“Dwight, is it absolutely necessary to install that alarm system right this minute? I don’t think it’s within your jurisdiction as a Volunteer Sheriff’s Deputy to install prototype systems like this. My landlord might get mad.”

Angela folded her arms and stood a safe distance away from Dwight, who was kneeling by her apartment door with a monkey wrench, two blowtorches and a restaurant-grade sushi knife. He lifted his welding mask briefly to turn with a reassuring smile.

“I know what I’m doing, Angela. This alarm system is both foolproof and viciously effective.”

“If you say so.” Angela sipped at her small cup of green tea. “So the minute the sensor identifies unknown pupil patterns passing through my door…”

“…the wasabi spray will be activated from these two corners,” Dwight explained, jumping up to point out the hidden nozzles, “and the knife will be dropped so that the tip dangles exactly six feet from the ground.”

“But what if Jim ever comes in?”

“I programmed his pupil into the system,” Dwight placed his hands on his hips. “But why would Jim ever come into your apartment, Angela?”

She shrugged and sipped at her tea again. “No reason.” She turned and walked back into her bedroom. “I’m getting dressed for work now. You’d best leave now if you’re switching cars at the abandoned lot three blocks away from work instead of two.”

“I left my car at the two.” Dwight placed his blowtorches on Angela’s kitchen counter and pulled on his suit jacket. “Goodbye, Angela.”

“We’ll meet again in half an hour, Dwight.”

Dwight took his key from where it was buried in the flowerpot next to Angela’s doorway cross. As he stood up again, he noticed a well-worn piece of paper tacked at a perfect right angle on the magnetic door. A gloating smile broke out across his face.

“Angela, I am forty-five points ahead of you.”

“What? How?”

“You don’t notice the glances, Angela,” Dwight laughed, reaching for the handle of the door. “You can’t see the glances.”

He left the apartment and secured the locks five times each before getting into the elevator. Angela came out of her room and picked the piece of paper up from where it had fallen on the ground, grabbed a pencil and retraced the fading letters “PAM PONG: APRIL”.

~~~=]~~~

Somehow, in the three years that he had worked at Dunder Mifflin, Ryan had only used the HR complaint files a few times. Kelly seemed to file complaints every two hours when she was supposed to be doing real paperwork. They mostly consisted of requests to move a certain desk closer to another certain desk intermingled with paperwork campaigning for an employee’s rights to paint their own wallpapers.

Ryan largely suspected that Toby didn’t bother to read Kelly’s complaints anymore, just shoved them into a file for later. He suspected that Toby spent far more time writing emails to his Vietnamese penpals than he did reading employee complaints. But Michael was reaching an unprecedented level of creepy, and Toby’s desk in the back was far from Michael’s eyes and ears. So he waited for Kelly to go to the bathroom – she always waited until the last minute, so that she didn’t miss a single thing he did – and then quietly made his way to Toby’s desk.

“Toby, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Toby hastily closed out of his game of chess and turned to face Ryan. “How can I help you?”

“Um, it’s Michael.”

Toby sighed and pulled a legal pad out of his desk drawer. “Start.”

Ryan leaned against the desk and checked his watch. “It’s about ten o’clock now. I started counting at eight this morning, so…um…Michael’s been sending me emails from his David Bowie account at a rate of about one every three minutes.”

“David Bowie’s on Yahoo, right?”

“Um, I think he got a new one. It’s MSN now.”

“I see.”

Toby finished writing and stapled the paper to another important-looking form, then dumped the two pages onto an inch-thick pile in a corner of his desk. “Y’know, you can come talk to me anytime. It doesn’t even have to be for a complaint.”

“I know,” Ryan nodded and anxiously peeked out of the break room door. Michael was pacing in front of Pam’s desk with a pair of Discovery Channel binoculars in his hands. “Um, I have to get back to work.”

“All right,” Toby sighed, and turned back to his chess game. As Ryan turned to leave, Toby leaned back over to call him again. “Ryan? Have you heard about it yet?”

Ryan shook his head. “Um, what?”

“Never mind.” Toby smiled faintly. “Watch for an email from Creed. I promise it won’t be hippie pornography this time.”

~~~=]~~~

At about ten thirty, Kevin got the email. He was counting the number of Dum-Dum wrappers he had stored in his desk drawer for a week when Oscar threw an old, broken paper football at him, their prearranged signal for “check your email, it’s worth it”. When he did, he forgot all about the number he had kept in his head and turned to give Oscar a dark stare. He stared back and nodded. Kevin did his best to keep his snickers down, but as usual failed miserably.

At ten forty-five, Kevin casually got up and made his way to the break room, stealthily dropping a Skittle on Meredith’s desk. It was their prearranged signal for “there is an important email. It’s worth it.” Meredith’s AA group had recommended that she not read her emails anymore, as some shrewd net spy had discovered her alcoholism and had begun to send her windfalls of spam with titles like “Cheap vodka, in you momma’s cellar” and “come 2 drink @ my place bb”. It was no loss to Meredith, as she was barely interested in Michael’s forwards and corporate stuff, and besides, she heard all the good stuff from Kevin anyway. When the Skittle landed, she waited two minutes and then stood up to follow him into the break room.

“Who was it from?”

Kevin let the snickers fly. “Creed.”

“Kevin, I swear, if it’s anything like that video of the pigs and that poor little dog – “

“No, it’s not.” Kevin bought a fifth pack of Sour Gummy Worms and sipped at his Coke. “Creed’s calling a meeting.”

“Of what?”

Kevin’s eyes slowly trawled over to meet hers. “Poor Richard’s, right after work today. Leave work alone, drive in at least two circles before heading over, and don’t bother coming if you are being followed.”

“Oh…” Meredith nodded and took the Coke away from him. “I’ll be there.”

Kevin snatched the can back. “There’s no rum in it today. Don’t bother.”

