pamelam 

Jim Halpert (jim9334) started following you. 

Pam didn't know why this notification had caused her to spend a half hour scrolling through her own Instagram page and checking all of her photos and captions for anything potentially embarrassing. Jim had followed her back seconds after she had followed him - after she had dedicated fifteen minutes before following him to doing a deep dive of his Instagram page. 

Jim Halpert (he/him)

Go Sixers!

He had little on his profile but at least now she knew his team. She hadn't done this when Roy had followed her. In her defence, she had only deleted 3 photos. This was information she'd be keeping to herself. In fact, she wouldn't even mention him. It's not as though her friends were going to care about some random guy with a cute smile who was polite enough to show interest in her art one time.

Waiting for Isabel to come over for their movie night, Pam decided to switch over to her Ordinary Doodles account and try find out if Jim was following her. She kept a mental list of people from her real life who were following on there to make sure she occasionally threw in a speculative comment about who Ordinary Doodles was or the latest content. If Jim was following her here, when she posted the doodle of him reading, she'd have a good conversation starter with him from her personal account. Not that she was looking for reasons to talk to him. 

God, this is stupid.

Shaking her head, Pam focused on her scrolling. She felt too anxious about finding out to simply type his name into the search bar, ignoring the part of her that knew she'd be disappointed if he wasn't following her. She only got partway through before there was a knock at her door. Quickly switching back to her personal account, Pam put her phone down and went to open the door.

"Hey," Pam stood aside to let Isabel in, closing the door behind her.

"Oh my God, you have to look at this," Isabel said by way of greeting, dropping her Trader Joe's canvas tote bag onto Pam's bed without looking up from her phone. 

"What?"

"This chef is just... ugh," Isabel groaned and rolled her eyes, clutching her phone to her chest for a moment. "He is just... fuck, look, come here."

Pam went to stand beside Isabel as she held her phone out slightly for both of them to see. She had it open on Instagram and Pam could see from the grid that this was indeed a chef. She raised a brow as Isabel clicked on a video of him preparing a dessert and turned the sound on. 

As she watched, Pam felt her face turning red at the suggestive actions of the chef as he prepared his food. "Wooh," she let out, fanning her face once the video ended. 

"Right? I call him Sexy Chef. That close-up shot when he licked that whole-"

"Is!" Pam swatted Isabel's arm. 

"What? It's hot! And the thing with the orange-"

"Isabel!" Pam nudged Isabel with her elbow this time, blushing furiously. Either way, she reread the username at the top of the video for revisiting later.  

"Oh come on, that is like... mad sexy." 

"It is, I'm not disagreeing," Pam admitted, "just..." she fanned her face again as the video played over again in her head, dropping onto her bed. 

"What?" Isabel grinned. "Look, I'll send you a video from his page. Watch as often as your heart desires. Anyway, I brought Legally Blonde, beers and chips. I figured hey, two guilty pleasures in one go? Not a bad night." 

"How'd you get the beers?" Pam asked, taking the items out of the tote bag while Isabel went to get Pam's MacBook Air from her desk. 

"You think my sister visited last week and didn't stock me up?" Isabel snorted, passing Pam her laptop. "Cute."

"See, problems of having a little sister," Pam sighed as she entered her password. "It'll be me buying her drinks when she goes off to college."

"What about Roy?" 

"Oh, yeah," Pam rolled her eyes as she slid the DVD into her laptop while Isabel opened two bottles of Blue Moon, "the once a week I see him and manage to get a beer before he drinks them all with his friends." 

"Why are his friends there?" Isabel scrunched up her nose as she sat down beside Pam, passing her a bottle. 

"That's what I'd like to know. I keep saying we should go somewhere nice to dinner but it never happens." 

"That's fucked up."

* 

jim9334 omg is that me?! wow this is amazing!!

                  ordinarydoodles :)

                  itsmarkjay lol ya famous now man congrats

                  princesskelly_k welcome to the hall of fame! xxxx

Well, that answered Pam's question of whether Jim followed her Ordinary Doodles account and consumed a good fifteen minutes of her study time. 

She had forgotten that she'd been trying to find this out the previous night. She had to giggle at Kelly's comment - she had taken to welcoming others to the so called ‘hall of fame' since being one of the first people Pam had posted a drawing of to the account. She'd been wearing the most lavish outfit one night out; she'd been at the same pre-drinks as her and managed to find a few candid and posed photographs to draw from the following week. 

