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Unopened Presents
by Steph

Summary: Maybe her ignored birthday was just an oversight. Or maybe they were jealous of her cuteness. A little ficlet of Kelly, Toby, slight hint of Kelly/Toby.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Spoilers: Lecture Circuit Part One and Prince Family Paper.

AN: It wasn't just me who thought Kelly got really upset about Hilary Swank only after Toby said he didn't find her hot. I swear it.

--


The morning after her ignored birthday, Kelly was pissed. She was too angry to work so she passed the time checking Facebook for notes from her real friends, doing some online shopping and plotting revenge against the coworkers who were too jealous of her cuteness to celebrate her birthday properly.

It wasn’t fair. Her coworkers - the fat ones, the old ones, the creepy ones, the annoying ones - they all got cake and balloons and people singing to them and all the attention. Yesterday should have been her day and even though stupid Jim and Dwight had promised to make it up to her with an ice cream cake it was still a day late and it just wouldn’t be the same.

And why was Dwight so mean to her? She was the victim in this situation.

In the break room, she flipped through her In Touch magazine without much interest. She couldn’t concentrate. She had worn her special, cute, new outfit yesterday. Why hadn’t anyone noticed and realized why she was wearing it?

She was still agonizing over this when Toby sat down across from her, coffee mug and newspaper in his hand.

“Hey Kelly.”

“Screw you.”

He stood back up. Kelly sighed and said in her best pathetic victim voice, “No. Whatever. I guess it’s okay if you want to sit down with someone as sad as me.”

Toby mumbled, “It’s okay. Uh...I’ll leave so I won’t bother you.”

Kelly was reminded that no one could do pathetic victim voices as good as Toby. She sighed again and glared until he sat back down.

“You know,” Toby said, “you really shouldn’t say things like ‘Screw You’ to your HR rep.”

“You’re my friend though so it’s okay,” she reasoned. “And besides I’m mad at you too. You have my information on file. Why didn’t you say Happy Birthday to me yesterday?”

“I don’t have your birthday memorized,” he said.

“Why not?” she whined. “I have your birthday memorized.”

“That’s only because I share it with Beyonce.”

Kelly frowned. Okay he had a point. But still.

“It just sucks that people ignored my birthday because I’m so cute and popular.”

“I know what that’s like,” Toby said seriously. He looked at his hands and said, “That’s exactly why my birthday always gets ignored.”

Okay she wanted to stay mad. Really she did. But that was funny and she couldn’t help but giggle just a little bit. He smiled.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m not mad at you anymore.”

“Alright.”

“It just sucks,” she said again. “I mean this is the first birthday in a long time without me having a boyfriend and I’m not with Darryl or with Ryan and I’m all by myself and yeah I have a ton of friends who are taking me out this weekend and we’re totally going to have a great time and everything, but yesterday was my actual birthday and I turned 29 and 29 is almost 30! And I need to really celebrate 29 because 30 is so old!”

“Hmm,” he said and that made her feel bad for a second because Toby was way older than 30.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Why do you think our birthdays get ignored?”

He didn’t answer at first. He drank some more of his coffee and when he finally spoke, his voice was even quieter than usual. “I really don’t think it was anything intentional. I think between Jim and Dwight being so new at heading up the committee and Michael being out of the office... it was just an unfortunate oversight. You’ll get an ice cream cake today and decorations and it’ll be a day late, but you’ll get everything.”

“Maybe,” she said, not sure if she was ready to abandon her theory of being purposely ignored because everyone was threatened by her awesomeness. Or the idea that Jim and Dwight were just big, smug jerks. “Okay. Maybe that’s a possibility.”

“Trust me,” he said standing up.

“Wait,” she said. “Do you think it’s just an unfortunate oversight that your birthday always gets ignored too?”

He looked at her just for a second before saying, sadly, “No. I don’t think so.”

Yeah. Neither did she.

“Maybe now that Jim and Dwight are in charge of parties, they’ll remember your birthday in September.”

“Maybe,” he said, but he said it like he wasn’t too optimistic. “When are you getting your cake?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “This afternoon I guess. Unless Dwight and Jim forget to pick it up. Losers.” But her earlier anger and resentment had lost some steam and the insult was said halfheartedly.

She was almost starting to feel a little better so she followed Toby into the annex.

It was eleven-thirty. Maybe she should start doing some work today.

--

A few hours later (no cake yet!), Toby walked over to her desk with a present wrapped clumsily in newspaper. The sports page it looked like. He must have gone on his lunch hour.

“You got me a present?” she squeaked happily, because most people didn’t usually get presents at work from their coworkers as far as she could tell. Cake yes. Balloons yes.

But not presents.

Suddenly today was awesome. That was so cool of Toby to buy her a present. Then she thought of something and made a face.

“Hey,” she said. “This isn’t a book, is it?”

“No,” he said. “And sorry about the wrapping.”

“Oh. It’s okay. It was so sweet of you to bring me a present even though I’ve never given you any presents on yours. I will this year. No, seriously, this is so cool. Darryl never got me anything. He could be such a jerk sometimes. This is really nice, Toby and I’m so glad it isn’t a book because then I would have to pretend I loved it and maybe you’d be able to tell I was lying and it would hurt your feelings. And I so forgive you for everything.” She reached for the present.

“Wait,” he said. He sounded puzzled. “What are you forgiving me for?”

“Well for forgetting my birthday yesterday. And for still being nice to Ryan after he dumped me the first time even though you were my friend first and you should have been loyal to me. And...uh... that time you told me that my dress was too short for work and... oh and when you said you didn’t find Hilary Swank hot.” She reached for the present again.

This time he handed it to her. “I don’t get that last one. I mean I don’t get most of those, but I still don’t know why you got so upset about my personal taste.”

“Because,” she said, her voice impatient because they had gone over this already. “Hilary Swank is a beautiful, talented actress and by saying she’s not hot you’re saying that I’m not hot.”

There. That made perfect sense.

“But you look nothing like Hilary Swank,” he said.

“I know. I’m not stupid, Toby.”

“What you’re saying is illogical.”

“No, it’s not.” She was getting more impatient. She didn’t want to debate; she wanted to open her gift. “It makes perfect sense.”

“But just because I don’t find Hilary Swank hot doesn’t mean that I don’t find you...” His voice trailed off suddenly, face paling as he realized what he had just almost said.

“Toby!” she screamed. “Were you going to say that...?”

But he had turned away already back toward his desk, mumbling something about something and Jim came by to announce that they were doing her cake now.

--

The balloons were ugly shades of black and brown and looked like hand grenades and the banner was stupid. Even the ice cream cake wasn’t that good.

Jim walked over to her. “So good birthday, huh?”

He sounded proud of himself, of his and Dwight’s efforts.

She looked down at the quickly melting pool of sub-par ice cream on her plate and then up at the crappy, half-assed decorations.

Then she thought of the still unopened present at her desk and the weird thing that Toby almost said and she felt herself smiling a warm smile at Jim and said, “Yeah. It kind of is.”

The End


Steph is the author of 37 other stories.
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