I Was Engaged, But My Office Crush Just Confessed He's In Love With Me

Pam’s stapler clicked like a metronome against the Formica as she tapped it, arranging her colored pencils into a perfect spectrum. Red beside orange, orange beside yellow, the order so precise it could have been a Pantone chart. Outside the glass doors, the parking lot was still half-empty, the early light flat and colorless, the same shade as the carpet that swallowed footsteps and dreams. She had been at her desk since seven-thirty, long before the hum of copiers and Michael’s voice ricocheting off the walls, because quiet was a currency she hoarded.

She lined up the pencils again—sharpened, points aligned—then rotated the cup a quarter inch so the Dunder Mifflin logo faced her. A small, useless rebellion against a day that would look exactly like yesterday. The fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead, the sound of insects trapped in a jar.

Footsteps. Not Michael’s—too light. Not Dwight’s—too eager. Pam didn’t look up until the footsteps stopped, replaced by the soft squeak of sneakers on industrial tile. Jim stood by the reception island, hands in pockets, hair still damp at the temples. He tilted his head toward the back offices, eyebrows raised in a question older than their friendship: ready? Pam’s mouth twitched, an answer she couldn’t give aloud. He disappeared down the corridor.

She counted to thirty, then followed.

The break-room fridge exhaled sour coffee breath when she opened it. There, on the middle shelf, sat a plastic bowl of amber Jell-O quivering like a trapped sunrise. Inside it, Dwight’s heavy black stapler floated like a sunken treasure. Pam’s laugh escaped as a huff through her nose. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late; the sound echoed off the vending machine. She eased the bowl out, palms sweating against the cold plastic, and set it on the counter. The Jell-O wobbled, and the stapler shifted, its metal jaws glinting.

Behind her, Jim cleared his throat. She hadn’t heard him return. He leaned in the doorway, shoulder against the jamb, arms folded. The corner of his mouth lifted—not quite a smile, but a promise of one. Their eyes locked in the humming fluorescence, and something electric passed between them, bright and illicit. For three full seconds the office shrank to the space between his irises and hers, the joke alive and pulsing. Then footsteps thundered down the hall—Dwight’s—followed by Michael’s voice chanting stats about paper sales. The spell snapped. Pam stepped back, wiping her palms on her skirt. Jim reached past her, plucked a coffee stirrer from the counter, and tapped the Jell-O once, twice, as if testing its readiness. He nodded once—tonight—and left her alone with the evidence trembling on the counter.

Pam returned to her desk before the phones began their morning chorus. The pencils were still perfect, but her pulse refused to line up with anything.

The phone rang at 12:17, right on schedule. Pam’s turkey sandwich sat half-wrapped on her desk, the yellow mustard already bleeding into the bread. She wiped her fingers on a napkin before lifting the receiver.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”

Roy’s exhale crackled through the line, the sound of someone already bored. “Hey. You got a pen?”

She did. She always did. Pam clicked her ballpoint against the appointment book she’d abandoned for lunch. “Shoot.”

“Need a new wear ring for the ’96 Sea-Doo. Part number 293-200-100. Also a bilge pump, Rule 500, and—” His voice flattened into a catalog, each syllable landing like a dropped wrench. She scribbled the numbers, the ink feathering on the cheap paper. When he paused, she jumped in.

“Michael tried to pronounce ‘jalapeño’ three different ways during the sales meeting. He ended up saying ‘juh-lop-en-oh’ like it was a dinosaur.”

Roy snorted, but it wasn’t amusement; it was the sound he made when a bolt stripped. “You still there?” he asked, and kept going before she answered. “Couple hose clamps, stainless. Don’t get the cheap ones. And grab me that discount code from the marina newsletter.”

Pam’s laugh died in her throat. She stared at the mustard stain spreading like a bruise. “Sure,” she said, though he was already reciting more digits. Her sandwich dried out under the fluorescents. Ten minutes disappeared into engine parts she would never see.

When he hung up—no goodbye, just a grunt and dead air—she was still holding the pen. She set it down carefully, as if it might detonate.