Curiously, Pam clicked through to itsmarkjay's page, quickly recognising him as the guy who had met with Jim at Diner's. She smiled - he and Jim were clearly close; while Jim did have an okay selection of photos on his own grid, Mark had a lot more and Jim featured in many of them, going back a few years. It looked like they had gone to school together - and that Jim still hadn't quite found a hairstyle that worked for him.  

With a sigh, Pam realised she only had a half hour left of her study hour before class and was about to put down her phone when a couple of message notifications came through for her personal account. 

[pamelam] isabelsophia

Sent a video

[pamelam] isabelsophia

Ughhh todays video is not that sexy but anyway that's the sexy chef guy as promised lol

Pam figured studying this chef and his cooking videos still counted as studying. She hadn't exactly written down what she planned to be studying in this hour in her diary, so it was okay. She felt her time had still been productive as she headed to her class; the food did also look incredible. For a second, Pam entertained the thought of sending a video to Roy and asking him to make her a dessert like that. She actually laughed out loud at the thought, earning strange looks from the people walking past her. Isabel was more likely to prepare her a dessert like that than Roy was. Roy would take her to the McDonald's DriveThru for a McFlurry and offer her "the best sex of your entire life, babe" instead (he always got the wrong McFlurry, and the McFlurry was still the best part) - or get annoyed that she was watching videos like that, so it wasn't worth it. 

After a graphics class that both distracted Pam from her thoughts of the chef and gave her a headache, she began making her way to get the bus out of campus. It was her least busy day so she wanted to take advantage of having a bit of time to go purchase some storage containers she'd seen on Instagram. As she stopped to grab a bottle of water, she grinned as she saw Jim browsing the little snacks section by the cashier. 

"Hey," Pam smiled shyly as she approached him.

"Hey!" Jim grinned as he turned and saw Pam. "Wow, no phone?" 

"Ah, saving my battery," Pam laughed. Funnily enough, spending almost a half hour watching videos on Instagram had eaten into her battery; she usually plugged her phone in to charge while studying. "Plus after graphics class I need a bit of a break from screens."

"Yikes," Jim breathed out a chuckle as he grabbed a bag of salted chips. "It's a weird sight."

"I know," Pam grimaced slightly as they stepped to the side to join the short queue. "Sorry. Finish your book?" 

"Oh, yeah - well remembered," Jim raised a brow. 

"The book was a great sight while I ate," Pam shrugged. 

"Well, the current one is a lot less interesting. It's just the title and author in block capitals."

"Ah, well, don't judge a book by a cover and all. You off to practice again?" Pam gestured to Jim's Sixers jersey.

"Yeah, we have a game this weekend. Go ahead," Jim gestured for Pam to pay first as they were called up. 

"Thanks," Pam smiled and stepped forward. 

Quickly paying for her water, Pam stood to the side for Jim to pay for his chips. Taking a few sips of her water, Pam found herself checking Jim out slightly in his shorts and jersey. Her eyes took in his long legs and the slight muscles in his arms, up to his lightly ruffled hair. Hearing him thank the cashier, she cleared her throat as she focused on closing the lid of the water bottle and hoping the warmth she felt in her cheeks wasn't too obvious. 

"Where you headed?" Jim asked, pocketing his wallet.

"Oh, uh, the umm, the bus stop." Pam glanced away for a moment, hating that she apparently couldn't form a real sentence if she spent too long in Jim's presence. "Going to - you know, shopping." 

"Ah, too bad, I'm heading back in," Jim gestured behind him with a thumb over his shoulder. "I'll catch you another time though - I still wanna see that drawing, you know." 

Pam's eyes snapped to him then, shocked that he seemed to genuinely be interested in the drawing she had mentioned when they'd last met. "Oh... yeah. Of course. Umm, good luck with your game."  

"Thanks - four o'clock, if you wanted to come." 

"I... yeah, maybe," Pam smiled. "I'll try make it." 

