FIC: Life under the Observer Effect, Part 1 of 5 (Pam/Ryan, Jim/Pam)
Title: Life under the Observer Effect, Part 1 of 5
Fandom: The Office (US)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Pam/Ryan, Jim/Pam
Length: 3454 words in this chapter (out of a total 18,000)
Summary: In science, the term "observer effect" refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed.
AN: I've been watching too many screwball comedies lately. Thanks to kyrafic and agate for betaing. For miss_bennie, my partner in Cary Grant, on her birthday. I'll be posting one chapter of this a day for the next five days. That's right, it's your lucky day, friends list.
**
Ryan breaks up with Kelly on a Friday, in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot at 5:05 pm. He figures dumping someone is like firing someone - timing is key. This way she'll have the whole weekend to cool off before he has to see her again, minimizing drama for everyone involved. And for everyone uninvolved.
Which is why, at 5:05 the following Monday, he's so surprised to hear the door of the supply closet lock behind him.
Pam happens to already be in there, getting a stack of Xerox paper down off the top shelf. Her eyes widen as he looks at her, horrified.
"Um, hello?" Ryan says, grabbing at the door handle. It's locked, all right, and that door doesn't lock automatically.
"Listen up, Ryan Bailey Howard," Kelly's voice says from outside. "You can just stay in there until you've thought about what you've done."
"Kelly?" Ryan says. "Are you insane? Open this door right now."
"I am sick of you calling me crazy!" Kelly says. "Call me when you've figured something out and maybe I'll come let you out. Jerkwad." Her voice kind of gets softer towards the end of the sentence, like she's walking away.
"Kelly!" Ryan yells again, but she doesn't answer.
"Um, Kelly?" Pam calls. "I'm in here too!" But there's still no answer. Kelly must be out of earshot.
"Goddammit," Ryan says and tries again to open the door. No dice. "Do you have a credit card?" he asks Pam, who's setting the Xerox paper down on top of a stack of boxes and sitting down on top of it. She just looks at him and spreads her empty hands like, do I look like I brought my purse into the supply closet? "Right," Ryan mutters, and starts fumbling for his own wallet.
"Why don't you just call Kelly now?" Pam asks.
Ryan feels stupid. "Good idea," he says, and fumbles through his pockets.
Shit.
He looks through his pockets again. "Fuck," he says. "I left my phone on my desk. Can I borrow yours?"
Pam again shows him her empty hands. "All I have is Xerox paper," she says.
"God," Ryan says, and goes back to rattling at the door handle. "Kelly! This isn't funny!"
Pam joins in. "Toby?" she tries. "Michael?"
They yell and rattle the door for a good twenty minutes before they give up. What a day for everyone to go home at five. Ryan finally rubs at his forehead and leans back against the door, looking at Pam. She's still sitting on the Xerox paper, her chin in her hand.
"Sorry about this," Ryan says. He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "She'll come let us out eventually. I hope."
"What did you do, anyway?" Pam asks.
"Dumped her," Ryan says. He gets out his wallet again to try the credit card thing. Not that he's ever picked a lock with a credit card before, but how hard could it be?
"So what else is new?" Pam says, but almost under her breath.
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Ryan says, in such a way that it's clear he heard her. He slides a credit card out and puts his wallet down on one of the shelves, turning around to start fiddling with the lock, but there's hardly any space between the door and the doorjamb to even fit the card in.
Pam kind of laughs. "Well, did you do it like a jerk?" she asks.
He tries really carefully to slide the corner of the card into the space. It takes a second, but it finally does. Score. "Why, do I seem like I would?"
When he glances over his shoulder, Pam's looking at him with a gleam of secret amusement. "Yes," she says.
Pam's gotten so much more interesting since she called off her wedding two months ago. And since Halpert left so she isn't always helping him be annoying. She's got a little life to her, these days, a little spunk under the surface.
Ryan tries not to smile and turns back to the door. He very carefully starts to slide the credit card down towards the lock, feeling for the bolt. "I was very professional," he says.
"What?" Pam says. "Ryan Howard, did you do it at the office?"
"No," Ryan says. There's a pause as his credit card just comes down on top of the bolt, not sliding underneath it to pull it open at all. Shit. When he looks back over his shoulder, Pam's looking at him with her eyebrows raised. "Okay, so in the parking lot," he admits.
"Ouch," Pam says, making an exaggerated pained face.