“Damn.”

 ~~~=]~~~ 

Dwight quietly rearranged the refrigerator magnets while Angela fixed another pot of coffee. Coffee mugs were excellent for hiding conversations in, and it was a well-documented office-wide observation that Dwight murmured to himself while rearranging anything.

“I will drive you to Poor Richard’s tonight,” Dwight whispered.

Angela choked on her coffee and grabbed a napkin to wipe it from her chin. “Why? And how will you explain it?”

Dwight moved one of Michael’s stick figure faces off from where it was straddling Pam’s stick figure and next to where stick-Dwight was lying on the ground with red bar magnets under him. “Security reasons. For now, I must fix your apartment, because your apartment is suffering…termite damage.”

“You used that two weeks ago.”

“You live in a very termite-prone area of town.”

Angela sighed and lifted the mug back up to her lips. “What’s the real reason? Tonight is not a cookie night.”

Dwight frowned and turned stick-Dwight onto his feet. “I sprinted to work this morning. My car was at the three.”

Angela hid her smile into the black rim. “I thought that was you. Perhaps tonight will be a cookie night after all.”

Dwight grinned wolfishly and pulled the red bar magnets off. He began arranging them differently. “So I will bring you to the meeting tonight. You should probably bring your tallies.”

“I’m up by ten already. I watched for glances whenever I could.”

Dwight stepped back from the fridge and walked to the door. As he passed Angela, he murmured a few words: “I’m up by twelve.”

Angela walked over to the fridge when he was gone. The red bar magnets had been arranged in the shape of a cape around stick-Dwight’s shoulders. She smiled and pulled one off, placing it in his hand. A lightsaber.

~~~=]~~~

Creed tossed back another shot of straight tequila and looked around the table. “Are we all here?”

A chorus of slurred phrases rose to greet him. Meredith reluctantly put her vodka bottle down and gently took the gin from Kevin’s hands. Angela glared at her drunken coworkers and nodded curtly. “Present.”

“Excellent.” Creed waved at the bartender, and raised another shot glass. “This meeting of the Committee to End Really Obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension is now in session.”

Ryan waved his hands frantically. He had hardly touched his beer. “You said this was just a get-together! You said drinks were on you!”

Creed shrugged and downed his shot. “I lied.” He turned his attention back to the group at large. “The Committee is now in session. First item on the agenda: Jim and Pam.”

Ryan’s eyes grew wide as realization hit him. “Is this how – February thirteenth – “

Creed grinned. “Yup.”

Ryan looked at Kelly, who was watching him with a dark look in her eyes, and swallowed hard. He loosened his tie and reached for his beer. “Of course.”

~~~=]~~~

~~~!~~~

Creed had formed the Committee to End Really Obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension about three years ago, when the temp had come in with a chip on his shoulder the size of the entire state of Pennsylvania. Creed had looked at the temp, looked at the chatty Indian chick staring at the temp, and put two and two together to make five: the ultimate rib, the ultimate exasperation, the ultimate frustration for any guy was to be with a chick like her.

Back then, the Committee had consisted of Toby, Jim, Oscar, Kevin, and an unwilling Stanley who ended up doing nothing. When the mission was accomplished, the Committee was put on indefinite hiatus until another real assignment came by. Upon its return, Creed added the Indian chick, Phyllis, and little miss vodka.

He had forgotten to send Jim an invitation, and on second thought he realized it was perfect this way. Toby had told him the real reason why the hot Stamford chick had left earlier this month.

It wasn’t like Creed had anything better to do. There were only so many bats that could fly into the office, and bringing people together would have made Lennon proud. Besides, the bottle of iguana aphrodisiac in his desk drawer had inspired him. No matter how disgusting it tasted.

~~~!~~~

Stanley had refused to go to the first meeting of the new committee. “Creed,” he had said in the parking lot, “I have much better things to do with my time.”

Creed had nodded. “I’ll send you a report. With instructions.”

When Stanley opened his email the next morning, it was there. A single message from Creed, with no subject line as usual. He opened it.

From: creed@dundermifflin.com
To: shudson@dundermifflin.com 
Subject:  <no subject>

During Michael’s little field trip today, get in the van as fast as possible.

Stanley sighed and got back to work.

~~~!~~~

At exactly two o’clock, Michael burst out of his office with the worst “Gooooood morning Vietnam!” in recent memory.

“So who’s excited for our trip today, huh? Huh?”

Dwight leaped out of his seat and pumped a fist into the air. “I’m excited, Michael!”

Michael ignored him and turned to Pam. “Pam? You excited? You super hyped up? You psyyyched?”

“I’m excited, Michael.”

“Pam!” Michael sniggered, and Pam looked up from her game of Chinese Checkers. “Y’know…we’re taking a van…with leather seats…and I think you should sit in the backseat with me…mmkay?”

“What?”

“C’mon, Pam! Haven’t you heard White Houses?” Michael burst into falsetto. “My…first…time…hard to explain. Rush of blood, oh, and a little bit of pain – “

“Michael, no.” Pam fixed her sternest schoolteacher eyes onto him. “Absolutely not.”

Andy jumped up and stood by Michael, fixing his eyes on Pam. “On a cloudy day, it’s more common than you think,”

Dwight screamed, “He’s my FIRST MISTAKE!”

“No, no, no!” Michael yelled. “No, Dwight, you’re ruining – you ruined the song, you…no…okay, y’know what, let’s just go on the trip. C’mon. Into the vans.”

Jim turned to Pam and gave a lopsided grin. “Vanessa Carlton. Who knew.”

Pam giggled. “If they could fall into the sky…”

“God, Beesley,” Jim chuckled, “such a dork.”

“Then what does that make you? Friend-of-dork? Y’know, you’re a dork by association.”

“I prefer to think of myself as adorkable.”

“Ohhh,” Pam’s mouth was a perfect oval. “I did not just hear you say adorkable.”

Jim shrugged into his coat and cocked his head in mock contemplation. “That makes you adorkable by association, hmm? Honestly, Beesly, I have to agree.”

