The yoghurt lid is metallic and it winks at him in the fluorescent lights. He sees writing, sees Pam’s name, sees the letters she crafted in purple ink on a memo sheet. He sees the grooves in the yoghurt lid, sees the paper clips it was once attached to, sees paper doves being drawn across the office on a string. He sees Pam. He sees Karen. He sees David across the desk from him, asking him a question.

“What’s that?”

He doesn’t know. His ears are ringing. He can feel his heartbeat all over his body. He thinks he remembers a question about fitting in, about New York.

“Oh, uh, great, you know? I just, um, I really appreciate the buildings, and, uh, the people.” He is rambling. He doesn’t know what he is saying. He sees Pam. He sees her curls and her eyes and her smile. He sees her writing out this memo and slipping it into his photocopies. “And, um, there’s just an energy that New York has.” He sees her for the last time, at her desk, on the phone, taking a message. He sees her look up and see him and look away again. He sees her ear as she turns and he turns and he sees the door in front of him. “Not to mention they have places that are open past 8, so that’s a bonus...”

He is surprised David can’t hear his heartbeat from across the desk. He is opening his mouth to ask another question. He tries to pay attention this time.

“You’ve been in the Scranton branch a long time. What have you liked most about that place?”

He sees the purple ink and the metallic lid and the paper clip holding them together. He hears words directed toward him, hears the silence that follows. Says the first thing that he can think of. Says it in a way that means absolutely nothing at all.

“The friendships.”

“Okay.” David is surprised but not unimpressed. He doesn’t linger on the point, doesn’t turn it over in his mind the way the interviewee is on the other side of the desk. He continues and he doesn’t care. “Well, we want the person who takes this position to be in it for the long haul. So, long haul. Where do you see yourself in ten years?”

He wishes he didn’t, but he sees himself in Scranton. He wishes he didn’t, but he sees himself at the same desk he has occupied for too many years, wearing the same combination of shirt and tie that he has worn too many times, making the same sales he has spent too much time on. He wishes he didn’t, but he sees her, too, in the same sweater he left her in, with the same barrette the only feature in her hair, with the same smile and the same hands and the same smell and the same eyes. And he wishes he didn’t, but he sees her with a ring, his ring, and that is the only thing that has changed. He wishes he didn’t, but he sees himself with her.

“I see myself...” David is expectant, waiting. He knows what he wants to say, but he can’t get the words out. He sees himself in Scranton. There is no thought of New York, of a promotion and an office and higher pay. He thinks only now of the things he could do and the places he could go if he could only see himself in New York. But he can’t.

“I see myself in Scranton.” And he is relieved and terrified and surprised it took him so long to say it. There is nothing left to say. There is nothing left to hide.

David frowns. He is confused. Surprised. Taken aback. He thinks for a moment. Weighs his words carefully.

“Why are you here, Jim?” He finally asks. He is not angry. He is genuinely curious.

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t weigh his words. He no longer needs to think, to avoid saying the wrong thing. The wrong thing has already been said. Or, he supposes, everything he has said has been the wrong thing until now. “I think I need to withdraw from consideration.”

“I can’t convince you to reconsider?” He asks like he already knows the answer.

“I know where I need to be, and it isn’t in New York.”

He stands, extends his hand across the desk. David stands also, grasps his hand and shakes it twice. “I’m sorry to see you go,” he says, and the sentiment is sincere.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” And he is sorry. But mostly he is relieved. And anxious about what inevitably will come next.

“No,” David says with a smile, “not at all.” He pauses, holds the gaze of the man before him for a moment. “I wish you all the best in Scranton.” And for a second, it seems like he knows.

The door handle is cold on his skin as he pushes against it. The lights are too bright, too fluorescent and unnatural. He hears the sounds of phones ringing, paper shuffling, pens clicking, keyboards tapping. He notices the way his shoes squeak against the floor, the ugly linoleum floor the colour of boredom. His blazer is suddenly too tight, he suddenly feels overdressed. But he walks past reception, and the phone is ringing and the woman is saying, ‘Dunder Mifflin’ and suddenly her curly red hair and monosyllabic name and white sneakers are all that matter. They are perfect, and where they are is where he needs to be.

