Author's Chapter Notes:
This is something a little different, style-wise (for me) -- kind of a brief summary of The Merger through The Job from Jim's POV. Hope you like a side of angst with your angst. But don’t worry -- it's kind of a two-and-a-half shot: one shot of harsh, burn-like-fire whiskey, one shot smooth single malt Scotch, and a chaser of some fruity pink concoction. Hope you like mixing your beverages.
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.
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.
She had a habit of using certain four-letter words with him. Not exactly swear words, but words that made him flinch uncomfortably just the same. Words like “can’t” and “don’t” and occasionally a dreaded six-letter word like “friend”. And she usually uttered them in that darkened parking lot, that Scranton-based branch of hell that seemed determined to make him look like a fool. Tonight it wasn’t “I can’t” or the longer more accusatory “you misinterpreted things” but their flippant step sisters: “that’s totally cool, you can do whatever you want” and “we’re friends, we’ll always be friends.” And he nodded, wondering if he had again read her incorrectly, or if she was just lying, covering her ass. He truly didn’t know anymore. He thought he had understood her months ago on that other night, the warm spring night when she had smiled so openly at him and her eyes across the poker table had clearly told him they were more than just “friends.” He wasn’t as clueless as Michael and he could generally read people – women especially. He could tell when they were interested and when they weren’t and he had been confident that she returned his feelings, or would, if he could just get up the courage to say them out loud. But he had been wrong. In fact, wrong was a woefully inadequate word for what he had been.
Tonight in the parking lot, colder and darker and quieter this time, it was the same. She had given him signals again that day: a warm hug, a flirty smile, an invitation to coffee that seemed like more than an invitation to coffee. And he had been so tempted to grasp onto that gesture, to read into that hug, that smile, to let himself believe again that there was something there. But . . . he just couldn’t be sure anymore. Almost six months had passed since the night he had spelled it all out for her with his words and his fucking girly tears, his heart and his future laid bare and vulnerable on the black asphalt. Six months since he had kissed her and she had kissed him back and then let him walk away without a word. Six months of absolute, impossible to misinterpret silence.
So even though her hug and her smile and her invitation seemed like more, seemed to carry more weight now that she was single, what did he know? And even if they did mean more, well . . . it was too late. Wasn’t it? He had just started dating Karen who was easy to read and didn’t send him mixed, often completely conflicting, messages. Karen had always been crystal clear in her communication at least, and he was moving on. He wasn’t sure why he had felt the need to tell Pam that he was seeing someone. Perhaps it was a final test of sorts. He realized long ago he wasn’t a perfect person and maybe he wanted to see if she’d fight for him just a little, argue her case. Take a chance and kiss him if she couldn’t find the words. But she hadn’t. She had tossed back casual teenage words like “totally” and “cool,” unwilling or unable to say more grown up things like “that’s too bad” or “I’m sorry” or “I missed you”. The lightness of her words and her careful tone of indifference almost forced him backwards, like a punch. It was just the two of them in the dark, trying for honesty, and absolutely nothing had changed. “Totally cool” was as honest as she could get.
“Good to have you back,” she called as he turned back to his car.
“Good to be back,” he mumbled, lying, barely able to act like he was glad to be back. Back to what? Back to pretending and trying to suppress feelings that bubbled up without warning whenever she laughed or teased him or even tucked her hair behind her ears? Back to saying one thing and meaning another? No. It wasn’t good to be back at all.
So he went to Cooper’s and met up with the one who was simple, who said what she meant, whose flirting was obvious and easily interpreted. They lobotomized themselves with beer after their exhausting day and Jim felt his frustration ease into careful indifference. Screw her, his mind instructed him. Screw Pam and her fear and her caution and her willingness to settle for anything other than what she wanted or deserved.
Screw her, it told him again, later, when Karen invited him into her hotel room, clearly and directly, her dark eyes seductively half closed instead of wide and frightened. Her breath quick and shallow from desire, not panic and guilt. And so he had listened to the voice in his head: Screw her. Her skin was darker and her hair smoother and her voice raspier, but her eager touch healed him a little bit. She whispered things in his ear like “I want you” and “that feels good” and her words and her body made him feel both better and worse. Better that someone did want him, that he wasn’t invisible or sexless, that he could make someone feel good, at least. Worse in a way that dulled the better and took away its shine. Worse in a dark, aching way he couldn’t stand thinking about for long.
We’ll always be friends, Pam had said earlier that night.
And he had answered “okay” but the words that rang in his head were: I can’t.
* * * * *
He let his guard down a bit, lulled into a sense of safety by his relationship with Karen. He wondered if this is what Pam had felt like for all those years, her engagement to Roy insulating her from feelings of doubt, keeping her safe from the scariness of starting over and taking risks. Since he was dating Karen, he could convince himself that his interaction with Pam was friendly and safe. He had a girlfriend. Threat averted.
He tried the buddy thing with Pam. Not the buddy thing he had tried before – the buddy with secret feelings thing – but the actual friends route. He asked Pam for advice about Karen, he tolerated Karen and Pam’s new friendship, he tried to move forward in an adult relationship with someone who actually liked him back.
But day by day he felt himself slipping back into old habits. The feelings he was trying so hard to tame resurfaced slowly, like a tide rising. A cell phone in the ceiling, a fake CIA text message, a banjo and The Rainbow Connection. Ridiculous things, really. Things that, if he tried to explain them out loud, sounded juvenile and silly. But they were signs of what had been, what was still. He just knew it. He could feel it.
