He sat across from her at the table. And he was too close and too far away at the same time. It was so intoxicating to be near him that she felt a little dazed by his presence, like she was floating underwater and she might have to get away for a little while--come up for breath.

“So, what did I miss today? I assume Dwight didn’t spend the entire time painting Michael’s office.”

“No, that was just the final touch,” she laughed.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. He had a whole new regime planned. It was hilarious.”

“Like what?”

“Well, have you ever heard of a Schrute buck?”

“You’re kidding,” he deadpanned.

“I’m not! I swear! And then later we had an entire meeting on the properties of soil.”

Jim’s brow furrowed in confusion.“Soil? Why?”

“Because, that’s what trees grow in, and paper is made of trees, so…”

“Yikes. Please tell me you took pictures.”

She just laughed.

How could he be so perfect? He was everything. He was funny and smart and ridiculously good-looking and on top of all that he was the best friend she’d ever had.

She stifled a yawn and rolled onto her back. It was really late, but she was still too excited to sleep.

Excited and a little scared. Everything that had happened today seemed so surreal that even though she knew better, she still couldn’t avoid the glimmer of doubt in the back of her mind that this was all just a dream and that as soon as she woke up everything would go back to the way it was.

It just didn’t seem possible that after all this time they had finally found their way to each other. She didn’t want to doubt it, of course, but she just couldn’t help thinking that the morning would bring her news that he had decided to move to New York with Karen after all, or that he had changed his mind and wanted to go back to being just friends.

But then she smiled again remembering what he’d said at dinner.

“What?”

“Nothing,”

“Seriously, what?”

“I just…” she paused for a minute, but he seemed to know exactly what was wrong before she even said it.

“Pam,” he said, running his thumb along the back of her hand, “I just want you to know that I’m not going anywhere.”

“Me neither.” she returned, relieved that she hadn’t actually admitted her doubt.

Another minute or so went by as they looked at each other from across the table.

“I still can’t believe this,” he said, grinning at her.

“Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”

Neither of them said anything for a little while after that, but as she took another sip of water she realized that the conversation was still continuing uninterrupted. Only now they were talking in expressions and glances and just the feel of each other’s palms.

She wondered what it would be like to be married to him. With Roy she had spent so much time thinking about getting married that she hadn’t really bothered to imagine being married.

She had thought about stupid things like place settings, but not about staying up late together when the baby had the flu. She had planned out whole play lists for their reception, but hadn’t even begun to think about who would be in charge of planning for retirement. She’d picked colors and flowers and stationary, but she had never really been able to imagine them sitting out on their front porch on a hot summer night when they were both old and gray.

But Jim… She laughed a little with joy and just surprise, because she could already see Jim wrestling with their kids on the living room floor and holding her hand as they watched their daughter graduate from college and passing on the secrets of all their best pranks to their grandchildren.

And instead of letting that scare her, all she could do was silently wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. She wanted this. She had wanted it for so long, and now it was here and she couldn’t imagine it as anything less than glorious. Because even when they had problems and life wasn’t perfect, he’d still be there and having him there would make even imperfection seem like paradise.

She was pretty sure her food tasted great, but it was kind of hard to tell when he kept looking at her like that.

They’d opted to just get a bunch of different things and share it all. She smiled when he held out his chopsticks to her with a piece of pineapple in them and a question on his face. Feeding each other? Really?

Okay. As it turned out she was fine with that. But she was even more fine with what happened after she finished swallowing.

She was still leaning across the table, unable to pull herself away from the close-up view of his features. Had she always been this fascinated by his nose and his eyebrows, his chin, his lips?

He was starting to look a little uncomfortable with the way she was flat-out staring at him, but she couldn’t seem to stop. And then the most amazing thing happened.

It was like all of a sudden his face went from uncomfortable to radiantly happy. Seeing that look on his face almost made her swoon.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

“It’s just… if you had looked at me like that yesterday I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about, but now…” and then he reached over to rest his fingertips against her cheek. “You amaze me,” he whispered gently.

Her eyes lowered to the table for an instant and then shot open again when she felt his lips brush lightly against hers. He started to pull away, but she hadn’t had nearly enough. She pulled his head back toward her and kissed him with more force this time.

Unbidden, a sigh came from deep within her throat as she moved her thumb along his jaw. Nothing had ever felt so perfect.

But they were sitting in the middle of a Chinese restaurant, so all too soon he pulled back.

Her eyes closed lazily and she realized she was starting to drift off to sleep. Maybe she should just let herself fall asleep. After all, there would be more nights like this in the days to come. And as much as she wanted to savor every emotion, she also wanted to be well rested for tomorrow when she knew she would see him again.

The drive home was peaceful and when they stopped in front of her apartment, Pam wondered for a second what would happen next. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to spend the night with him, but she felt like the first date was a little too soon. Especially considering how far they had already come today.

He walked her to her door, still holding her hand.

“So... I guess I’ll see you soon?” she began, internally wondering why she had reverted to such a stupid line. Of course she would see him soon!

“Yeah. Hey Pam, I had a really great time tonight.”

“Oh no! It must be contagious!”

“What?”

“I had a great time? I mean, that’s such a cliché, and I couldn’t stop using clichés in one of my talking heads yesterday.”

“Really?” he said sounding interested.

“It was so bad, the camera crew was cracking up.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously though, I feel like we might really have a connection,” he continued.

“Okay, stop!”

“Don’t you think we’re made for each other?” he asked. 

“As a matter of fact. I do,” she replied.

She turned to him suddenly, and with a burst of the same courage that had kept her smiling all day long she reached up and kissed him hard. He wrapped his free arm around her waist, drawing her flush against his body, while his other hand still held hers. When she ran her fingernails along his newly-bare neck and into the tiny hairs at the base of his scalp, he made a noise that was almost a moan, and then began nibbling a little on her bottom lip.

She opened her mouth to him eagerly, with a sigh of contentment. By the time he slid his tongue slowly along hers she was literally leaning against him to keep her trembling knees from giving way beneath her.

They stayed like that for a long time and she was completely enthralled by the sensation of kissing him. It felt so personal and instinctive to her. Like his lips knew her already and had just been waiting for her all along.

When they finally pulled away from each other she rested her cheek against his for a minute, unwilling to let him go just yet.

The sound in her ear was so quiet that for a minute she wondered if she’d just dreamed it.

“What?” she whispered back.

“I love you Pam,” he repeated. Her eyes finally filled with the tears of happiness that she had known were coming.

“I love you too Jim. I love you so much.” She dipped her head down onto his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her tighter. She wondered if he was crying too.

He didn’t say anything. He just held her as her body shook, running his hand up and down her back now and then and kissing her hair every so often.

When she finally pulled back, she swatted furiously at her eyes. This wasn’t how their first date was supposed to end. She didn’t want him to think she hadn’t enjoyed it.

But he quickly grabbed her hands and just held them until she looked him in the eye and noticed the tell-tale trails of his own tears on his face, even as he smiled down at her. Then he kissed her on the cheek, released her hands and began to turn back toward his car.

“See you tomorrow, Beesly,” he said with one last smile.

“Good night, Jim.”

Her last conscious thought as she rolled over one more time was that if that had been their first official date, she couldn’t wait to see what happened on their 15th and their 50th and their 500th. This was exactly what she had been waiting for since she didn’t even know how long.

And now, for the first time in her life, in fact, she was sure that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.