He hails a taxi as he descends the stairs from the building to the street. He provides the address of his hotel, tries to focus on each car, person, pet as they flash by on the sidewalk. He winds down his window to smell New York. It is not unpleasant, but he will not miss it. It is exciting and unique, everything Scranton is not, but he will not miss it. It is not exciting and unique he is looking for, anyway.

He unlocks the door to their room and he sees a half-eaten meal sitting on the dresser in the entryway. He shuts the door behind him, adjusts his eyes to the dim light. He sees Karen, sees her standing to greet him. She is not Pam. She is dark and firm and desperately unsure of him. She is intelligent and funny and understands his sense of humour. She is insecure and organised and uses fragrance-free soap. She wears pants to work and leaves her hair down. She is not Pam.

And she is not supposed to be here. She is supposed to be eating lunch with her friends. Without him.

He lets his messenger bag fall to the floor and shrugs off his blazer. She moves towards him, kisses him on the cheek. Her lips are cold.

“How did it go?” She asks tentatively as he rolls up his sleeves. She is watching him.

“It went well,” he says, and he is not lying. “What are you doing here? What happened to lunch?”

She looks down. She is embarrassed. “There was no lunch.”

He doesn’t understand. “Then why did you say that there was?”

“You didn’t want me to stay.” She looks at him, holds his face in her gaze. She wants him, wishes he could want her. “You didn’t need me.’”

He moves around her to sit on the bed they shared last night. He can remember her warmth, her hair, her soft and even breathing. He can remember the hours it took him to fall asleep, to forget her presence and the lingering feeling that he wasn’t making the right choice. That she wasn’t the right choice.

She sits beside him, her weight shifting him towards her. She takes his hand, as he took hers last night as they crossed the street, as they played at being a happy couple, as she told him there were one too many people in Scranton.

“I wish you would just say it,” she whispers. He wonders if she means it. She is looking at him and he is looking at the floor. He has forgotten how well she has gotten to know him after six months. He has forgotten his thoughts aren’t always his own.

“I blew the interview,” he admits. It’s a start.

She is taken aback. “But you said it went well. What does that mean?”

“David asked me where I see myself in ten years, and I said Scranton.”

She is silent for a moment. Her fingers twitch but she doesn’t remove them from his grasp.

“Okay.” She nods to herself, to him, as if he had asked her a question. “Then we’ll stay in Scranton.”

“What if you get the job?” He doesn’t say the rest, that he isn’t moving to New York with her. He doesn’t know if she expects him to. He knows he is afraid to.

Now she disentangles her fingers from his and stands, moving away from him. She sighs. She turns her back to him, turns to face him again.

“I don’t want to fight anymore, Jim. I don’t want to be the only person fighting for this relationship.” She looks at him, imploring him to tell her that she is wrong. “For six months I have been the only one who actually wanted to be here, to be with you. Why couldn’t you ever just want to be with me?”

She has said this before, through the phone in the dark with a voice shaken by tears. Then, he knew what she wanted to hear, what he needed to say. Now, her voice is hard. Now, he knows nothing but that he needs to get out of this room.

“I tried,” he says. It sounds pathetic. “I tried so hard, but...” He sees her handwriting, the yoghurt lid, his name in purple ink. She is there, looming between them, keeping them apart. She is a wall he has never been able to push through. “You asked me if I still had feelings for Pam, and I said yes. And I’m saying it again now.”

“So that’s it? After six months of trying, you’re just giving up?” She is angry, as he expected. His guilt is not diluted by the knowledge. “And you expect me to let you?”

He can see her face flush, her blood pushing against the skin across her cheeks and neck. She grasps his eyes with her own and holds them there, waiting. Hoping. Trying to read what thoughts he hopes aren’t flashing across his face in succession. He sits and looks and holds his tongue, anticipating an outburst. He is surprised when he sees her eyes catch the light in her unshed tears.

