August 2007

Jim kind of hated his new job.

There were definitely things he liked, the money was good for one, he genuinely liked David Wallace and worked well with him, and having an actual office with a door and a Midtown Manhattan view was pretty nice.

The commuting was definitely wearing him out. In Stamford his place was ten minutes from work, he'd head to work in the morning at a quarter to 8, and after work he would hit the store, have dinner ready by 6:00, 6:30 if he and Karen were making something fancy, go to bed after the sports segment and get plenty of sleep. Now commuting was taking two hours out of his day, and that was just to Manhattan. It was expected of his position to visit all the branches once each quarter. Early on he did an overnight stay in Nashua, two weeks ago he did the upstate New York circuit, flying to Buffalo and then driving a rented car back, stopping at several branches along the way. And, thanks to the constant crises of one Michael Scott, he had been to Scranton a half dozen times. He didn't mind the actual visiting of branches, he actually rather liked being back in a slower paced office and around regular office workers, but the driving and the hotel sleeping was tedious.

He couldn't decide if it was was helping or hurting his relationship with Karen. She was of course thrilled he got the job, and was able to pick up his Assistant Regional Manager position in Stamford along with a raise. Jim's lease was up in May, so they decided to take the plunge and have him move in with her, which was just as well since he was always over at her place anyway. But even though they lived together now, the commuting was cutting into their personal time; she was usually still in bed when he left in the morning, and they didn't cook together on the weekdays anymore, which he kind of missed.

They did now have a standing Friday Manhattan date, she'd take off early from work, take the train in and meet him in the lobby in a slinky cocktail dress, always with a restaurant chosen and usually tickets to a show reserved. It was fun, certainly, going out on the town with his beautiful girlfriend, but not really any more fun than sitting at home in sweatpants, eating Chinese take-out and watching a rented movie.

The show-absolutely-no-affection-at-work rule was still in effect. It was for the best, now that Jim was actually Karen's superior rather than just technically. He pushed it too far about a month ago, when Karen and Josh came to the corporate offices for a meeting. Karen's hair was up, her long neck exposed, causing Jim be entirely unfocused on the meeting as he could only think about his lips on her tan skin. After the meeting, he very professionally asked her if she wanted to tour the corporate office and the newly remodeled breakroom. She lifted a brow but agreed anyway. When they passed the handicap restroom, he quickly surveyed the hall and when he saw no one around grabbed her arm and pulled her into the restroom. He latched the lock and gently pushed her against the wall opposite the sink.

"Jim," she said in an almost annoyed tone before his lips were on hers, one hand on her waist and the other stroking her beautiful neck.

"I could barely get through that meeting," he said, low and husky.

"Jim." she said more firmly, though not resisting his kisses yet.

"You know how distracting your neck is," he growled, nipping at tan skin below her earlobe, his fingers slipping just under the waistband of her work trousers.

"Jim!" She all but shoved him away. "What is wrong with you?"

He took a couple heavy breaths, feeling himself grow angry at her disgusted face. Was he really that repulsive to her? "I just…"

"Just what, thought you'd try to get us both fired?" she snapped, straightening out her blouse. "Jesus, sex in the corporate bathroom? I guess we'd at least top Jan."

He scoffed, he wasn't going to try to have sex with her, he just wanted to make out a bit, see her smile at him for the first time today, see if she was thinking about him as much he was thinking about her.

"Seriously, Jim, what is the deal?"

He looked down to his shined shoes, "I hate that you pretend we're nothing when we're at work."

Now she was scoffing, "What, do you think I'm doing that to hurt you? We have to be professional, anyone gets a whiff of favoritism-"

"I know, I know," he shoved his hand in his pockets. "You just do it so easily, I wish I could too," he said in a halfway sarcastic tone.

Karen shook her head, "Let's … not have this conversation right now." She walked to the door and unlocked the deadbolt. "Wait a few minutes before you leave this room, okay?"

She was gone before he could even say anything, and he leaned against the wall, barely able to look at the figure in the mirror.