He shakes his head at her, still trying not to smile. "At least I didn't call off my wedding two days before," he says. He wiggles his credit card again, but it's not doing anything. Though it's starting to feel like if he messes with it too much, it might break. He sighs and pulls it out of the lock, turning back around and leaning against the door.
"Whatever," Pam says. "I was nice when I broke up with Roy, at least."
"Oh, sure," Ryan says.
Pam raises her eyebrows at him in a challenging way. He makes a face back at her.
"Whatever," Pam says. "I hope you know that you, like, owe me a drink or something for getting me stuck in here."
Ryan sighs. "That seems fair," he says, and sits down on the floor facing her. "So," he says. "Do we make conversation or do we play a game?"
Ten minutes later, he's flicking a paper triangle through a goal Pam's making with her hands. He scores.
"I always wondered how you played this," Pam says, picking the triangle off her boob, where it had landed. Pam has nice breasts. He's always thought so. "When all the boys played it in seventh grade."
"I kicked ass at it in seventh grade," Ryan says, making his hands into goal posts.
"Oh, I bet," Pam says, that sardonic glint back in her eye. Kelly was never dryly sarcastic at him. It's kind of refreshing. She flicks the paper football and it somehow flies directly sideways, almost as far from the goal as it can get. Pam laughs.
"Yeah, I don't think you're one to cast aspersions, Pamela," Ryan says, reaching over to pick it up.
"Fine," Pam says. "You kicked ass. I believe you." She makes a goal with her hands again.
Ryan flicks, and misses. The corner of Pam's mouth twitches. "Shut up," Ryan says.
As Pam picks up the triangle for her turn, he says, "Why'd you call off your wedding, anyway?"
She keeps looking down at her hands, getting the paper football ready to flick for a little longer than necessary. "I don't know," she says. "Cold feet, I guess." She shoots and misses.
"Come on," Ryan says. "No cameras in here. Seriously."
Pam coughs a little and sets her hands up as a goal post, not looking at Ryan particularly. "Oh," she says, and shrugs. "Um. I don't know. Jim told me he was in love with me." It'd come off as really casual and like she didn't care much about it, except for how she's turning bright red.
"Oh," Ryan says, trying not to roll his eyes. He's sorry he asked - that retarded drama's been going on for quite awhile. He's surprised Halpert managed to sack up enough to do it. "Wait, is that why he transferred?"
Pam shrugs. Ryan flicks the paper football through the goal. "Ten-three," she says. Ryan watches her pick the triangle off the shelf where it landed. "Anyway," she says, and looks a little sad. "I realized I wasn't really in love with Roy anymore, so, that was that."
Ryan notices that she didn't exactly comment on how she feels about Jim, but he'd prefer not to know anyway, so it's just as well.
"That's rough," he offers.
Pam looks up, finally, and smiles at him. "Eh," she says. "Could be worse."
Ryan snorts. "Yeah," he says. "At least Roy didn't lock you in a closet."
"True," Pam says. She looks around at the shelves of office supplies stretching above them. Ryan starts to take off his tie. "What do you think?" she says. "Paper clip sculptures next?"
By the time Kelly comes back to let them out, at almost nine that same night, Ryan's pretty sure that he's a little in love with Pam Beesly. Which is very inconvenient.
**
Ryan asks Pam out two weeks later, while one camera's in Michael's office and the other's in the bathroom with Kelly.
Pam looks at him. "Ryan Howard," she says. "Kelly is in the ladies' room crying as we speak."
Ryan shrugs and looks at her. "So?" he says.
Pam tries not to smile. She picks up a stack of expense reports and taps them against the desk to even them out. "So," she says. "Don't be such a...," she pauses, trying to think of the right word.
"Douche?" Ryan offers.
"Exactly," Pam says. She's trying to look very stern, but her eyes are amused.
"I get that a lot," Ryan says. "So is that a no?"
"Um, no," Pam says.
"No, it's a yes? Or no, it's a no?"
Pam rolls her eyes at him. "Whatever," she says. "We can get dinner. But it's not a date."
"Sure," Ryan says, and smirks at her.
She insists it's really not, and pays for her own meal, and whatever, they have a good time. When he pulls the car up at her apartment building, he looks over at her with a cheerful fake smile. "Well, friend," he says, and holds out a hand to shake hers.
She rolls her eyes at him. He keeps holding his hand out until she finally shakes it, but shakes it like she's suspicious he's got some kind of nefarious plan to do something else. Or like he's Michael and might have a joy buzzer.
