“That’s ridiculous.”

“So…you’re saying you don’t know the answer?”

“No Jim, I’m saying it makes no sense.”

“Well, it’s a hypothetical, so, you know, not in reality.”

“Who would win in a fight…..a bear with a rocket launcher or a leopard with a chainsaw?”

“That’s the question.”

Dwight sucked in a contemplative breath and looked up at the ceiling as he mentally debated the battle. Meanwhile, as Jim attempted to frown the smirk that was currently curling the left corner of his mouth, he dared to quickly look over at Pam. She was exaggeratedly frowning in deep thought at Jim’s question.

His smirk became a small smile.

“I’m back!” Andy announced as he walked in the door of the break room, and rubbed his hands together.

“It’s about time—

---from Outer Space, and I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face.” Andy began to sing to Dwight, whom he had just interrupted.

Jim watched Dwight turn increasingly darker shades of beet as his thick-glass framed eyes watched Andy shimmy his way over to his chair.

Andy finally sat down and grinned at everyone at the table. “What were we talking about?”

“Um, bears with rocket launchers and leopard with chainsaws.” Pam said as calmly as possible, but her voice cracked on the last word.

Andy didn’t notice or miss a beat. “What? Like in a fight?”

Jim covered his mouth to conceal the wide grin that now stretched across it, and simply nodded in Andy’s direction.

“Oh. Well I’d say leopards with chain saws.”

Dwight snorted audibly.

Andy heard, and looked over across the table. “How are you going to hit a leopard with a rocket launcher? It’s too fast. Wait. Is it a heat-seeking rocket launcher?”

Jim noticed that both Dwight and Andy looked at him for the answer. “Um, no it’s not. It’s uh, a normal bear mounted rocket launcher.”

“Then leopard with a chain saw.” Andy paused a little and bobbed his head to an imaginary rhythm as he scanned the silent table. “How did that come up, anyway?”

Before Jim could answer, Dwight spoke. “I told Jim that nothing in nature could kill a bear. They’re too dangerous. To which he said…” Dwight paused and frowned. Jim took it as an opportunity.

“What about a T-Rex?”

“Which are extinct! So they don’t count. Then he came up with this ridiculousness of an animal with a weapon. Like a leopard knows how to properly operate a chain saw.” Dwight leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“Wait.” Pam paused, and Jim looked over to see her eyebrows playfully dance on her face in eager anticipation. “But a bear could operate a rocket launcher?”

“Fact. Bears are smarter then dolphins, they have a high degree of intelligence.”

Jim desperately swallowed a laugh and picked up where Pam left off. Not even stopping to realize how long it had been, but how instinctual it was. “Well, that’s not really fair, I mean, dolphins have fins and they’re underwater. How are they going to work a rocket launcher?”

What looked like thought flashed across Dwight’s face, but his features quickly re-settled themselves sternly. “Irrelevant. Anyway, a bear would murder a leopard if it ever got a hold of it, rocket launcher or no.”

Jim shrugged dejectedly. “Well, yeah, that’s why it was only a hypothetical, Dwight.”

“Yeah, Dwight. Pffft.” Andy punctuated his agreement with a sharp exhale, and nodded dismissively at Dwight.

Jim thought he could hear Dwight’s molars grinding against each other.

--

--

After a couple more minutes of inane discussion that was typical of the office, in which a battle between harpooned-gun armed dolphins, and unarmed polar bears was argued, Jim decided to get things back on track.

“Right, so…” He hunched forward in his chair, and leaned over the board a little. “….we ready to go?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Andy said excitedly, and snatched up the dice. He surveyed the board, and placed all of his bonus troops in Greenland. Jim was starting to believe that he would be willing to sacrifice all of his other territories if it meant keeping that one from Dwight.

“Well, Tuna….I hate to do it but I gotta. I’m attacking North Africa from Western Europe.” Andy gave Jim a half-hearted apologetic shrug, and rolled. The dice came up 4,3,3.