They said goodbye, and Pam stood watching Jim walk off for a moment before continuing on to the bus stop. She wanted to go, but not on her own - that would be weird. If she invited someone she'd need to give a reason for her sudden interest in the basketball team. Her dad had taken her to games so it wasn't a huge stretch to be into the sport. For sure she wasn't bringing Roy - sports games with Roy were a complete no-go anyway. She spent her bus journey into town wondering if there was a friend she could bring that wouldn't tease her (Isabel), exhaust her (Kelly) or judge her (Angela). She began to create a shortlist in her mind, and figured she'd have her answer by the end of the night.

Shopping gave her a distraction for a while, locating the organiser trays in the pastel green, lilac and baby pink she had been hoping to be in stock and picking up a few additional items she didn't technically need but needed to buy because she didn't have the willpower not to. On the journey back her mom called, which was her next distraction (though she did mention that she might go to a basketball game this weekend as a friend had invited her). Of course, getting to put her purchases to use in her dorm room when she got back was another great distraction - though not totally in the way she thought. 

"Oh, fuck!" Pam groaned, tossing the lilac organiser tray onto her bed in frustration.  

"Pam!" Angela scowled over at her roommate from her desk. 

"Ugh, sorry," Pam rolled her eyes. "I measured wrong and I can't fit all three on the shelf." 

"Too bad," Angela shrugged, her attention already back on the notebook she was working in. 

"This is so an-nyoying," Pam mumbled, frowning at the shelf she had envisioned housing her paint supplies. She let out "ugh, so stupid," under her breath before emptying to rest of the items in her shopping bag onto her bed. 

Silently, Angela spun around in her chair to see what Pam had purchased and was being so noisy about. She glanced over the items before taking a quick look at the shelf and turning back to her desk. "Just put one of the trays on the shelf below and you can mix-and-match some of the smaller bits to fill out the gaps." 

"But that's not what my vision was for the shelf!"

"Well, sorry your spatial awareness is too poor to meet your aesthetic dreams."  

Angela was saved from the sarcastic remark Pam was about to throw at her by a knock at the door. Pam quickly threw her middle finger up behind Angela's back before going to open the door. 

"You ready?"

"Hey, umm, shoot - give me a minute, come in," Pam stood back to let her friend in. "Sorry, I completely forgot." 

"No problem. Hi Angela."

Angela rolled her eyes before turning briefly to greet their guest. "Hello, Marina."

Pam shook her head in amusement as she closed the door. Angela had a particular dislike of Marina. Angela liked to dress conservatively, attended the weekly Bible study group and volunteered at the animal shelter every Saturday - so when Marina had shown up one Saturday in a red floral Brandy Melville cropped shirt, black mini skirt and gushed that "oh, cats, that's so cute, I wish they had a dog shelter nearby too" and then told Angela she should call it ‘Cat-urday', Angela had taken an instant dislike. Marina wasn't fussed except when Angela had referred to her as "that dog-loving hussy" two weeks later, because she knew Angela wouldn't say out loud the words she actually wanted to call her. 

"How was practice?" Pam asked Marina as she unloaded the books she'd used for her classes from her backpack. 

"It was good, my new sneakers are comfy as fuck," Marina grinned. She chuckled at the scoff that came from Angela's direction.  

"Worth the money then?" 

"One hundred percent. We have a game on Thursday evening if you wanna come watch."

"Oh, sure, I'll see if Is wants to come as well," Pam nodded, flinging her pencil case in the direction of her desk. 

"Awesome. I still wish you'd tried out though, you definitely would have made the team."

"I know, I just... I dunno, maybe next year," Pam shrugged. Marina expressed her wish that Pam had tried out for the volleyball team at least once a week. She decided to take her opportunity now while they were still on the topic of sports. "Umm, hey, so... are you free on Saturday afternoon?"  

"Uh... I think so, why?"

Slowly zipping up her bag, Pam felt herself blush slightly. "There's this... umm, basketball game I was thinking of going to?"

"Basketball?"

"Yeah, umm, someone mentioned it and I thought it might be fun to go."

"Oh yeah?" Marina smirked. Whatever Pam's actual motive was, she wasn't opposed to watching a bunch of guys playing basketball. "Sure, I'm down for that. Shall I see if Isabel is free too? Bunch of tall guys running around in shorts getting sweaty is her kinda thing." 

"Umm," Pam bit her lip as she pulled on her backpack. Isabel would definitely question Pam more on her motives for attending the game, but it would also look weird if she didn't want to invite her. Besides she did want Isabel there, just not the questioning she'd get. "Sure, sounds good. Ready?"