Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Downtown is crowded, really fucking crowded. This is what happens when a presidential candidate comes to your town. He just wants to get a cup of coffee, but the road he usually takes to his favorite café is blocked off. So he opts for just walking there. This means he has to leave extremely early though if he wants to make it to work on time which is debatable now that he actually thinks about it.
Still it’s nearly nine o’clock by the time he gets out the door. The October air is thin and cold and he pulls his jacket around him tighter, shoving his hands in his pockets, watching the trees shake in the wind.
He’s felt lonelier lately, lonelier than usual. There’s a strange imbalance that happens. When things with Pam are good, great even, he feels even shittier. The happier he feels, the darker things seem. It’s like some cruel fucking joke and so he starts picking fights with her for no reason, just so he can just feel shitty instead of really good and happy and then suddenly hit the lowest low ever.
This time they’re in a passive aggressive fight about sandwiches or maybe it was a stapler. He doesn’t even know. He just knows that their conversations are terse and formal and he hasn’t heard her laugh that much this week.
There’s a crowd of people when he hits downtown. He can see the congressman, standing a foot above everyone else, smiling and shaking hands. He thinks about joining the crowd, but isn’t sure what a handshake and a greeting would do for him. It’s not like he’s going to vote for the other guy anyway, especially not after that whole nuclear thing.
So he just stands back and watches for a second.
“You gonna vote for him?” There’s a blonde suddenly next to him. The wind blows her bangs across her forehead and she folds her arms across her chest, watching the scene with him.
“Uh, yeah. I am.”
She nods thoughtfully and he notices the thick stack of folders in her arms, the slight bags under her eyes.
“Ah, you work for him?”
She turns to him again, smiling and holding her hand out, “Donna Moss.”
He takes her hand, feeling himself grinning despite himself. “Jim Halpert.”
“You don’t want to shake his hand?”
He shakes his head, “Nah, I just like…watching.”
“A voyeur, huh?” She laughs, tilting her head back and he tries not to notice how her skin sort of glows in the sun where it stretches across her cheekbones, feeling somehow guilty for thinking something like that about someone who-
“Yeah, something like that.” He takes a step forward and is about to just say goodbye and walk away when he changes his mind, “Hey, you wanna get a cup of coffee? You look like you’ve been working hard and could use some caffeine.” She hesitates for a second and he’s quick to add, “Unless you have important campaign business to take care of…”
She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it and shakes her head. “Uh, actually, no. I’m free for at least the next fifteen minutes while the congressman answers press questions.”
“Good.”
The three more blocks to the café are walked in near silence. Her elbow keeps knocking into his and he starts to feel like he’s in high school on one of those first dates that consist of only knocking elbows or knees or whatever.
“So how’s campaign life?” He asks, looking down at the cracks in the sidewalk passing under their feet.
“Tiring,” she says at first, letting out a breath that blows her bangs away from her face. Then she adds, “But exciting- No. Exhilarating. Or, you know, one of those ‘ex’ words that means amazing and wonderful.”
He smiles at her, holding open the door of the café for her. “It sounds great. Hell of a lot better that my job, that’s for sure.”
She turns to face him while they stand in the moderately sized line. “And what is it that you do exactly, Jim?”
All he can do in response to this question is laugh. “Sorry. Um. I sell paper?”
“You sound unsure about that.” She’s toying with the hem of her coat, rolling one of the corners of it in between her fingers while she looks at him with a slight smile.
“It just sounds so pathetic compared to your job.”
She rocks on her heels and leans a little towards him. “No, it’s not,” her voice is too sincere. It makes him uncomfortable.
“It really is. I work for a failing paper company and I’m going nowhere. You, you’re- You’re campaigning for the next president of the United States. There’s no comparison.”
Now she just nods and they lapse into silence. The line’s moving forward but she can’t tell when she isn’t facing forward. He nods his head a little and she turns to see the space behind her with a little, Oh!, and takes a few backwards steps to close the gap, watching over her shoulder to make sure she doesn’t run into the person ahead of them in line.
He’s ruined things now. She doesn’t know what to say to him now that he’s told her how much he hates his job and wishes he could even come close to having something as fulfilling as her job. Who really wants to hear that from someone they just met? They should be talking about the weather or the news or something.
There’s a moment where her eyebrows draw together and she looks as if she’s deep in thought. She takes a breath and, “It takes time. You know?”
Something in the way she looks up at him then makes him believe her. “Yeah.”
“I mean, you have to work your way up to things. You have to want it.”
He shakes his head before nodding again when the line moves up and watching her do her careful backwards walk. “That’s the thing, I don’t know what I want.”
“Come on, there isn’t one thing you want?” She pokes him in the arm with her index finger as she says it and he pretends to sway with the force of it, eliciting a laugh from her.
But then he stops and thinks about the one thing he wants. Curls, soft green eyes- She’d surely think it’s a stupid thing to want, to be the only thing he wants. So he just tilts his head to the side and pretends like he has to think hard about the question.
Within a split second, realization is washing over her face as her mouth forms this little O and her eyes widen. “Ah,” is all she says, a grin forming.
“Ah, what? We’re next, by the way.”
She turns around quickly, slightly flustered, to face an annoyed cashier. “Sorry, I was just a little distracted.” She smiles at the cashier but she doesn’t smile back. She orders her coffee and he stops her before she can pay for it.