Jim picked up his defense dice and rolled in turn. The two dice skipped and scattered to turn up a 5, and a 1. They each removed a soldier. Andy now was attacking with five, and Jim was defending with three.

“Hey did I ever tell you I dated an African woman?” Andy held the attack dice in his hand, but stopped the act of rolling them as he spoke.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”

“Yup, at Cornell.”

“Oh?”

“Where I attended college. Heh, well not really attended.” Andy flashed a much too toothy smile to everyone at the table. “I think I was read the SoCo bottle labels more than I did the textbooks..” he paused for a moment, “….if you know what I mean!”

“That you drank Southern Comfort more then you studied?” Dwight responded evenly.

“Uh, yeah…that’s….yeah, basically. But anyway, I dated an African woman…well, she was in America, so I don’t know if that made her African-American or not…I don’t know what the rules on that are.”

Jim sighed, and leaned back in his chair. He knew how useless his next action would be, but he knew he had to try anyway.

“Are you going to roll—

--Her name was…I don’t know. It was like complex and had a bunch of weird sounds, but I called her Lexi. Yeah….Sexy-Lexi…..I remember she didn’t like it.”

Jim figured that if there was no way to stop Andy, and stop this story….

“Oh, wait, so this is an ex-girlfriend?” he asked as innocently as possible.

“Yeah we broke up, junior year. I made her a Notorious B.I.G. mix-tape, ‘cause I thought that she would like it…uh, she didn’t. And uh, she got mad, well… you know how women are…” He paused to look at Jim and nodded his head perceptibly at Pam.

Jim didn’t move, and tried as hard as he could not to express any reaction. However, he shifted his vision to his peripheries and saw that Pam was looking at him, but then dropped her head to look at her lap. Unperturbed, Andy continued.

“…maybe she was West Coast, I dunno. But after that, she wouldn’t return my calls.”

A silence hung over the table for several seconds, as nobody knew exactly how to proceed. Jim now looked over at Pam, whose concentration remained on her lap.

“So the point of that entire story was that you are terrible with women, and a loser?” Dwight gracefully broke the silence.

“No. The point was that I dated an African, er, American woman. Have you?” Andy laid his hands flat on the table, putting the dice next to them.

Dwight returned his gaze sharply. “No. But, that isn’t because I wouldn’t. It’s just…I haven’t had the chance…not that I want the chance….because I am happily engaged, uh, in a relationship, not in marriage….not that I wouldn’t want to be. But…”

Jim looked over incredulously at Dwight and the word vomit that he was currently spewing across the room like the girl from The Exorcist. What was wrong with him? Why was he so flustered?

“It’s okay, Dwight. I think we all know how much you love your girlfriend.” Pam interrupted him softly, her head turned back up, and a kind curve to her lips played out on her face. Jim furrowed his brow and watched the two of them look at each other. It was if they were speaking without talking. He wondered for the second time that day whether or not Pam knew who Dwight’s girlfriend actually was….and if she did, how she possibly could.

But…even more then that, just a minute ago they were mocking him together about bear rocket launchers, and now she was defending him. Something was definitely going on. Right? He wasn’t crazy……was he?

His thoughts were interrupted however, by the clatter of dice to his left. Andy had rolled a 4, 3, 1. Jim reluctantly took his eyes off Pam and Dwight, and picked up the defense dice. He rolled a 5, and a 2. Once again, they each took a soldier off from their respective territories.

“Again, Tuna.”

They each rolled simultaneously, and this time Jim wasn’t so lucky. He removed both of the remaining soldiers off of North Africa. Andy had conquered it, and he now no longer controlled all of Africa.

“Ah, the sun never sets on the British-Bernard Empire!” Andy gleefully moved his attacking troops to occupy the new territory. Jim rolled his eyes, and he heard Dwight snort indignantly again.

After two more attacks, and the successful conquering of the Urals from Dwight…which subsequently prompted a five minute discussion on vodka, the time that Andy had to read Crime and Punishment in high school, and Dwight’s appreciation of the durability of the Kalashnikov rifle….Andy took his conquer card, and it was Dwight’s turn.