“I need you to try again for me, Jim, just one more time.” She doesn’t move. “I won’t let you give up on me.”

“I’m not giving up on you,” he answers, shaking his head and lowering his eyes. “I’m giving up on myself, on the lie, on this life I thought I could build for myself. I would never have been happy in New York. Why did I even bother?”

“You bothered because the girl you’re in love with couldn’t care less, Jim!” She has yelled at him now. The crimson speckled across her face deepens. “I don’t care if she missed having fun with you. You’re not the same person anymore. You don’t belong in Scranton. You’re better than that.”

He thinks of his desk, the desk he has held for so many years he is afraid to count them. He thinks of the view he sits down to each morning, Dwight to his left, Pam on his right, and the muffled noises of Michael’s unintelligible phone calls creeping up on him from behind. He thinks of the computer and mouse and keyboard he has used to browse the internet and sweep mines and do anything but his job. He thinks of the way the office never changes – the carpet is the same uninviting grey it has always been, the walls are the same repulsive brown and yellow fusion, the sound of the phone at reception is the same non-intrusive beeping it was when he heard it for the very first time. He thinks of all the time spent wondering why he accepted this job, why he didn’t have the guts to get up and find another, better one. And he thinks of the reason why Stamford felt so very far away.

“I’m better than this,” he says, his hand covering the space between them. “I don’t need to pretend anymore. I don’t need to force this anymore.”

“I’m sorry our relationship has been such torture for you,” she spits, her dark features contorting into a scowl. “What a horrible six months it must have been for you, tied down to a girl who only ever had thoughts of a future with you. I would have moved to New York for you! I did move to Scranton for you! What did you want from me? I was never going to be able to make your feelings for Pam magically disappear, but you could have at least tried to think of a future without her.”

“I have no future without her!” He retorts, and it feels so good to finally say it aloud, what he has been thinking since the moment she walked him to his desk and told him he could never go back to the moment before he met Dwight. “There has never been a future for me without her in it.”

Karen is stunned by his candor, by this side of him she realises she has only ever seen one time before. The only time he was ever honest with her was when it concerned Pam. He has never been honest with her for her. He has never been honest.

“Get out,” she says. She is defeated. “I’m done.”

He does not move, and she does not speak. Her arms are folded, blocking him out, protecting herself. He slowly rises and scoops his overnight bag up off the floor. It is already filled with a tangled mess of his pyjamas and his clothes from yesterday. He steps around her into the bathroom. His hands are shaking as he drops his various bathroom products into his bag, wet and soapy and destined to ruin his clothes. He catches his reflection in the mirror, sees the unfamiliar silhouette of the haircut she made him get. He doesn’t hate it, and he doesn’t hate her. But the man he is looking at is not himself. He sees Scranton in his rolled-up sleeves, but he sees Karen in his hair. In his tie. In his blazer. He doesn’t want to see her anymore.

He exits the bathroom and she has not moved. He looks at her, unsure of whether he wants to catch her eye. He doesn’t know what to say. Everything seems useless.

He leaves without a word, shutting the door behind him softly.

He drives and drives and drives. He feels the space of the empty seat beside him, of the silence filling his head. He feels the miles as they pass beneath him, ticking over on the dash, changing the scenery and the smell and the taste. Bringing him closer to her.

He doesn’t call, doesn’t know if he can. Doesn’t know if he can bring himself to type the numbers and hear the dial tone and hear her voice and feel the rejection. Again. A third time. Doesn’t know if this drive is taking him back to where he belongs, or simply away from Karen.

He drives and drives and drives until he sees the sign for Slough Avenue. He sees the differences to New York immediately, the lack of cars on the road, the lack of people and pets and excitement and uniqueness. He sees the greys and the blacks and the beiges and the cars that have driven too many miles. He sees the cracked sidewalk and the streetlights and the fences containing ugly rectangular buildings containing ugly round people. He sees the tree that Michael once ran his car into and knows he is almost there. The bitumen underneath feels familiar, feels welcoming. The sky is the same as he left it not a day ago, thin and low and shallow. Scranton Business Park is brown and small and uninviting, and yet it is here that his heartbeat chokes him, it is here that he parks and waits for a moment. Hesitating. He wishes he wouldn’t.

