She lets everyone else on the elevator and stands by the door as they go down, waiting for him to come out. Because she doesn’t think she knows how to ride an elevator without him on the opposite side, leaning his hip against the metal guard rail and watching the numbers tick down to the lobby. Anyway, she always waits for him if he doesn’t come out with her. Sometimes she waits for twenty minutes or so and pretends like she wasn’t waiting. She says some lie about how she went down to the warehouse and Roy had to stay for a few extra minutes so she was just coming up to- and she inserts something stupid like check the phones or go to the bathroom.

When he comes out of the office that night, he’s doing that stupid thing with his lips that he does when he’s angry. She’s seen it a few times. He presses his lips together so tightly until they’re almost completely white and his eyes look more brown than green. He’s gripping his bag tightly with his right hand and she can’t say anything because she’s sort of scared to see him like this.

She tries to remember him earlier in the day when they were sitting on the couch by reception, eating their surprising ice cream sandwiches and talking about health care and fake diseases. She tries to remember how he had smiled in that way he has and reached over with his thumb, wiping at her the corner of her mouth. How he had said in a voice that sounded different somehow, lower and warmer, “You had a little bit of chocolate right there.”

He jabs the button for the lobby hard and doesn’t look at her. He usually glances over and smiles gently and she usually half smiles back, but mostly looks at her shoes. Not today.

She can hear him breathing loudly through his nose. She can see his jaw clenching and unclenching.

When the doors open, he’s quick to walk out. He takes long strides out into the parking lot and just barely holds the door for her.

She glances over towards where Roy parks the truck and he’s laughing with Darryl about something. So she grabs Jim’s arm just gently and he stops dead in his tracks. She trips on her feet a bit, not ready for this abrupt halt. Her hand lingers on her forearm as he turns to her. He’s still doing that thing with his lips.

“Jim, what’s wrong?”

He lets out a loud and long breath and starts walking towards his car again, but slower this time. She follows him and grabs his hand when they reach his car. He pulls it from her grasp and opens the back door to throw his bag in. He shuts the door again with such force that the car shakes back and forth.

He says, “Do you ever just feel like we’re, I don’t know, wasting so much time?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This whole day. I just- Why can’t we grow up and be adults for once?”

“Jim, I don’t- What are you trying to say?”

He twists his mouth and looks around behind her. “We screwed the entire office out of a decent health care plan just because we wanted to mess with Dwight.”

She shakes her head and reaches out to touch- What? Her hands just move about in between them until she pulls them back and folds her arms across her chest. “But Dwight was being so-”

“Yeah, well, Dwight is always just being so whatever. If we had just played along with him this once- If we had just humored him for a second, maybe-” He stops, looking down at the ground and when he looks up, he swallows thickly and she thinks he might be on the verge of tears.

“This isn’t your fault, Jim. Nobody’s blaming you.”

“It’s not about that,” he says, running a hand over his face and then looking at her so steadily that she has to look away. “It’s just- Never mind. I’m just tired and I think I might be coming down with Count Choculitis.”

He fakes a laugh that’s too loud, but she can’t say anything. She just watches him climb into his car and listens to the engine turn over and watches him back out of his parking space and drive away.