Ever since she was old enough to understand the concept of love, Pam Beesly was told it is illegal. She’s allowed to love her family, and platonic love towards friends was on the fence but mostly okay, but she was not, under any circumstances, allowed to fall in love with another person. Crushes are forbidden, dates are unacceptable. “That’s just the way the world works” is what her mother would always tell her. And, for the most part, she didn’t complain. When she had to deny her feelings towards her fourth-grade classmate, it was fine because no one was allowed to have feelings like that. When she was forced to go to prom with Stephen Ford because the mandatory personality tests they took showed they had the least in common, it was okay because no one got to go with who they wanted to go with. When she turned 18 and found out that in three years she would be marrying Roy Anderson because that’s who she was assigned to at birth, it wasn’t a big deal because everyone was assigned somebody. That’s just the way the world works.

But now it’s been almost three years and her wedding is in six months, and she doesn’t think it’s so fine after all. Her and Roy have gone out on multiple mandatory get-to-know-you sessions, because even “dates” with your assigned partner aren’t allowed, and she finds out that she can’t stand the guy. He’s cute in his own way, and mostly polite. But if she thought her and Stephen Ford had nothing in common, then she had no idea what this was. All he talked about was football and beer, whereas she liked to paint and drink tea. He would rather go and hang out with his brothers and friends at the bar when she would rather stay home and watch a movie. He liked to listen to heavy rock and she liked pop or even some classical. The only thing they could agree on was that this marriage wasn’t going to be a happy one.

But there was nothing she could do about it. Even if she could break up with Roy, it’s not like she has any other options, everyone else is already taken. So, she will suck it up and marry him because it’s what she has to do and who cares if she’s unhappy for the rest of her life? She’s sure others are too, so she has no right to complain.

But just because she doesn’t have the right to complain doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to forget about her situation sometimes. So, that’s why she finds herself tagging along with Roy to Poor Richard’s. She’s usually not into the whole bar scene, but she ran out of wine and after yet another argument with Roy, she could go for something a little stronger anyway. They don’t talk to each other on the way over, and she immediately goes to the bar while he joins his friends at a table on the other side of the room.

She sips on her Bloody Mary and people watches. There’s a group of college students on one side of the room, pretending to do homework while really trying to get as drunk as possible. There’s a couple a few feet away from them who, if she didn’t know any better, she would have thought actually liked each other. She wondered if they were putting on an act or if they were luckier than she is. She rolls her eyes when she sees Roy and his buddies screaming at one another over the football game. Her gaze then lands on a guy sitting in a booth by himself. He’s reading some sort of document, but she can’t tell what it is because of the distance. He’s nursing a beer while he skims the page, and she can’t seem to tear her eyes away from him as his lips surround the bottle.

And then he looks up and right at her, as if he knew she was watching. She smiles softly at him but then turns away, facing the bar once again. She tries to ignore her slightly increased heart rate or the fact that her insides are fluttering a little bit. She takes a big sip of her drink, forcing her imagined feelings down with the alcohol.

But then he’s standing beside her, placing his bottle on the counter and asking the bartender for another beer. She doesn’t dare look at him straight on, but she can see him out of the corner of her eye. He’s tall, much taller than she is. He’s thin and a maybe bit gangly, but attractive, nonetheless. She can tell he’s stronger than he seems, though, with his pale blue button down softly outlining the muscles in his arms. His hair is shaggy and unkempt, but not in a homeless kind of way. She thinks it’s pretty cute. He sits down after the bartender gives him his drink and he glances over at her which makes her focus on her own drink again.

They don’t talk to each other for a while. Instead, they sip from their own drinks and glance in the other’s direction every few seconds, immediately looking away if they catch the other’s eye. Her heart is beating faster than before and she feels like throwing up with how badly her stomach is fluttering, and she knows she should walk away, ask Roy to take her home. But there’s something about this stranger silently sitting next to her that keeps her in her seat, holding her captive.

“What’s your name?”

She jumps a little at the sudden question, then looks up at him for the first time since she first saw him. He’s smiling at her, and she thinks it’s the best thing she’s ever seen. His eyes are hazel, mostly green with some brown specks sprinkled throughout. She feels like she could stare at them forever. But then she remembers he asked her a question, so she looks back down before answering because she can’t seem to find her voice while looking at him. “Pam. What’s yours?”

“Jim. You here by yourself?”

“I wish.” She turns in her chair, pointing at Roy and he follows her gaze. “I’m here with my oh-so-lovely fiancé.” She can’t help the sarcasm that flows with her comment.

“So, he’s the one you’re stuck with, huh?”

“Unfortunately.” She keeps her eyes focused on Roy, because looking at him makes her body calm down from whatever it does when she looks at Jim.

He nods, taking a swig of his drink.

They’re silent again, her staring at Roy and him staring at the floor. She finally looks over at Jim again when Roy starts taking shots, she knows her time here is limited now before Roy starts puking and as much as she knows she shouldn’t, she wants to talk to Jim for as long as possible.

“What were you reading?”

He looks up at her before turning back to the bar and picking up the papers he held previously. “Oh, just a paper my own oh-so-lovely fiancé wrote for her class. She asked if I could proofread it, but I don’t understand anything she’s talking about. I was hoping maybe the beer would help.”

“Usually getting drunk makes you stupider, not smarter.”

He suddenly grows serious, though she can tell he’s trying to hide a smile. “See, Pam, that’s where you’re wrong. All of life’s answers are found at the bottom of a beer bottle. It’s just a matter of finding the right bottle. Until then, you’re gonna look pretty stupid. But once you find it, you’re suddenly a genius.”

She smiles at him, resting her chin on her hand. “Ah, so you’re just studying then.”

He smiles back at her, nodding. “Exactly. Now you’re starting to get it.”

“PAMMY!”

They both turn to her name being called. Roy stumbles over, heavily laying his arm around her shoulders once he’s close enough. She shoves him off, though, making him stumble. “What?”

“I don’t feel good. Can you drive? I need to go home.” He’s slurring his words and trying to keep his balance.

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever.” She gives Jim an apologetic look. “See you around?”

“Yeah, totally. See you around.”

She nods before paying her bill and grabbing the keys from Roy. Roy reaches out to balance himself against her, but she avoids him, walking a few steps ahead and out the door.

As she drives home, she can’t get Jim out of her head. She shouldn’t meet up with him again. She knows that. She should avoid him at all costs, staying far away from his cute smile and beautiful eyes. But even though she knows she should steer clear, she also knows she will be back at Poor Richard’s tomorrow, just in case he will be too.

He knows the rules. No falling in love, no matter what. Doesn’t matter if the other person is the prettiest person you’ve ever seen. Doesn’t matter if they have the cutest smile or the brightest eyes. None of it matters, because you’re marrying the person you’re assigned to, end of story. And Jim Halpert was a rule follower, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with said rules.

That’s why he’s not sure what it is that makes him walk up to her. He tells himself he just wanted another beer. The bartender looked busy, so he would feel bad having to flag him down, so he had to go up to the bar himself. Obviously, the only open seat was the one next to hers, so that’s where he had to go. He had no other choice, really. It had nothing to do with her at all. And then he figures if they’re gonna sit next to each other, he might as well know her name, right? It’s the polite thing to do.

Talking to her was so easy, he quickly realized. Their little back and forth, no matter how short lived it was, was the best conversation he’s had all week. Maybe all month. After all, the only people he’s talked to lately have been his annoying coworkers and his fiancé, and none of them were able to joke around with him like he wished they would. Like Pam was able to.

He downs the rest of his beer and pays his bill before walking out of the bar. As he gets into his car and starts heading home, he wonders if she meant it when she said, “see you around.” It’s not like they made any plans, they barely knew each other, but the idea of being able to see her again caused the butterflies inside of him to flutter.

He pulls into his apartment complex, surprised to see that his fiancé’s car is parked in his spot. Even though they live together, have to live together, she doesn’t spend a lot of time at their place. Whether she’s at school or just visiting friends or family, he usually has the place to himself more often than not, not that he’s complaining.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Karen. She’s pretty, kind, and funny when she wants to be. She’s motivated and hard-working, which makes him motivated and hard-working, at least some of the time. He just doesn’t feel a connection between them like he thinks he should feel towards the girl he’s gonna marry. But then he remembers that’s not how things work. The whole reason they’re assigned someone to marry is so that way you don’t feel a connection. So, really, he’s lucky that he at least got someone he can tolerate.

He just thinks it should be different. He wouldn’t ever admit this out loud, mostly because if he did, he would get in trouble, but he doesn’t agree with how the laws treat love. He understands most laws. Don’t murder, obviously. Don’t rob banks, yes, he gets that. Don’t drink until you’re 21, a little questionable, but okay, sure. But what is it about love that makes the government decide no one’s allowed to have it? He thinks some president hundreds of years ago got his heart broken and therefore everyone else has to suffer as well.

Because, truthfully, no one knew the real reason behind this law that everyone followed so closely. Textbooks said it was started in the 1600’s in order to maintain population control. His old boss said it was just the government trying to control everyone in as many ways as possible. His grandmother said it started in Europe and then America just followed suit in order to “stay with the times.” He figures it’s a little bit of all of those things, but mostly he just thinks it’s stupid.

He unlocks his door, stepping into the foyer. It’s a small apartment, so he can see Karen sitting on the couch as soon as he steps through the door. She’s on her laptop, a couple textbooks on either side of her, he assumes she’s working on another paper.

“Hey, Jim.” She glances up at him but then focuses back on what she’s working on.

“Hey, Karen. Doing schoolwork?”

“Kind of. That and Facebook. Did you look at my essay?”

He walks into the kitchen, setting his keys and wallet on the counter before opening the fridge, looking for food. “Uh, yeah, I did. I didn’t finish it though.”

“Okay, well, it’s due tomorrow so if you could get on that.”

He nods, though he knows she couldn’t see him even if she was looking at him. He grabs an apple and closes the fridge, meeting her in the living room. “Hey, I’m gonna go to Poor Richard’s tomorrow, if that’s cool with you.”

“Yeah, okay. My last class got cancelled tomorrow so I finish at three. Maybe I can join you, I could go for a drink.”

He holds back his sigh. He really has no excuse for her not to come, no good excuse, anyway. It’s not like he can tell her that she can’t go because Pam might be there, and he wants to talk to her. Instead he smiles while responding, “Yeah, that would be fun.”

“Cool.”

She says nothing else and still doesn’t look up at him, so he assumes that’s the end of their conversation. He walks back to their bedroom, and even though it’s only nine p.m. he changes into shorts and a t-shirt and then lays down. He sets the apple on his nightstand, suddenly not hungry anymore. When he closes his eyes all he can see is Pam. Her smile, her eyes, her curly hair. He knows he’s in trouble, knows he should put a stop to this. But, at the same time, he thinks maybe breaking the rules this one time might be okay.

She can hear Roy in the bathroom throwing up, but she stays in her spot on the couch. After all, this is how it always works. When they first got together, she would try to help him out after he drank too much. She would get him water, maybe some crackers or toast once his stomach settled, she would rub his back and say it’s going to be okay. But every time he just ignored her or outright brushed her off, telling her to leave him alone, muttering, “I’m fine” before puking once more. She doesn’t mind though, since he drinks too much almost every other day, and she gets more tired of it every time. So, now she doesn’t even bother, choosing to work on her latest painting or watch some TV while trying to drown out the noise.

But tonight, she just sits on the couch, and though she’s staring at the TV, nothing is playing. She’s trying to think realistically about her situation. Well, if she’s honest with herself, she not in a situation. She doesn’t even know his last name, they talked for all of five minutes, if that. She doesn’t even know if she will ever see him again, if she should try to ever see him again.

She knows people have fallen in love before. She’s heard the stories of those who were assigned and ended up falling for each other. She’s heard the stories of those who fell in love with those they’re not assigned to. The problem is no one knows what happens after they get caught. It’s like they fall off the face of the Earth, never to be heard of again. That’s what she’s told, anyway, she’s never seen it happen herself.

So, is this thing with Jim, if it even is a “thing,” worth the risk of getting caught? She would like to think that nothing bad happens to those who get caught. People would find out if bad stuff happened, right? Maybe they just get sent to a deserted island to live happily ever after. That wouldn’t be so bad, right? Unless something bad does happen. Then maybe it’s not worth it, no matter how much her heart aches at the thought of never seeing Jim again.

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts. She’s crazy to think that anything will even come out of this. Just because he smiled at her and joked around doesn’t mean he likes her. She can’t even be sure she likes him, though the butterflies in her stomach tell her otherwise. And anyway, they’re both engaged and getting married within the next few months. After that it will really be too late.

The possibility of it being too late is what makes her realize that this isn’t what she wants. She doesn’t want to end up like her parents, just going through the motions while being miserable. It was never a secret that her parents didn’t like each other. Her and her sister were surprised they even existed after seeing how much their parents avoided each other. They’re pretty sure their parents never held hands, let alone kissed, so they’re not really sure how they came to be. They think maybe a lot of alcohol.

But she doesn’t want to do that. She doesn’t want to not enjoy her husband. She doesn’t want to avoid going to bed until the last minute, hoping her husband is already asleep. She doesn’t want to have children only because they got too drunk and too handsy one night. She doesn’t want to go through life pretending she isn’t married because that’s better than actually being married to Roy.

She wants to hold her husband’s hand, feel the warmth that radiates through her fingers. She wants to gently run her hands through her husband’s hair, watch as he sighs with content as she does so. She wants to snuggle close to her husband’s chest as they watch cheesy romcoms and eat takeout food, laughter filling the air. She wants to kiss her husband and thoroughly enjoy it, her insides turning to mush. She wants nothing more than to be able to love her husband with all of her heart and soul.

And no matter how hard she tries; she can’t help but picture Jim right beside her throughout it all.

*-*-*

The next evening, she finds herself in her bathroom. She’s giving herself one last look-over before meeting Roy in the truck. She’s wearing her favorite top, one that fits her well without showing off too much. The deep purple brings out the green in her eyes and the golden highlights in her hair. Her skinny jeans hug her hips while not suffocating her thighs. She put a little extra effort into her makeup while also making sure it’s not overdone. Her hair is pinned back, big curls flowing down her back. She’s happy with the results, so she heads out, grabs her purse, and gets into the truck where Roy is already backing out before she can finish buckling up.

