Jim sat in the office watching the purse girl—what was her name? Katy? Kathy? Kandy?—selling her wares. She seemed nice enough. Definitely cute enough. Enough for what? Certainly enough for his coworkers to make fools of themselves over her, Michael, Dwight, and even Roy most definitely included.

As he thought about Roy’s comments in the break room, he got mad. Not at Roy, or rather, not at Roy anymore. He’d been mad enough at Roy when he’d heard him say it, and Pam seemed irked enough for the two of them anyway. Not that there was a two of them, not really. That was what was making him mad, actually. Even though Roy was an ass, Pam was still engaged to him—still wanted to be engaged to him. Still loved him, and not Jim. And last weekend’s little…whatever it was…with Morgan wasn’t helping either. “It’s a date,” like he hadn’t wished she’d say that about a real date, with him, for ten years. Not constantly; not incessantly; he hadn’t wasted his life pining away about an imaginary girl that whole time. But enough to make it suck when she made light of that sort of thing. After all, she was taken too, by that boyfriend that he had a sneaking suspicion was the same one that she’d been dating the whole time. Since she had made such a point of not mentioning him for so long.

So his whole life was taken up by two women, neither actually available to him. It felt…actually, it felt pretty good, most of the time. When he was at work and Roy wasn’t in the break room he could pretend Roy didn’t exist; when he was online, and they weren’t talking about him, he could pretend Morgan’s boyfriend didn’t. And most of the time he just felt like a guy with two amazing female friends. And then he’d go home, and Morgan wouldn’t be online and Mark would be out, and he’d sit alone in the apartment. Or he’d come to work and Roy would be there and Pam would be so engrossed in Roy she wouldn’t make eye contact with him and he’d actually have to work. It was a pattern with him, he was realizing: he let the awesome parts of these friendships take over his brain and he forgot to protect himself from the fact that they were just friendships. Not relationships—or at least, not mutual ones. It was like doing the emotional lifting of a relationship without getting the benefit. And not just in the friends-with-benefits sense, but in just knowing that the person you were with wanted to be with you, and no one else.

Though to be fair, how mad could he be at them if he also had two people? How much of a difference did it make that neither of his was, well, his, while both of them had someone who belonged to them (and who they belonged to)? He couldn’t really say he was cheating on Pam with Morgan or Morgan with Pam if they weren’t interested in him at all, right? But it did feel strange inside to complain that they weren’t committed to him when he was constantly thinking of both of them.

But on the other hand, friendships weren’t exclusive. Relationships were. And he would kind of like to remember what that was like.

Before he knew what he was doing he was in the little room with Katy (yes, that was definitely her name) and he was smiling and she was smiling and he had a date.

*******

MorganLaFey: hey, didn’t see you on until now

MorganLaFey: hot date? ;-)

WScranton8: yeah, actually

MorganLaFey: wait what?

WScranton8: you don’t need to sound so surprised

MorganLaFey: sorry, it just seems to be going around

MorganLaFey: must be seasonal: all my best friends hooking up at once

WScranton8: this was a little more than “hooking up”

WScranton8: we went to a nice restaurant and everything

MorganLaFey: I just meant….never mind

MorganLaFey: I’m glad you’re on now

WScranton8: any particular reason?

MorganLaFey: just feeling bleh

MorganLaFey: and talking to you cheers me up

WScranton8: I’m flattered

WScranton8: but isn’t that literally what your boyfriend is supposed to be for?

MorganLaFey: fiancé actually

MorganLaFey: sorry, I realize I never told you that, but yeah, he is

MorganLaFey: and no, he’s not

MorganLaFey: if you understand me

WScranton8: seems to be going around, as you say

MorganLaFey: :-(

MorganLaFey: anyway, how’d it go?

WScranton8: oh, you know, a gentleman never tells ;-)

WScranton8: but it was fine

MorganLaFey: I’m glad

But Pam was not glad. She’d been in a funk most of the day since Roy had told her he’d totally date Katy if Pam wasn’t his “girlfriend,” a funk that had only intensified when she’d remembered that she’d never actually bothered to tell her best friend (well, online, but still) that he wasn’t her “boyfriend” anymore. She’d been pulled out of it for a little by Jim’s prank on Dwight, but discovering he was taking Katy out had put her right back in, and missing Scranton online—and then finding out he was dating too—had bothered her more than she’d wanted to let on.

Still, she figured, it couldn’t be jealousy, or at least not just jealousy. She didn’t want to date both Scranton and Jim—how would that work? Oh, and of course she was happily engaged to Roy, there was that too. So she didn’t want to date either of them. So why was she so grumpy?

Maybe, she realized, it was because this was the first time she’d really been mad at Roy without being able to talk to anyone about it. She’d always grumbled to someone, first Izzy or Tammy, then Jim or Scranton—she’d even broken her promise not to talk about Roy with Scranton in order to have an outlet, though she wasn’t sure he knew this was the same guy. So this particular crisis was unique in that she didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. Except, maybe, Roy? But he was asleep on the couch again. And it’s not like they ever talked about this stuff anyway.

She sighed and picked up the phone. At least there was always her mom.