His nefarious plan is not to have a nefarious plan, though, and after a long moment she gets out of the car. And she looks disappointed, which is what he was counting on.
He feels smug and drives home and jerks off, and the next weekend when they go out, Pam's the one who kisses him, between the third and fourth swings on the St. Anthony Elementary School playground across from her apartment.
**
His sales call with Dwight is... something. They don't get back to the office until past seven, and he's so tired just picking his feet up seems like a lot of effort. Pam's still there, weirdly, alone in the semi-dark office except for a cameraman, sitting at her desk, wearing her coat, and talking on the phone.
Whatever, he's too tired to care. He gets his keys out of his desk.
"Ryan, are you okay?" Pam asks.
He has to think for a second. Is he? Well, no sale, but no broken bones, so he's going to call it a win. "Yeah," he says, starting to leave again. "Yeah."
Outside it's dark, only his car and Pam's still in the parking lot. It smells like fallen leaves and autumn, wood smoke somewhere in the distance, the night air still a little warm, pleasant. Indian summer. He unlocks his car door and then stands there with it open, trying to think what CD he wants to listen to on the way home. Something sort of mellow but triumphant? Leaving the driver's door open, he crawls into the backseat to look through his giant CD case, and ends up leaning against the car, flipping through the pages.
He's rejected like 30 things and is thinking maybe he should just give up and put, like, Coldplay in, when he hears heels on the pavement.
"Hey," Pam says, walking towards her own car.
Ryan sort of raises his eyebrows and nods hello at her. They've still only been out a couple of times, so it's casual, he's casual. Plus, he's too tired to make the effort to make sounds.
Pam stops walking halfway between his car and hers, keys in her hand. "What happened to you today, anyway?"
Ryan shakes his head. "I don't know. It was a long day." He flips a page of his CD case and wonders why he buys such crappy music. "Dwight took me to his beet farm."
Pam laughs. "Oh my God, you went to Schrute Farms?" she says. She sounds a little jealous, actually.
"Yeah, you want to see what Mose whittled me?" Ryan asks.
"Yes!" Pam says.
Ryan smiles and puts his CD case back down inside the car to root around inside his bag for the... statue thing. "You have such a weird relationship with Dwight," he says.
"I do not," Pam says.
Ryan finds the statue and holds it out to her. She laughs delightedly. "Oh my God," she says, taking it from him.
"You can have it, if you want," Ryan says.
"Oh," Pam says, all exaggerated politeness. "I couldn't take this from you."
"No, really," Ryan says. "It reminds me of you."
Pam starts laughing again. "Shut up," she says. She comes and leans against the car next to him.
"So why are you here so late?" Ryan asks.
"Oh," Pam says, turning the figurine between two fingers. "Um. Jim called, so I was talking to him."
Oh, right, Jim. Well, this relationship was fun while it lasted. "Ah," Ryan says, and puts his hands in his pockets.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Pam asks.
"Nothing," Ryan says. "Did you tell him you loooove him?"
Pam makes a sort of incredulous noise. "Shut up," she says.
"Did you tell him you just want to hold him, all night long?"
"Oh my God," Pam says, and hits him on the shoulder.
"Did you tell him he had you at hello?"
Pam grabs Ryan by the tie, turning so she's facing him. "Seriously," she says, pulling on it. "I'll strangle you with this." As she pulls, Ryan takes a step towards her, and suddenly they're standing really close. Pam looks at his mouth, and Ryan's heart picks up the tempo, beating hard.
"Did you tell him - " Ryan starts, talking quieter now, but she pulls him in by the tie and kisses him before he can finish. God, he likes her. He puts his hands on her hips, and she moves her arms around his shoulders. He can feel Mose's figurine press against his neck, its curves and angles scraping lightly against his skin. They kiss for a long time.
"No," Pam says, when they finally pull back. Her cheeks are flushed a little, prettily. "I didn't tell him any of that."
"Oh," Ryan says, trying not to smile.
"You want to go to Farley's this Friday?" Pam says. She steps back and starts straightening her clothes.
"Sure," Ryan says.
Pam hands him back Mose's figurine. "Good," she says. She reaches out a hand and wipes the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "You have a little lip gloss, right there," she says.
"I bet," he says.
She smiles to herself and finishes wiping it off, taking a few steps back. "Well, 'night."