He opens the door, forces himself to stand. Closes the door, takes the requisite number of strides to reach the front doors. He sees Hank, sees him slouching and flicking through a magazine, sees him wishing a thousand times over that he had never taken this slow, boring, dull Scranton job. But he is happy to see Hank, smiles and waves as he calls the elevator. Hank returns neither gesture. The comfort in the familiarity is overwhelming.

He is alone in the elevator and he likes it better this way. The ride up two floors is slower than it should be, much slower than he remembers it being. He feels like he has been gone for such a long time. Too long.

There is the glass door with the Dunder Mifflin lettering printed across it. There is the handle beneath his hand, hot and buzzing and terrifying to touch. There is reception, empty and silent. She is not there. She is gone. He scans the bullpen for her, scans the faces of his co-workers as they play solitaire or shop on eBay or do any number of things that are not in their job descriptions. He hears a voice from the conference room, and there she is, back towards him, and that is where he needs to be. He is not afraid anymore. He is no longer hesitating. He is walking towards the conference room and pushing open the door and her eyes are snapping up to greet him and he is saying her name and there is a camera pointed at him. He glances over to it, unabashed. Glances back to her, ready.

“Are you free for dinner tonight?”

“Yes.” Her reply is immediate, eager, completely certain. He sees her, truly sees her, sees her eyes taking him in and her hands clenched in her lap and her hair the same way it has been every day that he has known her.

“Then it’s a date.” It is the most important thing in the world that he clarifies this last piece of information, that she knows what she is getting into. He is almost prepared to hear her recant, to take back her single syllable and tuck it away for someone else. But she doesn’t. And when he closes the door he leans against it for a moment, breathing and seeing and feeling the crisp circulated air of the office. The only place he ever needs to be.

“Back so soon, Jimbo?” Michael has spotted him from his own office. His eyes take him in, and the empty seat behind him where Karen should be. “Where’s Karen?”

“I came back alone,” he says, and his words fall between them like lead. Michael takes a moment, performs the rigorous cognitive functions required to come to the conclusion that, “You broke up?”

He nods, and for once Michael asks nothing more.

When the door opens he is seated with his sleeves rolled up and his eyes on reception. He is afraid to move in case he shatters the illusion he has built for himself. But she heads to his desk and bumps her hip against the corner, rattling his computer screen. He looks up, catches her eyes, watches her nestle into her familiar spot on his desk from which he has watched her laugh, talk and complain for what feels like his entire life.

“Oh, sorry,” she laughs, and she is a little breathless. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Alright, Beesly,” he counters, throwing his arms up in surrender. He wants to throw them around her waist. “You don’t need to haze me. I’m just the same as all of you, remember?”

“Are you sure you didn’t let the deadly fumes of Corporate get to your head?” She raises an eyebrow. She is only half joking.

“I am as insane as I have ever been,” he says, gesturing to himself with a flourish. “Don’t you worry, Beesly, Corporate could never lure me away.”

She is thoughtful for a moment. Her gaze falls to the ground, to her shoes against the worn grey carpet. “Have you come back?” Her voice is soft and shaky. She doesn’t look at him.

He dares to shift closer, to put a hand over hers as it steadies her against the desk. “I’ve come back.”

She looks at him and smiles, and it lights up her whole face. “I’m glad.” She stands and gently moves her hand out from under his, folding her arms across her chest in her usual manner. “Well, I’ve probably got at least one whole voicemail to attend to,” she says, taking an uncertain step away from him. “See you around, Halpert.”

“Don’t miss me too much, Beesly,” he calls after her as the distance between them grows.

She looks him in the eye as she replies. “Now I don’t have to.”

He counts twenty long minutes before he permits himself to lean over her desk and reach for a jellybean. She is about to complete a hand of solitaire but abandons it at the sound of the candy rattling against its plastic confines.