They pull into Poor Richard’s parking lot and immediately go their separate ways once again. The noise within the bar grows at least three times louder once Roy reaches his buddies, and she’s happy that the bar is quieter tonight so she can get her Mai Tai faster. She sips it slowly, not wanting to drink too much before she sees him. She knows she needs a clear head if she’s gonna figure out if there’s something between them, but she also knows she needs some courage if she’s gonna try to do anything about it.

Forty minutes later, the bartender is handing over her second drink when she sees him walk through the door out of the corner of her eye. The smile that involuntarily grows on her lips instantly fades when she sees the brunette who is holding his hand. She shouldn’t be upset; she knows he’s engaged. But she wasn’t expecting his fiancé to be here tonight. She has to remind herself that they didn’t plan to meet up, and he’s allowed to bring whoever he wants. She frowns a little more when she realizes his fiancé is beautiful, much prettier than she is.  

Their eyes meet and he smiles at her. She smiles softly back, glancing at the brunette and then back at him. She thinks he almost looks apologetic, but maybe her Mai Tai was just stronger than she thought.

He walks up to her, still holding his fiancé’s hand. “Hey, Pam. This is Karen. Karen, this is Pam.”

They exchange polite smiles, “Hey, Pam. How are you?”

She nods, taking a sip of her drink, “Good, thanks. You?”

“Pretty good, thanks.”

Pam wonders if she looks as awkward as she feels right now. She seems nice enough, and when Karen orders a Mai Tai for herself, Pam thinks maybe she would like this girl in another life. But she’s still clutching onto Jim’s hand, and as much as that really should not be bothering her, and as crazy as she knows it sounds, Pam knows that she won’t be able to like Karen as long as she’s with Jim.

Karen’s voice interrupts her thoughts, “So, how do you two know each other?”

She looks up at her, just now realizing she was staring at their hands. Hopefully they didn’t notice. She laughs a little bit, trying to sound casual, “Oh, we don’t, really. We met here last night. He was reading your paper and I was just trying to forget life for a minute.”

Karen nods, “Speaking of papers,” she holds up her left hand which has a couple of pencils and a notebook. Pam hadn’t noticed, being too concerned about the hand holding Jim’s, “I’m gonna go work on mine. It was nice meeting you, Pam.” She lets go of Jim’s hand and grabs the drink the bartender just put on the counter, then turns to Jim, “Just let me know when you’re ready to leave.”

“Will do.”

Karen walks to an empty booth and sits down. She lays out her supplies in front of her before taking a sip of her drink. It’s not until Karen is opening her notebook that Pam looks back to Jim, who is ordering a beer.

“She’s pretty.”

He glances over at Karen while he sits down, then looks back to Pam. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess? You can’t be that blind. She’s beautiful.”

He smiles and shrugs one shoulder, opening the beer the bartender just gave him. “I mean, yeah, she is. I don’t know if I would have gone out with her, though, if I had the option.”

“Why not?”

“Just not my type.”

“What is your type?”

She notices his glance over to her before taking a drink of his beer. “I prefer green eyes.”

She looks down, trying to hide the blush that’s creeping up her cheeks. She takes a long sip of her drink then a deep breath, hoping to calm her nerves before facing him again. “I like guys with longer hair.”

He smiles and raises an eyebrow. “Your fiancé’s hair is pretty short.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Pam hasn’t flirted much in her life. She tried, when her and Roy first met. She wasn’t very good at it, but at times she was successful, and they would flirt back and forth a bit before he got distracted with the game. Eventually she just gave up, especially once she realized she didn’t really like the guy in the first place. Before Roy, there was no point in flirting, really. It never ended in anything, was never allowed to end in anything, so she didn’t bother. So, although she was no expert in the field, she couldn’t help but think that Jim was indeed flirting with her. Maybe he did like her. She wasn’t sure if she should be ecstatic or terrified.

It's getting later, more people are getting off from work and Poor Richard’s is getting louder and more crowded than she would like. She remembers this is one of the reasons why she usually skips out on joining Roy at the bar, she would rather not have random strangers within her personal bubble. She’s about to ask the bartender for another drink when one of those random strangers bump into her, spilling a bit of their drink on her. They apologize and she says it’s fine, but then she turns to Jim.

“It’s getting kinda crowded in here. Do you want to… um… go somewhere else?”

Maybe it’s the alcohol that makes her ask that question. Maybe it’s the way he immediately grabbed some napkins and tried to clean off the spot on her jeans. Maybe it’s her just wanting to know if she has any chance to make this into what she wants it to be, even if it means she may eventually fall off the face of the Earth. Either way, she can’t seem to breathe as he considers his answer. Her heart almost leaps out of her chest when he grins at her.

“I’d love to.”

They separate to tell their respective fiancés that they’re going outside for some fresh air. Roy barely acknowledges her presence, too busy betting with his brother over who will score the next touchdown. She doesn’t care, the only reason she was letting him know she’s leaving was because Jim said he was gonna let Karen know. Otherwise she would have had no problem just walking out.

She steps outside, tugging her jacket closer around her. The January air is colder now that the sun is down, she wishes she had brought her scarf. She leans against the brick wall just as Jim steps out to join her, smiling as he leans up next to her.

There’s a comfortable silence between them. Neither really know what to say, but just being there, next to each other, somehow feels natural.

“Your fiancé can get pretty loud, huh?”

She scoffs, her breath creating a gray cloud in the cold, winter air, “You have no idea. His name is Roy, by the way. Sorry I haven’t introduced you, but as you can probably tell, he’s usually a bit preoccupied with his friends.”

He nods, “You don’t like him very much, do you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

He looks over at her and he’s smiling, but there’s something else written on his face. It’s almost concern, with maybe some hope. He wants to say something, she can tell that much, but he looks almost too scared to. After what feels like a lifetime if him just looking at her, he speaks.

“How do you feel about the no love allowed law?”

She pauses and her eyebrows furrow a bit, trying to figure out where this came from. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs, looking down at his shoes, “Do you agree with it?”

She’s not entirely sure where he’s going with this, though she would like to think she does. “No. I don’t think I do.”

He looks back up at her, “Me neither.”

They’re silent again, just looking at one another, questioning who is gonna be brave enough to take the next step. She knows there’s yelling coming from inside, a dog barking down the street, traffic off in the distance, but all she can hear is her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She has to ask him to repeat his question because she was too focused on trying to breathe normally to hear him.

“Did you maybe want to meet up sometime? You know, like, not here?”

She smiles up at him, “Yeah, I would really like that.”

His smile only grows bigger, “Great. Um, can I have your number? We can plan something.”

She nods and they exchange numbers. After putting her phone back into her pocket she looks up at him and although she couldn’t be more happy to know that he wants to hang out, just the two of them, she can’t hide the worry in her voice when she asks, “Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“You know we will get in trouble if we’re caught, right?”

He smiles reassuringly to her, though she can still see the worry that is in his eyes as well. “Just don’t fall in love with me.” He winks at her and she can’t help but laugh, already knowing, deep down, that will be easier said than done.

Before she can reply, though, the door opens, and her name is being called. She turns to see Roy’s brother and his friend holding Roy up by his arms. She rolls her eyes and turns back to Jim, talking quietly.

“Text me later. He’ll be in the bathroom all night, so my evening is free.”

He nods, “I will.” He walks past her and nods to the men still standing in the doorway as he slides past them and into the bar.

*-*-*

A couple days later, Pam is walking down the street to the café on the corner. She’s excited to see Jim again, having not seen him since they exchanged numbers. They’ve been texting a lot, though. He found out that she used to be a receptionist before Roy made her quit, insisting the man be the breadwinner. She found out that he’s a salesman, though he spends more time pranking his coworker and playing minesweeper than he does selling paper. He learned that she liked to paint, and she learned that he liked to play basketball. They both like Italian food and horror movies. These past few days were filled with getting to know one another any chance they got. She was almost nervous that they wouldn’t have anything to talk about today with how much they’ve found out about each other already.

That feeling quickly left, though, when she walked into the café and saw Jim already sitting in a booth. He was looking at his phone but looked up when the bell above the door chimed, grinning when he saw it was her.

“Hey,” She sits down across from him just as the waitress approaches. They each order a coffee and she waits until the waitress is gone before asking, “How are you?”

“Better now.” He smiles at her and she can’t help the light blush that appears on her cheeks.

She lowers her voice, making sure no other patrons could hear her, “I’m really happy to see you again.”

“Getting clingy now, are we, Beesly?”

She grins at hearing his new nickname for her out loud for the first time. She likes how her name rolls off his tongue, like it’s meant to be there. She tries to stifle her smile, though, attempting to look serious as she replies, “I thought it would be better to let you know that I’m crazy now rather than later.”

He pauses as the waitress returns with their drinks. After they’re alone again he says, “I like crazy.”

They spend the next hour loudly joking and quietly flirting with each other. They only get up to leave when he says that although he doesn’t want to, he really should get back to work before Dwight tries to threaten to write him up. They walk out to the parking lot and to his car.

“Thanks for lunch. If you get written up, you can blame me.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I was already going to blame you.”

She grins, finding that it’s hard not to smile around him. “I’ll text you later, you have to tell me if Michael is still exclusively using Harvey to communicate.”

He nods, his grin matching hers, “Definitely, although I can assure you right now that he still is.” He looks around to make sure that no one is around, and when he sees that the already quiet street is completely deserted, he leans down and kisses her cheek. “I had a really nice time.”

She’s usually not one to make bold moves. But his lips on her cheek felt electric and after checking to make sure they really were alone, she can’t stop herself from gently holding his cheeks and closing her lips over his.

 He seems surprised at first, but quickly responds by holding her waist and pulling her closer to him. She moves her hands to the back of his head, tangling her fingers in his hair as he turns them around to press her against the side of his car, leaving no space in between them. She parts her lips to kiss him deeper but just as she does so, they quickly jump away from each other when they hear the back door of the café opening.

They smile politely at the worker emptying the trash, hoping he can’t tell that their faces are flushed and their lips swollen. When he walks back inside, they turn back to each other.

“So… I’ll text you later.”

“Yes. Yes, I will talk to you later.”

She takes a couple steps backwards, pulling a stray curl behind her ear before giving a small wave and turning around and walking back home.

As she walks back home, feeling positively warm despite the cold chill that surrounds her, she realizes this whole not falling in love thing is gonna be a lot harder than she thought.

Two weeks later, they had meeting up in public down to a science. They wouldn’t arrive or leave at the same time, giving a buffer of at least seven minutes. Every other meeting, at least one of their fiancés were to be in attendance, at least for the start of it, so as not to draw suspicion. Most public meetings were disguised as just randomly bumping into each other at the grocery store or dry cleaners, wherever they had to run an errand. Some were made to look more intentional, even though all meet ups were in fact intentional, like asking Jim to help install their TiVo after Roy couldn’t figure it out or going out for a drink occasionally, though they made sure it looked as casual as possible.

Their more private meetings were also down to a science. Pam convinced Roy to let her attend art classes, saying she was bored being at home all the time. And although she is taking them, the classes aren’t quite as long as she lets him think they are. Jim found out the rec center holds an open gym twice a week, so he tells Karen he’s going to sign up in order to practice basketball. It just so happens that her art classes and his basketball practices fall on the same nights. It’s just a coincidence, at least that’s what they plan to tell anyone if someone happens to question them.

Once they’re done with their respective activities, they drive separately to Nay Aug Park, still leaving that seven-minute buffer, just in case. They arrive early enough that some people are still lingering, but late enough that the park is empty within ten minutes of pulling in. Whoever arrives first walks around alone, surveying the scene until it’s clear. The other will stay in their car until they get a text saying it’s safe. The first time they came here, the day after kissing in the café parking lot and realizing they couldn’t risk doing anything like that again in public, they took a walk once Jim confirmed there was no one left in the park. While walking, they ended up finding a gazebo off the main path and near the lake. They have met there ever since then, thankful for the private location and great view.

So, that’s where they find themselves tonight. The February weather has been especially cold the past few days, which is the only downside to their meeting spot. She can’t wait until spring weather arrives and she doesn’t have to dress like an Eskimo in order to spend some alone time with Jim. But she never complains, because the cold chill is just more of an excuse to bundle up close together under a blanket. She loves the way that he holds her close, claiming it’s to reserve body heat, but she knows the truth.

They haven’t said the words yet, but their actions speak for themselves. The way he knows her favorite candy bar without ever telling him and how he makes sure he grabs one for her each time he’s at the store. The way she will surprise him with food from his favorite restaurant just because she can. The way he gets so excited to see her latest drawings, genuinely in awe of the details she puts into her art. The way she will help him proofread Karen’s assignments because even though he’s a smart guy, this just goes right over his head. The way that they both feel when their lips meet speaks the loudest, practically screaming to the world how in love they are.

Some nights their lips are rarely separated from each other’s. Their hands will be tangled in each other’s hair or clothes, seemingly not able to get enough no matter how close their bodies are pressed together. In between kisses will be whispers of everything they can think of to express their feelings outside of those three words that are somehow deemed illegal in their world. Other nights are quieter as they talk about everything and anything. She likes being huddled close together while he tells her about his coworkers and she rants about Roy or sketches their surroundings. She likes to think these quieter nights are filled with as much love for one another as their breathless ones, being able to just enjoy each other’s company makes her happy.

Tonight is one of those quiet nights. She sighs contentedly has he plays with her hair and she plays with the fingers of his free hand as they look out over the lake. She lays her head back onto his chest, closing her eyes and trying to imprint this moment into her mind so she can hold onto it forever.

“Jim?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think we will have to be like this forever?”

“I don’t know about you, but I quite like being like this.”

She smiles and tilts her head to look at him. “I mean do you think we will have to hide like this forever? Will we ever be able to go out without worrying if anyone will see us?”

He sighs and pulls her closer to kiss her forehead, letting his lips linger there for a moment. “I don’t know, Pam. I wish I did, but I don’t know.”

“I just wish there was something we could do.”

“Me too.”

She reaches up and rubs her thumb along his jaw. “We’re supposed to get married in five months. To other people. We can’t keep meeting up if we’re married, it won’t work. They’ll find out. We won’t have art classes and basketball practices forever.”

“Then I guess we have five months to figure something out, don’t we?”

She smiles and cups his cheek before pulling his face down to kiss him. “I guess so.”