He waves at her with the hand still holding the fertility sculpture, then tosses it into the backseat of his car. He still hasn't picked out a CD, but he decides he doesn't need one after all and drives home listening to the silence, to the buzzing in his ears, the radio turned off and the windows down.
**
For a couple months they just go out every once in awhile, casually, but then gradually they're going out every weekend. And then it's every weekend and some week days, and it's been that for like three months, and Pam still hasn't asked Ryan if they're exclusive. It's making him nervous, like maybe she's going out with other guys. Because most girls, for instance, Kelly Kapoor, ask him if they're exclusive within, like, days of the first time they make out.
If this is about Jim Halpert, he's going to be annoyed.
Jim Halpert, thank God, did not come back to Scranton when the Stamford branch merged with it - instead he quit, got another job somewhere. Pam hasn't really said anything about it, which Ryan was happy about at the time, but now he's beginning to wonder if maybe they should've talked about it.
Three days before Christmas, he and Pam are out at a bar with a bunch of Ryan's friends, mostly ones he doesn't even like. Pam's driving up to her mom's the next day for the holiday, so she isn't drinking much. Instead she's beating a very drunk Thomas Smitherman at pool, and Ryan's drinking gin and tonic, watching her, and listening to a very drunk Keith Noble talk about the stock market.
He watches the curve of her back as she sets up her shot, the line of her arm, and wonders why she hasn't said she wants him to be her boyfriend yet. They've been sleeping together for three months. He doesn't want to be a pussy about it, but Jesus.
"I mean, goddamn, right?" Keith says.
"Right," Ryan says, not having any idea what he's agreeing to.
Pam comes back over to the table, almost bouncing on her toes at having won the game. She sits down next to him, so close their legs touch.
"Hi there," she says, reaching out and taking a sip of his drink. She makes a face when she tastes the gin.
Ryan stretches his arm along the back of the booth and smiles at her. "Hi," he says. "You win?"
"It wasn't much of a contest," Pam says, nodding at Thomas, who's slumped against the bar, looking rumpled and out of it.
Ryan laughs.
"Well, I probably better get going," Pam says. "I want to leave early tomorrow." She puts her hand on Ryan's and laces their fingers together. "Walk me out?"
Ryan lets her pull him up, and they walk out of the bar holding hands. Keith makes a whip cracking noise with his mouth, and Ryan flips him off with his other hand.
Outside it's suddenly cold and quiet, snow still drifting down, their feet making crunching noises in the stillness.
"When do you come back, again?" Ryan asks.
"The 27th," Pam says, and then teases, "Why, will you miss me?"
"Nah," Ryan says. "Losing the old ball and chain?"
"Right, right," Pam says. "Big relief, I know. I wonder how many guys I can sleep with in the next five days?"
"Ha, ha," Ryan says. Pam swings their hands, and reaches in her purse for her keys. "Hey," he says as they walk up to her car. "So, uh...." He can't quite think how to phrase it.
"Yeah?" Pam says.
"We're exclusive, right?" he says.
"Hmm?" Pam says. She's still rifling through her purse looking for her keys.
"I mean, uh, we're not dating other people," Ryan says. "Right?"
Pam looks up and makes a hilarious face at him, like she's amused and surprised and kind of making fun of him, all at once. "Ryan Howard," she says. "Do you want to be my boooooyfriend?" She says 'boyfriend' like she's a seventh grader.
"Shut up," Ryan says.
She goes back to looking for her keys. "If I were a set of keys, where would I be hiding? This purse is not that big."
Ryan looks at her for a second, but she doesn't say whether they're dating or not, and finally he shakes his head in exasperation. "God, you are such a bitch."
She smiles to herself and keeps looking for her keys. "Yeah, Ryan, we're exclusive. I mean, you don't have to be such a girl about it." She looks up and grins at him.
He rolls his eyes at her and takes the purse out of her hands. "Give me that," he says, rummages around, and finds her keys in about two seconds, underneath her cell phone.
"Thanks, boyfriend," she says, taking her keys out of his hand.
"I hate you," he says. He puts his hands in his pockets.
"Apparently," Pam says, unlocking the car, "you love me."
"Shut," Ryan says. "Up."
Pam just smiles at him. He has the feeling he's smiling back like an idiot, but he can't seem to stop.
"High five?" Pam says. She's got snow in her hair, melting in droplets that catch the streetlights. He high fives her. And then kisses her.
"Call me when you get there?" Ryan says.
"Yeah," she says as she climbs into the car. He stands in the parking lot and watches her pull away.
