Jim’s heart races as he drives. Pam is on his couch, wearing his clothes, waiting for him to buy her a contacts case so she can spend the night in his bed. He has no idea what even the most immediate future will bring, but it feels so fucking good to just be hopeful. Pam is interested in him...maybe. Well, at the very least she’s not interested in Roy. Not anymore. He tries not to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t told her how he felt about her. Would she have still married him? He really hopes not. He pulls over in the parking lot of a drug store that’s open 24/7. Okay. Contacts cases… He makes his way inside, approaches the cashier, and is directed to aisle 3. He quickly grabs the first case he sees. This, plus Mark’s solution, should cover it. Oh shit. Mark. He pulls out his phone, flips it open. It’s a little after 10:00PM. He decides to call Mark really quickly to get a sense of where he is and what his plans are for tonight. The phone rings about six times before Mark picks up. There’s a lot of background noise and he sounds pissed. “Yeah?,” He croaks out.
“Hey, man. There’s…uh, a bit of a situation. Pam from work, the one you met at my barbeque, she decided to leave her fiancé tonight and she’s pretty upset, so I’m letting her stay the night.”
There’s enough of a silence to make Jim wonder if Mark hung up on him. “And…you’re telling me this why?”
“Just wanted to give you a heads up unless you came home and saw her there.”
“Aren’t you with her?” Jim thinks Mark must be at a club or something. He can barely hear him.
“I’m actually at the drug store right now to pick her up a contacts case. We’re gonna borrow some of your solution so she can take out her contacts to sleep tonight and still be able to see in the morning.”
“Damn, man, you move fast. She just breaks off her engagement and you’re already spending the night with her?” He sounds impressed.
“Stop, it’s not like that.”
Mark chuckles. “Okay, that’s cool. Ah, do you ah, want me to give you some privacy? I was thinking of bringing Jess back, but we could crash at her place. We’re gonna be out late anyway.” Jim can hear the smirk in Mark’s voice.
“Naw, man. You don’t have to do that. I just wanted to let you know what’s going on.,” Jim hurries to say, and although he will never verbalize it, he wishes Mark would spend more than just the one night at his girlfriend’s.
“Yeah…listen, I’ll, um...me and Jess will spend the night at her place, okay? No worries. You can let her have my room if you want. You just might want to clean it up first.” Jim winces a little at the thought of Pam sleeping in Mark’s bed. Mark is messier than he is, and I mean, hey, he isn’t gonna get excited about Pam sleeping in another man’s bed, even if that bed does just belong to his roommate. The way he sees it, Pam has been sleeping in another man’s bed for far too long.
“Thanks, man. I already made up my room for her, so I’ll take your bed if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. Just have the decency to change the sheets if you wind up fucking her on my bed.”
“Hey, fuck you, man.” Jim can hear Mark’s laughter over the static, voices, and music.
“See ya tomorrow, not sure when.”
“See ya.” Jim flips closed his phone.
Jim lets out a relieved breath. That’s one thing he doesn’t have to deal with tonight. He decides to grab a women’s deodorant stick at the last minute, before checking out and paying for his two items at the register. He doesn’t want Pam to get insulted and think he’s implying she doesn’t smell good (that’s far from the truth), but he’s also not sure she’ll appreciate using his deodorant and smelling like Old Spice, as much as her using his deodorant might excite him.
Jim unlocks his door, shopping bag in hand, to find Pam exactly where he left her, curled up on his couch. She's facing away from him, but when she turns, he can see she's on the phone.
