He always noticed her. Well, not literally always. There was the odd moment when he wasn’t entirely sure where she was or what she was doing, especially earlier on in their friendship. Well, not too early. Earliest on, after all, he still thought she was single and he was…well, he wasn’t licking his chops because ew that’s a disgusting metaphor and also because he was Jim Halpert not James Bond, it wasn’t like gorgeous funny intelligent women threw themselves at him naturally. So he hadn’t really expected her to actually go out with him, and it had felt like the universe restoring itself to normality when she revealed at the end of what he’d thought was a date that she was engaged.

After that he’d tried to tread a little more carefully for the sake of his own heart, and he’d really enjoyed getting to be her friend. He’d made sure he had other social outlets, though, so he and Mark had gone down to the Y and done some pickup basketball, he’d started going jogging, basic things like that. He found he was happier and more energetic when he got out and did things, and so he kept it up as best he could. Some of the guys at the Y were pretty cool, though they did have a tendency to complain about their “better halves” in a way that set Jim’s teeth on edge. Dudes, he’d think, just be happy you have them—or break up. Like, if it’s that bad…

Anyway, he found himself watching Eagles games at a bar with some of them frequently enough to get to know them outside of the Y, and he joined a fantasy football league and things were pretty chill, honestly. Sure, he still pined for the receptionist, but it was a lowkey pining, the sort of thing where you figure the crush is just because you haven’t seen anyone actually interested in you yet and you really like this person as a person. And he did. She was awesome.

Unfortunately, being awesome did not, apparently, preclude being treated like shit. He wasn’t sure exactly who this fiancé of hers was, but she was unhappy with him a lot—or at least, that’s how he interpreted the grumbles and the sighs at her phone and the occasional wry comment. And when he found her portfolio of art one day, she actually flinched when he reached to open it.

That wasn’t cool.

He obviously didn’t open the portfolio, though when she recovered from whatever automatic reaction she’d had she showed it to him herself, and he was glad to be able to tell her honestly and without flattery that it was good. He didn’t remember that much from art history sophomore year of college, but he could tell she had a good grasp of perspective, and a really good sense of color and light. One painting of a field of dandelions was particularly superb, because she’d managed to convey how the dainty dandelion heads diffused the light across the grass and gave the whole picture a dreamlike quality. Another, angrier and more abstract, had bold brush strokes heavy with paint that—he imagined, if she had had the oil paint she had scribbled a note to buy in the margin—would have reared thickly above the page, and still managed to convey a sense of powerful unease.

He smiled down at her as she flipped through the paintings one by one, carefully choosing his words to make clear that he was genuinely looking at each piece while spending as much time as he could looking at her. She looked surprised, almost shocked, and then delighted like it hadn’t really occurred to her that someone else could actually care what she’d painted.

He always noticed her—but today, he couldn’t help but see that she didn’t notice him noticing, or expect it. And somehow that just made him want to notice her more.