“So, what do you feel like tonight, Beesly? Chinese, Italian, seventeen courses of Poor Richard’s finest chicken wings?”

He hopes to elicit a smile, but she meets his joke with a brow furrowed in confusion. “I think you’ve got me mixed up with somebody else. I’m going to the CIA’s ice-cream social tonight. They had to postpone it when their guest of honour didn’t arrive last time.”

“Well, I have no choice but to accompany you. You have no idea what types of hooligans these events attract, Miss Beesly.”

She laughs, and he laughs, and he looks at her for as long as he dares. He has been away for such a long time.

She leans forward, the joke abandoned. “I dare you to surprise me.”

“Challenge accepted.” He winks, drawing the blood up to her cheeks. He feels his pulse through his ears at the sight of it, at the knowledge that it is because of him. He pulls in the smell of her, the clean floral fragrance of her perfume. He lingers, and he wonders if he has stayed too long when she glances down at the phone, silent and unmoving.

“Angela is watching,” she murmurs, the corner of a smile tugging at her mouth. He turns ever so slightly and catches a stripe of blonde hair between the fronds of the resident office flora. He allows himself his own smile before turning back to the woman in front of him and announcing his departure. He can feel her eyes on him as he covers the five feet from her desk to his. He is absolutely delighted.

She juggles with her keys and handbag as her phone buzzes against her palm. She glances at the horizon, at the last light from the setting sun peeking out from behind her apartment building. She is dazzled, blinded. She feels her mobile ringing, urgent and demanding. In a daze, she throws her possessions to the ground and flips open her phone.

“Sorry, I couldn’t wait.”

His voice is in her ear, in her head, in her entire body. She can hear his smile, hear the way his mouth twitches up at the corners, hear the way his eyes take in her reactions, hear the way he holds himself as he speaks.

“You have terrible timing,” she scolds, surveying the contents of her handbag littered across the pavement. “This better be good.” She smiles. She knows he can hear it, too.

“I wish only to confirm the details of this evening’s rendezvous, Miss Beesly.” He takes a breath, then another. She feels the phone shaking as she holds it against her ear. “I’ll be there at 7 sharp... but where is there, exactly?”

She smiles, breathes in this moment of sharing a part of her life with him, a part of her life that isn’t played out under fluorescent lights and stale air conditioning. She gives the address, gives it whole-heartedly and without regret, throws it at him with everything she can muster. She wants nothing more than to see his car parked in her driveway, to hear his fist against her door, to see him leaning against the doorframe. She misses him already. But she doesn’t need to anymore. He came back.

“Dress code?” She asks simply, making an awkward attempt to retrieve her belongings from the ground with one hand.

“Casual,” he replies, and she is relieved. She is unsurprised. He knows her, and she knows him. And they are going out to dinner.

“I’ll see you at 7,” she says. Her voice is unsteady. She hopes he cannot hear it.

“Stay sharp, Beesly.” And he is gone.

She staggers to the door, feels completely disconnected from her feet and her legs and the rest of her. The elevator ride lasts a lifetime, so much longer than it did on her way down this morning. It looks different, looks brighter and bigger and comforting. Looks familiar, in a good way. Not Scranton familiar, where everything is as it has always been and will never, ever change. Just familiar.

There is her apartment door, there is the door handle, there is her unmade bed and overflowing closet and all the other household chores she had no motivation to complete this morning. She remembers the way her alarm insisted she wake up this morning, the way it invaded her dreams with an unwelcome urgency. She remembers the darkness that invaded her room, preserved only by the blinds she keeps drawn most of the time. She remembers the hopelessness that overwhelmed her, the knowledge that she would be staring at an empty chair all day, maybe for the rest of her life. She remembers the ache in her chest and it is gone now. It is gone and he here is to replace it. He came back.

