In the silent hum of the break room, her fingertips move nimbly as she links paperclips together. One after another with the bright florescent light from the vending machines bouncing off of her skin. The only noise is the almost inaudible clink of paperclip against paperclip and then the sound of tearing foil as she attaches a yogurt lid to the end of the chain. The only other noise is their breathing and the wet sound his lips make when he parts them a little.

He’s watching her with a pile of paperclips in front of him. Because this is one of those moments when he simply cannot move at all. He tries to lift his palms from the surface of the table, but they seem to be glued there. This is one those moments when she is so purely beautiful that he doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s not the way her fingers move and it’s not the way that piece of hair keeps falling forward and it’s not the way these harsh lights make her skin look.

It’s the entire day. It’s how happy she is to help him with this. How willingly she jumped at the chance to make this happen. It’s how right it feels to be working by her side on something, to be her partner in something. It’s how their excitement seems to rub off on each other until they’re both smiling harder than they’ve ever smiled at work. It’s how he wants every day to be like this. The two of them working towards some common goal. It’s how he thinks the future would be. The two of them, side by side.

She looks up at him, pushing that piece of hair back behind her ear and he still really just can’t move. He wonders if he’s stopped breathing. He can’t be sure. She says, “Jim, are you going to make the bronze medals or do I have to do it myself?”

Turns out he can move a little. Enough to push the corners of his mouth up until his teeth are exposed and his vision’s just a little blurred.

Then the moment passes and his hands free themselves from the table. And he doesn’t think he was breathing, because his lungs are sore and he feels like he’s panting right now.

“Yeah, sorry. I sort of spaced out.”

He starts to link paperclips together. Tries hard to keep focused on the task at hand and not look up at her.

He thinks he wants to work with kids so he says it out loud to her. It’s some strange revelations he’s had today. It feels good to think about the future and not still see himself at Dunder Mifflin. He says, “I think I’d like to, I don’t know- I just think it would be cool to work with kids or something.”

She smiles and nods, “You would be great with kids.”

“But what would I do with kids? Teaching would require going back to school which- I don’t know.”

She puts down the chain she’s working on. He remains focused on his, because he just finally got his breathing back to normal.

“You should do it. Or, you know, you could work here forever.”

He can hear her being beautiful right now and he doesn’t need to look up to know what’s in her eyes.

“Just think about it, Jim. You teaching these kids who will obviously love you. Me painting watercolors and doing illustrations for some local children’s book author.”

He’s been trying to get this one paperclip hooked onto the other for the last minute or so. He drops his half finished chain onto the ground and the loose paperclip goes skittering across the floor. He looks up at her and feels angry for some reason.

She sounds wistful when she says, “We could really do it, you know? We could get out of here. We should get out of here.”

He bites the inside of his cheek hard. Then he releases it and says, “Yeah, we should.”

And he’s really honestly getting tired of the way subtext tastes on the tip of his tongue.