He is alone tonight. Sitting on the couch watching basketball and making his way through a case of beer. He doesn’t mind the quiet, or the endless space he floats in without someone else using it. But there is an aching part of him that isn’t satisfied by sports and beer, isn’t content with sitting and thinking and being a person on his own. If he tries hard enough, he can smell her, feel her hair in his fingers, feel her waist warm against his hand, feel her smile against his mouth. If he closes his eyes he can pick out the hum of the air conditioner beneath everything else, and he can hear her saying no.

He opens another beer, turns his mind for a moment to scanning the meagre contents of his fridge before giving up on all prospects of dinner. He is tired and heartsick for the wrong girl and he knows that Karen is waiting for him to call her, to need her, to want her. He wishes he could do all of that and more. And he can, he does. Just not with her.

If he stares hard enough at the score in the corner of the television it grows to crowd out the players. He makes the little black numbers dance as they blur together and he finds himself forgetting who he is rooting for. He sighs, takes a swig of beer. Feels the weight of hopelessness settle around him at the sight of this lonely Tuesday night.

There is a thudding at the door and he jumps, spilling his beer. In an inebriated panic he tries to determine who it could be, but he doesn’t remember ordering food or calling Karen or anyone else. He prays it isn’t Karen. Doesn’t think she would be impressed with him right now.

He opens the door, beer in hand. And there she is, offering a take-out bag and a smile. She is still in the clothes she wore to the office. He sees the way her hair falls across her shoulders, covered now by the pale pink cardigan he loves. He sees the way the light catches the red in her curls and throws it in all directions. He sees the way her dainty, clean, receptionist fingers are gripping the greasy take-out bag. He sees the way her smile is not the same one he is used to receiving. It is dull and uncertain and more timid than he has ever seen her.

“I ordered too much,” she says simply, and he knows that she is lying. “I thought maybe you might want some, but...” She withers under his stare, shrinks away from him, pulls the take-out bag towards her. He realises he hasn’t said anything. “Never mind.”

She attempts to turn away from him and enter her own apartment, but he reaches out – or maybe the beer does – and grabs her wrist, the one holding the food. She looks at his hand on her arm for a moment. Looks up at him. Questioning.

“I’m starving,” he says, and he doesn’t regret it even though he knows that he should. He thinks of the three empty beer bottles already on his coffee table. Thinks that maybe they are talking, opening the door wider, gesturing for her to cross the threshold into the apartment. He watches her notice the beer and the basketball, take it in and make a judgment. He watches her smile and look at him.

“Looks like I came at just the right time, Halpert. You appear to be suffering the symptoms of a lack of meal preparedness.”

“I’m still... unpacking.” His defence is weak and he laughs before she does. It is easy, and he remembers how not easy it was this morning. Remembers her face when she asked about Karen, remembers the way she avoided his honesty in the elevator. He wonders if she came over because she’s ready for it now.

He moves to the lounge and she does the same, crossing her arms in front of her the way she has done a thousand times before. He can see her leaning on his desk, arms folded, telling him in a low voice the latest prank she has devised for Dwight. He can see through the glass to the kitchen where she stands waiting for the microwave, arms folded and face closed. He can see her walking to her car, arms braced against the cold, bundled firmly against her chest as if keeping her heart in place. It warms him to see her here, now, performing this same gesture he has come to associate only with her.

She is tucked up against the arm of the couch, as far away from him as she can physically place herself. She looks stiff and unnatural, intentionally poised beneath his dim living room lights. She catches him watching her. Smiles. Looks away. Makes a move for the untouched take-out on the table in front of them. She tips half the cashew chicken into the sweet and sour beef and wordlessly hands him the container, taking the other half of the chicken for herself. The three spring rolls she claims as her own, while she leaves the dim sims, knowing they are his favourite. He smiles at the knowledge that she manufactured this entire situation. Becomes uneasy at her reasons why.

He brings the chicken to his mouth and suddenly he is back in the breakroom two years ago, the light from the vending machines casting a sickly glow over the rest of the darkened office. He remembers the way she looked then, her pale face coloured blue and her eyes lost in the artificial glow of electricity. He remembers describing to her the perfect way to approach a take-out Chinese meal after a night of overtime. He remembers dividing up the portions the same way she did just now, emphatically explaining why this was the one and only way to eat Chinese. He remembers making her laugh and wanting to do it again and again and again. He remembers them shouting “That’s what she said!” to each other across the table, followed by her triumphant “Jinx!” and insistence that he buy her a Coke to break his silence. He remembers watching her hands as she opened the can and took a long, slow pull. Remembers the way she held his eyes for too long and said nothing at all.

They say nothing now. She is looking at her chicken like she is avoiding his eyes and he is looking at her like he is avoiding his chicken. They sit as the whistles and squeaking sneakers and shouts from the television wash over them, meaningless, forgotten, there to break the silence. He waits for her to say something, to explain why she is here. Considers that maybe she is waiting for him.

“What are you doing here, Beesly?” He asks, keeping his tone light. She doesn’t answer. Tugs a piece of chicken off her chopsticks to delay her response.

“I told you,” she says around her mouthful, and she is wonderfully adorable, “I ordered too much food. Clearly you needed it.” She makes a gesture that encompasses the whole space. He feigns offence and feels the warmth spreading through his chest. Feels the space between them get a little smaller.

“I find it highly presumptuous that you think you can just invite yourself over, dangle food in my face and expect to be welcomed with open arms,” he teases. “Looks like Fancy New Beesly has a fancy new attitude.”

She is silent for a moment. “I could say the same about you.” He waits for her to tease him but she doesn’t. He is caught by her candor and takes a swig of beer to hide the uncertainty at his mouth.