Jim turned then to gulp down the last of his soda. He didn’t see the huge smile break out on Pam’s face. She didn’t see the huge smile break out on his.

~~~!~~~

The entire staff of Dunder Mifflin sat miserably in the Philadelphia cold of the parking lot. Michael was frantically pushing buttons on his cell phone, having retreated to a small corner between his car and Dwight’s. “Where is the van?” He hissed.

“Michael, can we wait inside?” Kelly squeaked from where she was bundled up in Ryan’s stolen coat. “It’s freezing out here, and Ryan’s getting very cold.”

Michael waved his arm frantically behind him. “No, no, no, it’ll be here any minute. Just…channel your inner, uh, Caucasian, Kelly. We’re built better for cold, we…have more hair on our bodies in the important places.”

Jim tilted his head. “Wow, Michael, that is really smart. How do you know about Asian body hair?”

“Well…there was a woman last year that I met at…the movies. It was Hero. Anyway, um…ah…oh, look at that, the van guys are calling.”

Dwight shifted very close to Jim and spoke almost into his ear. “I saw Hero. There was a sex scene with red sheets and when she – “

“Okay, Dwight.”

A moment later, a large gray van pulled into the parking lot to Dwight’s lone cheering. Michael rushed forward and tossed a few bills at the driver before tossing him out of the van and taking the driver’s seat for himself.

“Shotgun!” Dwight raised a fist.  “Michael, I said shotgun, I’m going to drive with you!”

“No, uh…I believe Ryan called shotgun first, Ryan, could you come up here, please?”

“Ryan didn’t say anything, Ryan didn’t even speak, Michael I called shotgun, the rules of shotgun are clear and absolute.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan called weakly, rubbing his arms frantically. “He can take shotgun.”

“Dammit,” Michael hissed.

The entire office seemed to be in a terrific hurry to get out of the cold. They bundled too quickly into the van, and in all the pushing and shoving, Pam was left last to find a seat.

“C’mon, Pam, this baby seats ten!”

“We have eleven people. Andy and Toby and Angela decided to stay.”

Kelly piped up impatiently from the backseat, where she was holding onto Ryan’s right arm. “Pam, just get in beside Jim back here. Hurry up!”

Jim shrugged. Pam nervously crawled to the back of the van and settled in the little space not taken up by Jim’s large frame. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t so big.”

“That’s what she said!” Michael screamed from the front of the van, pulling it into reverse and screeching out of the parking lot. He stopped abruptly just before crashing into Kevin’s car.

The sudden lurch propelled everyone forward and then slammed them backwards again, and somehow Pam ended up crashing into Jim’s chest. She reached blindly to catch her bearings. Her hand landed in the space just next to his thigh, and her curls reached up to tickle the bottom of his chin.

“Sorry,” she murmured awkwardly, and sat back up in her space, tensed up. Jim muttered something like “don’t worry about it” and tried hard not to think about the scent of lavender.

Kelly reached into the row in front of her and tapped Kevin on the shoulder, who coughed three times to alert Phyllis, who let out a long and loud sigh to catch Oscar’s attention. Creed was sitting right next to Oscar in the front row, polishing the silver of his seat belt buckle, and only gave a bored nod as Oscar muttered the details. He then strategically moved the belt buckle so that the light glinted off of it just right, casting a small bright square onto the dashboard directly in front of Dwight.

Dwight looked at the square, looked back at Creed, looked at Michael and pointed to a dirt road on the side of the street. “Turn right.”

After half an hour, Michael turned to Dwight with a look of confusion. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” Dwight nodded. “Turn left. And then after that, turn right again. Then make a U-turn and turn left.”

“Got it,” Michael muttered. “Where in the land of Mordor is my Mapquest printout?”

Oscar coughed and shifted in his seat. Something in his back pocket crinkled.

~~~!~~~

Pam giggled and pointed out the window. “There. K.”

“What?” Jim threw up his hands. “Are you serious? What was it on?”

“Try our new corn chowder.”

“Pam, there’s no K in corn chowder.”

“There was on the sign.”

“God…” Jim sighed and shook his head. “All right. L for me then.”

He leaned over to peer out the window, catching Pam in the junction of his shoulder. It was then that Pam realized that his arm had been lying on the seat behind her head. Jim reached out a hand to grab onto the handle above the window, and Pam suddenly realized how close they were sitting. She was effectively pinned under his body.

“Found it!” He grinned and pointed to a passing billboard. “Ad for Baked Lays. M for you now.”

Pam tore her eyes away from the little hollow at the base of Jim’s neck and looked out the window. She saw a large billboard immediately and coughed a little. “Uh, Match.com. Find your true love here. That’s, uh, an old ad.”

When she looked back at Jim, his eyes were on hers. He was frozen, the muscles in his arm tightening where he’d rolled up his sleeves. His lips were slightly parted, a bead of sweat running down his brow from the heating system that Dwight insisted on keeping at 75 degrees. Her eyes left his eyes and wandered down to his lips. She could feel a little gasp escaping her despite her best efforts to keep it down.

Jim coughed slightly and tore away, looking out the window again and dropping his arm. “So I’ve got N, right?”

“Yeah, you do,” Pam murmured, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ears. He made a show of looking out the window and she laughed a little, trying her best not to notice that his other arm was still around her shoulders.

Kelly let out a tiny squeak which alerted Kevin, who nudged Stanley’s thigh beside his. Stanley looked up from his crossword puzzle long enough to tap Meredith in the front row with his pencil. She reached into the front seat's cup holders for a bottle of water and knocked Dwight’s armrest up.

Dwight didn’t even look back. “Make another left, Michael.”

~~~!~~~

After two hours, Stanley convinced Michael to head back to Dunder Mifflin. Per Dwight’s instruction, they returned to the parking lot in a short ten minutes. They emptied out of the car and returned upstairs, ignored Toby’s smiles and packed up to leave.

“How was the trip?” Toby quietly grinned at Creed.

“Pretty good,” Creed nodded, tipped his hat and left.

Pam was putting her coat on and organizing her last faxes when Jim came up to her. “So, Beesly.”

Pam dropped a stapler. “Oh, uh, hi Jim.”

“We had to stop at 10-11, but I swear,” he shook his head playfully. “I’ll win.”

“Not likely,” Pam retorted, “because the next letter is V. And I have a secret weapon for the next time we play it.”

“Oh, really?” He reached over to grab an M&M. Pam tried hard not to think about him slipping and M&M through his perfect lips and fumbled with her stapler instead. “And when would be the next time we play it?”

“I dunno,” Pam flustered, trying to sound casual. “Whenever we’re driving someplace together.”

Jim nodded and tapped a little on the edge of the counter. “All right then. See you later, Pam.”

“Bye, Jim.”

He could still taste the M&M on his tongue. She watched his frame disappear through the door and around the corner and tried hard not to think about the warmth of those shoulders.

~~~!~~~

The next morning, Ryan came into work early to finish up some orders he hadn’t pushed through yesterday. There was an email from Creed in his inbox.

From: creed@dundermifflin.com
To: rhoward@dundermifflin.com
Subject:  <no subject>

Phase one is deemed a moderate success. 