He smiles and kisses her again before nodding towards the entrance of the gazebo. “It’s getting late, we should probably get going. If we stay any longer, I don’t think Roy or Karen will believe our traffic excuse.”

She sighs and nods, though she doesn’t get up to leave. “I can’t wait until June 10th.”

He raises an eyebrow, “You can’t wait until the day you’re getting married to Roy?”

She sits up to look him in the eye, returning her hand to his face to cup his cheek, “If it means we have us figured out by then, then yes, I can’t wait.”

*-*-*

She’s falling in love, she knows that. She’s known that since he first talked to her, but every time she sees him she’s reminded of how fast she’s falling. She’s also forcefully reminded how much she’s not allowed to love him every time she instinctively wants to hold his hand or run her fingers through his hair or kiss him when he does something as simple as breathe, but has to physically hold herself back because they’re around other people. She’s pretty sure him sitting across from her right now as he talks to Roy about last night’s football game over a bottle of beer is a new form of torture.

Jim and Roy have become friends, kind of. They’re not best buds or anything even remotely close to that, but they’ve gotten along enough throughout these past few weeks to where Roy accepts when she suggests inviting Jim and Karen over for his weekly poker game. She spends most of the night talking with Karen, but Jim is always in the corner of her eye. She watches as he gives the smallest of smirks, which would give away the fact that he has a good hand if anyone was paying as close attention to him as she was. She can see him looking at her, too. Long enough to take her in but looking away before anyone has the chance to catch him. She wonders what the chances are of them being able to sneak off for a moment without anyone noticing.

“What do you think?”

Karen is looking at her expectantly, but Pam has no idea what she was just talking about. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Karen holds her phone up a little higher, showing three different types of wedding dresses, “These are my top three choices right now, but I can’t decide which one I like most. What do you think of them?”

“They’re pretty.” The dresses were nice, not Pam’s style but she could see how others would like them. She didn’t think Karen would like hearing that, though, so she keeps her opinion to herself.

“Which one do you think Jim would like the most?”

She had to hold back her sigh. Anytime her and Karen talked anymore it was about their wedding plans and what Pam thought Jim would like. Pam felt bad for doing this, but she usually tried to tell Karen things she knew Jim didn’t like without being too obvious. Even though deep down she knew that it wasn’t, she liked to think of it as a harmless prank, something Jim would be proud of if he knew what she was doing. So that’s why she points to the ugliest of the three dresses, one she knows Jim wouldn’t care for, and says, “That one for sure.”

“Really? I don’t know. I mean, I like it, obviously, since it’s in my top three…” Karen lowers her voice so only Pam can hear her, “but this one is kind of hard to get on and off and I don’t want to waste any time on our wedding night, if you know what I mean.”

Pam knows that Jim is engaged to Karen. She knows that they kiss and hold hands and do things that couples do, even if they are assigned to be together and don’t necessarily like each other. Everyone acts like couples because people have needs and that’s the kind of messed up world they live in. She knows this because she does the same thing with Roy, even if she can’t stand it. But her and Jim have talked about it and if they’re going to sneak around, they need to make sure Karen and Roy don’t suspect them at all. So, she knows that Karen has every right to think about what her and Jim are going to do on their wedding night. But hearing Karen imply what they plan on doing out loud brings tears to Pam’s eyes, because even though she’s not sure what it’s like with him, they haven’t taken that step yet, she doesn’t want to picture Jim doing that with anyone but her.

She clears her throat while standing up and not looking at Karen, “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe go with the second one. Um, I’m sorry. I’ll be right back. I forgot I have something… in my room... I’ll be right back.” She quickly walks past Karen, then past the poker game, catching Jim’s concerned look at her before disappearing down the hall and into her bedroom.

She’s not really surprised when she hears a very quiet knock on the door seven minutes later. She looks up and he pokes his head in, saying, “You okay?” before stepping in fully and shutting the door behind him.

“Yeah. Karen was just talking to me about your guys’ wedding and I guess I got overwhelmed.” He sits down next to her on the bed and wraps his arms around her and she cries as quietly as she can into his shoulder, “I can’t listen to her talk about what flowers to choose or which venue to go with. I can’t listen to her talking about walking down the aisle. I can’t listen to her talk about you undressing her and what you’ll do on your wedding night and—”

“Pam.” He lifts her chin up so he can look at her, “None of that is going to happen, remember? We’re going to figure something out.”

She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and whispers, “Jim, I can’t wait until June 10th. I just can’t. It’s too long. I can’t handle another five months of this.”

He sighs and pulls her close again, “I don’t want to wait that long either, Pam.” He kisses her forehead before loosening his hold on her a bit, “I can’t stay in here, I just told them I’m going to the bathroom. But just give me a couple of days and I’ll try to come up with something, okay?”

She nods into his chest, holding him closer before pulling back, “Okay. I’m sorry, I just hate that she gets to have you.”

He kisses her quickly before walking backwards towards the door, “She doesn’t have me, Pam. You do. Don’t forget that. I’ll see you in a minute.”

She smiles, “Make it seven.”

*-*-*

A few days later, she’s on her couch watching TV and doodling in her notebook when her phone flashes. She grins when she sees it’s a text from Jim.

Meet me in our spot in an hour. I have an idea.

She pulls into Nay Aug Park, parking her car on the opposite side of the parking lot as Jim’s even though it’s nearing eleven p.m. and there is no one else in sight. She wonders if there will be a day they can come here together without worry. She hopes this plan of his means maybe they will.

She walks to the gazebo, spotting Jim already sitting there looking out at the lake. She walks up behind him as quietly as she can and tries not to laugh as he jumps when she says, “This better be good, I’m missing out on some quality Friends reruns in order to be here.”

He grins and stands to meet her, kissing her before leading her to the bench to sit down. “I know, I’m sorry it’s late but this idea just came to me and I couldn’t wait.”

She sits down, leaning up against him when he sits down next to her and holds the hand that wraps around her shoulder. “How did you even get out of the house this late? Isn’t Karen wondering why you left?”

“She’s at her parents’ house this weekend. It’s her cousin’s, or maybe second cousin’s, birthday. I don’t know.”

“So, tell me why we didn’t just meet at your place where it’s nice and warm instead of here in the freezing cold?”

“Because this is our place, and this is a big deal. Do you want to hear my idea or not, Beesly?”

“Okay, I’m sorry. What’s your plan?”

“What if we moved away together?”

She sits up to look at him, trying to gauge if he’s being serious, but she can’t tell. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. We’ll find someplace that lets us be together. There has to be somewhere in the world where people are allowed to enjoy being together.”

“I’m pretty sure that doesn’t exist. Wouldn’t people know about it?”

“They’re not just going to advertise someplace like that. Then everyone would move there. It’s probably some secret country hidden off the map.”

“Jim, you sound insane right now. We can’t just run away. We’ll be on some missing persons list and people will find us and report us. Plus, all of our family and friends are here, what are we supposed to tell them?”

“Okay, so I figured you probably wouldn’t be on board with that idea, but I thought I would mention it anyway. But that’s also why I have a plan B.”

She raises an eyebrow and sighs, “What’s plan B?”

“Don’t sound so excited, now.”

She smiles, though she knows she still looks cautious. “Well, no offence, but, after plan A, my hopes aren’t very high. What’s plan B?”

He grabs her hands in his, intertwining their fingers together, “What if we married Karen and Roy?”

She scoffs, “Okay, forget sounding insane. You really are crazy. Did you hit your head or something? Or is this some messed up way to break up with me?”

“No, no, no. I’m not trying to break up with you. I’m serious though.”

She releases one of his hands in order to run her hand through her hair. “In what world would marrying Roy and Karen let us be together?”

“Because we would tell them about us.”

“What?!”

“Pam, I really thought about this. Until this stupid law goes away, there’s really nothing we can do. We can’t not marry them, otherwise we either look suspicious or get into trouble. But, like you said before, we can’t keep sneaking around them. It’s not fair to them, and we will most likely get caught at some point and who knows what will happen then. But if we tell them and can convince them not to report us, then we’re safe. Well, we’re safer than we are now, at least.”

“And if we can’t convince them? If they get angry and report us? Do you realize how risky this is, Jim?”

“I know. But you and Roy don’t like each other anyway and Karen and I tolerate each other at best. And I know that’s the whole point of these assigned marriages, but I think they would be okay with this. They have to marry us, so why should they care if the marriage is just an act? Wouldn’t it be an act anyway, whether you and I were together or not?”

“I mean… I guess. But, still. They know that this is illegal, and they know that we know it’s illegal. Do you really think they’re going to agree to being accomplices? They will get in trouble too, then, if we get caught.”

“That’s the thing, though. If they know, then the chances of anyone else finding out are slim. We act like friends in public, just like we have been, but then at home we can be ourselves. We don’t have to find hiding spots or make up excuses to leave the house.”

She looks at him, wondering why she is actually considering this idea. Telling Roy and Karen about them would be idiotic. There’s no way that they would go along with this, right? She agrees that it would be nice not having to sneak around at home, though.

She runs her hand through his hair, stopping at the back of his head and gently runs her fingers back and forth through the hairs at the nape of his neck. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.”

Tears sting her eyes and she takes a deep breath to try to calm her nerves, but her voice is a little shaky anyway. “You can’t say that. If we agree to tell Roy and Karen about us, then you can’t say that. I could lose you.”

“Pam.” He pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her and resting his cheek against her temple. “If I have any say in this, you will not lose me. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure of that.”

She nods into his chest and without even really realizing what she’s saying until she hears it come out of her mouth, she whispers, “I love you.”

She didn’t mean to say it. She’s been thinking it for a long time, but she didn’t think she would be telling him she loved him tonight. But then he’s pulling away from her just enough to see her fully and the look on his face makes her want to say it over and over again. He kisses her, deep and slow, before pulling away and whispering, “I love you too,” back.

She reaches up and cups his face, bringing it down to kiss him again. They start off slow, just enjoying each other and their new milestone. Things quickly escalate, though, when she turns and puts her knees on either side of him and straddles him. His hands are on her waist, holding her as close to him as possible. She’s thankful that his jacket isn’t zippered so she can run her hands under his t-shirt and over his chest. He moves his hands so he can cup her breasts through her shirt and the moan she gives in return makes him smile through their kiss. When he tries to remove her jacket a moment later, she pulls away just enough to shake her head and catch her breath.

Once their breathing has somewhat returned to normal, she kisses him gently once more before resting her forehead on his and saying quietly, “It’s too cold. And Roy is going to be back from Kenny’s any time now, I should get going.”

He nods slightly, whispering, “Okay,” before kissing her again and then helping her stand up.

They walk back to the parking lot hand in hand, assuming no one but them is crazy enough to venture to the park at midnight in February to catch them. Their assumptions are correct when they get back to the parking lot and their cars are the only ones occupying the spaces.

He walks her to her car, and she turns to him as they walk, saying, “I can’t believe we are going to tell them.”

“Me neither. But I really think it’s our only option right now.”

“I know.” She presses a button on her fob in order to unlock her car once they’re a few feet away. “When are we going to tell them?”

“Tomorrow? Just get it over with?”

She frowns a bit and leans her back against her car door, crossing her arms over her chest. “Can we wait until next weekend? Just in case they don’t agree, and if they want to report us… I want one more week of just us.”

He smiles and cups her face, “I’d love that. Just us. Next weekend it is.” He kisses her lips and then her forehead before stepping back and opening her door for her.

“Ill see you tomorrow. You’re still coming over to help Roy fix the TiVo again, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Good. Okay, see you tomorrow.”

“Have a good night.” He lowers his voice so only she can hear, even though they know they’re alone, “I love you.”

She grins, whispering back, “I love you too.” She sits down in her seat and he closes the door, waving at her as she backs up and pulls out of the parking lot.

As she drives home, she thinks of what next weekend could possibly mean. It could mean never seeing Jim again. It could mean she gets reported and is never heard of again. It could mean punishment or jail or worse. But it could also mean that her and Jim won’t have to lie to Roy and Karen anymore. It could mean that her and Jim could actually be together, at least at home. It could mean that they don’t have to hide in a gazebo in the freezing cold in order to tell each other “I love you.” She thinks being able to hear him say those three words is what makes it worth all the risks.

She takes a deep breath, gripping the edge of her bathroom counter as she stares at her reflection. She’s more nervous than she thought she would be. Jim would be arriving any moment, and this was the first time he would be at her place without Roy or Karen in attendance. But it wasn’t the fact that her and Jim would be alone or the fact that they would in her home that is making her nervous. She knows that if they’re going to tell Karen and Roy about them tomorrow then today could very well be the last day she ever sees Jim. The last day she may ever see his smile and touch his hair and feel his lips. She’s going to make it count.

She stands up straighter when she hears a knock at the door. She pulls the robe that she’s wearing closer to her body, tightening the knot as she walks through her bedroom and to the front door. She giggles when she opens it and watches his face go from smiling to confused.

“Are we not going out to lunch?”

She steps closer to him, resting her hand on the pocket on the front of his shirt, “I thought maybe we could stay inside instead.”

“Oh?”

She nods, sliding her hand down his chest and reaching for his hand, interlocking their fingers and pulling him inside.

He kicks the door closed behind him before she leads him to the living room. She turns back to him and sits on the arm of the couch, pulling him closer so he’s standing between her legs. He clears his throat, but his voice is still raspier than she’s sure he meant for it to be, “Where’s Roy?”

“Poker is at Kenny’s this week. He won’t be home until tomorrow.”

He raises an eyebrow and smirks a little. “Are you telling me that you lied about lunch in order to get into my pants?”

She rolls her eyes and smacks his arms, “Shut up, otherwise I’ll make you leave.”

He laughs and rests his hands on her waist, scooting her closer to him. He plays with the end of the tie that’s holding her robe closed and whispers, “I like this.”

She grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him close, their lips just barely apart, “I think you’ll like what’s underneath it better.”

She giggles when he grabs her face and pushes their lips together hard enough that she has to grab the top of the couch to balance herself. Once she’s balanced she moves her hands to his hair, tangling her fingers in it and pulling slightly. His quiet grunt as he wraps his arm around her and moves her to lay down on the couch sends a shiver down her spine.

She wraps her legs around his waist and pulls his body as close to hers as possible. She slides her tongue across his bottom lip, and he opens his mouth immediately, both fighting for dominance. He struggles for a second but manages to undo the knot on her robe, letting it fall to either side of her. He pulls back and she blushes when she watches his eyes move across her body. He smiles at her and kisses her lips quickly before moving to trail kisses along her jaw and then moving on to her neck.

