-1AN: Sooo, I'm not much good at that whole 'oh la la' writing, but I did my best. Sorry if the much awaited bikini scene was not up to par :-\ Oh, and I suck because of inconsistency… earlier in the story, I wrote Kelly and Ryan as dating. Whiiich, they actually weren't dating yet in the show. And when I originally wrote this, I wrote them as dating again accidentally, but GreenFish helped me pick that out. But if there are any little snags, sorry!

When Ryan Howard had signed up at the temp agency, this was definitely not what he had expected his job would be like. Of course, on the first day, after the boss made the receptionist cry, he'd gotten the feeling that he might be in for a ride. 'A ride' was nowhere near adequate in describing what the past few months had been like.

Honestly, he never would have imagined himself sitting on a beach in Florida, sipping a rum and orange juice with some of the weirdest people he'd ever met. For work. He hadn't been dying to come on this trip (he was missing an economics test to be here), but Michael had told him it was mandatory. At least he didn't totally mind some of the people there, like Toby. Toby was a pretty quiet dude normally, but he could have a wicked sense of humor when he did speak up. Ryan guessed it was pretty cool to be able to take a break from real work, too.

Ryan winced as he looked up to see Kelly flouncing towards him. That girl was so annoying. She never seemed to shut up. "Dude, hide me!" he muttered under his breath to Toby, who stood next to him.

Toby just chuckled. "Can't really help you there. I spend all day working with her – I figure it's fair that some of you get to hang out with her now." Ryan watched with horror as Toby slipped away towards the beer cooler.

"Hey, Ryan!" Kelly chirped. "Whatcha talking about?"

"Nothing," Ryan sighed, leaning back slightly. The alcohol on her breath could take out a horse.

"Hey! You haven't said if you like my new bathing suit or not!" She pouted, placing her hands on her hips.

"It looks great, Kelly," Ryan replied. He wasn't lying: she actually did fill out her bikini pretty well. Sure, she was a little curvier than the girls he usually dated, but there was nothing wrong with that…

He realized he was staring at her when Kelly stroked his arm, breaking him out of his trance. "Ryan! You are so sweet!" She beamed, throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh!" she jumped backward. "I meant to ask you if you want to challenge Jim and Pam at chicken!"

"Uh…" Ryan hesitated. "Honestly, Kelly, I really don't want to take my shirt off around Michael. I just don't think I could take that right now."

Toby nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that whole 'Michael' thing by the way."

Ryan shrugged. "Not your fault, man."

Toby was about to reply when Jim and Pam came running up the beach. "Guys, guys!" Jim called out. "We have to get in the water. Somehow, Dwight and Angela are reigning undefeated at chicken."

"Why don't you guys go defeat them?" Ryan asked, somewhat helplessly. He already knew that Kelly was going to make him go in the water, no matter what he said.

"Pam refuses to go unless another girl goes in, too." Jim rolled his eyes, and Pam smacked him on the shoulder.

"And," Pam added, "I don't think I can take on Angela alone. Have you ever seen her nails?"

Toby walked back towards them, another wine cooler in hand. "What's going on?" he asked.

Pam explained: "Angela and Dwight are beating everyone at chicken. "I'm trying to get more people out there – someone needs to take them down." Jim nodded in agreement.

"Wait … how is Angela even playing this game? This is seems like something she would find completely inappropriate," Toby said, his eyebrows furrowed.

Pam and Kelly began to giggle, leaning on each other.

"Do I even want to know?" Toby asked.

"It's just --" Kelly snorted and covered her mouth. "We switched Angela's sparkling water with ginger ale and vodka!" She was now laughing so hard that she was bent in half, a hand clutched to her stomach.

Pam gasped for breath in between giggles. "It was really way more vodka than ginger ale. I have no idea how she's been able to stay on top of Dwight…" Pam trailed off, a snort escaping from her. She looked over at Jim.

Jim nodded, as if to give her the go-ahead.

"That's what she said!" Pam burst out, doubling over with laughter.

"I think Angela's not the only one who's had a bit of vodka today," Toby mumbled, glancing over at Ryan. Ryan nodded, smirking.

xxxx

Pam was having a great time. She really didn't drink that much, but it was just so nice out and she was just relieved to hang out with some nice people and not have to think about Roy. Pam was a little bit surprised that she was having so much fun with Kelly, of all people, but she'd found that Kelly was sort of a guilty pleasure friend. Pam's best friend would always be Jim, but with Kelly she could just be girly and shallow.

"You are definitely going to Hell, Beesly," Jim said, smiling at her as she tried to compose herself. "Spiking a honest woman's drink?"

"Hey, I'll see you there in Hell, buddy!" Pam replied, pointing her finger at him accusingly. She knew she was acting goofy, but she really didn't care. She linked her arm through Jim's and turned back to Kelly, Ryan and Toby.

