Dinner with the Halperts was fun, Pam realized to her surprise. She hadn’t really thought of mealtimes as an opportunity for fun for years—with obvious individual exceptions, like the “first date” up on the roof, which she was now beginning to realize had all centered around Jim—not since she was a ten-year-old marching little dinosaur chicken nuggets across her plate to an (artistically sound, of course) appropriately fiery end in a meteor made of ketchup. She liked food. That wasn’t the issue. She even often liked the people she ate with, though the number of meals she’d had with Roy and his brother Kenny or with the various less-pleasant-to-eat-with office denizens like Angela or Stanley did in fact drive down the percentage of meals where that was the case. But even when she enjoyed a meal, or had a good time at one, it wasn’t fun. The people could be fun, or the meal delicious, but those were different things.

This was fun meal. It was also a good meal—the Halperts, after getting approval from Julia the nurse, had brought in pizzas from Alfredo’s Pizza Café (not, she was relieved to see, Pizza by Alfredo)—and passed around slices that were hungrily devoured. It was a convivial meal with good people; she was rapidly coming to like Betsy and Gerald as much as Larissa, and that was saying something, especially since she felt the added tension of being the new girlfriend to their injured son, and of knowing they knew all about the long years he’d pined for her when she was oblivious to her own feelings. But more than all of that, it was a fun meal. She could eat as much as she wanted, with no one critiquing her for picking the olives off a slice (Jim just laughingly threw them onto his own slice and ate his disgusting double-olive pizza while she shivered artistically) or teasing her about her weight (“Don’t you want to fit into that wedding dress, Pammy?”) or getting drunk off their asses so she’d have to take care of them (unlike pretty much every member of Roy’s family). In fact, the Halperts seemed to take it as a personal offense when she initially stopped eating after two slices—“Eat, eat!” seemed to be a family motto—and the casual joshing over the meal was clearly all intended in good fun. Just as important, it was not aimed at her. She did, however, find out about Jim’s aversion to pizza from the ages of four to six (he would only eat two pieces folded over, because he liked cheese sandwiches, but a single slice would set him crying because “it’s not supposed to be open like that!”), Larissa’s deep hatred of white pizza (“God gave us tomatoes for a reason, Mom, and you sit there squandering Her gifts!”), and Gerald’s strange but humorously tolerated love of anchovies (“See that small one, Dad? That’s for you. If I see you poaching from ours before you’ve dealt with your disgusting little fish, we will have words”). Best of all, she felt not just included but valued—like the Halperts had always wanted someone else to comment on to about each other’s odd habits and past foibles, but had just not had the opportunity until now. And through it all Jim kept looking at her with this shit-eating grin that just made her melt inside (though when she called him out on it all she got was a kiss and then a laughing declaration that “there’s nothing shit-eating about my grin. Now if I’d had some of Dad’s pizza…” followed by Gerald telling him that if he kept up that level of sass they’d claim Pam as their second daughter and write him out of the family: “after all, Betsy, you always wanted two and two”).

It was just the best. And she found herself feeling a little guilty that she was so happy about how the last few days had gone when here was Jim, still in the hospital, still suffering from multiple fractures. But just as she was starting to feel this way, he caught her eye, lifted up her chin, and started to talk.

“Hey, Beesly. What’s got you down?”

She looked him in the eye—there really wasn’t much choice with his hand where it was—and sighed. “Just…I feel so lucky, and so happy, and it’s all because you’re sitting there hurting. It doesn’t feel right to be so happy when you’re…” she gestured at Jim’s leg.

“Can I tell you a secret?” She nodded, and he drew her head down until his lips were almost touching her ear. “I feel incredibly lucky too, and I’m the one with the broken leg.” He kissed her cheek. “Better a broken leg than a broken heart, I always say.”

She giggled. “I have literally never heard you say that.”

“Now you have. And I’m warning you, Beesly, I’m going to keep saying it until this leg heals. And probably after that too.” He folded his arms and looked at her smugly. “It’s the price you have to pay for telling me you feel guilty for being with me.”

“I don’t feel guilty about being with you.” She reached out to slap his arm, then thought better of it and slipped hers around his, giving him a squeeze. “I felt guilty about being so happy when you were hurting and in the hospital. But if you’re happy too, then I can be as happy as I want. No guilt at all.”

“And do you want?”

“I do.”

“Good.” He whispered in her ear again. “I want too.” His voice was low, and she shivered.

“Jim, your parents are right there. And you have broken ribs.”

“Minor problems, I assure you, Beesly.”

“Oh really?”

“Oh yes.”

She could feel her face growing bright red. This was a habit she had apparently picked up in the last few days, and she couldn’t really call it a problem, though it was quite inconvenient at times—like now. But she couldn’t remember when Roy or his family had last made her blush in anything but angry embarrassment, a very different feeling than whatever little floaty thing was happening in the middle of her stomach right now. Fortunately for her composure, Larissa chose that moment to interrupt them, taking a slice of pepperoni from the box by Jim’s feet. Unfortunately for that same composure, she did so in a very ostentatious way.

“What are you two lovebirds chattering about?” She met Pam’s eyes and winked.

“Just making plans for after I’m out of the hospital,” replied Jim, who was not red at all, damn him.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “Nothing big.”

“Nothing big, hmm? You’re going to regret saying that, Beesly,” he whispered.

“Oh, I really don’t think I am.” She hugged his arm tighter. “But I look forward to your trying to make me.”

“Beesly! I didn’t know you were that sort of girl!”

“What kind of girl did you think I was?”

“Um…” Finally she had found something to make slick Jim Halpert tongue-tied. She took a verbal victory lap before getting up and talking to Betsy and Gerald again, making sure she got the last word.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘yours,’ Jim.” She winked as she walked away. “Though I’d also accept ‘the best.’”