Phase two is coming. 

~~~!~~~

Ryan Howard had been in a fraternity in college. Everyone in the office knew it. Michael and Dwight liked to tease him about the initiations, asking questions about egg yolk and itch-powder condoms. One April Fool’s, he came into the office to see a paddle with a hole in the center partially encased in Jello lying on his desk. Kevin routinely asked him questions about sex, and Meredith liked to ask him about beer. “I don’t know if any of these people have ever been in a fraternity,” he had once told the camera guy off the record. “Actually, sometimes I question if any of these people have ever been on a date.”

The subject of his fraternity never ceased to bring Dwight amusement. After the first disastrous initiation at Schrute Farm – an experience Ryan preferred to block out of memory – Dwight had tried numerous other times to “initiate” him into the salesman’s life. The attempts had ceased after he had been forced to move within ten feet of Kelly’s desk, but the teasing hadn’t. The office was always dangerous for him – Michael liked to send the two of them on “joint errands” – and over time he had learned to look out for himself.

It was only natural, then, that when he pulled onto his street that afternoon and saw the familiar cars lined up on his driveway, he panicked.

“Ryan?” His roommates were standing awkwardly by the mailbox. They had been frat buddies in college – how convenient. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan muttered, closing the car door and locking it. “Where are they?”

“Backyard, on the deck.” Dylan crossed his arms and grinned. “Your girlfriend’s here too.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Ryan whispered as he walked briskly to the house and made his way toward the deck.

“Ron!” Creed nodded and lifted a can of Big K in his direction. “Nice of you to join us!”

“Why are you in my house?”

He shrugged and pointed to Kelly, who was bright pink. If possible. “I’m sorry, Ryan, they wanted a place to meet and they all suggested your house and they knew I had a key and – “

“What? How did you get a key?” Ryan ran a hand through his hair as he heard Dylan’s mocking laughter. “Dammit. Okay. What do you all want, is it that ridiculous committee again – “

Kevin snickered from where he was poking Dylan’s girlfriend’s plants. “Is this a fern, Ryan?”

“Shut up, Kevin.”

Creed raised his Big K again and motioned for Ryan to sit. “C’mon, c’mon. We’re in session.”

Ryan sat down with a scowl, and Creed continued. “Phase One was an immense success. Now we need to determine a course of action for Phase Two. Suggestions?”

“Uh,” Kelly stood up with a sheet of notebook paper in her hand. “I’ve got a few ideas here that I think are…worth mentioning.”

Ryan almost raised a hand to stop her, but reached down to grab a Sunkist instead.

“Number one, have Jim and Pam go to the Heathrow Airport in London. Hugh Grant says that love is big there, so…that’d be good. Number two, have Pam disappear for seven years, so that Jim builds a house for her and then when she gets back, have him canoe her out onto a lake with a bunch of swans and then have it rain, and…that’d be pretty good too. And number three, have them do a play together and then give Pam, like, I don’t know, the flu or something, ‘cause we can’t give her cancer.”

Dwight raised his hand. “Question: Why would Jim build a house?”

Creed sighed and shook his head. Phyllis went back onto her laptop and Googled “hugh grant heathrow airport”. Stanley finished his crossword puzzle and moved on to the sudoku, and Meredith went back inside to find the beer.

~~~!~~~

By midnight, they had hammered out a plan of action under porch floodlights and five of Dwight’s portable mosquito candles. Kelly was leaning against Ryan’s shoulder, pretending to be asleep. Meredith had given up long ago and was inside having shot contests with Ryan’s roommates. Stanley had finished all his puzzles and had commandeered Phyllis’ laptop.

Creed and Dwight were huddled in a corner right beside the floodlight, a slightly crumpled piece of paper smoothed out on the table before them. Dwight held a pencil between his teeth and Creed knocked back his fourth Big K. When he came down from the last swig, Dwight was holding the paper at arm’s length.

“Is it complete?” Creed gasped, tossing his empty can onto a growing pile behind him.

“Yes,” Dwight whispered. “Yes.”

~~~!~~~

“And that is why, Michael, I believe that we should have a morale boosting activity today.”

Michael reached a hand over to fiddle with the Chris Rock bobblehead on his desk. “So you’re sure that they’re all very depressed about that squirrel?”

“Absolutely. They printed pictures and framed them.” Dwight placed two hands on Michael’s desk and leaned forward. “Some are considering drastic measures.”

“Oh, okay, Dwight,” Michael nodded and stared into the space just above Dwight’s left ear. “I suppose we could…I mean, if you have the contacts at the hotel, I don’t see why not.”

“Excellent.” Dwight nodded. “Will you make the announcement?”

“Sure, fine.” Michael sighed and leaped out of his chair, opened the door to his office and let out a breath he’d been holding. “Ladies and gentlemen, it has come to my attention that the morale in this office is at a low. Therefore, we are taking a relaxing mental health day, effective immediately. At a spa. Together.”

Jim raised an eyebrow. “A spa, Michael? You mean a place where people take off their clothes?”

“Michael, you can’t really…” Toby piped up, shuffling his feet.

“Oh, shut up, Toby. When somebody in this office chooses to…kick their own bucket, it can be on your conscience.”

“Michael, where is this spa?” Kelly asked. “None of us have bathing suits.”

“There will be a store at the spa,” Dwight placed his hands on his hips. “As long as you all have money, you will be fine. Those of you who do not, come see me, and we can arrange for some other method of payment. Indentured servitude.”

“Let’s go!” Michael motioned to the door. “C’mon now!”

Jim casually sauntered by Pam’s desk and stole a Skittle from her private stash. “Thanks for the candy, Beesley.”

Pam gave him a look of mock annoyance and stood up with her purse, following him toward the door. She put on her jacket and reached over her desk for a hidden packet of M&Ms, throwing it at Jim. He caught it effortlessly and tucked it away into his pocket. “No problem, Halpert.”

~~~!~~~

“Dwight, I need some money.”

“For a bathing suit?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t carry swimsuits around with me in my purse…”

“And you shouldn’t. Risk of infecting the swimsuit with a bacterium from inside your purse. Then the next time the swimsuit comes in contact with your bare flesh – “

“Dwight.”

“Fine. I’ll pay for a swimsuit for you, but I get to choose.”

“That’s not fair, Dwight.”

“Would you prefer to walk into the pool completely naked?”

“Thanks for your help, Dwight.”

“You’re welcome, Pam.”

~~~!~~~

“Jim, do you need a pair of swimming trunks?”

“Actually, us guys are just planning to, uh, jump in with our boys hanging free.”

“Absolutely not. Public health nightmare.”

“I was kidding, Dwight.”

“Do you need a Speedo?”

“I’m not wearing a Speedo, but y’know who needs one? I think you need a Speedo, Dwight. Show off your muscular body.”

“I’m not gay, Jim, so stop hitting on me. And I already have a Speedo for myself.”

“All right then. And I have money, I can buy something for myself at the hotel.”

“Fine.”

"Is Andy wearing a Speedo?"

"Andy...won't be joining us today."

“Is Michael wearing a Speedo?”

“Absolutely. What does he have to hide?”