“Seriously, it’s on me. You’ve been listening to me whine about my job and you just met me. The least I can do is pay for your coffee.” His hand is on her arm and she glances down at it for a second before looking up at him and nodding. He orders his own coffee and pays for them both.
“Thank you,” she says sort of quietly while they stand, waiting for their coffee to be ready.
“Don’t worry about it.” And he’s sort of glad she seems to have forgotten what it was they were talking about before. He feels bad enough complaining about work to her. The last thing he needs is to get started on the Pam situation. That would surely send her running.
They’re standing next to each other while they wait and she keeps giving him these sideways glances which he tries to ignore. But he can feel himself blushing nearly every time her eyes move over his face. He feels exposed to her somehow, like she can look right through him and see all his secret inner workings.
He lets out a breath of relief when their coffees come up on the bar, steaming and ready. He watches her put three, four, five sugars in and just smiles at her. “What?” She asks, completely oblivious. It’s cute, really, so he just shakes his head.
“There’s a girl,” she says abruptly when they’re out on the sidewalk.
“No,” he says simply, thinking about taking them the scenic way back through town. The way that takes them through that small park with the fountain and the children and the pigeons. For some reason, she thinks she’d like it.
“There is. I can tell. Trust me. I know about these sort of things,” she says seriously, sipping at her coffee.
“Oh, you know about these things, huh? What, are you some sort of expert?”
“Expert might be too strong of a word, but something like that,” she smiles over her cup, looking at him as they stop at an intersection.
Warmth permeates the coffee cup and spreads through his palm, making his skin feel alive with the meeting of cold and warm. He looks away from her and his eyes move up and down the street before signaling to her that it’s okay to cross. He forgets for a second that his stride is wider than hers and she has to jog a little to catch up with him on the other side of the street. She holds her coffee cup out a little to keep it from spilling over.
“So who is she?”
“You really enjoy prying.”
“I do. It’s one of my favorite pastimes. What’s her name?”
He busies himself with drinking his coffee as a way to avoid the question. He’s almost enjoying withholding this from her, watching her squirm with curiosity.
“Come on, give me something.”
He grins at her, keeping his lips closed tightly.
“I’m just going to figure it out on my own, you know. I am an expert, after all.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” He makes an unexpected right to take them through the park and she bumps into him as she turns to go the other way. “Sorry, I was thinking we could take a different route back? If that’s okay…”
“It’s fine with me if you tell me about the girl.”
“Wow, you really don’t ever give up, do you?”
“Nope,” she bites her lip and smiles at him. He suddenly wants to kiss her. Partly to shut her up and partly because her lips are doing this pink, shiny thing and-
“Fine. Her name’s Pam. I work with her. She’s engaged. Whatever.”
She nods solemnly. “Engaged to the wrong guy?”
“I think so.” He squints as they turn a corner right into the blinding sun.
“And you’re the right guy?”
They reach the park and they’ve turned the water off in the fountain and it’s full of wet, yellow leaves. He sits on the bench closest to it and she sits down next to him. He pushes leaves around with his feet. They’re in big bright red and orange piles on the brick walkway having just fallen off the trees that weekend.
He can feel her looking at him before her hand is on his arm, her index finger grazing his wrist.
“You’re the right guy,” she says quietly, squeezing his arm a little. There’s a sort of warmth going through him that he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“Yeah,” he responds, nodding, looking over at her with his head bent down. He tries to smile, but it ends up only half happening for him.
“I know how it goes, being in love with someone you work with. It’s hard. Seeing them every day and not being able to just-” She makes a sound of frustration here to substitute actual words and they both laugh. Her hand slides down a little so her fingers are resting against his palm, but neither one of them makes the move to hold on.
“Is this another thing you’re gonna tell me just takes time?”
Her shoulder bumps into his; she’s moved closer to him. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Great,” he says dryly.
“Hey,” she says, nudging him in the shoulder gently.
And when he looks back up at her from the pile of leaves beneath his feet, her face is close to his. Close enough that he can feel her bangs against his forehead and her breath on his lips and his cheeks. Close enough that his eyes go crossed trying to look at her.
He takes a chance, closes the space between them, pressing his mouth to hers. There’s a startled noise in the back of her throat before she kisses him back, softly with barely any pressure behind it.
It lasts maybe five seconds before something starts vibrating against the bench and she pulls back slowly. “Sorry, it’s-” She reaches into her coat pocket and takes out her cell phone, glancing at the caller ID: ‘JOSH.’
“Um, I have to go. We have to be in Bethlehem by noon, so-”
She stands up and he stands with her, not sure what to do now. Not sure if he should offer to walk her back or just tell her how to get back, it’s not hard or that far. Or maybe he should kiss her again before she leaves. Or-
“Listen, it was really nice meeting you and everything, but-” She’s already walking away so he guesses that decision’s been made for him.
He pushes his hands into his pockets and nods, giving her a tight lipped smile, tasting some of her lip gloss in the process. “Yeah, no. I completely understand.”
She smiles at him, waving as she takes a few more steps away.
“And, hey, maybe I can come visit you in the White House when your guys win this thing.”
She turns and starts walking backwards while she looks at him. “Yeah. And, seriously, Jim. Just give it time.”
“Yeah, I will.”
He stands there for a moment, watching her walk away. He thinks about what a weird fucking morning it’s been and how he doesn’t even care that he’s almost two hours late for work now.
unfold is the author of 102 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 2 members. Members who liked and birds were singing to calm us down also liked 182 other stories.