When he got home, there was a long talk about their relationship, something Karen was fond of whenever they had a spat. He agreed that he crossed the line and that they do need to be professional when at work together. She agreed that being professional didn't mean having to be so cold towards him. The evening ended with him lying back on the bed and her on top, gyrating her hips in a way that made him almost forget her earlier rejection and describing in very not-suitable-for-work terms how badly she wanted him to take her right on the conference room table earlier. Not sixty second after they finished, she was asking what kind of restaurant they wanted to go to for their Friday Manhattan date. He casually tried suggesting they just stay in and order Chinese. She blew off the 'staying in' part but did recall hearing about a dim sum place in the West Village they could try. He didn't argue.

Jim kind of hated his job, especially now that he had been put in charge of 'New Media'. Since he was the youngest VP, the belief was he'd be the most tech savvy and the best choice to bring Dunder Mifflin into the 21st century with an actual functioning website. And of course he agreed to it, even though he could barely use the Blackberry he was all but assigned to when he took the job.

When David called him into his office, Jim kept a sigh to himself but did remember the designer working with Dunder Mifflin on this website was coming in today. He hoped this designer could just take the lead because Jim certainly had no idea what he was doing. Jim also hoped the designer was friendly and genuine, not like that phony cheese ball Danny Cordray.

He almost knew who it was just from her hand, small with slender fingers, a freckle on one of the knuckles. His breath caught when he saw her golden brown curls, and he's sure his heart stopped momentarily once he saw her face, her wide green eyes which still entered his thoughts far more often than he would ever admit.

She seemed equally speechless, managing to say his name in a small, shaky voice.

"Jim, Pam was just telling me she's also from Scranton."

Jim took far too long to process David's words, and looked to the CFOs confused face. His inner-salesman finally kicked back into gear and he smiled. "Pam Beesly, wow," he took her small hand and gave it a firm shake, her arm was limp as a noodle. "This is crazy, David, Pam and I actually went to high school together."

"Oh really?" David said smiling, turning to Pam.

She slowly stood and smoothed out the wrinkles in her clothes, a small smile on her face, although her eyes were still wide with shock. "Um, yeah, yeah we did."

"Well, I think this collaboration was just meant to be, then." David walked over to his desk, grabbing a portfolio and a folder, "Let's move to the conference room and start in on the details of this project."

"Sounds good, I need to pop in my office real fast if that's alright," Jim said, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder.

"Absolutely, Pam and I will go set up," David said, motioning to Pam the direction of the conference room. Jim maintained his grin until he reached his office, once the door was latched behind him he leaned against it and pushed the heel of his palms into his eyes.

That turned out to be a mistake as closing his eyes just allowed memories to play more vividly in his mind. They were all of her green eyes; wide when he grabbed a yogurt cup from her tray in the cafeteria, shiny when he arrived late to her art show but still just in time, bright when they agreed to go on a date date together; focused when he leaned in to kiss her, searching when he so tentatively pushed into her for the first time, worried when their cars went in different directions to different universities, red and wet when she said she couldn't do it anymore.

Snap of out it, Halpert, he told himself. It was nearly 10 years ago, they were just kids and it was just high school. If he could work every day for the past year with someone he was sleeping with, he should be able to handle working for a few weeks on a website with someone he dated 10 years ago.

He shook out his arms and hands and took a few deep breaths before leaving his office and heading into the conference room where David and Pam were already seated, David's assistant Candace was booting up a laptop for them to use. Candace then asked if anyone wanted tea or coffee.

Black tea, splash of milk, no sugar, he unconsciously thought.

"I'll have Earl Grey, and if you can put in just a little milk that'd be good," Pam said.

"And for you, Mr Halpert?" Candace asked.

"Um, coffee, black, two sugars," Jim said. He caught Pam's eye and she smiled slightly, he wondered if she had just correctly predicted his drink order like he predicted hers.

As long as he didn't look directly at Pam too much, he was doing fine in the meeting, talking about the goals of the website and estimates from the Dunder Mifflin bean counters of how much it would add to business. He did make the mistake of looking at her left hand, the lack of a ring making him nervous. The nervousness turned to near panic when Candace poked her head in, saying David had a call.

"I should take this, but you two keep chatting," David said, leaving the conference room.

Jim tried to keep up his don't-look-directly-at-Pam-too-much method, flipping to the next page and talking about user interfaces. He stopped and looked up to her wide eyes, "I hope you know what a user interface it because I sure as hell don't."

