Disclaimer: I don't own The Office or Jim, Pam, or Roy.

                Second dates are supposed to be less awkward than the first.  Or at least that’s what Pam thought.  First dates were filled with the kind of ice-breaking conversation that upperclassmen engage eager college freshmen with.  Where are you from?  What do you do?  Did you see the latest Robert De Niro film?  Oh, so you’re not a fan?  All of that’s supposed to be over by the time the second date comes around three or four days or even a week later.  Conversation flows easier because you know each other like you’ve been friends for years, but still a bit reserved.  Politics and religion are still taboo until the fifth date, in Pam’s experience anyway.  She was pretty sure most fifth dates weren’t Easter Mass with an is-he-is-he-not-my boyfriend’s family filled with mechanical motions and weary attempts to follow along with something she wasn’t sure she understood.

                Second dates are romantic dinners and eye contact and hand holding and a tiny kiss at the end of the date, leaving both longing for more, but knowing better than to rush things because they’re older and not in high school anymore.

                Pam’s second date with Jim was anything but what a second date should be.  It was awkward and forced and reminding her of a boyfriend she wanted to forget and their thorny second date.  And if Pam learned anything from that experience, it was to end things now, before they turned into a nine year recurring nightmare and years of waiting and heartbreak.

                Jim had no idea; she could tell.  He was smiling and going on about something that he’d seen on TV and how he thought something… oh she didn’t know.  She had tuned him out a few minutes ago, losing herself in her thoughts and doubts and worries.  And he was oblivious, as men always seemed to be about these kinds of things.  He was young and in love and lacking the experience she had.  He was always on the other end of heartbreak, smashing other girls’ hearts and longing for something he couldn’t have.  And now he had it and he was unknowingly letting it slip through his fingers.

                Pam let her mind slip further away as Jim kept talking.  She nodded politely and smiled when he cracked a joke, but she wasn’t really there.  She was reliving the worst second date of her life, wondering if it would be replaced with tonight.

**

                Pam didn’t know why she had yes, after last time, but she was only sixteen and had never had a serious boyfriend before.  She didn’t know any better.  And after careful advisement from her experienced friends, it couldn’t get worse than being left at a hockey game.  They had all agreed he was cute enough for a second chance and Pam was dying for the high school romance she saw in the movies.

                Roy had let her pick the movie they would see, to “make it up to her” and Pam picked the new Robert De Niro movie because there was just something about him she found attractive, despite his age.  And she knew Roy couldn’t stand him, so why not a make him suffer a bit?

                The movie started at 7:30, but Roy didn’t show up at her house until twenty after.  There were several people ahead of them in line when they got there, who all seemed to want to see the same movie Pam did.  She wasn’t sure there would even be any tickets left.  But there were.  Roy fumbled around in his pockets, searching for his wallet, or at least the $10.50 it cost to see the movie.

                “Uh, Pam,” he turned to her with a frown.  “Do you think you could get this?  I think I forgot my wallet in the car.”

                “Yeah, sure,” she agreed reluctantly, digging through her purse for her own wallet.

                “I paid for the hockey tickets, so it’s only fair,” he added.

                Pam didn’t say anything as she handed the ticket girl her money.  The girl took it from her, offering a sympathetic glance as she printed the tickets.  While they walked into the lobby, Pam noticed Roy still digging through his pockets.

                “Hey, look,” he dug a five from his back pocket.  “That’s enough to get us some popcorn.”  He rushed into the line, cutting out a twelve year old and his mother.

                They walked into the theater together, Roy holding his popcorn and Pam with her arms crossed.  The movie had started already and there were no two empty seats together.

                “I guess we’ll have to sit separately,” Roy remarked, taking the nearest empty seat, keeping the popcorn all to himself and leaving Pam to find another.  She walked a few rows back, sitting down next to an elderly couple.

                The night couldn’t end sooner.  When the movie finally commenced, Pam met Roy outside in the lobby.  He put his arm around her as they walked to his car.

                “That really blew,” he said.  “Glad I didn’t spend the money on the tickets.”

                “I thought it was okay,” Pam remarked in a small voice.  Would have been nice to see the beginning, she thought to herself.

                Roy opened the car door for her when they reached his blue Chevy and opened it again when they reached her house, slowly redeeming himself.  When he walked her to her doorstep, she was surprised she let him kiss her goodnight and shocked when she heard herself agree to do something next weekend.

                She should have said no, but she was only sixteen and she didn’t know any better.

**

                Pam could tell her worries were showing on her face because Jim was starting to notice.

                “Everything okay?” he asked.

                “Yeah, fine.”

                He laughed.  “I know you better than that, Beesley.  What’s wrong?”

                Roy would never have said that.  He would have believed everything was fine and moved on, but not Jim.  Jim wasn’t suave and collected like Roy.  He was awkward and honest and charming in his own right.  And he cared.

                “I don’t know, I’m just a little apprehensive, I guess.”

                “About what?  Us?”

                “I guess.  It’s just… I just feel like we had so much more of a connection before we were us.  When we were just…”

                “I’m not very good at the beginning of relationships,” Jim cut her off.  “It’s just so awkward and weird and I thought we’d be past that with having known each other for while, but maybe not.  I’m sorry, you probably didn’t care about Wife Swap, but maybe if you watch it with me one…”  Jim trailed off when he heard Pam start laughing, her face buried in her hands.  “What?”

                “Nothing,” she said, regaining her composure and placing her hands back on the table.

                “I just get caught up in some things.”  He sighed, running his hair through his hands.  “Maybe I’m spending too much time around Dwight.”

                This time they both laughed, and somewhere in the middle, Jim’s hand reached across the table and found Pam’s and a little bit of the awkwardness faded with his touch.

                “It’s me too,” Pam confessed.  “I’ve never had much luck with second dates.”

                “Pam, this is our third,” Jim corrected, his signature smile dancing on his lips.

                She glanced at him quizzically.  “What do you mean?  We only went to dinner last week and now…”

                He cut her off.  “And that other time we had dinner at work.  And a show.  Remember?  It was only last year.”  His smile widened.

                Pam remembered.  Rooftop grilled cheese sandwiches during a late night at the office.  An awkward mention of their “first” date before Pam went home to Roy.  That feeling of uneasiness looming in her stomach as she drove out of the parking lot.  “Yeah,” she smiled.  “Yeah, I remember.”

                “See?  And I don’t think our third is going so bad,” he began.  “Oh, I forgot to tell you.  I was watching TV and I saw this commercial that made me think of you and the adorable way you…”

                Pam only half listened to his story, letting herself get lost in a different type of thought.  That rooftop, grilled cheese dinner was everything a first date should be.  Awkwardness and timid laughter and Jim was the perfect gentlemen, making her sandwich and holding the door to the roof open for her to pass through first.  If that counts, then last week’s dinner was everything a second date should be. 

A romantic dinner at a cute Italian restaurant.  Hand holding as they walked through a nearby park before he took her home.  Jim’s soft gaze into her pale eyes before he leaned in to give her a gentle goodnight kiss in the doorway of her apartment.  A picture perfect second date.

As Pam tuned back into the conversation, grinning shyly as Jim described how the puppy in the commercial made him think of her and smile, she realized he was right.  The third date wasn’t so bad after all.