“Whoa!” Jim raised his hands in the air in mock surrender and backpedaled a step or two. “I had no idea you were armed, Beesley.”
“What are you doing here?” she blurted, stuffing the pepper spray back into her pocket. “The bus is gone!” Her surprise covered the mortification she felt at being alone with Jim so soon after her coal-fueled confession.
“I know,” he said. “I called Mark for a ride. What about you?”
“Oh, I, uh, wasn’t looking forward to the bus ride back with, uh, people, so I called a friend and asked her to pick me up.”
“Huh,” Jim said. “Guess it’s just you and me for a while.”
“Guess so,” Pam replied, hoping her voice wasn’t coming out all squeaky the way it sometimes did when she was nervous.
They were silent a moment.
“Jim, I –”
“Listen, Pam –”
They’d spoken at the same time and broke off flustered and laughing. For a moment, if felt normal. Real. Like Jim and Pam, not the strangers they seemed to have become.
“Me first,” she said. “Sit down.”
She plopped down on the bench and grabbed the hem of his shirt, tugging him down.
“I’m sorry if that took you by surprise. I’ve been trying to swallow all those feelings all year, but it was getting harder and harder to keep pretending. I just needed to say that to you, out loud. I could’ve picked a more private setting, I guess.”
Jim smiled. “You guess?”
“OK, I could’ve picked a setting that didn’t include Dwight. And Angela. And Michael. And …”
“And what?”
Pam bit her lip. “And your girlfriend.”
Jim’s face tightened.
“Actually, she’s not my girlfriend anymore.”
Pam jaw dropped in surprise. She probably looked like a fish gasping on dry land, but she didn’t care. She felt a little like a beached fish, struggling to breathe.
“Oh, God. Because of what I said? Oh, Jim. I wanted to be honest, but I never wanted to hurt you, or her.”
“Not because of what you said. Because of how I reacted. Because of what I said to her afterward.”
“What did you say?” Pam asked faintly. Was there any chance that – no, surely not. She’d ruined her chance with him, as friends or anything else.
Jim turned to face her, looking her squarely in the eyes for what seemed like the first time in months. A year, probably.
“I told her the truth,” he said. “Finally. The truth is that I tried so hard to stop. To stop thinking about you. To stop wishing that things were different. To stop comparing Karen to you. To stop hating you for going back to Roy. To stop …”
He cut off abruptly. Then, in a low voice, “… to stop loving you.”
“Jim.” Pam’s voice was soft, tender. She tilted her head, and placed her palm on his check. “I’ve been wanting to say this for so long. I lied to you last year. I lied to myself last year. I think I’ve loved you for years. I was just too scared to admit it. I don’t think I even recognized it as love. It was so different from what I felt for Roy, so much stronger –”
Jim cut her words off with his lips. He kissed her fiercely. It wasn’t the tentative, soft kiss from last May. This kiss was sure. It was hungry. And she responded, linking her arms around his neck and leaning into his lean frame. With a groan he pulled her closer, hauling her onto his lap, never breaking their kiss.
The wind picked up, but they didn’t notice. The smooth surface of the lake turned choppy, but they didn’t notice. Clouds drifted across the sky to cover the moon, but they didn’t notice.
Then Pam’s cell phone rang. They noticed. Dragging her lips away from Jim’s – how on Earth had she been able to resist that mouth for as long as she had? – she grabbed her phone from her purse.
“I’ll throw this into the lake right now to make it stop,” she said, her breathing ragged. Jim laughed and hugged her closer to him. Pam checked the caller ID. “It’s my mom. I’ll call her back.”
Pam snuggled even closer to Jim, then laughed.
“Um, do you have a can of pepper spray in your pocket, too?”
“What? No.” Then Jim blushed, and Pam laughed even harder. He started to seek out her lips again when two sets of headlights swept across their bench.
“It would appear that our rides are here,” Jim said.
“It would appear so.” Pam made no move to move off of his lap. It was so much more interesting to play with his hair.
“You don’t suppose …”
“I’ll ask.”
Jim picked Pam up and set her down on the bench, then trotted over to Mark’s car. He had a quick conversation with him and then turned to consult with Allison. Pam heard the slamming of car doors and the squeal of tires. Then Jim ambled back to the bench, whistling and swinging a set of car keys.
“Allison’s dropping Mark off at the apartment, and Mark says we can keep the car all night. So what do you want to do now? We can stay here at the lake, go grab some coffee, find an all-night tattoo parlor …”
Pam bounced off of the bench and grabbed Jim’s hand, dragging him toward the waiting car.
“You and me. My place. We’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?” She grinned at him over her shoulder.
Jim stopped her long enough to kiss her again, then ushered her to the passenger side door. As he pulled onto the highway, he reached over and claimed her hand, bringing it to his lips, brushing kisses over her knuckles. Her whole body felt alive as she and Jim exchanged smiles, both of them giddy with love.
I think I like this courage thing after all, Pam thought.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Alone at last!
Chapter End Notes:
That's all she wrote! Suggestions for improvement would be most welcome.
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