Their first date is on a hill while the sun is setting and when he spreads out the blanket, she laughs. And he looks over his shoulder at her, “What? Is it not straight enough? Or- I mean, I know it’s just a green blanket, but it was on sale at Target.”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s just- This is amazing.”
He smiles, “Good. Now sit.”
She slips off her sandals and sits down on the blanket, watching him rummage through a paper grocery bag he’s using as a makeshift picnic basket. She can’t decide if she wants to cry or laugh or kiss him or all three. She settles on just watching his arms as he lifts paper plates and paper napkins and plastic forks and knives out of the bag.
“What, you couldn’t spring for one of those picnic sets they have at Target?”
“Those weren’t on sale,” he says without turning around.
She laughs and stretches her legs out in front of her, squinting into the slowly fading sun. She doesn’t complain about the bugs or how the grass keeps itching her skin. She doesn’t complain about the chill that settles in as the sun sinks further and further. And, anyway, he hands her his sweatshirt when he notices the goosebumps on her arms and suddenly he’s everywhere.
There’s salad followed by chicken and potato salad. She smiles to herself at how store bought all of it is and how it only makes him seem even more perfect.
He nudges her with his elbow, his mouth full of chicken, “What are you smiling about?”
She turns to him with the purple sky behind his face and the wind gently blowing his around on the top of his head. “Nothing,” she says, smiling even wider.
“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” he says, grinning at her now.
“No, I’m just…happy.”
He nods, placing his plate down on the blanket between them. He tilts his head back, looking for stars that aren’t out yet. She tries to finish her half eaten chicken, but her stomach is all twisted and she keeps getting distracted by the way the moon shines on his face.
“So, I was sitting there in David Wallace’s office and I couldn’t,” he says suddenly, “I just couldn’t. I tried to imagine myself in New York with Karen and I couldn’t. I just saw you and Scranton.”
“Oh,” she says. It’s all she can say. They haven’t talked about this yet. She didn’t know if they ever really would. If she really wanted to talk about it. Mostly she just wants now and them and not the past. She’s done with the past.
“So I left. And I told Karen that you meant too much to me and I couldn’t just leave. I told her- Well, anyway. That was pretty much the end of that,” he laughs a dry laugh and she doesn’t know what to do. If she should touch him or if she should comfort him at all. If he wants to be comforted. So she sits there and watches him.
“And, uh, I thought a lot on the way home. About you, about us, about the last four years or so. And the answer- I mean, Pam, the answer was so fucking clear and I don’t know why I was being so-”
She kisses him then, because the answer really is so clear. And then she’s carefully lifting herself over their plates and onto his lap. He makes a noise like he’s surprised but then his hands are on her face and he’s kissing her back and it’s only when her tongue slides along his bottom lip that he pushes on her shoulders, pulling her mouth from his.
“Pam, wait.”
“Okay,” she says slowly, moving back to her seat on the blanket.
“Not that I don’t-”
“Too soon?”
“Too public.”
And she laughs. “Yeah, because there are so many people around,” she says, gesturing to the secluded area he’d chosen. “In fact, I think you chose this spot strictly for seduction purposes.”
He moves the plates out of the way, putting them in a plastic bag which he holds out to her and says, “I came prepared, see?” And then she settles against his chest, his arms going around her and their fingers twining together. He rests his chin on the top of her head and she sighs, reveling in the feeling of his chest rising and falling and his palms against her own.
She says quietly after a while, “Can it really just be like this?”
She feels his lips on her temple, “God, I hope so. It kind of sucks any other way.”
She feels his laugh through her entire body and she tries to settle in even closer to him. “So after I dumped Roy I started trying new things with my hair and Kelly helped me with make up and clothes and I thought I could impress you that way or something. I spent a lot of nights home alone, thinking about what it would be like if we were together. Or at the very least, what it would be like if we were still talking.”
His chin against her hair tells her he’s nodding.
She spreads her fingers out between his and watches their hands. His thumb slides against her palm and she turns her face towards him, tipping her head up and pressing her lips to his jaw.
“It’s been a long year,” she says finally.
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