Before he can move any lower, she reaches down as far as she can to grab his shirt and pull it over his head. She runs her fingers through his hair while she takes her turn to look him over. She silently curses the cold weather for keeping her from seeing Jim topless until now. She pulls his lips back to hers but he pulls away again, adamant on continuing his path across her body. She gasps when his lips kiss the skin right above her bra, the warmth in her stomach moving to in between her legs.

As much as she loves the feeling of his lips kissing her chest, she pulls him back up and kisses his lips so she can reach down and unbutton his jeans. He stops her, though, holding her wrists and bringing them back up. He kisses her lips then her cheek, jaw, forehead, and returning to her lips one more time before pulling back and looking down at her.

His voice is heavy and breathless, “Pam. What are you doing?”

“What? Do you not want to?”

“No, no that’s not what I mean. I just mean… are you sure?”

She moves her wrist out of his hands to cup his face. “Jim.” She sighs, silently begging the tears that are threatening to show up to go away. She starts rubbing her thumb along his cheek. “This is the last day that we know we can be together. I love you and I just need to show you that.”

“I know that, you don’t need to prove anything.”

“I know. But I want to. I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

She pushes him up and stands up. She grabs his hand and pulls him up, kissing him deeply before she starts leading him to her bedroom, letting her robe fall off of her as they walk. He turns her around after a few steps, lifting her up so her legs wrap around him, and carries her the rest of the way. His jeans are around his ankles before they make it through the door.

*-*-*

Their kisses have turned lazy, hands trailing down each other’s sides as they come down from their highs.

She sighs as he trails kisses down her jaw, “I love you so much.”

He hums against her skin, murmuring, “I love you too” in between kisses.

She pulls his face back up to hers, kissing him before whispering, “Are you sure we have to tell them?”

He nods, then rests his forehead on hers. “I don’t want to, but I think we need to.”

“I know I keep saying this, but I just don’t want to risk losing this. Losing you.”

He rolls off of her and onto his side, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her back flush against his chest. He kisses the top of her head and rubs circles on her ribcage with his thumb. “And I keep telling you that you’re not going to. We’ll convince them to not say anything, whatever it takes.”

She places her hand over his, threading her fingers through his. She leans back against him and closes her eyes, whispering so quietly she’s not sure he heard her at first, “I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

They lay like that for a while in silence. The only sounds filling the room is their breathing and the occasional shifting of the sheets as they try to move closer to one another. It’s so quiet that she thinks she fell asleep and the sound of a door opening is just in her dreams. It’s not until she hears Jim’s quiet snoring that she realizes she is very much awake, and the noise was very much real. She shoves Jim off of her, waking him up in the process, and sits up while whispering “Oh my God” repeatedly.

Jim yawns before reaching out to try to pull her back down to him. When she shoves him off again and tells him to get up, now, he opens his eyes and looks at her quizzically, saying “What?”

“Be quiet. Roy is home. Oh my God.”

“What?? You said he was gone.”

She’s standing up now, pulling on her underwear and bra, wondering how Roy hasn’t figured them out yet, “Yeah, I thought he was.” She looks at him standing there in only his boxers, “What are you doing? Get dressed.”

He points towards the bedroom door, “My clothes are out there.”

“Right. We’re dead.” She pulls on a t-shirt and PJ shorts before turning back to him. “Stay there and stay quiet. Oh my God. I’ll be right back.”

She quickly slides through the bedroom door, kicking Jim’s jeans that were right outside the door back into the room before closing the door behind her. She looks around and doesn’t see Roy at first, so she goes to grab Jim’s shirt off of the floor but then he comes out of the bathroom before she has the chance.

“Hey, Pammy.”

“Hi. What are you doing here? I thought you were at Kenny’s.”

“Yeah, I was. I got there and he started puking so we had to cancel.”

“You didn’t stay to make sure he’s okay?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking at her like she was speaking another language. “I didn’t want to get sick. What’s up with you? Why are you acting so weird?”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He starts to walk over to the couch, but she crosses the room first, stopping him from going too far into the living room. “Hey, since you’re dressed, would you mind running to the store? I didn’t get enough for dinner since I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Ugh, I really don’t want to. We’ll just order something.”

“Great idea. Why don’t you go pick something up? Just surprise me, whatever you want.”

“Pam, it’s only three o’clock. I’ll go get something later.” He tries to walk around her, but she stops him again. “Seriously, what is your deal?”

“Nothing. I’m just hungry. Let’s have an early dinner and then I’ll make something for dessert for later.”

“Why don’t you just get a snack? I just got back; I don’t want to go out again right now.” He steps around her and she thanks God that he walks on the side of the coffee table that Jim’s shirt isn’t laying. But then he keeps walking, heading towards the bedroom.

“What are you doing?”

He glances back at her before responding, “I want to get changed into something more comfortable so I can watch the game.”

“Roy, wait.”

He turns around right in front of the door, sounding frustrated when he says, “What?”

“Do you want me to make you something to drink?” She walks over to him and she tries to casually kick Jim’s shirt under the couch as she steps over it, quickly realizing she shouldn’t have when he looks down and then back up at her.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“What you just kicked under the couch.”

She laughs, trying to sound normal but it comes out nervously instead, “I didn’t kick anything under the couch.”

He walks over to her and before she can stop him, he reaches under the couch and pulls out Jim’s shirt. He holds it up, noting how it’s about two sizes too small to ever be his own. He clenches his teeth, muttering, “Who’s is this?”

“Roy—”

He turns on his heels and makes a beeline to the bedroom. She follows behind him, begging him to wait, to stop, to let her explain, but he ignores her and flings the door open. She’s glad that Jim had put his jeans on but was terrified of what was about to happen.

“Halpert?! You’re screwing Halpert?!”

She grabs his arm, trying to keep him from doing anything dangerous, “Roy, please, stop.”

“Stop?!” He scoffs, tugging his arm out of her grip, “You’re cheating on me and you want me to stop?”

“Roy, we were going to tell you tomorrow—”

“Oh, sure, I just have great timing, then, don’t I? If I hadn’t of come back, you two probably would have in bed right now. You were probably screwing when I walked in.”

Jim speaks up, “Roy, no, we weren’t. Listen, we really were going to tell you tomorrow. You and Karen. That’s why we were going to meet at my place for dinner.”

Roy fixes his gaze on Jim now, seemingly forgetting he was there until he spoke. “Because spaghetti and garlic bread is a great ice breaker for finding out that your fiancé is sleeping with a guy who is supposedly ‘just a good friend.’”

Pam steps in front of Roy, hoping to block him from getting too close to Jim. “It was only today, Roy, and only once.”

“You think I’m gonna believe that? That you guys haven’t been boning every time I go to Kenny’s or to my parents’? That this was just a random, one-time thing?”

She looks over at Jim before looking back at Roy. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves before she starts confessing. “Today really was the first time we slept together; I swear. But we have been seeing each other. For a while.”

“How long?”

“January. We met the day we argued about you throwing away my paintbrushes and then went to Poor Richard’s, but we didn’t start meeting up until almost a week later.” She can’t tell what expression is on his face, if he’s mad or upset or confused or just numb. She takes another deep breath, exhaling slowly before speaking again. “Roy… we love each other. Like, really love each other. And we know it’s illegal and we’re not supposed to, but, please, Roy, you can’t tell anyone.”

His laugh is humorless, “You’ve got to be kidding me. You mean I’m supposed to just stand back and watch my fiancé go out with another guy and not do anything about it? I can report you. I should go report you right now.”

Jim takes a step closer so he’s right behind Pam. “Roy, listen. Yeah, reporting us will make us go away, but that just means you’ll be alone anyway. The only difference is you’ll be ruining two lives in addition to yours. Three, actually, including Karen’s. I know you and Pam don’t really like each other, but don’t you at least want her to be happy? You two won’t be happy together, but you can help us be happy.”

“Why should I care about you being happy?”

“You shouldn’t. But you should care about Pam.”

She watches Roy’s gaze go back and forth between her and Jim. After what feels like an eternity, he turns, muttering “screw you both” before storming out of the house. Pam turns to Jim with tears in her eyes and he pulls her close as she starts to sob, the adrenaline from the past twenty minutes crashing over her like a tidal wave.

She’s not sure how long they stand there but her tears have subsided, and her breathing has returned to normal. Her nerves are still through the roof, though, wondering where Roy is and what he’s doing. She squeezes Jim tight for a second before pulling away and wiping her face with the bottom of her t-shirt. She takes a deep breath and looks up at Jim who is trying to smile at her, but she can see the worry etched on his face as well.

“We’ll be okay.” His voice is soft, almost as if he’s afraid to speak, and he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince her.

She shakes her head and starts pacing the room, “This was a mistake. We never should have done this.”

“Pam, don’t say that.”

She looks up at him again, his face so sad and full of concern that she realizes he thinks she’s talking about them. “No, not us. No, Jim, I mean telling them. We never should have told them.” She grabs his hands and squeezes them. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m terrified, but I will never regret this. Us.”

He looks relieved and kisses her forehead. “Me neither.” He pauses and looks out towards the front door before looking back at her. “Do you think he’s going to come back?”

“I don’t know. I mean, eventually, yeah.”

“Maybe you should try calling him, it’s been a little bit, maybe he’ll be willing to talk. I should try calling Karen, anyway, in case something happens.”

“Will you stay here?”

“Of course. You stay in here; I’ll be in the living room.”

“Okay.” She smiles when he kisses her before walking towards the living room. Before he closes the door, she calls out, “Hey, Jim?”

He peeks back in before answering, “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He smiles, “I love you too.”

*-*-*

She sits on the edge of the bed with the phone in her hand, but she’s scared to call him. Wonders if he will even answer if she does call. And if he does, what is she even going to say? “Hey, sorry you walked in on me and Jim. Mind coming back so I can make sure you won’t report us?” She can hear Jim’s voice in the next room, she figures if he can tell Karen she can call Roy.

She holds the phone to her ear, every ring making her heart rate increase. She’s just about to hang up after it seems he won’t be answering when a mumbled “Hello?” comes through.

“Roy?”

“What?”

“Where are you?”

“Why does it matter?”

His voice is bitter and she sighs, though she knows he has every right to be angry right now. “I’m just wondering.”

“Just checking to make sure I’m not tattling on you and your little lover boy, right?”

“Roy, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t think you would care.”

“Just because we don’t get along sometimes doesn’t mean I don’t care, Pam.”

“That’s the thing, Roy. It’s not just sometimes. It’s all the time. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by in the three years we’ve known each other where we haven’t either bickered or have a full-blown argument about something. We don’t agree on anything, we don’t like hanging out with each other, we just don’t like each other.”

“Don’t pretend that you and Jim don’t argue or like each other all the time.”

“We’re not perfect, Roy. We’ve only known each other for about a month but we have disagreed on a couple things. The difference is that we don’t yell at each other or threaten to leave or anything that you and I do. And even though we’ve disagreed, I can honestly say I still liked him during and after it. I can’t say the same about you. Can you?”

It’s so quiet that she thinks maybe he hung up. But then she hears him sigh and she can picture him running his hand over his face like he always does when he realizes she’s right but doesn’t want to admit it. His voice is quiet when he finally speaks, “We really did fight a lot, huh?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“And we really don’t like each other.”

“No, Roy, we don’t.”

He’s quiet again and she wonders what he’s thinking. She almost can’t believe how calm he is now. His voice was so angry when he first answered, but now he just sounds defeated. She feels bad for him, but she knows they’re just being honest. She knows that even if she had never met Jim, they wouldn’t have ever liked each other. Maybe eventually tolerated, but never liked.

“I’m not going to report you.”

She stands up, almost not believing what she was hearing. “What? Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m still angry and I wish you didn’t go behind my back, but I meant what I said. Just because we argue doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“I’m really sorry, Roy. Really, I am. I meant what I said too, that I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just want to be happy. I want you to be happy too, you know.”

He chuckles, “So, what happens now? I mean, you guys aren’t supposed to be together.”

She sighs, “I don’t know, really. Jim is talking to Karen now, so it depends on what she does.”

“What happens if she doesn’t tell, either?”

“You’re probably not going to like this.”

“What?”

“Well, we thought, maybe, we would still marry you and Karen. But we wouldn’t actually be together. That’s just the only way that we wouldn’t be caught.”

“You guys really thought this through, didn’t you?”

She laughs a little, “We tried. Didn’t think it would go like this, but, yeah, we wanted to have a plan before we told anyone.”

“Well, I’ll do it if Karen agrees. No point in fighting that if we’re not going to be together anyway, right?”

She wipes away a tear that slipped down her cheek, “I gotta say, I’m kind of surprised how fast you changed your mind about this.”

“Honestly, me too. But… I don’t know. You were always unhappy when we were together. I knew that, but it’s not like I could do anything about how you felt. And then I noticed something changed about a month ago, and I thought maybe we were getting better. You smiled more and our fights weren’t as bad. But I guess it was Halpert that had changed you.”

“I think this is the first time we’ve agreed on something.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Hey, let me know what Karen says, okay?”

“I will.” She chuckles before saying, “Maybe you and Karen could hang out sometime. Get a drink, complain about what jerks Jim and I are.”

He laughs, “Yeah, right, okay.” She hears a car honk in the background. “Um, hey, I’m at Poor Richard’s and Darryl is waiting for me, so I’m gonna go. Don’t wait up, I’ll stay at his place tonight.”

“Okay. And Roy?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Sure thing. See you later.”

“See ya.”

*-*-*

He closes the door behind him and pulls out his phone. He’s thinking this could go about thirty different ways, but hopes that it ends positively. After seeing Roy’s reaction, though, his hopes aren’t high. He wishes he could have a beer but doesn’t think stealing one of Roy’s would help their situation any, so instead he just sits on the couch. He dials her number and holds the phone up to his ear, figuring he might as well get this over with. Waiting any longer won’t change her reaction.

She picks up on the third ring, “Hey, Jim.”

“Hey. What are you doing?”

“I just got out of class, I’m getting some stuff together and then heading home. Can you put dinner in the oven? It has to cook for a couple hours.”

“Actually, I’m not at home.”

“Oh?” She sounds distracted and he can hear papers shuffling in the background before Karen sighs at something.