“Thanks for the food,” he says. It is soaking up the beer and making his actions more his own. Making the absence of guilt more palpable.

“You’re welcome.” She reaches for a beer without being offered one and leans over to tap it against his. She looks at him and leans back and looks at her food. “Sorry, that was presumptuous.” But she takes a long pull anyway.

“Please, help yourself to my cheap and indigestible beer,” he announces too loudly. He finishes his fourth and sets about devouring his chicken and beef. It is growing cold in the wake of his indecisiveness.

She doesn’t offer a witty retort. She commits to finishing her chicken and commits to not uttering a word. It is strange to have her here in this most intimate of places and yet feel her to be so distant. Not as distant as last night, in the crisp winter air and the snow and the friendzone. But distant nonetheless, not nearly as close as he realises he needs her to be.

He tries to summon thoughts of Karen but he can’t. He is struggling to hear her voice, picture her face, feel her hands, smell her hair. He is struggling to keep her in one piece in his memory. She keeps drifting apart like vapor. He doesn’t try to catch her.

“What are you doing here, Beesly?” This time he says it softer, prompted by beer but focused by something else.

She opens her mouth and closes it. Looks at him and finds him already looking at her. Sighs. “I missed my friend,” she says carefully. “I just wanted to hang out with you again.”

He feels the disappointment sting him just as sharply as he tries to push it away. She is here and so is he and that is all that should matter. But the possibility that her motives are merely platonic stirs something in him that he wasn’t sure was still there.

“Can I offer you the tour?” He says, more to cease this uncomfortable stirring than anything else.

“I’m pretty sure your apartment is exactly the same as mine.” She rolls her eyes, but there is a smile there, too.

“I think not, Miss Beesly.” He stands, depositing his food and drink on the coffee table, and catches her wrist. “Join me, won’t you, on a tour through the previously undiscovered realm of Mr Jimothy Halpert.”

She stands with him, laughs, lets him pull her around to the other side of the couch. “Living room,” he announces, and it is superfluous and humorous and he thrills when she giggles at him.

“I definitely have better taste in furniture,” she observes, taking in the small round dinner table with exactly one chair tucked underneath. He hopes she doesn’t notice it is covered with the remnants of his dinner from last night. His dinner with Karen. He thinks it is impossible she won’t notice, pulls her in the opposite direction.

“Kitchen.”

“Same handles and everything. I think I could give the tour from here.” Her hands are on her hips and her eyes are locked with his and an eyebrow is being raised and a smirk is tugging at her mouth.

“Then by all means.” And he gestures her to precede him down the hallway.

“Bathroom.” She points without looking. Correct, of course. “Bedroom. Study. Some kind of man cave?” She giggles through the last one, and is devastated to find her guess incorrect.

“So close, Beesly, yet so far,” he teases, pushing the door at the end of the hallway open. “Just a plain old bedroom. Halpert strikes again.”

It is his bedroom, and he knows that she knows by the way she stiffens in the doorway. She is so small and beautiful and twists her hands together as she takes it all in. She doesn’t move. He lingers behind her, suddenly uncertain himself. He wants her to see, wants her to see him, and is afraid of what will happen when she does.

She turns toward him, unexpectedly, and he doesn’t have time to move. He can smell her, feel her, see a strand of hair dislodged from an otherwise-perfect curl. He wonders what it would be like to hold it against his finger, to see it there on his skin for just a moment. Would it feel like it did all those months ago? Would she let him? Would she say no again? He knows it is the beer when his hand crosses that small space between them and tucks that strand behind her ear. Lets his hand linger for a moment. Feels her warmth.

She is looking at him and he can’t read her face like he used to. She doesn’t move, doesn’t slap him away, doesn’t storm down the hallway and leave. But she doesn’t smile either. Doesn’t shift towards him or take his hand or say a word.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You’re drunk,” she replies.

“I’m not drunk.” Are you drunk? No. Jim. Are you really going to marry him?

“What happened to ‘I sort of started seeing someone’?” She is accusing him. His hand burns where he touched her, where the trace of her lingers for the moment. He can’t answer her. “What are we doing, Jim?”

Still she doesn’t move. Still she doesn’t push him away. Still he can smell her. He never wants her to leave.

“Hanging out.” And he thinks he almost has the courage to contradict himself and get his hand tangled in her hair when she steps around him and starts off down the hallway.

“You’re drunk,” she calls, and this time she is laughing.

“Three-and-a-half beers is not drunk,” he retorts as he follows her. “Three-and-a-half beers is a charmingly uninhibited Jim Halpert.” He wonders if she finds him charming. He wonders if it is her that is making him feel like he just did six shots and not the cheap booze he shouldn’t have bought.

She sits down in the middle of the couch and cradles her take-out to her chest. He has nowhere to sit but beside her, his leg touching hers. He hopes this was deliberate. Hopes the fire and ice and tingling he is feeling are not imagined.

“I like charmingly uninhibited Jim Halpert,” she says between mouthfuls. She takes two deep pulls from her bottle, finishing it off. “So, tell me about Karen.”

“I don’t think you want to know,” he answers immediately, and he can’t stop himself from looking over and catching her eyes with his own.

She is measuring him, calculating what to say, determining his motives. He isn’t even sure what his motives are. “No, I guess I don’t.” And she looks away and puts her empty take-out box on the table and stands.

“I didn’t mean it exactly like... that...” He falters. What did he mean?

“Don’t worry about it, Jim. I don’t know why I even asked.”

She is at the door and she is opening it and she is moving away too fast.

“Pam, wait.”

“I missed hanging out with you, and now I don’t. Now I know. Good night, Jim.”

He doesn’t quite know what went wrong, but still she is gone and still he is here in his doorway, thinking that it never hurts this much when Karen is gone.