~~~!~~~

Jim, Kevin, Ryan, and Toby had all changed relatively quickly. They left Oscar in the locker room pulling his wetsuit on and hit the pool first. Kevin had taken over the Jacuzzi and kicked another young couple out. His shorts kept ballooning, and Jim was fairly sure it was not just because of the water. Ryan and Toby were sitting under the massage waterfalls, shoulders slumped over, and Jim decided to swim a few laps. That all changed, though, when the girls’ locker room door opened and they all came strutting in.

Kelly was first, in a bright pink bikini with little yellow flowers. She leaped eagerly into the pool and swam over to Ryan with remarkable speed, taking root on his arm again. Phyllis was wearing a one-piece with stars over her front, and she sat down on the stairs in the shallow end, feebly kicking her legs now and then. Angela was wearing an old-fashioned one-piece with a skirt. Meredith’s one-piece had several dubious stains on the front, and Pam was wearing a light green bikini.

Jim stopped swimming and lifted his goggles.

Pam and Angela sat on the shallow-end stairs with Phyllis for a while, and then Pam swam over to talk to Jim.

“So what’s this I hear about Dwight and a Speedo?”

Jim strategically kept his eyes on her face, drumming his fingers against the pool edge. “And Michael. Can’t forget that. What’s this I hear about Dwight picking your swimsuit?”

“Oh, that,” Pam flustered a little and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, nervously pulling on her right strap. Jim dropped his goggles under water and quickly reached down to pick them back up. “I didn’t have any money, so I asked him for some, and he decided to pick what he bought.”

“Could’ve asked me,” Jim offered. “I bought my trunks on my own.”

Pam couldn’t help it – her eyes traveled down Jim’s body and to the dark blue trunks. She flustered more, and Jim dropped his goggles again. “Um, yeah, next time I’ll definitely ask.”

“That’s what she said!” came an enormous shout. Michael and Dwight barreled out of the locker room and came running toward the pool. Jim grabbed Pam by the arm and pulled her toward him, out of their way.

“Cannon ball!” And a giant splash sent water raining over the edge of the pool. The few other guests who were still there quickly left. From the safety of his Jacuzzi, Kevin snickered.

Pam’s shoulder was pressed against Jim’s chest from when he’d pulled her out of the way. Her head was turned away from him, looking at Michael and Dwight play splashing games with everyone in the pool, and her neck looked so soft and inviting. The skin on her shoulder felt like cream, and her right arm was braced against his, clinging to the edge of the pool.

She turned, and Jim backed away slightly. Her cheeks were tinged slightly with red, but she smiled at him and said, “How long do you think we could get away with calling Michael ‘Hasselhoff’?”

“Oh, gee, I don’t know,” Jim reached down and pretended to get his goggles from where they’d fallen a while ago. Pam felt a sharp tug on her right ankle, and suddenly she was underwater.

With a bubbling laugh, she resurfaced to a grinning Jim. “Oh my God, I think you just dunked me.”

“I’m pretty sure I did.”

“How old are you?”

“It’s not a matter of how old you are,” Jim said, smiling ear to ear with water dripping from his matted hair. “It’s how fast.”

And then his arm snaked out, and Pam was underwater again. This time, however, she was smarter, and at the exact moment he had started smiling, her hand was already out.

They pulled each other underwater with cheeks full of air and arms flailing to keep each other down. Pam’s hand brushed against Jim’s shoulder, pressed lightly on his chest. Jim ran one hand through her halo of hair and another down the side of her arm. His touch shocked her, and she let go of her air. She flailed upward to regain oxygen.

They burst out of the water with simultaneous gasps, and Jim’s hands were immediately at Pam’s elbows, steadying her. “You all right? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she gasped, unconsciously placing a hand on his chest. “I’m okay.” She noticed too late that she was touching him again and jolted backward as if he had electrocuted her. “I’m, uh, going to go check on Angela.”

“Yeah, um, I’m gonna go talk to Kev.”

“Okay.”

“All right.”

They parted ways. Dwight glanced around to see if he needed to use the established signals, but every eye was on their retreating figures. Dwight grinned like the Cheshire Cat. Phase 2b to now commence.   

“Everyone, I have an announcement.” He clambered over the edge of the pool and stood with his hands on his hips, in his Speedo. “We are now moving to the hotel sauna, to cleanse the illness from your pores. Please retreat to your respective locker rooms, undress, put on a towel, and make your way to the sauna. Attendance will be taken upon entry. That is all.”

From the look on his face, Dwight could tell that the only word Jim had heard was ‘undress’. Closer inspection of Pam’s hunched shoulders revealed that the same held true for her.

~~~!~~~

The sauna, surprisingly enough, was not the hotbed of awkward that Pam had previously imagined. Her coworkers seemed perfectly used to chatting with half-naked people. Pam’s towel, wrapped around her just below the armpit and extending about as far as a pair of Soffes, seemed far too short, and she had wrapped her hair up in a towel on her head to avoid overheating the back of her neck. She sat between Michael and Jim and couldn’t help but feel that it was a sabotaged situation.

Jim, for his part, seemed perfectly relaxed. He had leaned back and rested with his elbows on the top edge of the wooden bench, legs extended and ankles crossed. He had a single towel wrapped around his waist. Pam refused to think about anything below it. She kept her eyes focused on the shining wooden floor and on occasionally rubbing the sweat from her body. She noticed too late that people were slowly filtering out of the room.

The last two in the sauna with her and Jim were Dwight and Angela. She could have sworn Angela looked at her and smiled before Dwight closed the door.

She was alone. In a sauna. With Jim.

Now it was awkward.

“So, uh…” Jim coughed a little. “You go to saunas often?”

“Not really,” Pam said, sounding much louder than she meant to. “Too sweaty for me.”

“Really,” Jim turned and gave her an amused Jim-face. “Too sweaty, Beesly? You not a fan of exercise? Of cleansing the illness from your pores?”

A laugh bubbled out of Pam before she could hold it back. “Nope,” she clicked her tongue. “Can’t say that I am.”

They lapsed into silence again for a while, and then the heat in the room seemed to go up another five degrees. Pam let out something of a strangled moan and subtly pulled her towel a little higher, rubbed at the back of her neck.

Jim’s eyes nearly glazed over at the sound of that moan. Without thinking, he blindly reached to his left for a small, dry towel and handed it to Pam.

Pam took the towel, fingers brushing only slightly against his palm, and rubbed at the back of her neck, her forehead, and then across her collarbone. Every single one of Jim’s nerves was quite literally on fire.

Then Pam leaned over to drop the towel back onto the tray, reaching her arm over him just enough so that he could feel her heat, and Jim lost control.

He reached up and cupped her face with his hand, gently stroking her cheek with his thumb. Pam’s eyes closed shut and her mouth opened just enough. Her reaching hand dropped to the space on the other side of Jim, and her other hand seemingly guided itself on its own back to the familiar space on his chest.

Jim reached forward to whisper into Pam’s ear, but she turned her head and it was just a split second that her lips brushed against his cheek, but it was enough. They were too far gone. Pam’s hands wrapped into Jim’s hair, over his broad shoulder to cling to his back. One of his hands brushed the side of her towel-covered stomach and rested on her hip, the other bracing the side of her cheek. The kiss was long, languid, and relieved, as though a toothpick had been holding up all the weight of Lake Michigan and was finally, blissfully, simply letting go. Pam kept her eyes closed the entire time, her hands pulling him into her and her into him.

It wasn’t until Pam felt the knot at the back of her towel coming apart that her eyes snapped open and she pulled abruptly back. Jim felt her move away from him and realized himself that they had let it get too far again, and the shadow of a memory from a distant parking lot passed briefly through his mind.

Pam reached forward, as if to say something, but then pulled her towel back up and ran out of the sauna. Jim waited, hardly breathing, until the door was firmly closed and her footsteps could no longer be heard in the hall. Then he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, his body suddenly colder in that scorching sauna without her warmth.