Pam let out a laugh and the tension finally dissipated a bit.

"So this is weird, right?" Jim asked quietly. Pam nodded in agreement. "And like getting weirder the longer we pretend it isn't weird?" he added.

Pam laughed again, "Yeah, acknowledging that now might stop the progression of weirdness."

"Okay, then weirdness acknowledged," Jim said with a smile. He knitted his brows, "So, um, how have you been?"

Pam tilted her head, "Fine, well, it's been a rough few months, but I got an internship at Osprey and as of today I'm a junior designer there, so things are better."

"Rough few months?" Jim said, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, um," her right hand instinctively covered her left, specially her left ring finger, "I was actually suppose to get married this summer. But... it didn't work out."

"Sorry to hear that," Jim said, though he couldn't say he was very sorry.

"It was for the best, it lead me to moving to New York and trying out design." She stared at his hand resting on the conference table. "How about you?"

"Can't complain, got this job a few months back, living in Connecticut." For a second he considered not mentioning Karen but it didn't feel right to do so, "Um, my girlfriend and I are looking into moving a bit closer."

There was a flash of sadness on her face at the word 'girlfriend', or at least Jim thought there was, but Pam quickly covered it up with a smile. "Great."

"Like, really only just researching, not like we'll be closing on anything any time soon," Jim's mouth kept moving despite his brain's desperate pleas to stop. "I don't really want to move but the commute is a drag."

Pam nodded and smiled politely, and Jim felt the awkwardness setting back in.

"Did you, uh, did you go to the reunion?" he asked.

"I was about to ask you that," Pam said. "No, with me moving here, the timing of it didn't work out."

"Yeah, same with me and getting this job," Jim said. He traced his finger along the edge of the table, thinking about his silly letter to himself and the photo collage with him and Pam in the hallway holding hands. "Do you get that packet-"

"Sorry about that, " David said, rushing back into the conference room. Jim jumped a little in his seat, and Pam looked startled as well. David pulled his chair up and brought his laced fingers up on the table, "Pam, do you think you can outline the site development on the design end?"

Pam gave Jim a bit of a panicked look, to which Jim tried to smile reassuringly. You've got this, Beesly, he tried to say with his eyes. Pam seemed to get the message and she smiled, took a breath, and flipped through some of her papers. "The first step will be settling on a logo, from that we will have the colors and a basic style that we will want to carry through the site. We also want to focus on having an attractive and intuitive user interface," Pam glanced over at Jim and gave him a wink, causing Jim to wonder if he was maybe having heart trouble as it seemed to be stopping and starting in intervals. "No point to making the site if no one likes using it."

She rattled off a few more design terms and set up the general time-line for the site design, handling every question that David threw at her with ease. Jim couldn't help but feel a little proud.

"So should we plan on the three of us meeting again and looking at some logo ideas in, say, one week?" David asked, "Is that enough time, Pam?"

Pam nodded as she gathered her things, "That would be fine." Everyone stood and Pam shook David's hand. "I'm really excited about this opportunity." She then turned to Jim and offered her hand, "Jim, it was really good to see you."

Earlier in David's office, he was much too nervous to think much about the fact that they were touching, but this time he took her hand a little slower, as small and warm as he remembered. Their eyes met and he gave her hand a small squeeze. "I'm looking forward to working with you."

Pam said her good-byes and left the conference room, shyly looking back at Jim at least twice. He blinked and was back in the hallways of Scranton High School, watching her go to class with her paint-stained backpack over her shoulder, her ponytail bouncing as she turned her head to look at him.

"Well, Jim, I was a little skeptical about her lack of real-world experience but I think this is going to work out," David said, interrupting Jim's daydreaming. "I can tell you two have a great rapport, which is good since you'll be working so closely on this."

Jim felt his mouth go dry, what did David mean by 'closely'? But he managed to stammer out that he agreed with David, and the men left the room to go to their respective offices.

Jim kind of hated his job, he hated the commute and the dress code, he hated the weird strain it was putting on his relationship with his girlfriend, and he hated being in charge of "new media".

And yet, for the first time, he was also kind of excited about his job.