**
2. The course of true love gathers no moss.
Fandom: The Office (US)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Pam/Ryan, Jim/Pam
Length: 3454 words in this chapter (out of a total 18,000)
Summary: In science, the term "observer effect" refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed.
AN: I've been watching too many screwball comedies lately. Thanks to kyrafic and agate for betaing. For miss_bennie, my partner in Cary Grant, on her birthday. I'll be posting one chapter of this a day for the next five days. That's right, it's your lucky day, friends list.
**
Ryan breaks up with Kelly on a Friday, in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot at 5:05 pm. He figures dumping someone is like firing someone - timing is key. This way she'll have the whole weekend to cool off before he has to see her again, minimizing drama for everyone involved. And for everyone uninvolved.
Which is why, at 5:05 the following Monday, he's so surprised to hear the door of the supply closet lock behind him.
Pam happens to already be in there, getting a stack of Xerox paper down off the top shelf. Her eyes widen as he looks at her, horrified.
"Um, hello?" Ryan says, grabbing at the door handle. It's locked, all right, and that door doesn't lock automatically.
"Listen up, Ryan Bailey Howard," Kelly's voice says from outside. "You can just stay in there until you've thought about what you've done."
"Kelly?" Ryan says. "Are you insane? Open this door right now."
"I am sick of you calling me crazy!" Kelly says. "Call me when you've figured something out and maybe I'll come let you out. Jerkwad." Her voice kind of gets softer towards the end of the sentence, like she's walking away.
"Kelly!" Ryan yells again, but she doesn't answer.
"Um, Kelly?" Pam calls. "I'm in here too!" But there's still no answer. Kelly must be out of earshot.
"Goddammit," Ryan says and tries again to open the door. No dice. "Do you have a credit card?" he asks Pam, who's setting the Xerox paper down on top of a stack of boxes and sitting down on top of it. She just looks at him and spreads her empty hands like, do I look like I brought my purse into the supply closet? "Right," Ryan mutters, and starts fumbling for his own wallet.
"Why don't you just call Kelly now?" Pam asks.
Ryan feels stupid. "Good idea," he says, and fumbles through his pockets.
Shit.
He looks through his pockets again. "Fuck," he says. "I left my phone on my desk. Can I borrow yours?"
Pam again shows him her empty hands. "All I have is Xerox paper," she says.
"God," Ryan says, and goes back to rattling at the door handle. "Kelly! This isn't funny!"
Pam joins in. "Toby?" she tries. "Michael?"
They yell and rattle the door for a good twenty minutes before they give up. What a day for everyone to go home at five. Ryan finally rubs at his forehead and leans back against the door, looking at Pam. She's still sitting on the Xerox paper, her chin in her hand.
"Sorry about this," Ryan says. He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "She'll come let us out eventually. I hope."
"What did you do, anyway?" Pam asks.
"Dumped her," Ryan says. He gets out his wallet again to try the credit card thing. Not that he's ever picked a lock with a credit card before, but how hard could it be?
"So what else is new?" Pam says, but almost under her breath.
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Ryan says, in such a way that it's clear he heard her. He slides a credit card out and puts his wallet down on one of the shelves, turning around to start fiddling with the lock, but there's hardly any space between the door and the doorjamb to even fit the card in.
Pam kind of laughs. "Well, did you do it like a jerk?" she asks.
He tries really carefully to slide the corner of the card into the space. It takes a second, but it finally does. Score. "Why, do I seem like I would?"
When he glances over his shoulder, Pam's looking at him with a gleam of secret amusement. "Yes," she says.
Pam's gotten so much more interesting since she called off her wedding two months ago. And since Halpert left so she isn't always helping him be annoying. She's got a little life to her, these days, a little spunk under the surface.
Ryan tries not to smile and turns back to the door. He very carefully starts to slide the credit card down towards the lock, feeling for the bolt. "I was very professional," he says.
"What?" Pam says. "Ryan Howard, did you do it at the office?"
"No," Ryan says. There's a pause as his credit card just comes down on top of the bolt, not sliding underneath it to pull it open at all. Shit. When he looks back over his shoulder, Pam's looking at him with her eyebrows raised. "Okay, so in the parking lot," he admits.
"Ouch," Pam says, making an exaggerated pained face.