~~~!~~~

Stanley Hudson was very good at sneaking off. He had utilized his powers to avoid the ridiculous morale-boosting spa activity Michael had planned. He figured that Jim and Pam would realize sooner or later that they were in love with each other, and it just wasn’t his problem. So he felt very little of the panic expressed in Dwight and Creed’s email the next morning.

From: dkschrute@dundermifflin.com; creed@dundermifflin.com
To: shudson@dundermifflin.com
Subject:  <no subject>

Lunch today, break room
Emergency plans need to be formulated
Drastic measures must be resorted to
If you choose to skip, bear in mind that I, Dwight K Schrute, have the company address book and I DO know where you live. 

~~~!~~~    

“I just don’t understand,” Oscar muttered, shrugging helplessly. “When two people, obviously in all sorts of love, are locked in a sauna together, what else is supposed to happen?”

“Maybe we should have locked it.” Kelly nodded and rubbed her right eye sleepily. “Pam wouldn’t have been able to get out…”

“And why didn’t we lock it?” Phyllis asked from the corner.

“Because locking the door of a sauna is extremely dangerous, people!” Dwight exclaimed from his perch on top of a stool at the front of the room. “There could be an accident, or a malfunction in the steam heating, and the room could overheat and literally cook the patrons alive. Cooked Jim. And Pam. Do we really want that?”

“You don’t want to go with cannibalism,” Creed said from his own stool. He shook his head and tucked his fingers under his chin.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore.” Oscar sighed and leaned back in his chair. “What else could we possibly do? Nothing.”

“Well…” Kelly reached down into her fake Gucci purse and pulled out a brightly colored brochure. “If absolutely necessary…”

Dwight’s eyes went wide. “Where did you get that? Why have you been hiding it?”

“I don’t know,” Kelly nervously fingered the edge of the brochure. “It was at the airport. Beside TV Guide’s Sexy Issue.”

“It’s absolutely perfect,” Dwight breathed, reaching forward on bended knee to take the brochure into his hands. “Kelly…thank you.”

Kelly shrugged. “Last-ditch attempt. I mean, seriously, if you guys had locked me and Ryan in a sauna back when we were the case, we might not have had to get so drunk.”

Ryan bit his lip. “Maybe.”

Phyllis leaned over and meekly raised a finger. “What if we’re wrong? What if Pam really doesn’t want to be with Jim?”

A long silence.

Then, Kelly: “That’s, like, the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kevin snickered, and Dwight just shook his head. Phyllis slunk back down in her seat. It was just a thought.

~~~!~~~

“Ladies and gentlemen, into the conference room, stat!”

Pam looked up from her game of Bubble Shooter and immediately wished she hadn’t. Michael was standing in front of the conference room with a big grin on his face. With his shirt unbuttoned. In his boxers.

The Dunder Mifflinites filed into the conference room with mortified, blank stares, each trying to keep their eyes off of Michael’s chest hair. Toby was last in line. Michael stopped him at the door.

“Toby, this is a body image seminar,” Michael whispered. “I’m afraid you can’t be a part of it. We can’t have any negative reminders of body image in this conference room.”

Toby shrugged and went back to his desk. From inside the conference room, Jim raised a finger. “Uhh…Michael, is that a naked woman on the wall?”

Kelly gave a shriek. “Oh my god, it’s Paris Hilton!”

Kevin and Creed made the same sighing noise and shifted left to right in their seats. Ryan’s eyes were wide, and Oscar looked bored.

Michael shut the door before Toby could look over again. “Welcome to the Dunder Mifflin Body Image Seminar of 2007!”

Pam looked like her cat had just been shot. “Body image….?”

“The media gives us…so many negative indications of our own body image. And I feel that there are some people in this office who need a self-esteem boost now and then.” Michael pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket. “Paris Hilton is not a perfect woman!” He circled the nose in the poster, drew ten little arrows pointing into the circle. “Look at that! Just look at that!”

Pam’s mouth dropped open and she turned her head to Jim, sitting in the row ahead of her. At the exact moment, he turned around with a smothered grin on his face, but the minute their eyes connected, they sharply looked away as if somebody had Tasered them both at the exact same time.

Pam shifted her legs and rested her elbow on the arm of her chair, traced the edge of her lip with her pointer finger and tried to focus more on Michael’s seminar and less on the memory of Jim’s chest under her fingers, his heartbeat on her palm.

Dwight slowly dropped his pencil and leaned down to pick it up, pulling on Creed’s shoelace in the process. Creed cleared his throat three times and scratched his head twice. Meredith leaned back and propped her feet up on the chair in front of her, applying gentle pressure, and forced Stanley out of his stupor. Kelly took note of Stanley’s quickly opening eyes and reached under her chair to pull out the brochure.

“Do you need this, Michael?”