She has too much time to spend before he is due to arrive. Too much time to critically evaluate her wardrobe, shower, analyse her hair, clean her bathroom, organise her clothes in rainbow order, vacuum the living room, change shoes seven times. She is anxious and he is not here yet and she is pacing in front of her door. It is 6:52 when the knock comes, when she jumps and feels the blush soaking her cheeks and the shaking start in her hands.

She opens the door and there he is. She is overcome by the smell of him, by the familiar smell of home and comfort and familiarity. She smiles and he returns it, and she doesn’t notice the flowers in his hand until he offers them to her. They are daisies. They are beautiful. They are from him.

Suddenly, she is embarrassed, afraid to let him in. It is a small space that she calls her own, intensely personal and unfit for scrutiny. She feels naked in front of him, and she remembers all the time they have spent apart, all the time she has watched him speak and move and behave in ways she doesn’t recognise. But there are flowers in her hand and they need water and a vase and those things are in her kitchen and her kitchen is in her apartment.

She steps aside. “Come in.” He gives her a smile, and she wishes he would smile at her forever.

“Still only got the one kitchen, eh?” He remarks, following her inside. His shoes squeak on the linoleum. He moves slowly, his eyes raking over everything, every inch of her life. She watches him take in the dust that she has neglected to remove, the dirty mugs in the sink, the take-out menus stuck to the fridge. She watches him assemble her life from the fragments he can see right now. She is afraid of what he is thinking, afraid of the apartment she woke up in this morning. Afraid of the distance.

“Who am I to know that everyone’s making do with three these days?” She responds. It doesn’t feel easy to her. It feels forced and unnatural. But she hides it as she locates a vase from a cupboard she has to stand on the balls of her feet to reach. She feels his eyes on her back, on her shirt and her hair and her skin. She has missed the feeling.

She turns and arranges the flowers with a flourish, placing them in the centre of the counter. She turns quickly, to see his reaction, to see his smile and his eyes. She watches his hands as he hides them in his pockets. She wants to take one, to hold it and feel it and memorise every inch of it. She almost does. Almost.

“So, where are we going on our clandestine rendezvous?” She asks, scattering the fog of silence descending on them. She leans against the counter. He is so far away from her. She wishes he would move closer. Wonders what she would do if he did.

“It’s a surprise, per your request,” he answers, and he pulls his keys out of his pocket. “Shall we?”

She nods, smiles, leads the way to her front door. Slips out into the hallway and watches as he closes the door behind him. They take the elevator. They walk to his car. They are silent. He doesn’t touch her and she wishes that he would. Wonders why it is so difficult to imagine herself reaching for his hand when it is now hers to take.

His car smells like him and she closes her eyes for a moment to breathe it in. Her heart swells, fills her chest, forces her to suck in a breath.

“About Karen...” His voice is loud from the driver’s seat and she turns to look at him. Realises she has forgotten that Karen ever existed. “I broke up with her in New York.” His eyes are on the road, and his body is stiff, like he is preparing for a physical blow. “I just... I thought you’d want to know. Since this is a date and everything.” And he turns to her and winks and she is on fire.

“I’d like to think I was going to ask, but you’ve saved me from ever fully knowing the extent of my courage.”

“I think there’s more in you than you even realise, Beesly.” His eyes are no longer on her skin, but she can feel the marks they have left as her skin tingles. She twists her hands in her lap, tries to give herself something else to focus on. But she is sitting in his passenger seat and he is so close to her and all she can smell is him and she thinks that this is the only place she ever needs to be.

She can feel herself settling into the silence as the road whispers beneath his tires. She wonders if he is doing the same as she is, staring at the road while taking in all the sensations of having his body so near to her. She has missed him. He has been gone for so long. He has finally come back.

She is jostled in her seat as they enter the parking lot of Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe. She is surprised, then delighted, then concerned that she was ever surprised at the location he has chosen for their first official date. It is casual and delicious and warm and everything that they love. Everything that they can now love together, at the same time.

She collects her handbag and places her hand on the door in preparation for letting herself out of the car, but he stops her and dashes around to open her door himself.

“Miss Beesly,” he announces in a severely affected British accent. She smiles, curtseys.