He shakes his head at her, still trying not to smile. "At least I didn't call off my wedding two days before," he says. He wiggles his credit card again, but it's not doing anything. Though it's starting to feel like if he messes with it too much, it might break. He sighs and pulls it out of the lock, turning back around and leaning against the door.
"Whatever," Pam says. "I was nice when I broke up with Roy, at least."
"Oh, sure," Ryan says.
Pam raises her eyebrows at him in a challenging way. He makes a face back at her.
"Whatever," Pam says. "I hope you know that you, like, owe me a drink or something for getting me stuck in here."
Ryan sighs. "That seems fair," he says, and sits down on the floor facing her. "So," he says. "Do we make conversation or do we play a game?"
Ten minutes later, he's flicking a paper triangle through a goal Pam's making with her hands. He scores.
"I always wondered how you played this," Pam says, picking the triangle off her boob, where it had landed. Pam has nice breasts. He's always thought so. "When all the boys played it in seventh grade."
"I kicked ass at it in seventh grade," Ryan says, making his hands into goal posts.
"Oh, I bet," Pam says, that sardonic glint back in her eye. Kelly was never dryly sarcastic at him. It's kind of refreshing. She flicks the paper football and it somehow flies directly sideways, almost as far from the goal as it can get. Pam laughs.
"Yeah, I don't think you're one to cast aspersions, Pamela," Ryan says, reaching over to pick it up.
"Fine," Pam says. "You kicked ass. I believe you." She makes a goal with her hands again.
Ryan flicks, and misses. The corner of Pam's mouth twitches. "Shut up," Ryan says.
As Pam picks up the triangle for her turn, he says, "Why'd you call off your wedding, anyway?"
She keeps looking down at her hands, getting the paper football ready to flick for a little longer than necessary. "I don't know," she says. "Cold feet, I guess." She shoots and misses.
"Come on," Ryan says. "No cameras in here. Seriously."
Pam coughs a little and sets her hands up as a goal post, not looking at Ryan particularly. "Oh," she says, and shrugs. "Um. I don't know. Jim told me he was in love with me." It'd come off as really casual and like she didn't care much about it, except for how she's turning bright red.
"Oh," Ryan says, trying not to roll his eyes. He's sorry he asked - that retarded drama's been going on for quite awhile. He's surprised Halpert managed to sack up enough to do it. "Wait, is that why he transferred?"
Pam shrugs. Ryan flicks the paper football through the goal. "Ten-three," she says. Ryan watches her pick the triangle off the shelf where it landed. "Anyway," she says, and looks a little sad. "I realized I wasn't really in love with Roy anymore, so, that was that."
Ryan notices that she didn't exactly comment on how she feels about Jim, but he'd prefer not to know anyway, so it's just as well.
"That's rough," he offers.
Pam looks up, finally, and smiles at him. "Eh," she says. "Could be worse."
Ryan snorts. "Yeah," he says. "At least Roy didn't lock you in a closet."
"True," Pam says. She looks around at the shelves of office supplies stretching above them. Ryan starts to take off his tie. "What do you think?" she says. "Paper clip sculptures next?"
By the time Kelly comes back to let them out, at almost nine that same night, Ryan's pretty sure that he's a little in love with Pam Beesly. Which is very inconvenient.
**
Ryan asks Pam out two weeks later, while one camera's in Michael's office and the other's in the bathroom with Kelly.
Pam looks at him. "Ryan Howard," she says. "Kelly is in the ladies' room crying as we speak."
Ryan shrugs and looks at her. "So?" he says.
Pam tries not to smile. She picks up a stack of expense reports and taps them against the desk to even them out. "So," she says. "Don't be such a...," she pauses, trying to think of the right word.
"Douche?" Ryan offers.
"Exactly," Pam says. She's trying to look very stern, but her eyes are amused.
"I get that a lot," Ryan says. "So is that a no?"
"Um, no," Pam says.
"No, it's a yes? Or no, it's a no?"
Pam rolls her eyes at him. "Whatever," she says. "We can get dinner. But it's not a date."
"Sure," Ryan says, and smirks at her.
She insists it's really not, and pays for her own meal, and whatever, they have a good time. When he pulls the car up at her apartment building, he looks over at her with a cheerful fake smile. "Well, friend," he says, and holds out a hand to shake hers.
She rolls her eyes at him. He keeps holding his hand out until she finally shakes it, but shakes it like she's suspicious he's got some kind of nefarious plan to do something else. Or like he's Michael and might have a joy buzzer.