With a quick lick of his lips, Dwight scooped up the attack dice and hawkishly surveyed the board. It looked like he was about to speak when he was interrupted.

“You should put your bonus troops in Venezuela, and retake Brazil from Jim, Dwight.” Pam said emotionlessly to him.

Dwight paused for a second to look over at her, and then nodded. “Yes, that was what I was going to do. He is weakened from Andy’s African Campaign. Now is the time to strike.”

For his part, Jim again looked mystified at the both of them as they sat conferring on his RISK destruction. This time, he had to intervene, but he also knew that he had to do it lightly.

“Whoa, whoa, there is no cahooting in RISK. I thought you were a Grand Master anyway Dwight?”

Dwight looked up at him sharply. “I’m a Grandchampion….

Jim was ready even before he corrected himself, and smiled inwardly at how easy it was to step Dwight up. “…and yet, you need help from a girl. Do you think Hitler got advice from…uh, Eva Braun?”

“Are you calling me a Nazi?” Pam’s voice spiked a little, but to Jim it seemed to keep an undertone of humor. He responded in kind.

“No, no…you’re more like…” he stroked his chin meditatively for a second trying to think back to the hours of the History Channel that he had watched in Stamford when he was battling insomnia…or to high school…really anything that would help him out right now. Then it popped in his head. “….yeah, you’re like Vichy France.” He paused a second before he continued, “and a girl.”

He watched her click her tongue against the back of her front teeth, a move that always sent a thrill of heat down his spine and around his waist. “Oh, so girls can’t play RISK?”

Jim fought to not smile, but shrugged noncommittally, and gestured to his right. “Dwight?”

He didn’t need any more encouragement. “Pam, women are by their nature nurturing, soft, and peaceful creatures. War is not their game…”

Pam interrupted him quickly, her voice, to Jim, still retaining a sense of playfulness to it, and it made Jim sit on the edge of his seat just waiting for the chance to participate and make her laugh.

“….then what is a girl’s game.?”

Dwight frowned at her because of her interruption, but answered. “Candyland is an acceptable game for women. Also Chutes and Ladders.”

“Actually, I once knew a dominatrix….she liked playing this game with wax and clips….she wasn’t so peaceful, though.” Andy said wistfully to the ceiling.

“Non-suggestive charades, Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos…” Dwight continued as though Andy hadn’t spoken…which admittedly was for the best….and ticked off the games on his hand.

Jim decided to go in for the kill. He could see that Pam was trying not to laugh at Dwight and Andy’s ridiculousness…she was right on the edge, she just needed a little push…a little surprise and shock.

“Actually my favorite girl’s game is…. ‘How Fast Can You Get Me A Beer?’…” he was already smiling as he said it, he couldn’t help it…but he tried not to laugh completely when he saw her shocked face. “Also good is ‘How Fast Can You Make Me A Pie?….Preferably, Pumpkin’.”

He could see she was trying to hold it in, but the dam of her tightly stretched lips broke and her laughter rang through the room. As it enveloped him like a warm, soft, cozy blanket, he watched her flushed cheeks, the way her nose scrunched, and the little wrinkles around her eyes and suddenly felt content.

The weariness, and fatigue that had seemed to dog him all day melted from his body and was replaced with an insane energy. One driven to make her laugh like that as much as he possible could, and to raise her chin and eyes to his every time she looked down to try and dodge his gaze.

As her laugh died, and both Andy and Dwight continued to look confusedly at her, her expression seemed to soften. Jim watched her wide eyes as they rested on the table thoughtfully. He wondered again what she was thinking, or feeling…really anything that was going on her head these days.

Fortunately he didn’t have to wonder too long.

Quickly, her eyes turned towards his and locked with them. He didn’t see her lips move because of the intensity of their matched gazes, only the words.

“I’ve actually played both of those games before…I’m glad that I never have to again.”

A thick silence fell on the room, and it seemed like Dwight and Andy fell away from the both of them as they continued to stare at each other.

Jim swallowed nervously, and said the first thing that had come to him after she had said the words.

“Me too.”