“Yes, thank you, Kelly. This is excellent. Now, to talk about the average female American vagina…”

~~~!~~~

At lunch, Dwight and Kelly came to a realization: Jim and Pam were, like, totally awkward around each other now.

And it was their fault.

Dwight had a plan.

Kelly quietly shoved her brochure back in the second drawer. It would be unnecessary.

~~~!~~~

“Okay, listen up everyone,” Michael called when all were seated for the afternoon session. “This is now a self-esteem-building activity.”

He held up a stack of what looked like forms. “This is a questionnaire. Each of you will fill out one of these, front and back, and hand it in at the end of the activity. If you choose not to fill it out, hand it in, or fill it out with ridiculous answers, you will receive a pay dock.”

“What?” Stanley balled his fists up.

“You heard me!” Michael nodded. “You heard me.”

“Michael, that’s ridiculous,” Pam piped from the back. “You can’t dock our pay because we refuse to do a questionnaire.”

“Lalalalalalalaaa Lucy in the sky…With diamonds…I can’t hear you, Pam, in fact, I don’t even know what you’re saying right now. You might not be saying anything right now. I don’t know. Anyway.” He turned to face the other side of the room. “Partner up, and each one of you take a questionnaire. Actually, no. I’ll assign partners. Partnering up fosters choosiness and…clickers in the workplace.”

“You mean cliques?” Phyllis asked.

“No, Phyllis, don’t be ridiculous,” Michael looked disgusted. “A clicker is a socially selective group of people. A clique is something a ten-year-old puts in her hair.”

He turned his attention back to the group at large. “Uh…Stanley and Phyllis, go to the break room. Ryan and Kelly, go to your little hole. Uh…make things interesting, Creed and Meredith to the parking lot. Jim and Pam to the stairwell. Oscar, go with…Kevin. You’re basically gay anyway, and that is perfectly fine.” He turned to leave, and then turned back again. “Oh, yeah. Dwight and Angela, just go to a hallway or something.”

Jim and Pam stood up at the same time and shuffled out of the room with their heads down, trying not to look at each other.

Dwight grinned and took a questionnaire. “It’s working,” he whispered to Angela as they walked back to her cubicle.

~~~!~~~

“All right,” Pam sighed as the heavy stairwell door swung shut. “Let’s get this over with. First question: What do you think is the best part of my personality?”

Jim exhaled. “Uh, your unbelievably strong attraction to Dwight.”

“Jim, this is serious, stop screwing around.” Pam sat down on the floor by the window. The stairwell smelled like rubber and scuffed shoes. Jim sat down beside her, and she got up and moved to the top stair.

“Whoa now,” Jim looked more than a little surprised.

“I just want to get this over with.” Pam nervously tapped her pencil on the edge of her questionnaire. “C’mon.”

Jim’s gaze softened. “Pam, I think we need to talk.”

“No we don’t, no we don’t, dammit,” Pam shook her head. The tapping intensified. “Just hurry up – what’s the best part of my personality?”

Jim nodded and swallowed once, then looked at his questionnaire. “Uh, you? Um…your sense of humor.”

Pam scribbled it down and spoke directly into her paper. “What’s the best part of my body?”

“Your eyes. And nose. And hair. And cheeks. And shoulders.”

Pam bit her lip and wrote it all down. Her voice shook as she asked the next question: “If the building was on fire and you saved me, what would the reason be?”

“You’re, uh…” Jim folded the top edge of his paper and unfolded it again. “You’re a friend.”

Pam’s voice floated from her hunched figure on the stair. “How many dates would have to happen before you would kiss me?”

Jim folded the edge again, then slowly shredded it off. “One.”

“Do you think I’m prettier than Katy was?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I’m prettier than Karen was?”

“Yes.”

“No matter who you end up with, do you want kids?”

“Yes.”

Pam’s voice was ragged. Jim stopped shredding his paper when he realized that she hadn’t written anything down in a long while.

“If we were in a relationship, would you register it with Human Resources?”

“Yes.”

“If we were in a relationship, would you want to move in within the year?”

“I’d want you to move in with me. But yes.”

Pam choked a little on her words, and buried her head further into her paper. “Do you consider yourself a good kisser?”

Jim lowered his voice to a gentle timbre. “Yes.”

“Do you like my hair?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like my clothes?”

“Yes.”

“If I showed up at your door one morning at 3 AM, would you let me in?”

“Yes.”

“Jim, am I a good kisser too?”

He exhaled. “Yes.”

“Oh, fuck it – “

Pam stood up and her paper went flying down the stairs, her curls went flying over her shoulder and she launched herself at Jim. Her momentum carried them across the space he had been pacing through and gently slammed his back into the wall beside the window, his legs and her hips sandwiched between the rail and the heating unit. Her mouth was on his and her hands were behind his ear and on his chest again and she was pressing her knee between his. Oxygen was never an issue. Neither, for that matter, was the window. All he could hear was the sound of their breathing and the rustle of fabric as she slid her skirt off of her hips and clenched at his shirt.

She broke off for half a second to look into his eyes. “I wanted to kiss you, Jim.”

He chuckled. “I know.”

“I meant on Casino Night.” Pam’s eyes were new and dangerous, filled with a light Jim hadn’t seen before. “I wanted to kiss you.”

Jim brought his lips back to hers in response, and couldn’t resist smiling into the kiss as she let out a little groan and brought one of his large hands down the curve of her side and to the soft skin of her thighs. His fingers found wetness at the exact moment her hands slid under his shirt, and the stairwell dissolved into brightness and the rough feeling of painted brick on his back.

~~~!~~~

Dwight’s Discovery Channel binoculars were near-identical to Michael’s. They were also excellent for viewing through stairwell windows from a parking lot many meters away.

“Whoa, look at them go…”

“Ohmygod!” Kelly grabbed Phyllis’s hands and danced around in a circle. “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!”

Creed shook his head and peered through his telescope. “O ye of little faith.”

Michael came out of the building and approached the group on the pavement with his own Discovery Channel binoculars in hand. “What’s going on here? Birdwatching?”

“Not quite.” Dwight’s mouth dropped open. “Damn, they moved onto the other wall. Can’t see them now.”

“What’s going on?” Michael peered up through his prized possession. “Oh my God, is that Jim? And Pam?”

“Yup.” Ryan looked oddly happy.

“Ohhhh!” Michael chortled and started running for the building. “I’m so busting them!”

Dwight, Kevin, Creed, Toby, and Kelly were in front of him in a flash.

“Don’t even think about it,” Kelly hissed.

“Not a good idea,” murmured Toby.

“Michael, no.” Kevin shook his head slowly and made a slashing movement with his arm. Dwight just glared.