“Everything okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. Where are you?”

“Um, I’m at Pam’s.”

“I thought we were all eating together tomorrow? Or was it tonight? Crap, I didn’t get the garlic bread yet. I’ll have to stop at the store on my way home.”

“No, no, that was tomorrow. But I don’t think that’s going to happen anymore.”

“Why not?”

He sighs. Now or never. “I have to talk to you about something.”

“Okay? What’s up?”

“Pam and I have been seeing each other.”

She pauses, her voice full of uncertainty when she speaks, “What do you mean ‘seeing each other’?”

“Karen, we’ve been meeting up and going out and…”

“And what?”

“We didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Jim. What are you saying?”

“We love each other.”

He hears something drop and break. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? That’s it? Are you insane? And you’re telling me this over the phone? While you’re at her house? You couldn’t wait until I got home? When did this happen?”

He knew she was angry; she asks a lot of questions when she’s angry, usually only expecting the answer to the last one. “In January. We met the day before you first met her, and we started meeting up about a week later. We’ve seen each other a few times a week since then.”

“Your basketball practices?”

“I really do go to those, but they end at eight, not nine.”

“I can’t believe this. I don’t know if I should kill you or her. Or both”

“Karen, please, listen. Our marriage was going to be a sham anyway. Our whole relationship is just an act. What’s the difference between you and I pretending to be happy without Pam in the picture and you and I pretending to be happy with her in the picture?”

“The difference is that your little affair is very much illegal, Jim. Not only did you cheat on me, but you fell in love. Do you want to disappear to God knows where?”

“We don’t have to though. Not if you and Roy don’t tell anyone.”

She scoffs, “Why shouldn’t we? If you wanna play the difference game… what’s the difference between me being alone and you gone and me being alone but you’re with her?”

“The difference is that you wouldn’t be ruining anyone’s lives.”

“You’re already ruining mine by doing this to me.”

“I’m sorry. I am. But wouldn’t you rather one of us be happy than none of us?”

“I was happy, Jim. Yeah, we don’t love each other, but I thought we had a pretty good thing.”

“And we did. But it’s not the same. We were never going to be truly happy.”

“How could you know that?”

“Were you seriously okay with living a lie? You never once wanted something more in a relationship? Never wanted someone to want to be with you instead of marrying you because they were required to?”

“I mean…”

“Exactly. Pam and I want to be together. We want to be happy. But we won’t be able to if you guys report us.”

“What are we supposed to do, then? Just pretend everything is normal? Pretend that you aren’t breaking the law every second of every day?”

“We don’t have all the details yet, but we thought maybe we would get married to our assigned partners, but it would just be for show. We wouldn’t be able to be ourselves in public, but this way we can be together at home. We want you and Roy to be happy too. Honest. We really are sorry.”

She sighs and after a moment, quietly mutters, “Fine.”

His jaw all but drops to the floor. “What?”

“Fine.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. But you should know that I’m only agreeing because I don’t know what happens if I do report you, and as angry as I am right now, I don’t actually want to see you or Pam killed.”

“Karen, thank you.”

“Don’t do that. I’ll play along, but you and I are not going to interact except when absolutely necessary. We’re not going to be friends.”

“Okay, whatever you want.”

“I’m going to go to my parents’ house this weekend, I don’t want to be anywhere near Scranton right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. Bye, Jim.”

“Bye, Karen.”

He waits for her to hang up first before standing up and pocketing his phone. He doesn’t hear Pam’s voice and wonders if she’s done talking to Roy. Just as he’s about to open the door to check on her, she walks out with a small smile.

“I heard you say bye, so I figured it was safe to come out.”

“Yeah it’s safe. How did it go?”

“Not good at first, but it was really weird… by the time he hung up he was almost happy for us. He’s not going to report us.”

“Really? Pam, that’s great!”

She can’t hold back her smile, “Yeah, it is.” She points towards his pocket, “How about you? How did Karen take it?”

“She hates me and doesn’t want anything to do with me, but she doesn’t want to see us killed so she’s not going to report us, either.”

He can see tears fill her eyes and her voice is thick when she whispers, “Really?”

He nods, “We’re okay.” He holds her tight after she walks over and hugs him, burying her face in his chest. He lowers his voice, repeating, “We’re okay” into her ear and kisses the top of her head.

He tries not to let on that he’s still a little worried about their situation. Pam hasn’t commented anything, so he’s pretty sure she doesn’t know he’s concerned, but he can’t help but think that they got away with everything a little too easily.

Karen hasn’t talked to him since they hung up two weeks ago. Roy has been around, though not as much. He usually only stops by for some clothes and maybe some food before heading back to Kenny’s for a couple days. Jim has been staying at Pam’s most days since Roy is taking this whole situation better than Karen is. They don’t want to risk running into her and having to deal with all that.

But not seeing or talking to Karen has him on edge. He shouldn’t be worrying, since she told him she wasn’t going to report them, but not knowing where she is or how she’s feeling makes him worried. Like she’s going to just snap one day and the next thing he knows the authorities are at their door. He knows she’s not an irrational person, at least not usually. But he also knows that he hurt her and lost her trust.

But he tries not to think too much about it. He hopes that if she hasn’t changed her mind by now, she won’t change her mind at all. Plus, it’s not like secretly worrying about it will change anything, so instead he enjoys his time with Pam. He knew that being able to be with Pam at their homes would be nice, but he loves being able to hold her and kiss her and love her without fearing that someone is gonna walk around the corner and catch them more than he thought he would. Once the front door closes behind them, it’s like their own little secret island, and he never wants to leave.

They rarely do leave, actually. Unless he’s going to work or she’s attending her art classes, they usually find themselves within the walls of Pam’s house, closed off to the world and its stupid laws. They find no need to go out into the real world where they have to pretend they don’t care about each other beyond a casual friendship. Where they have to pretend they don’t spend every night together wrapped in each other’s arms, clothes almost always discarded to the floor beside them. Where they have to pretend they don’t love each other more than they ever thought was humanly possible.  

But, Jim decides that he wants to take her out tonight. His boss’s usual antics have proven to be beneficial the past few days, since they have allowed him to put off his work and give him time to do some research. He finally found the perfect place to take her this afternoon, even driving there after work to make sure it would work out, and he hopes she likes it as much as he thinks she will.

He walks through her front door shortly after five-thirty to find her on the couch. Seeing her painting in sweats and one of his t-shirts makes him almost change his mind and stay in tonight. But they haven’t gone out together in the two weeks since they’ve confessed to Roy and Karen except to buy groceries, so he decides to stay on track. She looks up at him and smiles as he walks over to her.

“Hey, how was your day?”

“Better now that I’m home.”

She rolls her eyes at his usual response, then sets down her paintbrush so she can reach for his hand and he pulls her up. She wraps her arms around him and pulls the back of his shirt out of his pants so she can spread her hands out on his back. He leans down and kisses her for a moment before pulling away and she rests her cheek on his chest before asking, “What do you want for dinner?”

“I have that all planned. We’re leaving in 30 minutes.”

She looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. “We’re going somewhere?”

“Yep, we are.”

“But I don’t want to go anywhere. Because then we have to pretend.”

“Just trust me, okay? Now, as much as I love what you’re wearing, I imagine you’re gonna want to get changed.”

“What should I wear?”

“Whatever you want.” He kisses her once more before stepping back. “Now, go.”

Twenty minutes later he hears the bedroom door open up again and he looks up at her. She’s wearing a modest, simple dress with stockings underneath and some flats, but the way it hugs her body makes him second guess his plans to go out once more. He knows he’s staring, but he can’t seem to tear his eyes away. The subtle blush he sees creep up her chest to her cheeks makes him smile and he walks over to her, kissing her hand.

“You look beautiful.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself.” He watches her look over his outfit that he changed into while she was getting herself dressed. It’s just some dark jeans and a black t-shirt, but he felt like he was wearing his nicest suit with how she looked at him.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah. Are you not going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Not a chance.”

She sighs, though he can see the smile hiding behind it. “Fine.” She grabs her purse and he leads her to the car.

They alternate between talking about their days and singing along to the radio as they drive. Eventually he pulls into an empty parking lot and smiles when he looks over to see Pam very confused.

“Where in the world are we?”

“C’mon.”

He gets out of the car and goes over to her side, opening her door and helping her out. He grabs a backpack from the back seat and then walks her over to the side of the building where a door is propped open with a brick. He pushes it open and leads her inside. She gasps a little once she walks through the door and sees what’s in front of them.

He didn’t have much time after work to set things up, but he managed to clean off an old table and two chairs, setting the table with plates and silverware that he found in the break room. He put the backpack down next to the table and got out a candle and lighter, a bottle of wine, some sandwiches, and some chips.

“Someday I would like to take you to a real restaurant and give you a real dinner.” He lights the candle and pulls out her chair for her. “But I would like for that to be when we don’t have to pretend. When we can be ourselves and hold hands across the table and can act like we actually like each other. So, until then, I hope this will do.”

She sits down before responding, “Jim, this is perfect.”

He sits down across from her. “I was thinking this could be our date spot. Don’t get me wrong, I love being home with you, but this way I can treat you to a night out sometimes without worrying if I’m standing too close to you.”

She grins, placing her hand on top of his and squeezing it gently. “I love being home with you too, but a night out sometimes would be wonderful.”

He brings her hand up to kiss her knuckles before setting it back on the table and opening the wine. He looks around and sighs, “Well, looks like I forgot the glasses, so…” he holds the bottle out to her, “want the first sip?”

She grabs the bottle and takes a sip before handing it back. They quickly fall into a conversation about future date nights and what they may entail. She requests planning the next one, and he promises that next time he takes her out they will have better food. A few hours pass and she’s laughing at Jim’s face after he almost chokes on a chip when they hear tires over gravel and then a car door closing from outside.

Jim quickly blows out the candle and hides the wine under the table. Pam is looking at him worriedly and he put his finger to his lips then stands up and gestures for her to follow him. They go and stand against the side wall that has the door they entered in, hiding behind another old table, hoping they can sneak out before whoever is outside sees them.

The door opens and the voice that says “Sherriff’s Deputy, come out where I can see you” almost makes Jim laugh. He watches Dwight walk further into the building in his uniform, holding up what seems to be pepper spray in one hand and a small sword in the other. Jim makes sure to make a mental note of this for future reference and turns to Pam as Dwight seems momentarily distracted by the table they were sitting at just a moment before, seemingly looking for clues on who could be hiding. He sits down and takes off his shoes as quietly as possible, gesturing for Pam to do the same. After she does, he points to the door and then counts down from 3 on his fingers. With Dwight’s back turned to them, studying Jim’s backpack, they start to tip toe towards the door. Jim makes it outside but Pam stubs her toe while trying to quickly follow behind. Her pained grunt makes Dwight turn and yell, “Sherriff’s Deputy! Hands up!”

Jim quickly walks back up to the door, “I think you mean volunteer Sherriff’s Deputy.”

“Jim? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m on duty tonight and I’m doing my rounds. I saw the car parked up front and since this building is abandoned, I figured someone was up to no good. Of course, it would be you and… who is this? This is not Karen.”

Jim and Pam glance at each other before he turns back to Dwight, “How do you know who Karen is?”

“I know all of my coworkers’ assigned partners. Being a Sherriff’s Deputy gives me access to everyone’s files, and I figured it would be good information to have for security reasons.”

“Volunteer Sherriff’s Deputy.”

“Whatever. Who is this?”

Pam reaches out her hand but puts it back down when Dwight just stares at it for a moment and then looks back up at her. “Um, I’m Pam.”

“Last name?”

“Dwight, come on. What does that matter?”

“You two are trespassing on private property, that’s why it matters.” He stuffs Jim’s backpack under his arm and pulls out a notepad. “I need her last name for the ticket.”

Pam looks confused, he knows she can tell that Dwight isn’t fully catching on to why they’re trespassing, but before she can say anything, Jim jumps in, “Is it really trespassing if the place is abandoned?”

Dwight looks at him strangely, “Of course it is, you idiot.”

“I don’t know, I thought if no one owned the building then it’s okay.”

“How do you know no one owns this building?”

“Do you know if anyone owns the building?”

“I mean… no… but I can find out and if someone does then I can fine you.”

“Great. We were heading out anyway, Pam has class in the morning, and I’ve got that big sales call.” Jim grabs his backpack under Dwight’s arm and turns to the door.

“Wait. Why are you here, anyway? And with someone who is not your assigned partner?”

He turns back to Dwight, “Oh, Pam and I? Just friends. I was telling her it was Michael’s birthday next week and I thought she could help me plan his surprise party. She’s an artist, so she was going to help with the decorations.”

Dwight raises an eyebrow, “So, you two decided the best place to meet was an abandoned restaurant at ten-thirty p.m.?”

Pam speaks up, “My fiancé works nights and most of my classes are in the evening, so I work better when it’s late.”

Dwight looks back and forth between them, Jim can tell he’s trying to decide if he should believe them or not. He finally puts the notepad back into his pocket and crosses his arms over his chest. “Where is it?”

Jim looks confused, “Where is what?”

“Michael’s surprise party.”

“Oh. Uh. Applebee’s… I think. We haven’t really decided yet.”

“Make it Chili’s. Michael likes their appetizers better.”

“Okay, sure. Chili’s it is.”

“Very well.” He walks past them, stopping right outside the door and turning back to them. “Next time I find you trespassing I will write you both a ticket.”

“It’s not trespassing if no one owns the building, remember?”

Dwight huffs before turning back around and marching off to his car.

Pam looks at Jim and giggles, “So, that’s Dwight, huh?”

“The one and only.”

She grabs his hand after Dwight pulls out of the parking lot and they start to make their way to the car. “So much for our new date night spot.”

He opens the car door for her. “We’ll just have to park down the street next time.”

She smiles up at him as she sits down. “You really wanna risk getting caught again?”

He shrugs, “I’m not scared of Dwight, he’s pretty gullible. I mean he just bought that we were planning a surprise birthday party for a man you don’t even know over a candlelit dinner.”

She waits for him to go around and sit on his side before responding, “Looks like our next date night is at Chili’s.”

He starts the car and raises an eyebrow at her, “You seriously wanna throw a party for my boss?”

“Why not? It should be fun. We won’t be able to have an actual date night, obviously, but we can have dinner out in public, in an actual restaurant. And since we’re the hosts it won’t look suspicious if we’re together all night.”

