"Good to have you back," Pam called getting into her car

"Yeah," he sighed, "good to be back."

The look on her face when he'd told her about Karen was burned into his brain.  He tried his hardest to shake her as he dialed Karen's number.

"Heyloo," she answered playfully with a giggle, "Where are you?"

"Um still haven't left the parking lot," he looked down at his seatbelt to avoid Pam's eyes as her car pulled out of the lot.

‘Oh, well, I'm about to drive by.  Why don't I pick you up and we'll head to the bar now." He was silent for a moment and she added, "I mean if you're okay with being chauffeured around."

He was having a hard time focusing on anything, "yeah, I'll be right here." He said his eyes going out of focus watching Pam's red taillights.

Karen, you're going for a drink with Karen, he coaxed himself away from thoughts of her. Karen is beautiful, and she has a nice smile.  Karen makes fun of you...like Pam did. He shook his head, trying to physically eject her from his mind.  He laid it down on the steering wheel and breathed in the stuffy air.

The honk of a silver SUV rang through foggy glass and he popped his head up to see Karen smiling from the driver's seat.  He grabbed his bags and locked up the Civic.  Without knowing why he walked to the driver's side first and leaned through the window to plant a kiss on Karen's glossy lips.  "You ready to go?" he asked grinning

"Um yeah," she smiled, her stomach doing giddy back flips.

On his walk to the other side of the car Jim promised himself that next time he kissed Karen he would get butterflies.  He needed butterflies.

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He pulled the barstool out for her like any gentleman would do.  She ordered a dry martini, and he settled for whatever was on tap.  Jim had never been one fro drinking away his problems, and besides, he had so many that all the alcohol in the world would never ease his pain.

For months he had been okay.  He didn't think about her ever.  Well that wasn't true.  At night he would lay in an unfamiliar apartment in the pitch black he would let her take him over.  He forgot about how bad she had hurt him, he just imagined her face.  He would smile to himself in the dark thinking about her soft lips on his.  She had kissed him back, she called off her wedding...she loved him too. Even though it made him feel pathetic, he would talk to her.  Somewhere in his heart he thought that just maybe she could hear him.  He would fall asleep imagining her in his arms.  And in the morning she was gone, and he could function for the day.  This had become his routine and it was working just fine.  But this morning she leapt from her desk and into his arms and since then he couldn't let her go.  That's why he had to mention Karen, it killed him to push her away but he had to.  He couldn't go through the torture of seeing her smile at him that way.  He could never let her hate him, but maybe this was a small step to moving on.

He tore himself away from his thoughts and his eyes from the foam in his glass that swirled around the little beer at the bottom.  He looked next to him at Karen who had her eyebrows raised.  Shit, she had asked him something and he wasn't listening at all.  He didn't know what else to do but stare blankly.

"Are you okay Halpert?" she asked

"Uh yeah," he laughed, "just...long day"

"Yeah, I know." She looked at her glass and swirled her finger around the glass, "you want to get out of here?"

And then Jim did something bold, one final chance to heal, "you want to go back to my place?"