“Thank you, Mr Halpert.”

“Shall we?” He says it again and moves toward her and wraps her hand in his and pulls her in. Pulls her toward the door of Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe. Pulls her against him. She is warm all over and cannot see beyond their entangled fingers and is leaning into him so she doesn’t walk into something or someone. For more than a moment she struggles to process the reality of his skin against her skin, the feeling of his thumb massaging circles into her hand. She smiles, looks at the ground. Hears him ask for a table for two. Feels herself being led to the back of the restaurant. She thinks that maybe they should eat their meal standing, so that he never has to let go of her. But now she is in her chair and her hand is naked and he is reaching for his menu so she does the same.

“I must admit, Beesly, I’m pretty happy you said yes to this.” He is looking at his menu. She wonders if he is actually taking in any of the words in front of him.

“What else was I going to say?” She risks a glance at his face and he is looking at her. And suddenly she can taste vodka and feel his sweater against her palms and her face is flushing. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Beesly.” He cuts her off with an easy smile. “You said yes this time. That’s all that matters.”

He comforts her without a thought, without hesitation, as if he doesn’t remember the ache in his chest that has followed him since that night. She studies him, takes in his entirely unfamiliar haircut that sits strangely on his head, his sweater and jeans and rolled up sleeves. He is tapping his fingers against the table as he peruses the menu. She reaches out and gently places her hand over them. Realises what she has done. Realises it is too late.

“Was I annoying you?” His voice is so soft and she is paying too much attention to the flecks of green in the hazel of his eyes.

“No, I just wanted an excuse to hold your hand again.” She knows she is not drunk, but she certainly feels intoxicated as the words come out of her mouth uninhibited. She looks down, steals her hand away, but he traps her fingers before she can hide them in her lap. “I’m sorry, that was incredibly embarrassing.” She can’t look at him.

“Actually, I think it was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

She raises her gaze, feels her cheeks warming with a rush of blood, feels a smile taking over her lips without her permission. He is smiling from across the table, across the divide, and he is so far away. This space between them, the smallest it has been in so long, does no feel insurmountable but unnecessary, a roadblock in the path of the sudden wave of emotion that keeps her smile in place. She doesn’t know what to say, what to do, where to look. She feels herself staring at him, but when he is looking at her like this she can think that maybe there is something desirable in her after all. She can suddenly feel the position of every hair on her head, every curl that has fallen across her shoulders, every unsightly blemish on her skin brought into focus by the lights. But when she looks for the familiar discomfort of self-consciousness, she cannot find it. Her doubt is gone.

“Can I get you guys started with any drinks?”

There is a waiter next to their table and Jim greets him. She drops her eyes to the table, to the menu that they were supposed to be choosing their meals from. She hears him say they are not quite ready and the waiter moves away. He has not released her hand.

“How hard do you think it would be to eat spaghetti bolognese single-handedly?” He asks.

“It depends.” She pretends to consider his statement very carefully. “How many utensils can you hold in one hand?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up now...” he leans toward her, glancing at the empty tables on either side of them to ensure they are free from eavesdroppers, “but I’ve been practicing, and I’ve gotten up to six.”

“Six?” She raises an eyebrow, feels him run his thumb along her knuckles. “That’s more utensils than I’ve ever needed for a single meal.”

“Then I’m going to have to conduct a review of your dining habits, Beesly.” He winks, and again she is on fire. She squeezes his hand almost involuntarily, thrills at the sight of the smile that kicks up into his cheeks. This is not happening.

“On a serious note, thought, what are we eating?” She tries to focus on her menu but the words are blurry and her brain cannot fathom the difficulty associated with selecting a meal. Her decision-making abilities have abandoned her to flirting and giggles.

“I was thinking the spaghetti bolognese, meat lovers’ pizza, supreme pizza, garlic pizza, gnocchi and a side of meatballs. What about you?”

She rolls her eyes. Feels her heart straining against the confines of her chest. “Pick for me. This decision is too much for me.”