He starts driving home, reaching over to grab her hand, interlacing their fingers. “Alright, then… it’s a date.”

Pam walks through the doors of Chili’s with Jim following closely behind. After finding their reservation, they follow the hostess to the back of the restaurant and set the small boxes they were holding onto the table. They start setting up before Pam turns to Jim to ask, “So, who all is coming, anyway?”

“Um, last I heard it was Dwight, Angela, Kelly, Kevin, Oscar, Stanley, Creed, Meredith, and Erin. And then Michael, obviously.  So, everyone except for Toby, Phyllis, and Ryan.”

She ties a couple balloons to a chair. “Well, I’m excited to meet everyone. It’ll be nice to put faces to the names you’re always telling me about.”

He smiles at her, “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about any of them.”

She’s about to respond when Dwight walks up behind Jim and demands to know their plans for the evening, so she turns to him instead. “Hi, Dwight.”

“Hello, Pam.” He looks around and inspects the décor they have set up. “Is this all you have?”

Jim nods, “Pretty much.”

Dwight scrunches his nose for second before rearranging the centerpiece to his liking. “I guess it will do. When will Michael arrive?”

“I told him we had a sales meeting here at seven, so within the next fifteen minutes or so.”

“I will go keep lookout.”

“You do that.”

Dwight turns and heads back out of the restaurant as more people start coming up to them. They greet Jim first before turning to Pam and introducing themselves. She immediately likes Erin and Oscar, thinks Creed, Kevin, and Meredith are a little strange, Angela seems uptight but polite, Stanley barely mutters “hello” before finding his seat, and Kelly is nice but a little loud. She quickly realizes Jim never exaggerated any of their personalities in his stories about them.

She’s helping Jim finish up a couple final touches with the cake and talking to Erin when Dwight barrels in the doors, yelling, “He’s here! Be prepared!”

No more than a minute later Pam watches a man walk in, his face full of wonder as everyone yells, “Surprise!” and he realizes this is, in fact, not a sales meeting.

“Wow! This is amazing! This is way better than Chuck E. Cheese!”

Jim leads her over to Michael, “Michael, this is Pam. She helped with all the decorations.”

“Hi, Michael, it’s nice to meet you. Jim’s told me a lot about you.”

“Oh, yes, Jim is my best friend, so I’m not surprised that he talks about me outside of work. It’s nice to finally meet Jim’s fiancé. You must keep him busy; I’ve been trying to invite you and him over for dinner for months, but you guys always have something going on.”

“Oh, no, we’re not—”

She’s interrupted by Dwight stepping in between them with the cake and singing Happy Birthday. Jim just shrugs at her and joins in.

*-*-*

She remembers ordering a martini to go along with her cake and appetizer. She remembers Kelly ordering her some sort of cocktail that tasted like cherries. She remembers sipping on a different cocktail, this time strawberry flavored, while trying to keep up with the conversation her and Meredith were having. She does not remember how she got the beer that is sitting in her hand, or what Michael had just told her. He said something was holy? Wait, no, Holly. He’s talking about his wife. She’s getting a little dizzy from trying to concentrate and from nodding too much, trying to look invested in whatever is coming out of Michael’s mouth. She also knows she’s giggling more than she should be, but after three and a half drinks, everything is a little funnier. She glances over and sees Jim talking to Oscar and Kevin, and she wishes he would come over here and talk to her instead.

When she agreed to throw this party, she expected her and Jim to be able to pretend they were on a real date. She knew they still wouldn’t be able to show any affection, of course, but she thought they would be able to be near each other all night and talk and just act like they were together. But every time they got within three feet of each other, Erin would pull Pam away to talk about the latest celebrity gossip with Kelly, or Dwight would yank Jim’s arm in the opposite direction, complaining about something that apparently went wrong. It’s been almost two hours since Michael has arrived and she’s pretty sure they haven’t said more than ten words to each other within that timeframe. She remembers this is why they don’t do dates out in public, because being in public sucks when you have to pretend you’re not hopelessly in love. That’s why she takes another swig of her drink, hoping if she gets drunk enough, he will take her home, where they don’t have to pretend.

“When are you two getting married?”

Michael’s voice pulls her out of her trance, and she looks back over to him. “Sorry, who?”

“You and Jim, duh.” He points Jim out, as if she needed a reminder of who he is.

She really considers playing along. Considers telling Michael about some imaginary date her and Jim have set, and all the imaginary plans they’ve made. And if she were talking to some stranger she knew they would never see again, she might have. But, even though she is much more drunk than she ever planned on getting tonight, she knows how quickly things could go downhill if she does. So, instead, she looks down and says, “Oh, no, we’re not engaged. We’re just friends.”

“Really? Who’s his fiancé then?”

She takes another sip of beer before answering, “Her name is Karen.”

“Huh. He never talked about her, I guess. Where is she?”

Pam shrugs, both because she honestly doesn’t know where Karen is and also because she really doesn’t want to talk about her. Lucky for her, she doesn’t have to respond more than that, since Dwight interrupts everyone for probably the ninth time tonight, announcing that their final event is a pinata out in the parking lot. She finishes her drink before grabbing her coat and following everyone outside.

After she’s outside, she realizes that her and Jim never brought a pinata. She walks over to him and asks him where it came from.

He shrugs, “Beats me. Dwight must have brought it. Him and Angela probably filled with beets and hard candies, which I’m sure Michael is going to love.”

She smiles at him and has to hold herself back from interlacing her fingers in between his. She does allow herself to stand close to him, though, lightly leaning against his side while they watch Dwight blindfold Michael and start to spin him around. She looks back up at him before trying to whisper, though it comes out louder than she anticipated, “I missed you tonight.”

He glances down at her and smiles before looking back up to watch Michael swing at the pinata. He places his hand on the small of her back, rubbing his thumb back and forth against her jacket, before whispering back, “I missed you too.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, leaning into him a little more. She manages to be a little quieter than before when she says, “I kept seeing you across the room and just wanted to go over and kiss you. I wanted to do more than that, actually, but I would have been okay with just kissing you.”

He keeps his gaze on Meredith who is now taking her turn with the pinata, but he moves his hand to her waist and takes a step backwards so they’re standing behind everyone. He moves his hand to her back again before saying, “Are you drunk, Beesly?”

She nods, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

He laughs which makes Creed and Angela look over at them. She smiles at them and takes a small step to the side so they’re not so close. Angela’s glare would have made her think that she overheard them if she hadn’t seen Angela glaring at everything all night. She’s pretty sure that annoyance is just Angela’s go-to emotion. She turns back to Jim once Creed and Angela turn back around to tell him that they should go home so she can kiss him when Michael is grabbing her arm and telling her it’s her turn.

“Oh, Michael, no… that’s okay. I don’t think I should do this.”

“Nonsense, Pamela. You helped throw the party, you get to have a turn.”

“Really, Michael, it’s okay.”

“It is my birthday and you will be hitting this paper horse with a stick, by my orders.”

Dwight speaks up, “It’s a donkey, Michael.”

“Horse, donkey, zebra, whatever.” He hands Pam the stick and puts the blindfold over her eyes before she has the chance to refuse anymore. He spins her twice before announcing, “Have at it, Spamster!”

If Pam wasn’t feeling dizzy before, she certainly was now. She stumbles a little before finding her footing, and she has to pause for a moment to make sure she’s not going to throw up. She’s sure she looks ridiculous, but she figures she might as well get it over with so she can go home. She swings once and misses, Michael tells her to swing higher. She swings again and hits the edge of something, she guesses a leg. She takes one more swing, this time she stumbles again after hitting it directly, and Michael’s cheers and the thumping she hears against the ground makes her assume it broke.

She takes off the blindfold, pausing again until the parking lot stops spinning, and sees that she did actually manage to break it open, beats and hard candies covering the pavement, just like Jim had guessed. She looks up at Jim with a grin on her face that matches his. She all but runs over to him as Michael complains about this being “the worst pinata that has ever existed,” exclaiming once she gets close to him, “I broke it! Oh my God, I broke it!”

He laughs and hugs her, “Good job, Beesly.”

She doesn’t realize that she reached up to cup his face and kiss him until she’s pulling away from him. His face is surprised, and she steps back, pushing a curl behind her ear and looking down, mumbling, “Sorry,” even though she is anything but.

She looks around and is thankful that everyone seems too preoccupied with complaining to Dwight about the pinata to have noticed them. She looks back up at Jim and says, “Can you, uh, take me home?”

He nods, “Let me go tell Michael we’re leaving.”

She starts heading to the car as Jim walks around her to tell Michael. She’s about to open the passenger door when she feels a hand on her arm. She looks up and sees Michael standing there, smiling. She’s about to ask what he needs when he speaks first.

“Just friends, huh?”

Her eyes widen and she tries to look behind him to see where Jim is. She finds him talking to Dwight and wonders how he went from telling Michael goodbye to Dwight shoving a beet in Jim’s face. She looks back at Michael and chuckles nervously, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So, you’ll just kiss anyone after breaking a pinata open?”

“I mean… I just got carried away, you know? Plus, I drank a lot tonight, I wasn’t thinking.”

Michael looks over his shoulder to see Jim walking towards them, so he turns back to Pam. “Do me a favor.”

She’s hesitant, but also curious on what he’s going to say, “Okay...”

He takes his wallet out and takes out his business card. “Call me sometime, without Jim around.”

She takes the card, but she just stares at him. She’s not sure if it’s the alcohol that’s making her so confused or if Michael really is just not making any sense. “What? Why?”

Jim catches up to them, so instead of answering, Michael says, “Well, thanks again for the party. It was awesome, except for that stupid pinata. See you Monday, Jimboree!”

Jim looks as confused as she does as he watches Michael walk back towards the restaurant. He turns back to her and asks, “What was that all about?”

“I… don’t know.”

He chuckles and opens the door for her, “Okay, then. Let’s get you home.”

After they’re home and Jim’s arm is wrapped around her waist as they lay in bed, she thinks about what Michael had said to her tonight. Jim had always made Michael seem like a guy with good intentions, but who some people might call pretty stupid. All the stories she’s heard of him made her think he was some goofy, immature guy who doesn’t think before he speaks. But after her conversation with him, she’s starting to think there may be more to him than he lets on. She wonders why he wants her to call him, specifically without Jim around, and why he was being so secretive about it, too. She wonders if he’s just trying to get her to invest in some sort of start-up or join some pyramid scheme. Though, if she’s honest with herself, he made it seem like that wasn’t the case. Either way, as exhaustion starts to overtake her, she determines she will call him tomorrow while Jim is at basketball. She figures if she couldn’t allow herself to play along with Michael while they talked at the table, she could allow herself to play along this time, if only to see what Michael is up to.

Pam kisses Jim goodbye and watches him back out of the driveway before finding the business card hiding in her coat pocket and then sits on the couch. She’s not sure why she’s so nervous about calling Michael. All of her conversations with him last night were pleasant enough. But, as the night went on, she noticed his demeanor change when it was just the two of them. He went from an endearing goof with cringy jokes to someone more sincere and genuine within a couple hours, and she wasn’t quite sure what to think about that.

Every time Jim talked about Michael, she got the impression that she wouldn’t really like the guy. There were very few good stories about Michael compared to all the embarrassing or offensive ones. So, she was surprised to find that after last night, she actually did kind of like him. She just doesn’t know why he liked her, why he confronted her about kissing Jim, or why he wants her to call him.

She figures she’s never going to find out just sitting here staring at her phone, so she dials his number and lifts the phone to her ear. He picks up on the third ring with an exuberant “Michael Scott!”

“Hey, Michael. Um, it’s Pam.”

“Pam! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Oh, you asked me to call you, remember?”

“Right. Of course. One second.” His voice gets muffled, she assumes he’s talking to someone else, and then she hears a door opening and closing before he speaks again, his voice suddenly a little more serious, “I wanted to talk to you about last night.”

“What about last night?”

“Can you be honest with me?”

“Michael… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Listen, Pam, if what I’m about to assume is correct, I think I can help you. But I need you to be honest with me.”

She sighs nervously before giving in, “Okay, sure.”

“Last night wasn’t the first time you kissed Jim, is it?”

“I told you that I just had too much to drink and got carried away.”

“Pam, you said you would be honest.”

She pauses and briefly wonders if Michael is some undercover cop who is trying to catch her. But she did indeed promise to be honest, and anyway, she knows that although loving someone is illegal, kissing is not, so she finally says, “No, it’s not.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“How did you know that?”

“Well, he looked surprised after you stepped back, but it seemed like he was more so surprised that you kissed him in front of everyone rather than that you kissed him at all.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything, though.”

Instead of clarifying, he asks, “Do you want to know something?”

She’s not really sure if she does, but she says, “Yes,” anyway.

“Jim has never mentioned Karen’s name before. Three years of being engaged and not once did her name come up in our conversations. I would even ask him directly about his fiancé, but he would always change the subject. Jim’s never been one to share much about his personal life, so I figured this was just one of those things he insisted on being quiet about. But then a couple months ago, your name came up. Not a lot, but every now and then he would mention a ‘Pam’ and I thought he was finally starting to let us into that part of his life. The way he would talk about you made me think you were his fiancé. That’s why I assumed you two were engaged last night. Well, that and the way you were looking at him all night.”

She’s glad they’re on the phone so he can’t see the blush appearing on her cheeks. She’s still confused on where Michael is going with all of this, but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t kind of happy that Jim had only ever talked about her at work. She also thought she was being discreet last night, but if Michael had caught her staring at Jim, she wonders if anyone else did too. “Was I that obvious?”

“A little bit, yeah. I don’t think anyone else noticed, though, so don’t worry about that. Kelly definitely would have said something if anyone suspected anything.”

“I’m sorry, Michael… I’m just confused. Why are you saying all this? Why did you want me to call you?”

She thinks he must enjoy having the upper hand, because he avoids her questions again, instead asking, “What’s your fiancé’s name?”

She lets out a small, frustrated sigh this time. She’s starting to understand why Jim comes home a little annoyed most days. But she’s gotten this far, so she’s not about to give up now and never know why Michael is doing all this. “His name is Roy.”

“Do Roy and Karen know?”

“Know what?”

“That you and Jim love each other.”

She’s shocked at how calmly he states it, as if he was simply stating that her favorite color is blue. She’s also surprised that knowing that he knows about them doesn’t freak her out. But there’s something about his tone that makes her believe that he really is trying to help them. “We told them a couple weeks ago.”