"So, are you guys going to help us take down Dwight and Angela?" Pam asked. "They've already defeated Phyllis and Oscar, and Creed and Meredith."

"Phyllis and Oscar…?" Toby paused, cocking his head to the side.

"Oscar was on top," Kelly assured himToby just nodded, looking slightly relieved and guilty at the same time.

Kelly draped her arms around Ryan's neck, looking up at him through her lashes. Pam almost laughed out loud at the expression on Ryan's face; he knew he was in trouble.

"Pleeease, Ryan? I wanna go swimming and I need someone else to come with me…" Kelly fluttered her eyelashes exaggeratedly. "Please, please, please, please, please?"

Ryan groaned and tried to turn his face away, but Kelly had him trapped. "Okay, okay!" he finally relented, rolling his eyes. Kelly smiled triumphantly.

"So -- you ready, Beesly?" Jim asked Pam, smiling down at her.

"I was born ready, Halpert!" she retorted, squinting her eyes threateningly.

Jim just laughed. "Oh, snap! The smack talk begins!"

"You know it!" Pam grinned as she turned towards her bag she had left on the beach. It just had her shoes, her room key and a book she had brought just in case. She quickly stripped off her shirt and the sweatpants she was wearing, throwing them on top of her stuff in her eagerness to get into the water.

Pam turned back around, still smiling. "Let's go --" she started to say before she stopped short, knowing that she was probably now blushing head to toe. Jim had taken off his shirt and now stood waiting for her, and she couldn't help herself as her eyes drank him in. Really, before this vacation it was very rare for her to see him in anything other than a shirt and tie, much less no shirt at all. She just barely managed to stop her loose tongue from asking him if he worked out; it was obvious that he did, anyway. He had a swimmer's body, in that he wasn't freakishly muscular, but there definitely wasn't any…extra on him. Thank God he hasn't got a beer gut like Roy, Pam couldn't help but think. She felt guilty as soon as the thought crossed her mind. She knew it wasn't fair to compare them.

Pam was so lost in thinking of how much she would like to draw Jim like this, that she hadn't noticed until now that Jim, Toby and Ryan were all staring at her rather curiously"What?" she found herself saying, looking down at herself, following their gaze. Oh, God, the bathing suit…!

When she spoke, all of the guys jumped a little bit, their eyes flickering back to her face. She crossed her arms over her stomach self-consciously; she couldn't remember feeling this awkward since high school, since before she dated Roy. He had tried to make sure that no guy looked at her like that pretty much since then. However, try as she might, Pam couldn't help but enjoy the fact that for the moment, Toby, Jim and Ryan had apparently all forgotten how to speak.

Ryan pulled himself together first, probably because he could feel the heat of Kelly's gaze as she glared daggers at him. "What?" he shrugged, as if denying that he had ever looked at another girl in his whole life.

"You, uh, you look really -- um, you look really nice, Pam. Is that a -- um, a new bathing suit?" Toby stuttered, and Pam almost felt bad for him. His gaze had now dropped down to his drink, and it didn't look like he had any plans of making eye contact with her any time soon.

"It's actually Kelly's," Pam said faintly, subconsciously playing with the string that held the bikini bottoms together. She allowed her hair to fall forward and cover her face slightly, a habit she had taken to whenever she had felt like she needed to hide. She looked up at Jim from beneath her curtain of hair, and she felt a shock run over her spine as her eyes met his full on. The intensity in his gaze was as frightening as it was alluring, and she found herself thinking that she had never seen his eyes appear so green.

The silence was interrupted as Kelly rushed up to Pam, clapping her hands. "Ohmigod, you look totally awesome," she grinned and Pam let out a burst of laughter, relieved when most of the tension seemed to melt from the air.

"Thanks," Pam replied, though she could still feel her skin prickling with embarrassment. She took a deep breath and laughed again, twirling in the sand and striking a pose.

"I wish I had a camera!" Kelly said as Pam jokingly puckered her lips, trying to look like a movie star.

"No, no, no!" Pam said quickly. "No documentation of Pam's drunken adventures, please.

"Yeah, Kelly, we don't want this to get too Girls Gone Wild." Jim joked. Pam met his eyes, and while she still felt a little breathless, most of the intensity had faded. He was just Jim again. Just Jim, whose shoulders I would die to sketch, Pam thought.

"Are we gonna do this or what?" Ryan asked, his voice dripping with boredom. Kelly immediately grabbed his hand and began to run for the water.

"Okay, so this is our game plan," Jim said to Pam as they walked down towards the ocean at a slower pace. "We're gonna see if you can make Kevin faint. I'm pretty sure with your womanly wiles, we can own this beach."

AN: Don't worry, you'll get Jim's point of view on the bikini next chapter.