His nefarious plan is not to have a nefarious plan, though, and after a long moment she gets out of the car. And she looks disappointed, which is what he was counting on.
He feels smug and drives home and jerks off, and the next weekend when they go out, Pam's the one who kisses him, between the third and fourth swings on the St. Anthony Elementary School playground across from her apartment.
**
His sales call with Dwight is... something. They don't get back to the office until past seven, and he's so tired just picking his feet up seems like a lot of effort. Pam's still there, weirdly, alone in the semi-dark office except for a cameraman, sitting at her desk, wearing her coat, and talking on the phone.
Whatever, he's too tired to care. He gets his keys out of his desk.
"Ryan, are you okay?" Pam asks.
He has to think for a second. Is he? Well, no sale, but no broken bones, so he's going to call it a win. "Yeah," he says, starting to leave again. "Yeah."
Outside it's dark, only his car and Pam's still in the parking lot. It smells like fallen leaves and autumn, wood smoke somewhere in the distance, the night air still a little warm, pleasant. Indian summer. He unlocks his car door and then stands there with it open, trying to think what CD he wants to listen to on the way home. Something sort of mellow but triumphant? Leaving the driver's door open, he crawls into the backseat to look through his giant CD case, and ends up leaning against the car, flipping through the pages.
He's rejected like 30 things and is thinking maybe he should just give up and put, like, Coldplay in, when he hears heels on the pavement.
"Hey," Pam says, walking towards her own car.
Ryan sort of raises his eyebrows and nods hello at her. They've still only been out a couple of times, so it's casual, he's casual. Plus, he's too tired to make the effort to make sounds.
Pam stops walking halfway between his car and hers, keys in her hand. "What happened to you today, anyway?"
Ryan shakes his head. "I don't know. It was a long day." He flips a page of his CD case and wonders why he buys such crappy music. "Dwight took me to his beet farm."
Pam laughs. "Oh my God, you went to Schrute Farms?" she says. She sounds a little jealous, actually.
"Yeah, you want to see what Mose whittled me?" Ryan asks.
"Yes!" Pam says.
Ryan smiles and puts his CD case back down inside the car to root around inside his bag for the... statue thing. "You have such a weird relationship with Dwight," he says.
"I do not," Pam says.
Ryan finds the statue and holds it out to her. She laughs delightedly. "Oh my God," she says, taking it from him.
"You can have it, if you want," Ryan says.
"Oh," Pam says, all exaggerated politeness. "I couldn't take this from you."
"No, really," Ryan says. "It reminds me of you."
Pam starts laughing again. "Shut up," she says. She comes and leans against the car next to him.
"So why are you here so late?" Ryan asks.
"Oh," Pam says, turning the figurine between two fingers. "Um. Jim called, so I was talking to him."
Oh, right, Jim. Well, this relationship was fun while it lasted. "Ah," Ryan says, and puts his hands in his pockets.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Pam asks.
"Nothing," Ryan says. "Did you tell him you loooove him?"
Pam makes a sort of incredulous noise. "Shut up," she says.
"Did you tell him you just want to hold him, all night long?"
"Oh my God," Pam says, and hits him on the shoulder.
"Did you tell him he had you at hello?"
Pam grabs Ryan by the tie, turning so she's facing him. "Seriously," she says, pulling on it. "I'll strangle you with this." As she pulls, Ryan takes a step towards her, and suddenly they're standing really close. Pam looks at his mouth, and Ryan's heart picks up the tempo, beating hard.
"Did you tell him - " Ryan starts, talking quieter now, but she pulls him in by the tie and kisses him before he can finish. God, he likes her. He puts his hands on her hips, and she moves her arms around his shoulders. He can feel Mose's figurine press against his neck, its curves and angles scraping lightly against his skin. They kiss for a long time.
"No," Pam says, when they finally pull back. Her cheeks are flushed a little, prettily. "I didn't tell him any of that."
"Oh," Ryan says, trying not to smile.
"You want to go to Farley's this Friday?" Pam says. She steps back and starts straightening her clothes.
"Sure," Ryan says.
Pam hands him back Mose's figurine. "Good," she says. She reaches out a hand and wipes the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "You have a little lip gloss, right there," she says.
"I bet," he says.
She smiles to herself and finishes wiping it off, taking a few steps back. "Well, 'night."
He waves at her with the hand still holding the fertility sculpture, then tosses it into the backseat of his car. He still hasn't picked out a CD, but he decides he doesn't need one after all and drives home listening to the silence, to the buzzing in his ears, the radio turned off and the windows down.