“Okay, good, that makes things easier.”

“Why are you so calm about this? You know that this is illegal, right?”

“Oh, yeah, totally. Very illegal. But that’s what I’m trying to help you with, I just had to make sure my assumptions were correct.”

“Are you ever going to just tell me what all this is about? How are you able to help us?”

“Well, technically, I wouldn’t be helping you. My wife would be. You remember me telling you about her, right? Holly?”

She remembers him mentioning her name, but she was too distracted last night by Jim to remember anything else he might have said about her. “A little, yeah.”

“Okay, well, she’s a lawyer. Works for the Lackawanna County Courthouse, she handles a lot of the paperwork for these arranged marriages.”

“Okay…”

“So, she would have to be the one to make this all happen, but long story short… she can switch some things around so that you and Jim can marry each other instead of you guys marrying Karen and Roy.”

Her jaw drops and she truly wonders if she suddenly started hallucinating. She thinks there is no possible way he can be anything close to serious, and if he is, she wonders what the catch is. She’s silent for so long that Michael asks if she’s still there and she has to choke out, “Yes, sorry. I just… are you serious?”

“Yeppers.”

“But… why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you helping us?”

“Jim’s one of my best friends, so I’d do anything to help him out. And after seeing you two together last night, you guys reminded me of me and Holly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Holly and I weren’t assigned partners, either. I was engaged to a woman named Jan and Holly was engaged to some guy named AJ. Holly was the H.R. rep when I started at Dunder Mifflin, that’s how we met. We got close pretty fast and started secretly seeing each other after a month or so of just being friends. She quit her H.R. position a couple months later, once she finished law school and got a job at the courthouse. We were about two weeks out from marrying our assigned partners when she got promoted to her current position. She quickly realized that if we could get Jan and AJ to agree, we could switch partners without anyone but us knowing. Lucky for us, after some bribing, they agreed, and so she switched the paperwork.”

“But… won’t she get in trouble if someone catches her?”

“She’s the head of the department, she’s in charge of everything dealing with these marriages. No one will know besides those who are a part of the process, meaning you, Jim, Roy, and Karen.”

“Have you done this before? Besides with you and Holly?”

“Only once, but I can’t tell you who. Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about this either. That’s why I wanted to talk to you alone, without Jim. In case, for some reason, you don’t agree to do this, I need as few of people to know about this as possible. And Jim never answers my calls outside of work, so I couldn’t talk to him about this without risking someone overhearing us.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Like I said, Holly is going to have to be the one to actually deal with all of this. I know we don’t know each other well, but I figured I had a better chance of getting you to admit this rather than someone you’ve never met.”

“Wow. I mean, thank you, Michael. This is… unbelievable.”

“Don’t thank me yet, there’s still some things that need to be done. Assuming you’re agreeing to this, you’ll have to tell Jim. And then if he agrees, which I’m sure he will, you’ll have to convince Roy and Karen. That’s the hardest part. They would get assigned to each other, since everyone needs to be assigned to someone. If you are able to do that, then you can give me a call and we can get started.”

“I can do that, I think.”

“Great! Hey, I gotta go, but I hope I hear from you soon.”

“Yeah, me too. Bye, Michael.”

“See ya, Pam.”

She hangs up the phone and leans back against the couch, letting out a long breath. She tries to fully absorb everything Michael had just told her. She’s still not entirely sure why he trusted her with this information, like he said, they barely know each other, but she’s grateful that he did. If what he said is true, and if they are able to convince Roy and Karen, she will get to marry Jim. The thought of being Pam Halpert brings tears to her eyes and makes a grin spread across her lips. She stands up and starts heading to the bedroom. She’ll worry about Roy and Karen later. For now, she is going to pretend that everything will definitely work out and has to figure out a way to tell Jim the good news.

Jim is barely two steps through the door before Pam practically throws herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply. After a moment he pulls back, grinning as he says, “Hello to you, too.”

Her grin matches his and she pecks his lips quickly before responding, “Hi.”

“Not that I didn’t enjoy that, but what’s with the grand entrance?”

“Just in a good mood. But, also, I planned a date night. So, go get changed.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. Now, go shower so we can leave.”

He kisses her once more before walking towards the bathroom, turning back towards her as he opens the door and asking, “Are you coming?”

*-*-*

An hour later, they pull into Nay Aug Park. She was a little worried about coming here in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, but she felt that this news would be best delivered in their spot. Luckily, the park seemed relatively quiet despite the warm weather. She figures as long as they don’t see anyone they know, they’ll be fine. So, she holds his hand as they walk the well-known path towards the lake.

After sitting in silence for a while, just enjoying the weather and each other’s company, she finally turns to him and smiles. “I have a question for you.”

“Go for it.”

“Would you rather marry me on my wedding day or on yours?”

She can’t help but giggle at the look on his face. After a moment of just staring at her confused, he asks, “What are you talking about?”

“Well, I talked to Michael earlier—”

He interrupts her, “Hold up. I was gone for an hour this morning and you had a conversation with my idiot boss that somehow ended up in you asking me when I want to get married to you?”

“That’s the thing, he’s a lot smarter than he lets on. He knows about us.”

“You told him? Pam, Michael is like the last person you would want to tell something like this to.”

“I didn’t tell him anything. Not initially, anyway. He figured it out on his own.”

“You’re telling me that Michael Scott, the same Michael Scott that apparently doesn’t know the difference between ‘wedding’ and ‘welding’ figured us out within two hours of meeting you?”

“Well, it didn’t help that you only ever brought up my name at work and not Karen’s. And I may or may not have been staring at you all night last night.”

He smirks a little, “You were staring at me all night, huh?”

She slaps his arm but doesn’t hold back her smile, “That is besides the point. Do you want to know what we talked about or not?”

He laughs, “Yes, I would love to.”

“So, he saw me kiss you last night. After I had told him that we were just friends. He called me out on it when he came over to say bye, and I told him I was just drunk, but he didn’t buy it. So, when I called him he asked if that was the first time I had kissed you, and I don’t know, it was something about the way he asked and I told him I would be honest, so, I told him it wasn’t.”

“Remind me to never trust you with a secret, Beesly.”

She rolls her eyes. “He knew it wasn’t the first time because of your reaction to the kiss, so that one’s on you, Halpert.” She smiles at him before continuing, “Anyway, then he asked if Karen and Roy knew that we loved each other. And he just said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Jim, I don’t know what to tell you, but I just believed that he was on our side, so I didn’t deny it.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with anything, though.”

“I didn’t either, until he told me about his wife, Holly. You know her, right?”

“Yeah, we’ve met a few times. What about her?”

“Do you know what her job is?”

“No…”

“She’s a lawyer at the courthouse downtown. She’s in charge of all the paperwork for everyone’s marriages.”

“Okay?”

“Jim, he said if we can convince Roy and Karen to marry each other, Holly can switch around the paperwork so that you and I can get married instead.”

“What? Why?”

“He said we reminded him of him and Holly. They weren’t assigned partners either, but after she got her current job, she was able to switch them around, and since you’re his best friend, he would, and I quote, do anything to help you out. I guess I just got lucky that he liked me. But this means if Roy and Karen agree, we can actually be together.”

His laughter is filled with more joy than humor. He wraps his arms around her before cupping her face and kissing her. She pulls away after a moment and looks at him, a grin plastered on her face. “So, Jim… will you marry me?”

He kisses her again before pulling away just enough to answer, “Of course I will.”

*-*-*

The door hasn’t even fully shut behind them before pins her against the wall and kisses her.  Her hands tangle in his hair as he grips her waist and pulls her against him. She slides her tongue against his bottom lip, and he meets it with his own. He grips her thighs and lifts her up, wrapping her legs around his waist. She can feel him against her and kisses him harder, wrapping one arm around his neck before pushing herself off the wall with her other arm, making him stumble backwards in the direction of the bedroom, hoping he gets the hint.

He lays her down on the bed, crawling on top of her and kissing her quickly before running his hands under the hem of her shirt and pulling it up and over her head. He kisses down her jawline then her neck as she undoes the buttons on his shirt, pulling it off as soon as she finishes. She runs her fingers down his chest as he unhooks her bra, sliding it off her shoulders and tossing it aside. She moans when he cups one breast in his hand and works the other one with his tongue, arching her back a little to meet his touch. She wraps her legs around his, pulling him as close to her as she can manage. She lets out a small whimper when she feels him hard against her again, silently cursing the fact that they haven’t fully undressed yet.

She goes to pull his face up to hers so she can correct this problem, but he beats her to it, sitting up in order to undo his button and zipper. She moves to start removing her jeans when he stops her, whispering, “Let me,” before taking his pants off and moving back overtop of her. He kisses her lips once before pulling away again and unbuttons her jeans. Once he undoes her zipper, he moves his hands to her waist, hooking one finger under each side of her jeans so he can run the rest of his fingers down her legs as he pulls them off.

Once they’re discarded, he follows the trail his fingers left with his lips, moving up her right leg, then repeating the process on her left. When he reaches her inner thigh, she pulls him back up to her so she can reach down and pull off his briefs. She wraps her hand around him and he almost instantly thrusts into her touch while moaning into her shoulder. She runs her hand up and down as she kisses his neck, then removes her hand as lifts her hips and removes her underwear. She wraps around him again and guides him into her, both of them moaning into each other’s ears as he pushes fully into her.

She holds him still for a second, loving the feeling of being completely filled and loved by him. It’s not long before she feels like she’s going to explode if he doesn’t move, though, so she thrusts her hips towards him and he responds by pulling almost completely out, then back in, moving quicker with each thrust. Their heavy breaths are quickly joined by moans of each other’s names, “harder,” “faster, “please,” and “I love you.”

They reach their highs together and he lays down beside her once he catches his breath. She turns and lays her head on his chest, wrapping her arm around his waist and her leg in between his. He plays with her curls as they start to relax.  She can feel his breaths getting slower and deeper, and as sleep starts to overtake her as well, she reminds herself to thank Michael and Holly for possibly giving her the chance to love Jim like this forever.

She’s been putting off meeting with Roy and Karen as much as possible. It’s not that she doesn’t want to marry Jim or that she has any problems with Roy and Karen getting married, she’s just afraid of their answers. She knows that asking them to go along with them being together was a lot to ask in the first place, so asking them to marry someone else entirely, someone who they barely know, in three months, is scary. So, every time Jim brings up the topic, she steers the conversation away. She doesn’t want this conversation to go the way the first one did. She wants to be prepared and ready, not taken off guard and overwhelmed.

But it’s been almost two weeks since she talked to Michael, and he’s been texting her asking for updates, and she can only avoid it for so long. So, after discussing it with Jim over dinner a few nights ago, they decided to talk all together on Friday, because she’s not sure if she would be able to get through this conversation twice. Asking Roy to come over was easy enough. She’s glad that her and Roy have almost become friends. Once they weren’t forced to like each other, they actually started to enjoy being together. She has also noticed that ever since they split, Roy has seemed to try to better himself. She wonders if she would have happily married him if he had tried doing that three years ago. But too little, too late, now. She’s just glad they can still be friends.

Karen was another story. She didn’t answer Jim’s calls or texts for a couple days, and when she finally did, she was reluctant to meet up. She wasn’t happy about having to be in the same room as Jim, let alone in the same room as Jim and Pam, but agreed to stop by as long as it was quick. Pam felt bad for Karen. She knew that Karen liked Jim well enough. Knew that Karen was actually looking forward to marrying Jim, thankful that she was paired with a great guy that she could get along with. And then Pam came along and threw a wrench into Karen’s life plans, and to top it all off, had to find out about all of this over the phone.

Pam had hoped, maybe a little too optimistically, that Karen would come around after a bit and they would be able to be friends again, like she was able to be with Roy. Outside of having to listen to Karen plan her wedding, Pam really did enjoy hanging out with her. She was nice, pretty funny, and encouraged Pam to sign up for art classes, which really means Karen encouraged her to secretly meet up with her fiancé twice a week, but she hoped that Karen didn’t notice that. Pam understands why Karen doesn’t want anything to do with her or Jim, but she wishes that Karen wouldn’t hate them forever.

But now it’s Friday and she knows that the chances of Karen hating them forever is steadily increasing as the minutes tick by. It’s only a matter of hours before Roy and Karen show up at their doorstep and they ask for the biggest favor of their lives.

The door opens and Jim walks in. She pauses washing the dishes when he wraps his arms around her from behind. The tension she’s built up in her shoulders slowly melts away when he kisses the top of her head.

“The house looks great.”

“Thanks, I clean best when I’m freaking out.”

He turns her around and raises an eyebrow, “Why are you freaking out?”

“Seriously? Roy and Karen are going to be here in, like, an hour, and we’re going to be asking them to marry each other. You’re not even a little worried they will say no?”

“Why would they say no? It’s not like they were really marrying us, anyway.”

Really, she’s not sure why she’s more nervous about this conversation than she was about first telling them about her and Jim. Realistically, they should go along with this as well, since they agreed to only pretend to be together. There’s really no reason to not agree, but just knowing that ‘no’ is an option makes Pam’s stomach churn.

“I know, but Roy and Karen barely know each other. It’s one thing to pretend to get married to us and just fake it, and another thing to marry someone you hardly know in less than three months.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Roy’s been really understanding about all of this, I don’t think he’s gonna have an issue with it.”

“Yeah, but Karen…”

“Honestly? I think Karen will be happy to not have to see me ever again. That’s going to be one of my main selling points.”

She laughs a little and rests her forehead on his chest. “I wish this stupid law didn’t exist.”

“Me too, Beesly.”

He’s helping her finish up dinner when there’s a knock on the door. He lets Roy and Karen inside and they all sit around the table. She can feel the tension rising as she shares a couple of awkward glances with Jim between bites of chicken. She wants to get this over with, but she’s not entirely sure how to go about asking your fiancé if they would be willing to marry your lover’s fiancé instead.

Karen’s frustrated groan breaks the silence before she says, “So, is there a reason we’re here or did you just feel like having an awkward dinner with your exes tonight?”

Pam and Jim share one last look of encouragement with each other before looking at the other two at the table. Jim sets his fork down and says, “No, we, uh, wanted to ask you guys something.”

Karen looks at him expectantly, “Okay?”

