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Story Notes:
The title comes from the the song by The KLF. I'm always a little late coming to parties, but I had to try to get into Jim's head somehow. Poor guy. He meant well.

 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.

 

It had been a terrible night.

It had started as a terrible day, and it had definitely stretched into a terrible night. And really, really, Jim was blaming Ryan, because it was his stupid idea to start the stupid website in the first place, and it was his stupid website that was a fucking joke, and his fault that they all were going to have to come in on Saturday to fix his stupid mess.

Jim did not, underlined, italicized, capitalized not, want to come in on his Saturday to fix Ryan's failure. Five days a week that place sucked all the happiness out of him, turned him into a zombie under the florescent lights, making sales and phonecalls and glancing at Pam's direction every so often to remind himself of what he was working for in the first place. He didn't want to give up his Saturday too. He wanted to spend the whole day in bed with Pam, only leaving to go to the bathroom or to get food.  Even showering was optional, although it was a lot more enticing when Pam joined in.

No, he did not want to go in on his day off, and so he came up with a great solution. And it had been a great solution. Everyone had agreed it was a great solution. He hadn't forced anyone to stay. They had all wanted to stay. They all thought it was a great idea to stay a little later to avoid coming in on Saturday.

So yes, he should have called down and told the guard they were staying late. No one else had thought of it. No one else had said, "Hey Jim, did you call down and tell the security guard that we were staying late tonight?" No. They hadn't.

And then there was Toby.

Somehow he had missed Toby's being in love with his girlfriend thing. And it's not like he can blame the guy. Pam was pretty awesome. And it wasn't like Jim was blind. He thought that maybe Toby had a crush on Pam, but he had also thought that Toby was the kind of guy who understood boundaries. Who was his friend. What kind of friend practically assualted his friend's girlfriend in front of him?

The kicker was that it turned out after all this time that Michael might be right about Toby, and what Jim really wanted to know was what kind of a world do they live in if Michael is right?

Seriously.

Jim couldn't stop staring at Toby's hand on Pam's knee. And even now, hours after the fact, he couldn't get the image out of his head. Pam's knee. What.The.Hell? The first thing he had thought when he saw it was, Toby, too?

Well. Huh.

It took him so long to comprehend that Toby was touching Pam. Toby. Instincts told him that he should do something, but honestly, he was just so shocked that by time he had recovered, Toby had removed his hand and was babbling about Costa Rica and jumping the fence. Pam had looked over at him with a surprised look on her face which must have mirrored the look on his.

Seriously, absolutely terrible night.

When the cleaning crew finally opened the locked gates, Pam slipped her hand in his and they climbed into his car. He let everyone else pull out before he put his car in reverse and backed out of the spot.

Halfway home, Pam finally spoke up.

"Well," she said. "We've certainly had better nights." Jim scoffed.

"Yeah, you could say that," he replied. He didn't ask her if she was going home, he just assumed she was coming home with him, because honestly, after the night they had, he wanted her with him. They were quiet the rest of the drive and a few, quiet minutes later he pulled into his driveway. He sighed and dropped his head onto the steering wheel.

"Hey," she said softly. "Let's just go to bed and forget about it, okay?" And he nodded, climbing out and leading the way to his front door.

Pam kicked off her shoes and threw her coat over his chair and turned and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her nose in his chest. He dropped his cheek so that it was resting on top of her curly hair, and he took a deep breath.

"Are we going to talk about Toby?" Pam asked quietly. Her voice was muffled, and Jim sighed.

"What's there to talk about? He touched you, which was...like definitely not cool," Jim replied. Not cool didn't even begin to sum it up.

"I love you," she whispered. "And thank you, for not, I don't know, hitting him or flying off the handle and being all possessive and...whatever." She shrugged and he nodded, because he wanted to hit him and fly off the handle and be all possessive, and it had been shock more than anything which had stopped him, but it was nice to know that somehow he had stumbled onto the right response.

"Does your offer to go to bed and just forget about the whole thing still stand?" He asked.

"Absolutely," she nodded. They changed and climbed into bed, and after Jim had turned off the lights and gathered her in his arms did she speak up again.

"Do you think Meredith's face will be all right?" She asked. "I hit her pretty hard."

"I think she'll live," Jim replied with a light laugh.

"And how about that picture that Michael texted us?"

"Beesly, please," he moaned. "I just got that image out of my mind." Pam giggled.

"Sorry." She was quiet for a second. "So all in all, worst night of work ever?"

"Pretty much," he said.

"Well," she glanced at a clock. "It's a good thing in two minutes it'll be Saturday, and thanks to you we don't have to go into work. I'm think we can just stay in bed all day? Order food in? Just like, not move? Tomorrow's got to be better, right?"

"Oh," Jim grinned. "Absolutely."

It had been a terrible night, but the next day was definitely looking up.

 



sillyrabbit519 is the author of 14 other stories.
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