It's not that Pam hated Karen. It was more that Jim was hers now. And she didn't need all these little reminders of wasted time and a girlfriend who was (thankfully) no longer around. Well, most of her.

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I.

He offered to drive her to work one morning and she'd happily taken him up on it. He'd greeted her at the door with a kiss and a cup of coffee. She still couldn't figure out how he managed to be so thoughtful.

He even opened the car door for her and Pam feared the day when all this ‘nice guy' stuff would wear off.

Jim went to plug in his iPod to discover that it was indeed very dead. He pressed the CD button instead and immediately their ears were violated by a loud pop song.

Pam reached forward and turned the volume knob all the way down. She laughed, "What is that junk, Halpert?" She ejected the disk to see written in bubbly letters "2: Jim <3: Karen" She kept laughing as she looked at him, "Aww, she made you a mix CD!"

He looked over and shook his head, "I only listened to it when she was in the car. To make her happy." He frowned, "She said my music was boring."

From his silence, Pam was pretty sure she'd struck a nerve with him. But then he smiled at her, "She obviously knows nothing about music."

Pam kept spinning the CD in her hand the whole way to work. When they got upstairs and hung up their coats Pam went immediately to the corner of the office.

"Hey Kevin, do you mind shredding something for me?"

II.

They were sitting in the break room, Jim was engrossed in the paper, while Pam played Bejeweled on his cell phone.

"It's really unfair that they only let you play the demo level." She said.

"You're just mad you can't beat my high score," he responded, before turning back to the sports section.

Trying to exit the game, she accidentally pressed the "contacts" button. She scrolled through the names for a reason she couldn't explain, and stopped somewhere near the middle. "There's a heart by Karen's name"

He avoided her eyes, a bit embarrassed by her discovery, "Oh yeah, she put it there. I don't know how to take it off"

"I do" she told him.

He looked at her with relief, "Oh, could you please?"

She flipped through the menu and quickly pressed "delete entry."

Without a hint of guilt she slid the phone back to him, "All taken care of."

III.

She couldn't believe how good his hands felt on her. It had been three weeks since their first date and although they'd both decided on taking things slow, neither of them could last a second longer.

Jim had taken her dancing. After a few hours of drinking, and pressing themselves together that way...there was no more time for "taking it slow."

He'd pulled her dress over her head somewhere in the hallway. She'd whipped his belt off like a dominatrix, a fact he certainly didn't fail to mention. She laughed before pushing him down on the bed forcefully.

Now she was straddling him. His fingers deftly unhooked her bra and tossed it to the side, a grin on his face that hadn't left since they walked through the door. He flipped them over, her head crashing against the pillows. She laughed, and it was okay. It was Jim, and things with them were better when they weren't so serious.

He nibbled on her earlobe while simultaneously caressing her through her panties and she saw stars. "Condom" she said breathlessly, a mix of a demand and a question. He sat up quickly, pulling down her panties with one hand and reaching into the nightstand with the other. He tossed the box next to her and went back to what he had been doing.

Pam looked over at the box. It was one of those big packs of thirty-six. There were only two left.

"Jim, we can't use these." She announced, matter-of-factly.

He looked up at her, his grin turned to confusion. "What? Why not?" He picked up the box, "They can't be expired already." He turned it over and over in his hands before he noticed her face. She had her arms folded over her chest, covering herself. There were tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

He tossed the box onto the table and lay down at her side. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, tilting her chin toward him.

"You, you didn't-" she stammered, trying to fight off the tears. She was mad at herself for being so stupid.

He looked like he'd been knocked over. Two seconds he felt like they were having a really great time. "What didn't I do?" he begged for an answer. How the hell had he managed to screw this up already?

"You didn't buy those for me." She whispered. And all at once everything clicked. He leaned in and kissed her sweetly. He tossed the box toward the wastebasket in the corner. "I'll get a new box immediately. You can even pick them out if you want."

She smiled and brushed away the tears on her cheeks. He got up and walked toward the door; she grabbed his arm. "You aren't going to the store now, are you?" she asked.

"No," he said kissing her forehead, "I'm going to take a cold shower. And then we're going to go to the store." He got halfway to the bathroom before he turned, "We need to go to Costco. I heard they have boxes of 108. I mean, I don't want to run out by next weekend."

She laughed the rest of her tears away and gave him a sexy smile, "Hurry please."

IV.

They came into his apartment, still giggling over the movie they'd seen. Pam quickly pulled off her shoes and tossed her purse onto the couch before rushing down the hall, "I'll be right back," she announced over her shoulder.

"Okay" he called, pulling out the contents of his pockets. He put his cell phone, keys, and wallet in a neat row on the countertop.

While she washed her hands she stared absently around the bathroom. Everything about it was so Jim. The towels on the rack didn't match, but at least they were clean. His electric razor was still plugged into the wall from this morning, the cord draping down over the cabinet. The blue striped shower curtain was pulled back.

In the corner of the shower there was a large economy-sized bottle of generic shampoo. It even had a hand pump on the top. She laughed to herself at Jim's innate ability to be adorable.

But there was another bottle. It was much smaller than the others, a fancy salon brand. She walked over and picked up the bottle. "Pravana Sulfate-Free Color Ensure Shampoo" was written in silver letters. Definitely not Jim's.

Without even thinking twice she tossed the bottle into the trash. As she dried her hands on the mismatched towels, Pam made a mental note to bring a bottle of her own shampoo over soon, plus a toothbrush, and maybe even a deep conditioner for good measure.

V.

Pam sat at the barstool, anxiously awaiting her pancakes. Up until now, Saturday morning breakfast had been out at Chick's, but this morning, Jim had declared it was Pancake Day. He kept looking over his shoulder from the stove to look at her, to blow a kiss, or just to try and understand why it was that she looked amazing in that old basketball t-shirt.

"Turn around." she told him, "You're going to burn them if you don't pay attention."

"Pam, I'm an expert pancake maker. I could do this with my eyes closed." Without him noticing, she slid out of her chair and snuck up behind him.

She delicately placed her hands over his eyes, "Prove it," she challenged.

"I'll have you know I once kept a child alive and happy solely on Uncle Jim's Pancakes" He waved the spatula at the table, prompting her to sit.

"Toby brought Sasha over late one night, he had some emergency and she was sleeping. He promised me she'd stay asleep the whole time so I put her on the couch. No big deal right?" He flipped a pancake with ease, "But like an hour later she wakes up, crying, and she's hungry. I was living with Mark at the time and I had nothing but beer and Bagel Bites. But I managed to find some pancake mix. So obviously, I was a hero."

She sat at the kitchen table giggling when he presented her with a large stack of golden pancakes. He kissed her quickly, "What do you say Pam?" he coaxed her as if she were five.

"Thank you Jim." She kissed him, "Can I have some syrup?" she asked, laughing.

"Of course Madame." He went to the pantry and the first thing on the shelf was a half-empty bottle of sugar-free Mrs. Butterworth's. Karen had made him buy it, insisting that he shouldn't buy generic, and that they needed to watch their calories. Instead he reached for his favorite store brand extra-buttery syrup.

He walked to the table with the bottle. He dramatically popped the top before waving it under his nose, "Ah, an excellent year."

She patted the chair next to her, "Come join me. I can't eat all of these by myself."

"One second, I just gotta throw something out." He went immediately to the syrup left in the pantry.

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It's not that Jim hated Karen. It was more that he was finally where he belonged. He was reminded of that every second of every day.