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Pam begins to get used to the fact that Jim needs her advice on things whenever he and Karen fight.

Well, maybe he doesn't need it. But he always seems to want it.

* * * *

Their second fight she finds him the same way she did the first time. He's sitting in the break room with a soda this time, and he looks up at her as she goes to refill her coffee (she drinks a lot more coffee than tea these days).

He smiles, but the bags under his eyes are a dead giveaway.

She has to force herself to say something, even though it pains her to see him like this. But she just doesn't want to get involved. Not again. Not ever.

So she pours her coffee, not looking at him. She takes her time stirring in milk and Splenda, standing with the spoon in her hand, staring into her mug until the steam begins to slowly disappear. She takes a sip, and prepares herself for a burn on the tongue that she never gets.

She looks over at him and he's twisting the tab of his soda can around and around, until finally, snap!

It's then that she realizes she can't just let it go.

She slides into a seat across from him, watching his face until he finally looks up.

"Hey," she says quietly.

"Hey."

She waits for it, giving him a chance to speak up. He doesn't. So she does.

"What's wrong?"

He blows air out between his lips, still playing with his empty soda can, bouncing it back and forth between his hands on the table top.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me. I was just..."

"It's Karen," he says dolefully. "I don't know. She...she wants me to go with her to Connecticut this weekend to meet her parents, and I, um, I'm not really sure if I'm ready to do that." He gives that sort-of laugh that sounds more like he's got something caught in the back of his throat.

"Oh." She picks up the soda tab and slides it across the table with her finger. It almost ends up in Jim's lap and he slides it back to her.

"I mean, am I being stupid?" he asks, throwing his hands up. "Maybe I'm being stupid. I just think that two months of dating is kind of soon to be meeting the parents."

"Well," she says cautiously. "I know I didn't meet Roy's parents until, like, eight months after we started dating. But that was high school, so I guess the rules are kind of...different." She flicks the soda tab back towards him.

He looks up at her, his eyebrows knitted.

"But," she continues, "I guess it all depends."

"On?"

"On whether or not you're really, um, serious about things." She kind of whispers the last part because she knows she's no one to be giving him advice about this sort of thing. No one at all.

"Yeah," he sighs.

"I mean, I'll be totally honest with you, Jim."

When she says this, he looks up at her as if she's just told him she'd unlocked the mysteries of the universe, discovered time travel or something like that.

She takes a deep breath.

"I think two months is too soon." She looks down, and takes a sip of her (now cold) coffee.

She hadn't said it with bad intentions. Not at all. The last thing she wanted was for Jim to be unhappy. The last thing she wanted was for Karen to be upset. But if there's anything she did know, it's that you can't fake things like wanting to meet parents and you can't push yourself to be ready for something you're not. She knows this.

She peeks up at him from under her bangs. He half-smiles and the rest of what she says comes tumbling out before she can control it.

"But please don't just take my word for it. Go with what you really think. It seems like you're doubting it, and you don't want to go there and have to meet her family if your heart isn't actually in it. You know? What I'm saying is, don't do it just to make her happy. Because she'll know...that you're not."

"Yeah," he says slowly, nodding. "You're right about that."

"And Jim," she says quietly, "you didn't hear that from me."

When they leave the break room together, she watches him throw away his soda can.

She could swear she'd seen him slip the soda tab into his pocket.

 


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