He knows immediately that something is wrong.  Whereas a moment before she was smiling and gently gripping his shoulders, now she’s tense and motionless in his arms.  He pulls pack to look at her, and her expression is one of utter shock. 

“What did you say?” she asks in a whisper. 

Jim racks his brain.  All he remembers is the feeling of her lips on his.  Did he even say anything? 

Then it comes back to him with a sudden clarity. ‘

I am so in love with you.’ 

He frowns, because why should that provoke such a terrified response? 

It’s true.  I love her.  I mean, isn’t that what we’re saying here?   That we love each other and that we want to be together?  

But another look at her face, still frozen in panic, tells him that isn’t what she was saying at all.  He feels like he wants to disappear, or die, or possibly just invent a time machine and go back to thirty seconds ago. 

She doesn’t love him. 

All of the air leaves his lungs. 

Of course she doesn’t love him.  They haven’t even actually started dating yet, right?  You aren’t supposed to already love the other person before you start dating.  That develops as you go.   

It’s not like she was the one pining over him for all those years.  All she admitted to was having ‘feelings.’  Some meaningless little attraction that poked at the edge of her consciousness but that she managed to ignore for the most part.  That wasn’t love.  That wasn’t what he felt for her.  He could never ignore it. 

He realizes that his mouth his hanging open, and that she’s still waiting for a response. “Listen, don’t uh….”  He can’t think of anything to say, so he pauses to regroup. 

Okay.  So she doesn’t love me.  That’s okay.  She wants to be with me.  She will very possibly love me someday.  It’s okay. 

Only it doesn’t feel okay.  It feels absolutely horrible.  Still, he has to say something to her soon before she completely freaks out and decides that this whole relationship isn’t a good idea. 

“Don’t worry about that.  It just… came out.  I didn’t mean, like, literally that I love you.  I mean, people just say that, you know?  It’s not…” 

He’s grasping at straws, trying to act like taking what he just said at face value is ludicrous, but his nervous rambling is unconvincing. 

“Do you, though?” she asks. 

Her eyes meet his warily, like she’s dreading his answer.  He wants to tell her no; that of course he doesn’t.  That would be crazy.  They haven’t even gone out on a date. 

But he knows he can’t lie.  He wouldn’t be able to keep that up.  He wouldn’t be able to pretend that he was anything other than completely, head over heels in love with her.  He wants to be able to tell her.  Just once.  And if that scares her away, then, well, she never really wanted what he wanted anyway. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, not quite looking at her.  “I’m sorry if that’s weird for you to hear.” 

“No, it’s…” 

He gets up the courage to look at her again, and what he sees makes him wish he didn’t.   

Her eyes are wide and her brows are drawn together in concern.  Her head is slightly tilted to the side and she’s struggling for a way to respond.  She looks sorry for him.  She looks like the girl who is trying to let the boy down gently. 

He can’t handle that.  He doesn’t want her pity.  He doesn’t want her to have to explain to him that she likes him, but not to that degree, not yet.   

So he stands abruptly, and he looks away because his eyes have begun to burn and he’ll be damned if he’s going to embarrass himself even more by crying in front of her. 

“I’m gonna go to bed.  I’ll just grab a blanket.” 

His voice sounds dead, but he doesn’t care.  He figures that a trip to the hall closet will give her a chance to clear out without any more awkward conversation.  But when he returns with a blanket, she’s still sitting there. 

When she hears his approach, she looks up, startled.  Her eyes travel from his face to the blanket. 

“This is ridiculous,” she says. 

He feels his world crumbling.  She wants to end it before it has even started. 

“You can’t sleep here.  Look how tall you are!  Your feet will be hanging off the end,” she continues.  “I’ll take the couch.  You take your bed.” 

He inhales. 

Oh thank god. 

He knows that he should be a good host and refuse, but he doesn’t want to argue about it. He’s embarrassed and ten kinds of confused and hurt.  He just wants to get out of there as quickly as possible before he does something else to screw things up.  

“Yeah, sure.  Okay.  See you in the morning.” 

He deposits the blanket on the couch and escapes up the stairs. 

Once he’s upstairs and trying to sleep, he has trouble ignoring the fact that she was lying in this exact spot, in his bed, not an hour earlier.  It’s the kind of thought that only a guy who is hopelessly in love would get so caught up on, so much so that sleep would be impossible. 

In love. 

Ugh. 

Why did he have to say it?  Why couldn’t he just lie?  Now that she knows, she’ll be jumpy and uncomfortable in the morning.  He knows Pam, and Pam is not a leaper.  She’s a baby-step-taker.  For her to do something as big as take off her wedding ring was almost unbelievable.   He should have taken extra care to keep all of his pronouncements at a baby-step level. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

When he’s not beating himself up for carelessly admitting his true feelings, he’s beating himself up over the fact that she doesn’t return those feelings.  What if he turns out to be a rebound?  What if her feelings never develop to the level of love?  