“It’s Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe, Beesly. How hard can it be?” But he scans the menu and selects the fettucine carbonara and she wonders if it is because she mentioned one time two years ago how much she loves it. Enjoys the feeling of being free to fully dissect and analyse and absorb such a thought without looking over her shoulder for the shadows she was always running from. The shadows of the truth she has spent too long denying.

The waiter comes and goes, meals are placed in front of them, and still he does not release her hand. Still her skin comes alive under his touch, still she cannot focus fully on anything but him. She wonders if she is delirious, then remembers that she has caught him looking at her more times this evening than she can count.

“I know you know your way around six utensils at once, but I’m going to need my hand back at some point if I’m going to eat anything tonight.” She picks up her fork with her left hand and holds it over her pasta, entirely unsure how to proceed.

“I was hoping you’d just forget about that part, but if you insist...” And he brings her hand to his lips quickly before letting her go.

For a moment they are silent and she tries to focus on all the different flavours in her meal, the ways they interact on her tongue and the memories she will form around them of this night. She tastes the creamy sauce and takes in the way his fingers are wrapped around his fork. She bites into a mushroom and notices the way his grey sweater sits perfectly on his shoulders. She swallows a cut of bacon and tries to familiarise herself with more of his forehead than she has ever seen, the way his hair sits differently and catches the light in a streak of gold. There is a piece of chicken on her fork when he catches her eye.

“Do I have something on my face?” He is smirking, joking. He is trying to get her to say what he already knows but is yet to hear from her mouth.

She cannot help but flush bright red even though she knows now that this kind of fascination and devotion is not a foreign concept to him. “I was just looking. At you.”

“And how do I look?” He is openly teasing her now. She forces herself to hold his gaze as embarrassment seeps into her stomach.

“Perfect.” And for a moment she thinks she might cry and she is so surprised that she has to set her fork down. His face has changed in that one second since she spoke and she feels like he is seeing right through to her soul.

“Pam...” He is reaching for her again. Reaching and finding. How wonderful to be able to find her and touch her and hold her. “Do you want to get out of here?”

She nods and she is out of her chair and he is paying and they are back in his car and he is pulling out of the parking lot and they are heading back to her house and she is enveloped in his smell and his seats and his hand.

She gets the door open this time before he can make it around to her side of the car and he meets her there with a furrowed brow.

“You can’t undermine a gentleman’s chivalric obligations on the first date, Beesly. It’s just rude.”

She closes the car door, leans against it. Feels the glass through her shirt and against her back. He is so close now. Less than an arm’s length away. She thinks that maybe she should be replying to what the joke he just made but instead she rests a hand on his chest, feels his warmth through his sweater.

“I’m really glad we did this,” she whispers. Finds his eyes.

“Would you be mad if I kissed you right now?” He moves closer, rests a hand over hers on his chest. “Because I would really like to.”

She takes a moment to pretend to consider it. “No.”

He leans in but he is taking too long so she meets him halfway and she can feel his startled smile against her mouth. Her arms around his neck and his hands are on her waist and they are close and here and together. He is so tall and is bending down to meet her so she pushes up onto the balls of her feet. He tugs her into his chest in response and holds her there so she can feel his heartbeat. He pulls away to catch his breath and she panics for a moment, fears the cold that will hit her skin like acid where he has touched her. And she remembers that this it, there is no-one to run to or think of or care about except him, and she doesn’t let him breathe but kisses him again and again and again in the parking lot of her apartment building.

“Hey, Beesly.” He is breathless and she is delighted that she is the cause. His arms are still encircling her waist. Her arms are still around his neck. She thinks that maybe it would be best if they never moved from their current positions. “I have something to tell you and you already know it but I wanted to tell you again but I’m not sure if you want to hear it right now.”

She smiles, knows what he is trying to say. Says it first. “Jim, I love you.” Thinks that maybe this is what she has needed to say all along as the world floats up from her where it lay slung across her shoulders and vanishes into the darkness. “Sorry it took me so long to say it.”

He smiles, kisses her quickly, softly. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.”