"You're the nicest man I've ever slept with," she tells him, and that doesn't mean as much as it should.

*

She can't remember a time when she didn't think of herself in terms of men. Mitchell's daughter, Brett's girlfriend, George's girlfriend, Josh's assistant, Sam's fuck. She's had enough of possessives, but she convinces herself over and over again that it's different now.

When people ask her what the worst thing she's done is, she wants to describe her history with men, starting with the second grade bully and a creased dandelion and ending with the way Josh bellows her name. Instead she laughs and admits to shoplifting a bra in eighth grade.

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" she asks Sam in between kisses, his fingers splayed against her thigh. She doesn't know everything George has done, but she suspects cheating on her wasn't the worst. Her mouth twitches as she tries to imagine what kind of mistakes Sam could have made: borrowing a pencil and not returning it, perhaps, or not working on a policy speech as hard as he could have.

Sam pauses, and his eyes sharpen slightly, as if he's searching for a motive behind her question. When he replies, his voice is flat. "I left my fiancee. I bought the ring and I made the promises and I put the down payment on an apartment with two rooms and then I left." He notices her eyes widening and purses his lips. "Was I not supposed to be that honest? What about you?"

She opens her mouth and then shuts it. "Never mind. It's a silly question, anyway." Sam doesn't pressure her, but the next day she overhears C.J. telling him about the time she got drunk and cheated on her boyfriend of eight years and an hour later, Josh asks her if he thinks dating Mandy was worse than dating Mary or Judy. She wonders why all Josh's girlfriends' names end in y, and for a split second, why her name has to be Donna.

She informs Josh there are some questions that don't have answers, which predictably, he doesn't accept. When he insists that she should write index cards and charts and bring him the answer, she tells him he's obviously lost what little he had left of his brain.

"You're my assistant," he reminds her, stretching his legs across his desk. "That means you do what I say, so you can, you know, assist me."

She considers him for a second; his dimples and his scar and his arrogance and his occasional kindness. "Do you want to know the worst thing I ever did?"

"Whatever it is, I bet you could make it up to me by getting the HR49 Resolution right now."

"The resolution is already in your in-box. There are a lot of things you could learn by looking in front of your face," she says, staring straight at him. He doesn't look up and she wishes that just once she could say something to ruffle him, preferably something that didn't involve a jail sentence.

"Why should I bother when you can do it for me?" he asks, taking the folder from the top of his inbox. "Oh, and bring my notes to Toby and try not to bother him too much."

He probably thinks she's lying when she smiles, suddenly, and says, "The worst thing I ever did was take this job."

"We all make mistakes," he says, but not cruelly, and for one second their eyes meet in understanding, and she thinks it's possible that things are a little different, after all.