Michael looked at his much taller employees and retreated back to the corner of the pavement, peering up through his binoculars again. “Well, okay, I guess it can wait.”

~~~!~~~

Jim and Pam came running out of the stairwell half an hour later, both extremely flustered and haphazardly dressed. Angela was waiting.

She glanced at the two of them with a raised eyebrow, then pointed at the stack of questionnaires on the conference room table. “Got your papers?”

They ran back into the stairwell to find them. Just before the door swung shut, a snippet of conversation echoed up to Angela’s waiting ears.

“Jim, let me get that – your tie is crooked.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Jim, c’mon, it’ll only take a second – Jim – ah!” An overflow of giggling. “No, it’s not fair, you know I’m so ticklish right there – ah – ahhhh…I’m not ticklish there...“

The door slammed shut just as another peal of giggling came rising up. Angela reached down to rearrange the stack of female papers and let herself smile a little. Just a little.

Jim leaned back in his chair, casually resting his arm on the back of Pam’s chair and absentmindedly stroking her shoulder with his thumb. “Where’d you get those, Dwight? Staples? Meet Josh?”

Dwight’s eyes narrowed, and he turned his right shoulder to Jim and spoke instead to Michael. “I got the highlighters, Michael. Michael, do you want me to – Michael?”

Michael’s mouth was buried in his fist, his eyes twisted shut and a huge grin stretching the corners of his mouth. His eyes flicked back and forth from Jim’s face, to Pam’s face, to the left corner of the door, to Dwight’s right shoulder, to Creed’s backward tie, and back to Jim’s face.

Jim’s mouth fell open at the same time Pam’s did. He pulled his arm back around to rest on his lap, and she straightened up and sat in her seat instead of leaning into his shoulder.

“Hey Jim!” Michael choked in between sniggers. “Jim! Jim! You should…you should thank Dwight!” He dissolved into chuckles again.

Pam looked at Jim with a mix of fury, confusion, and panic plastered all over her face. Jim, for his part, was completely confused. “What?”

Kelly shot up out of her seat and threw her Cosmo onto the ground by Dwight’s feet. “You told him about the Committee?!”

Ryan sat up straight and looked at Dwight as though he had run over his pet dog. “You told him?” 

Phyllis, Angela, Oscar, and even Stanley burst into a squawking cacophony of protests. Dwight held up his hands and let the notebook fall to the floor. “I am innocent! You are accusing the wrong man! Attica! ATTICA. Wait – hold on - ”

Jim stood up. “Quiet! Quiet, please!”

The room fell still.

“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Jim looked at Phyllis expectantly. “Neither Pam nor I has any idea. Please?”

The room was still quiet. Nobody wanted to meet his eye.

Then Creed coughed and spoke up. “We had a Committee, Jim. The Committee to End Really Obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension. Remember?”

Pam’s look of confusion spread. Jim coughed. “Yeah, I remember. Ryan and Kelly?”

“Yup.” Creed nodded and continued. “Anyway, we came back together about a month ago to begin another case without you. You and her.”

The back of Jim’s throat suddenly, inexplicably, became very dry.

Michael’s sniggers reached a breaking point, and he burst out in Todd Packer laughter. “You had no idea! Oh God,” he gasped for air. “You and Pam are such clueless mind-bongs!”

Creed turned to Dwight. “By the way, I told Michael.” He shrugged. “Performance reviews next month…you take what you can get. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s five o’clock and I have to leave.”

Creed stood up and simply left the conference room, picked up his briefcase and jacket, and left. After a short silence, Kevin and Oscar followed. Then Stanley and Andy (Drew), Phyllis, Angela, and Meredith, and then it was only Pam, Jim, Michael, Dwight, Kelly and Ryan left.

Kelly bent down to pick up her Cosmo and huffed angrily at Michael. “Ohmygod, Michael. I can’t believe you let them know. You’re the mind-bong, not them.”

“Let’s go, Kelly,” Ryan murmured anxiously as he led his girlfriend out the door, thoughts of performance reviews and business school applications filling his head.

Dwight slowly placed the 30-pack of highlighters on the podium before slowly exiting the room, keeping his body aligned toward Michael, Jim and Pam at all times. Michael sighed and picked the notebook up off of the floor.

“God, you two.” He sighed again and chortled. “Such mind-bongs!” And then he left.

Jim was still standing when the door shut behind him. He turned to Pam with a wild, scared look in his eye, but she was composed and was standing up to leave.

“Let’s go back to my place,” she simply said, and he followed.

~~~!~~~

Jim popped a crouton into his mouth and smiled. “So, we gonna talk about it?”

“About what?” Pam asked, her previously adoring glances becoming fainter.

“The Committee to End Really Obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension.” Jim beamed. “I think it’s quite the achievement.”

Pam squeezed the bottle of Caesar almost viciously, the gooey mess slopping all over her salad bowl. “You don’t think it’s a little wrong that they set us up like that?”

Jim waited until she set the salad dressing down and looked at him. Then he reached forward with one swift motion, lifting her up and sitting her on the kitchen counter like a little kid.

“Oh really?” She reached down and gently pushed his hands to a stop. “It was? Even with – “

“Yeah,” he said, cutting her off. “Even with. It would have happened. I promise.”

She relaxed into a smile and moved her arms to circle around his neck, laced her fingers on the ridges of his spine. Let her mouth fall a little open when he leaned forward and kissed the spot just to the left of the hollow of her neck. “I suppose we should thank Dwight, then.”

“Oh, Pam,” he groans. “No…”

She laughs, and it’s not because of the joke, or the bit of Caesar dressing her fingers left on the inside of his wrist. It’s because his voice still reaches to more parts of her than her ears, because his smile makes Creed’s creepiness seem more like an affectionate nudge, because he has the certainty and casual confidence to say something after the Even with’s and Sorry if you’ve misinterpreted’s. It’s because he’s somehow made laughter synonymous with falling in love in her new understanding of the English language, and she loves this version far more than she should.

He pulls back from the thing he’s doing to her neck and looks into her eyes with the look that makes her breath catch, her arms itch to wrap around him again. “Sexual tension, though,” he rumbles in that voice. “Really now.”

Later, when her hair’s mussed out in a fan behind her head and her cheeks are flustered and his chest is beneath her fingers again, she stops him to breathe a few quick words into his ear.

“I’ve lost count of the number of times I fell in love with you today,” she says.

He laughs and brings her fingers up to kiss them, one by one. “Start counting again,” he says, and she silently thinks the number one.