**
For a couple months they just go out every once in awhile, casually, but then gradually they're going out every weekend. And then it's every weekend and some week days, and it's been that for like three months, and Pam still hasn't asked Ryan if they're exclusive. It's making him nervous, like maybe she's going out with other guys. Because most girls, for instance, Kelly Kapoor, ask him if they're exclusive within, like, days of the first time they make out.
If this is about Jim Halpert, he's going to be annoyed.
Jim Halpert, thank God, did not come back to Scranton when the Stamford branch merged with it - instead he quit, got another job somewhere. Pam hasn't really said anything about it, which Ryan was happy about at the time, but now he's beginning to wonder if maybe they should've talked about it.
Three days before Christmas, he and Pam are out at a bar with a bunch of Ryan's friends, mostly ones he doesn't even like. Pam's driving up to her mom's the next day for the holiday, so she isn't drinking much. Instead she's beating a very drunk Thomas Smitherman at pool, and Ryan's drinking gin and tonic, watching her, and listening to a very drunk Keith Noble talk about the stock market.
He watches the curve of her back as she sets up her shot, the line of her arm, and wonders why she hasn't said she wants him to be her boyfriend yet. They've been sleeping together for three months. He doesn't want to be a pussy about it, but Jesus.
"I mean, goddamn, right?" Keith says.
"Right," Ryan says, not having any idea what he's agreeing to.
Pam comes back over to the table, almost bouncing on her toes at having won the game. She sits down next to him, so close their legs touch.
"Hi there," she says, reaching out and taking a sip of his drink. She makes a face when she tastes the gin.
Ryan stretches his arm along the back of the booth and smiles at her. "Hi," he says. "You win?"
"It wasn't much of a contest," Pam says, nodding at Thomas, who's slumped against the bar, looking rumpled and out of it.
Ryan laughs.
"Well, I probably better get going," Pam says. "I want to leave early tomorrow." She puts her hand on Ryan's and laces their fingers together. "Walk me out?"
Ryan lets her pull him up, and they walk out of the bar holding hands. Keith makes a whip cracking noise with his mouth, and Ryan flips him off with his other hand.
Outside it's suddenly cold and quiet, snow still drifting down, their feet making crunching noises in the stillness.
"When do you come back, again?" Ryan asks.
"The 27th," Pam says, and then teases, "Why, will you miss me?"
"Nah," Ryan says. "Losing the old ball and chain?"
"Right, right," Pam says. "Big relief, I know. I wonder how many guys I can sleep with in the next five days?"
"Ha, ha," Ryan says. Pam swings their hands, and reaches in her purse for her keys. "Hey," he says as they walk up to her car. "So, uh...." He can't quite think how to phrase it.
"Yeah?" Pam says.
"We're exclusive, right?" he says.
"Hmm?" Pam says. She's still rifling through her purse looking for her keys.
"I mean, uh, we're not dating other people," Ryan says. "Right?"
Pam looks up and makes a hilarious face at him, like she's amused and surprised and kind of making fun of him, all at once. "Ryan Howard," she says. "Do you want to be my boooooyfriend?" She says 'boyfriend' like she's a seventh grader.
"Shut up," Ryan says.
She goes back to looking for her keys. "If I were a set of keys, where would I be hiding? This purse is not that big."
Ryan looks at her for a second, but she doesn't say whether they're dating or not, and finally he shakes his head in exasperation. "God, you are such a bitch."
She smiles to herself and keeps looking for her keys. "Yeah, Ryan, we're exclusive. I mean, you don't have to be such a girl about it." She looks up and grins at him.
He rolls his eyes at her and takes the purse out of her hands. "Give me that," he says, rummages around, and finds her keys in about two seconds, underneath her cell phone.
"Thanks, boyfriend," she says, taking her keys out of his hand.
"I hate you," he says. He puts his hands in his pockets.
"Apparently," Pam says, unlocking the car, "you love me."
"Shut," Ryan says. "Up."
Pam just smiles at him. He has the feeling he's smiling back like an idiot, but he can't seem to stop.
"High five?" Pam says. She's got snow in her hair, melting in droplets that catch the streetlights. He high fives her. And then kisses her.
"Call me when you get there?" Ryan says.
"Yeah," she says as she climbs into the car. He stands in the parking lot and watches her pull away.
**
2. The course of true love gathers no moss.