It had happened without any pretense, just all the words of all those songs filling their silences. Jim had sat on the arm of his couch, his long legs stretched out in front of him, that distinctly goofy smile on his face, as Pam moved around his apartment, going through his things. Her fingers brushed the books on his shelf, first Hemingway, and then Kerouac, and then landing on a title, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. He remembered buying that one, last year, mostly because the title appealed to him. Her fingers held on it a bit longer as if gleaning some kind of meaning, something of him from it, and he caught himself wondering how that delicately bony edge of clavicle, peaking out from under the strawberry colored top she was wearing would taste. He started to brush the thought away, because it had always ended up hurting to think of things like that, and then it hit him, there was the very real possibility that he could taste that clavicle and all those other places too.
He had hardly been listening, still thinking about that spot, and her hair and neck and maybe her shoulders, when Pam had stopped in the middle of her nervous teasing of him about the sappy songs on his IPod, suddenly serious as their eyes met. For a moment he thought that she had the ability to read minds, or at least his, because he had been thinking and almost said, these are your songs, and a million more, while I sat here thinking about you, but instead he had glanced down at her hands which were nervously clasping each other in front of her, wondering again how they would feel in his and thinking about untwisting them from themselves.
Forever stretched out in front of them as her lips touched his for a fraction of a second, eyes on his, waiting, and then he leaned forward, taking her hands, and as she curled her fingers into his he realized there was no blue print for any of this. Things could spin out of control, this time things could really spin out of control.
Words circled them, running through his brain . . .
You're staring me down a glance makes me weak.
Made him smile, because they had been cruelly appropriate, and to an extent still were. He thought about the time in the kitchen, he’d been jinxed and she had asked, “Do you want to tell me something? You look like you want to tell me something. Jim you can tell me anything.” and he had felt his stomach drop, helplessly hooked then, like now, with the longing to tell her everything. Only this time he could, he thought giddily as one hand softly, almost hesitantly floated to her right hip, ready to pull back if it wasn’t right.
Now I'm twisted up when I'm twisted with you.
For Jim it was a symphony of memory and love pushing out all other thought: holding her arm at the ice rink, that surprise kiss at Chili’s . . .
His other hand found it’s way to her other hip, and she was pressed against him, his knees on either side. He felt her fingers slide across the back of his neck . . . and he was thinking about the night on the rooftop. Her sadness and how he had known then that he would never stop loving her. And then her head on his shoulder . . . and oh God, he had known even way back then.
They broke apart for a second, the moment surging over them, leaving them out of breath, and that spark that was all Pam infused light shimmered over and between and around them, and he felt that dizzying feeling, like being out of control, and tugged on her hips with both hands, their lips finding each other. In his head, they were there, in the vagueness of the dim room that night in May, rewriting their history, the time in between melting away, only this time her lips did not pull away. And he, thinking, only Pam, Pam, Pam and Pam. He found himself reconstructing their past as their lips erased those things that had kept them apart, and he marveled at how he remembered absolutely everything. He touched the side of her face, the soft angle of her jaw, drawing her closer and she did not pull away with an, I can’t.
Each touch belongs to each new sound.
His hands trailed along her shoulders, her rib cage, and settled on her lower back, in that space that was a perfect fit for his hands. He felt her twitch at his touch, and for a moment he almost pulled away. Was he going too far? Was this again, more for him than it was for her? But she moaned a little in the back of her throat, his name on her lips, he smiled against her, and hooked a finger in her belt loop, pulling her even further forward an urgent inch at a time. She drew back for a second catching her breath, and they both smiled in the space between them. Please let this go on forever he thought, and he knew that this time she could read his mind, because his thoughts were written all over his face and she drew him to her again.
Touch . . . sight . . . taste like fire
Her fingers sent little jolts through him as they skipped across the back of his neck, the ends of his hair igniting in her touch, the back of his ears, his neck.
Finally she pulled back, smiling, a curly strand over one eye, her neck and cheeks flushed.
“Wow, best first date ever.”
“Yeah”, he said low and raspy, completely undone. “Really?”
“Definitely. We shouldn’t have waited so long to do that.”
“That was pretty much your fault.”
“That’s a good way to end this date in a hurry Halpert.”
But she was smiling, and his hands went to her hair. Another place to touch to feel, all this time just wondering, and now . . .
Author's Chapter Notes:
I own nothing, including the lyrics to the All American Rejects song (in italics) referenced in this Chapter.
Chapter End Notes:
Edited, slightly. Thanks for the reviews!