There is a gentle tapping at the door.   

Jim freezes.  It can only be one person.   

“Come in?” 

He says it like it’s a question, sort of hoping that he just imagined the knocking.  A second later, however, he sees her silhouette against the light flooding in from the hallway. 

“Hey,” he says, sitting up so that his back is resting against his headboard. 

“Were you asleep?” she asks, squinting into the darkness of his room. 

He clicks on his bedside lamp. 

“No,” he confesses. 

She seems to fumble for something to say for a moment, before she finally speaks. 

“You really need to get a futon.  That couch is awful,” she replies, resting a hand on the doorframe.  

He frowns.  Is this what she came up here to say? 

“Uh, then let’s switch.  Here, I’ll just—”  He breaks off and swings his legs around to plant his feet on the floor. 

“No, don’t,” she says quickly.  “I, uh…” 

She pauses for a moment, hesitating half in and half out of his bedroom.  Finally, she makes her way over to his bed. She perches herself carefully on the edge of the mattress next to him and sighs deeply, as if bracing herself. 

“I feel like we left things sort of weird downstairs,” she confesses.  “I can only imagine what you’ve been thinking.”  

“No, I wasn’t… I mean, it’s fine.  If you don’t—I shouldn’t have said—I mean—” 

He is thankful when she cuts off his nervous bumbling. 

“This isn’t some fling for me.” 

He turns to look at her in the soft light from the lamp.  She is staring straight ahead, looking solemn and determined. 

“Okay,” he replies, waiting for her to continue. 

“This isn’t even just me finding someone funny and nice to spend time with.  This is serious.  I mean, I take this, between us, seriously,” she explains.  

She takes a deep breath before adding, “I don’t see this… I’m in this for as long as you are.” 

What does that mean?  She must know how long he’s in this for.  He told her he loves her, for god’s sake. 

“I’m in it for—”  

He catches himself just before the word ‘forever’ escapes his lips.  

“I’m never going to be the one to end this,” he recovers. 

It’s not exactly a baby step, but it sounds a little less scary than forever, he hopes.  He can’t scare her away again. 

She nods, still looking straight ahead. 

Nods. 

Like she knew he was going to say that. 

So does that mean… Is she in this for forever too? 

“I never really let myself think of you like this until tonight,” she says.  “I couldn’t.  The feelings were there, but I had to pretend they weren’t.” 

She takes another deep breath, and finally turns to look at him directly.  She takes his hand in hers and looks at him imploringly, begging him to understand. 

“You’ve had time to let this all play out to that point in your mind, but I just… I haven’t,” she says.  “It’s all too new.” 

He starts to form a reply, something about how he knows that he sprung that on her too soon and that he’s sorry, but then she’s speaking again. 

“Just because I can’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it,” she states. 

Oh. 

He feels his heart jump just a little, and for the first time since he came upstairs, there is a lightness in his chest. 

“Just… give me time.  Okay?” 

She gives his hand a squeeze after her last statement. 

It’s as close to a declaration of love as he’s going to get tonight; he knows that.  And that’s okay.  That’s Pam.  A big declaration tonight would be out of the question.  Baby steps. 

While he’s busy feeling relieved, she slips into the bed without him even really noticing. 

“Is it okay if I sleep here tonight?  That couch really is pretty uncomfortable,” she says. 

It’s only then that he turns and sees her snuggled under his covers.  The sight makes his heart start up again like a marching band.  

“Yeah, of course,” he replies, standing. 

“Where are you going?” she asks. 

He frowns. 

He was going to the sofa.  Surely she didn’t mean… 

“I thought…”  

He trails off helplessly.  She gives him a look that clearly communicates her disapproval, raised eyebrows and all.   

Very cautiously, as if there is a landmine under the bed, he crawls in beside her.  His mind is whirring.  Should he sleep with one leg off the bed, on the floor?  Should he sleep above the sheets?  Should he just pin himself to his side of the bed and apologize profusely if they touch accidentally? 

Then she grabs his right arm and pulls it snugly across her waist, effectively spooning herself against him like he’s a human cocoon.   

He could die happy right now.  Instead of dying, though, he rests his chin on her shoulder and smiles against her neck. 

“You know… if Angela asks me on Monday if we slept together tonight, I’ll have to say yes,” he mumbles into her skin. 

“Not if you value your limbs, you won’t,” she retorts. 

“See, there are those violent tendencies again,” he complains. 

She turns as far around to face him as their embrace will allow and gives him a peck on the nose.  

“You’re such a dork,” she says, and he can hear the laughter in her voice. 

Jim doesn’t know if it’s legal to be this happy.  He makes a mental note to ask Dwight on Monday.  

They fall asleep wrapped up in each other.