Pam speaks up, only looking at Roy since she’s unable to handle Karen’s glare at the moment, “So, we have this friend. His wife works at the courthouse downtown, and, um, long story short… they are able to switch some things around. Make it so that Jim and I will marry each other.”

“What?” Karen and Roy spoke simultaneously, their eyes widening.

Jim takes over when Pam looks over at him, “Yeah. We can’t give a lot of details until you guys agree because no one can know about this, they could get in a lot of trouble if anyone found out. And if you guys agree, then we—”

Roy interrupts him, “Wait. Agree with what? You two marrying each other?”

Jim continues, “Well, that. But also… everyone needs to be assigned to someone. So, if Pam and I get married, then that means you two need to marry someone and, well, the only solution for that would be if you two married each other instead.”

Pam expected awkward silences, more questioning, some yelling. She wouldn’t have even been surprised if she saw them storm out right then and there. What she didn’t expect, though, was to sit there and watch as Karen and Roy laughed. She looks at Jim, eyebrows furrowed with utter confusion, before turning back to them and asking, “What’s so funny?”

Roy smiles at Karen before looking back at Pam and shrugging, “Yeah, we’ll do it.”

It was Jim and Pam’s turn to say “What?” simultaneously, their eyes wide.

Karen glances over at Roy while saying, “Yeah, uh… Roy and I have kind of been seeing each other these past few weeks.”

Pam shakes her head, wondering if she’s hearing things right. “How did that happen?”

“Well, remember that day you told me about you and Jim, Pam? At the end of the call, you said I should ask Karen if she would want to get a drink sometime. I didn’t do it at first, because I was still angry at you and all, and then I forgot about it. But then like two weeks later I ran into Karen at Poor Richard’s and we started talking.”

Karen takes over, “We ended up running into each other a couple more times there before we actually planned to meet up. And, I don’t know, he’s kind of cool, so we kept it going. We’re not in love or anything, but we like hanging out with each other.”

Jim is looking at them as if they’re speaking another language and he’s trying so hard to understand. “When were you going to tell us?”

Karen scoffs, “You have no right to ask us that when you snuck behind our backs for over a month, and we were still together. Even if we’re still technically engaged, we’re not together anymore, so I can see whoever I want to see.”

Jim leans back in his chair and sighs, “Okay, yeah, you’re right.”

Pam is still looking at them confused. “But if you two are just hanging out, why are you so eager to agree?”

“Karen and I kind of already talked about this. Not in the sense of actually being able to switch partners, but we knew that our marriages were going to be fake. So, we figured if you two get to be together and we were going to be alone, why not just pretend like we were assigned to each other in the first place?” Roy shrugs, “And anyway, this way no one has to lie, and everyone can keep their stories straight. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want to go to jail or whatever it is that they would do in this situation.”

Pam rubs a hand over her face. She feels like pinching herself to make sure she’s not dreaming. Somehow, the man in front of her, who three months ago would have probably screamed and cursed and threw things if she had even mentioned the idea of him marrying someone else, was being calm and collected and making total sense. She’s not sure how that happened. Maybe he wasn’t bettering himself, she thought. Maybe Karen was the one making him a better person. She had always thought that Roy was the one holding her back, but now she thinks maybe they were holding each other back from their full potentials. She looks back up and sees Jim smiling softly at her and she smiles back. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”

Karen pushes her plate away from her before asking, “So, who’s this friend of yours that can make this happen?”

“It’s actually my boss, Michael. You remember me mentioning him, right? His wife is a lawyer and she’s in charge of all the marriage paperwork for Lackawanna County. She would be able to switch our paperwork around and no one would know except us.”

“When will this happen?”

Pam shrugs, “We don’t know. We had to get you guys to agree to this before going any further. But now I can call him and let him know. We can keep you guys updated when we find out what the next steps are.”

Karen nods and stands up, “Okay. Well, like I said, I didn’t want to stay long. But, uh, thanks for dinner. And let Roy know what’s going on, he can tell me whatever we need to do.”

Everyone else stands up and after some awkward goodbyes, Jim and Pam find themselves alone once again.

They’re cleaning up the table when Pam says, “That went a lot better than I expected.”

“Yeah, me too. I mean, I kind of thought they would say yes, but I did not expect them to have started seeing each other.”

She laughs while putting their dishes into the dishwasher. “Even in a world with assigned marriages, I never would have pictured Roy Anderson and Karen Filippelli together. Really. How did that happen?”

He closes the fridge and shrugs, handing her a beer. “Doesn’t matter, because soon we will be officially together,” he sets his drink on the counter and wraps his arms around her waist, “and engaged,” he kisses her deeply, then pulls away just enough to finish saying, “and in three months, married.”

She kisses him again, and as they find their way to the bedroom, beers long forgotten before they were even opened, she wonders how her life went from completely miserable to completely perfect in such a short amount of time.

She meets Jim, Karen, Roy, and Michael at the courthouse after everyone is off of work. After calling Michael on Friday night to tell him that everyone has agreed to switch, he asked to meet him and Holly here on Monday in order to get started. Polite smiles are exchanged before heading into the building in order to find Holly. Michael leads them to the third floor and then into a back office where a small, pretty, blonde woman sat at a desk, typing on her computer. She looks up when the door opens and smiles when she sees everyone.

“Hi, my love.” Pam watches Michael’s face light up as he greets his wife. Within ten seconds of standing in the same room as these two, she can see how much they love each other. She briefly wonders if that’s what Michael saw that made him realize her love for Jim.

Holly stands and kisses Michael quickly before turning to greet everyone else. “Hey, guys, I’m Holly. It’s so nice to finally meet all of you.”

Everyone shares similar sentiments as Holly shakes each of their hands while they introduce themselves.

“Sorry to have you guys come in after hours,” Holly sits back at her computer, pulling up some documents and starting to print them out, “but, as you guys know, this can’t be overheard, so we had to wait for everyone to be out of the office. Hopefully, this won’t take long, and we can go on with our evenings. Michael, can you show them to the conference room while I finish printing these out?”

“Of course, babe.”

Michael gestures for everyone to leave the room, then leads them across the main office to a small room with a round table and some chairs in the middle of it. Pam sat between Michael and Jim, and as Michael started asking Karen and Roy what they did for work, she reached over and grabbed Jim’s hand under the table.

He looks over and smiles at her, squeezing her hand before leaning down and whispering, “So, on a scale of 1-10, how awkward do you think this will be?”

She leans back in her chair and whispers, “A solid eight and a half.”

He nods and is about to respond when Holly walks in with a stack of papers in one hand and a few pens in the other. She hands out a few sheets and a pen to everyone before sitting down and clearing her throats. “Okay, so… basically, everyone filled out their marriage assignments a few years ago, which is what those top papers are. Underneath those you’ll find blank forms. You guys just have to copy everything from the top forms onto the bottom forms, keeping everything the same except for the names of your partner. My boss examines these once a year, which is why everything has to be the same except the names.”

“Wait.” Karen looks at Jim and Pam before turning to Holly, “Everyone said that only us would know about this.”

Pam nods and looks at Michael, “Yeah, I thought no one else would find out about us switching. Does this mean this might not work?”

Holly sighs, “Michael said that last time, too. Technically, he’s right, no one but us will know about this, at least that’s how it has worked out so far. However, there is a very small chance my boss can catch on. Like I said, he examines these once a year, and that usually means he flips through everyone’s files and just makes sure that everything lines up. There’s no way for him to remember everyone’s assignments, so the only way for him to know that you guys switched is if he, for some reason, recognizes your name from last year and realizes something is off. But if you fill out everything correctly, it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“And if it becomes an issue?” Pam looks at Holly nervously, “If he does notice something is off? What happens then?”

“Well, honestly, it would be hard to prove that something is wrong, since we will be shredding the old documents tonight. That’s why Michael and I have risked doing this three times now. There’s always a chance, but those chances are small. So, you guys can either risk it and fill out these forms, or marry your original partner and sneak around, making the chances of being caught even bigger.”

Karen sighs this time and picks up her pen, turning to the first page of the blank forms, “Okay, let’s just do this.”

The next forty-five minutes are silent aside from pens on paper and the occasional comment from Michael or Holly. Pam finishes first and excuses herself to get some water, standing up and heading to the vending machine she saw on their way in. She’s reaching in to grab her drink when she sees Michael walk up out of the corner of her eye. She smiles at him and he gestures to a nearby desk, silently asking her to sit down. She looks confused but sits down in the chair anyway as he leans against the desk.

She sips her water as she waits for him to speak, but when he doesn’t, she asks, “What did you need, Michael?”

She watches as he shakes his head, as if pulling him out of a trance, even though he’s the one who wanted to talk. He looks at her and there’s something in his eyes that she can’t quite pinpoint, but it’s sincere and genuine and she once again wonders why she is allowed to see this side of him. After a few more seconds of silence he finally says, “I just wanted to say thank you.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Thank you? For what?”

“I know I get carried away sometimes, but I’m not stupid. As much as I wish he was, I know Jim and I aren’t really best friends, at least not in his eyes. But he’s one of my closest friends for me, and I care about him. Before you came along, he was goofy and kind and all that, but he was also pretty closed off and didn’t really let anyone in. I mean, I’ve known him for a few years now and I just learned he has a sister and two brothers. And now that he’s with you, I don’t know, something’s changed. In a good way, I mean. He’s happier. I know I kind of told you this before on the phone, but I never thanked you for it. So… thank you.”

Tears fill her eyes but she’s smiling. She stands and hugs him, pulling back after a moment to look at him again. “You’re welcome. But, really, I should be thanking you. For all of this. We were going to try to make it work, but honestly? I wasn’t sure how long we would make it if we had to keep sneaking around. Someone was bound to find out eventually. We might not have lasted if it weren’t for you. We owe you and Holly, big time.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

Holly sticks her head out of the conference room window, asking them to come back in. He nods and turns to head back, but Pam grabs his arm after Holly goes back into the room. “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell Jim that I told you this, but he likes you more than he lets on.”

His face lights up, his grin making her giggle. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. But this has to stay between you and me. Promise?”

“Absolutely!”

After Holly checked all of their forms and confirming that everything was correct and letting them go, Pam and Jim find themselves driving back home. She watches him hum along to the radio as he drives, quickly relishing in the fact that she will be able to do this for forever now, before saying, “I like Michael.”

He laughs before glancing over at her and seeing she’s serious. He stops laughing but his smile doesn’t leave. “Should I be concerned? Is he my competition? Is that why he followed you out of the room?”

She rolls her eyes but can’t help but smile as well. “Not like that. I’m serious, though. And I know you like him more than you let others think.”

He nods a little. “He’s a decent guy when he’s not cracking inappropriate jokes.”

“I think we should invite him and Holly to lunch sometime this week to say thank you.”

He pulls into their driveway and puts the car in park before turning to her with an eyebrow raised. “Really?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s Michael. And it would be Michael in public. That usually doesn’t turn out very well.”

“Come on, he’s not that bad. His birthday was fun.”

Jim sighs and unbuckles, opening his car door and going around to open hers. He waits until she’s unlocking the front door to say, “Alright, we’ll invite them to lunch. But absolutely no Hooters; been there, done that. Never again.”

Pam had dreamt of this day since she was the flower girl in her aunt’s wedding. She would set up her stuffed animals, pick flowers from her backyard, wear her nicest dress, and decorate the hallway with toilet paper – much to her mother’s dismay – while pretending to marry Henry Johnson from preschool. She would repeat the vows her aunt and uncle said and then bring the teddy bear she deemed cute enough to act as Henry outside and they would honeymoon on her playset. Once she learned that she wasn’t able to pick out her future husband, those dreams changed a little. She was still excited to meet the man she would spend the rest of her life with, but now she mostly focused on how her wedding would look rather than who would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle. And then she met Roy and the more she got to know him, the more she dreaded her wedding day. She no longer cared about what kind of flowers she would have or what her dress looked like, because if she was going to be forced to marry someone she didn’t even like, let alone love, then she could get married in a trash bag and it’d all be the same to her.

But now she’s sitting in a back room of a church, only moments away from marrying the man she has fallen in love with, and she feels like she’s in preschool again. She can’t believe that this day has come. Although it has only been about six months, she feels like it’s been a lifetime of sneaking around and lying. Broken hearts and angry grudges and shocked families has been almost all she’s known since January, but she knows that will all end once she says, “I do.”

She thinks about the comment Roy had made to her when he first found out about her and Jim all those months ago. How he noticed she had become happier after meeting Jim. She looks at her reflection as she finishes curling her hair and sees her eyes are brighter and her smile is wider. She knew she felt happier after getting together with Jim, but she sees the evidence of that for the first time as she pins half of her hair back.

The door opens and her father pokes his head in to tell her that they are ready whenever she is. She pins her veil to the top of her head and gives herself one more look-over before looping her arm around her dad’s and following him out of the room.

*-*-*

“Love suffers long and is kind. It is not proud. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. And now these three remain: Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Jim is barely hearing what the pastor is saying, too distracted with looking at Pam. As soon as she walked through the church doors, he hasn’t been able to look away. She smiles up at him while the pastor finishes the verse and he wraps his arm around her waist. He looks away for long enough to grab Pam’s ring off of the pillow, and when he looks back to repeat his promises to her, he wonders how he had gotten so lucky. Wonders how he got to a point in his life where he is able to marry and love the beautiful girl in front of her.

As he slips the ring onto her left hand, he thinks about that cold, January day at Poor Richards. He almost went to Bernie’s Tavern to study Karen’s paper, because they’re cheaper than Richard’s. He even considered going to The Glider Diner since it was around dinner time and Poor Richard’s only serves appetizers, besides beer. But something, he likes to think it was fate but maybe it was just luck, made him go to Poor Richards that night. He never would have guessed that he would have met his future wife that night, considering he had already met who he thought was his future wife three years prior.

But he did. And he’s so, so glad that he did. She slips the ring onto his finger and after he’s given permission by the pastor to kiss his bride, he pulls her in and kisses her deeply, dipping her back slightly as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

They walk back down the aisle, this time hand in hand, high fiving and hugging their families, Michael, Karen, and Roy on the way out to their taxi to take them back to the hotel. It isn’t long before they’re checked into the honeymoon suite and all but tumbling onto the bed. He knows that the rings on their fingers don’t mean that they’re completely safe now, but as he hovers above Pam, smiling down at her, he also knows that no matter what, she always has been and always will be worth the risk.