to a fate of awkward conversation with one or the other, she decided to take a gamble and speak to…hold on. What was that?

“Uhm…Jim?” she mumbled hesitantly. She’d been startled from her thoughts when something had distrurbed the fine hairs at the base of her neck. It was one of those strange sensations that can either be very ticklish, or very sensual, depending on the situation. She wondered, vaguely, which type of situation she was in.

“Hmm?” was his slow reply. Funny, she hadn’t known that one could slur a hmm. He must have been drunk before she’d arrived, as she hadn’t seen him do much more than sip a single beer since she’d gotten here.

“What, uhh…what are you doing?” She could hear the crack in her own voice, and she flinched at the sound. She felt him lean closer against her, bury his face in her hair and sniff deeply.

“Smelling your hair.” It was almost ridiculous how sexy his voice was when he spoke so low and close to her ear. It made the tiny hairs stand up on end, which only made them more sensitive, and once again, she found herself wondering which type of situation she was currently in.

“Why?” she whispered (a little breathlessly, she thought, but couldn’t quite bring herself to care).

“Smells nice.”

She nearly grinned, despite herself, and had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from doing so. “Uhm…thanks. I-I guess it’s my shampoo.”

“Your hair always smells so nice,” he continued. “I could always smell it when you’d lean over my desk to conspire with me. Sometimes, when you weren’t paying attention, I’d brush my fingers just along the ends of your hair so I could smell you on my fingers.”

Her breath hitched, and the situation made a mad dash towards sensual. He stopped, momentarily, and she could feel his head cock slightly to the side.

“That came out slightly naughtier than I’d intended,” he mused. He leaned back into the corner of the couch, away from her, and rested his head on the arm of it. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

“I guess that makes you kind of a perv,” she answered slowly, pausing for his reaction.

He hunched his shoulders in a makeshift shrug. “Come on, Beesly. You know me how well? And that’s the thing that tips the scale towards perv for you?”

Pam smiled, finally, and looked at him. He looked so peaceful. She relaxed into the couch, leaning ever-so-slightly towards him, and began to breathe easier for the first time in almost seven months.

She was thoroughly convinced that she’d never had more fun at a party in her life.

***