Across the office, Jim stood at the vending machine, forehead pressed to the glass like a kid at an aquarium. The bag of SunChips dangled on the spiral hook, refusing to drop. He nudged the machine with his hip, then crouched, hand darting up the chute. His sleeve rode high enough to expose the pale underside of his wrist. Pam watched him wrestle the bag free; the machine surrendered with a metallic cough.

He walked back, chips held aloft like a trophy. Without asking, he tore the corner open and placed them on her desk, exactly within reach. Salt and vinegar scent rose between them.

“Victory,” he said, brushing orange dust from his fingers. “They fear me now.”

Pam felt the corners of her mouth lift before she had time to stop them. “You’re their nemesis.”

Jim leaned against the counter, close enough that his khakis brushed her chair. “How’s the turkey?”

“Dry,” she admitted. “Roy gave me a shopping list.”

He nodded like he already knew, like he’d heard every word through the phone wire. “So… eat the chips first. Live dangerously.”

She took one. The salt stung the tiny cut on her lip she hadn’t noticed until now. Jim watched her chew, eyes bright, waiting to see if she’d laugh again. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, but the sound felt softer, almost like crickets.

Pam swallowed. “Thanks.”

He shrugged, but his smile stayed, small and real and only for her. The ten-minute call shrank to nothing beside the thirty seconds it took him to free a snack and bring it over. She crumpled the parts list into a tight ball, dropped it into the trash, and reached for another chip.

The clock above the reception desk clicked to 5:47. Pam snapped her pencil case shut, the sound sharp in the hush that followed Michael’s exodus. Most of the cubicles were already dark, monitors asleep. She was looping her scarf when Jim appeared, hip against her counter, hands buried in his coat pockets. The wool of his sleeve grazed the bare skin just below her elbow—barely contact, yet her pulse leapt like a startled cat.

“You smell like soap,” she said before she could filter it.
“Lever 2000, original scent. I’m a creature of habit.” His grin tilted. “You okay to drive? You inhaled those margaritas at lunch.”

She rolled her eyes, but the tease warmed her. “They wore off around two-thirty, right when Kevin spilled toner on the carpet.”
“Tragic day for magenta,” he agreed. Then, quieter, “Any fun plans tonight?”

She shook her head. “I was thinking about that new exhibit at the Montclair—small landscapes done on postcards. The artist paints the view from every motel room he stays in.”
Jim’s eyebrows lifted. “You mentioned that last month. You said the postcards feel like secrets maile to no one.”

Heat crawled up her neck; he had stored the detail. “That’s exactly why I want to go. It’s only up two more weeks.”
“What days are you free?” he asked, voice low enough that the janitor’s vacuum swallowed it.

She swallowed. “Tomorrow night, actually. Roy’s working late.”
Jim’s fingers drummed once against the counter, a tiny drumroll. “I could pick you up at six. We’ll get dumplings first, if you want. The place on Main has those pork-and-chive ones you like.”

She had mentioned the dumplings once, weeks ago, in a conversation about guilty lunches. The fact that he remembered felt like being seen through clear glass after years of frosted windows.

“Six sounds good,” she said. Her voice came out softer than intended.
He straightened, coat brushing her shoulder again. “Wear comfortable shoes. I hear the gallery floor is concrete.”
“I will.” She risked a glance upward. His eyes were the color they turned when he was tired—stormy green, lashes darker than she had any right to notice.

For a moment neither moved. The cleaning crew’s radio leaked a tinny love song; the moment stretched until it hummed like a plucked string. Then Jim stepped back, breaking the current.

“Goodnight, Pam.”
“Night, Jim.”

He walked backward twice, as if reluctant to turn, then lifted a hand and disappeared around the corner. The elevator dinged; the doors sighed shut.

Pam stood in the sudden quiet, scarf half-wrapped, skin still tingling where his sleeve had passed. The lobby lights flicked to motion-sensor dim, spotlighting only her. She finished knotting the scarf, gathered her purse, and pushed through the glass doors into the parking lot. The air was cold enough to bite, but the place beneath her ribs stayed stubbornly warm—an ember cupped against the wind that waited for her outside Roy’s apartment, where dinner would be take-out eaten in front of a television that never asked her questions or remembered the shape of her quietest dreams.