So when he was forced to be honest, with himself and with Karen, he told the truth. He knew the first step to recovery was admitting you had a problem and he thought that being more open with Karen, telling her even a watered down version of the truth, would perhaps bring them closer, help him get some kind of closure on the Pam issue. Instead it had reminded him of how he and Pam had always been able to communicate without so many words. They had sometimes been able to speak volumes with just the briefest look across a lunchroom table whereas he and Karen spent five late nights talking in circles and saying nothing at all.
And when he felt the warmth of Pam’s gaze on the back of his neck, when he sensed her watching him, or avoiding watching him and Karen in the same way he had once avoided watching her and Roy, he started to believe that maybe he hadn’t misinterpreted things so terribly after all. Because it was there again – that silent language between them. The same haunting vibration that had once built to such a fevered pitch that he had blurted out “I’m in love with you” in a moment of temporary insanity.
But then there was Pam in her brown dress being led out of the reception hall by Roy, hand in hand, and the humming was silenced without warning. In one moment they were back to the beginning, with Roy possessively leaning against Pam’s desk, calling out sickening too-little-too-late “love yous” as he walked away, and that was enough to shore up Jim’s resolve to move on for good. Roy’s indignant display of testosterone and machismo before Dwight pepper sprayed him had just made things worse and Pam’s attempted apology didn’t do much to sway Jim. He was done. Every time he thought he had understood, that he had interpreted things correctly, he was wrong. He was tired of trying.
But then Pam surprised him at the beach with that coal walk and her awkward attempt at honesty and the clearest four words she had ever spoken to him: I wish you would. And then the yogurt lid with its simple, subtle message. Her efforts were timid and careful, just like her, but he didn’t doubt that she was trying. And he couldn’t ignore what that meant even if she couldn’t spell it out for him out loud.
It took a taste of what could be his future – big city, fancy job, sophisticated girlfriend – to make him realize it was now or never to get what he truly wanted: a curly haired receptionist who could rarely say what she meant. So he’d try one more time to say the right thing and they would either speak the same language, or they never would.
When he asked her out, he felt far more brave and confident than he would have imagined because frankly, what else did he have to lose?
And she had said yes. Out loud. Loud and clear. The pressure suddenly felt intense. This was it, what felt like their last chance to get it right. Dinner was slightly awkward, both of them seemingly afraid of saying too much, laughing too little, of being too serious or too flippant, too eager or too nonchalant. And by dessert he felt like maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe they had missed their chance, delayed for too long. Maybe their instincts were wrong and their poor communication skills would be their downfall.
Later that night he stood at her door, jangling his keys in his pocket. Her rejection a year ago still felt so raw that he couldn’t even innocently touch her arm without some clear sign from her first, some signal that he had permission.
Pam was obviously nervous, too, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“Well…,” he breathed, taking his hands out of his pockets and wiping his palms against his jeans.
“Well…,” she repeated. She bit her lip and glanced up at him with raised eyebrows.
He smiled at her and sighed slightly and wondered if it would always be like this between them. He always waiting for a signal, her not sure how to give it. He always trying and failing to interpret her peculiar secret language.
But then she reached out and took his hand, gathering his fingers in hers so that their arms made a sort of bridge between them. She stared down at their hands, her thumb tracing along his knuckles.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words catching in her throat but still fighting their way out, determined to be said.
He swallowed at the rare honesty in her voice, unfamiliar and unsure. He looked down at their joined hands, hers so small and pale next to his.
“Me too,” he whispered back. And he was sorry for not fighting harder, for not being more honest sooner, for expecting too much from her too fast.
She looked up at him, her eyes shining and just . . . open.
“I just…” she trailed off as her free hand found its way to his chest. She watched it rest lightly against his shirt as if it belonged to someone else. As if it had gotten there on its own accord. He wondered if she could feel his heart, now beating furiously.
She seemed to be asking for something, her fingers against his chest trying to relay a message that she couldn’t say out loud. Her lips parted slightly but no words came out. Instead she leaned closer so that her body pressed against his. She pulled his hand, the one she was still holding, around her back, leading him into a tentative one-armed hug. He let his other arm follow and pressed his forehead lightly against hers. He wanted so badly to kiss her, to feel his mouth against hers, his skin against hers, but the voice in his head urged him to be patient, to make sure.
She slipped the hand that was resting against his chest up to the back of his neck to shyly touch his new haircut. Their mouths were so close that he could feel her breath against his lips.
“I've missed you.” She said finally. When she said ‘missed’ her lips brushed against his softly in a sort of accidental kiss. He nodded, his voice stuck in his throat. Her hand slipped from where it had been toying with his hair so that her fingers were on his cheek, his jaw. And then she shifted again and their lips met more purposefully. Gentle and timid at first, but then quickly searching for more contact, more everything.
A quiet moan escaped from Pam’s throat and Jim wanted to smile, wanted to pull back and look in her eyes and see if he saw the same relief he was feeling. But he was afraid if he pulled away he would break the spell, send them spiraling back to the world of miscommunication and doubts, second thoughts and overthinking. It was better this way, without words. Pam’s other hand found its way up to his neck and soon both hands were threading through his hair. Jim took a steadying step and pressed her back against her front door.
They paused, their mouths still against each other, open slightly, moist breath mingling as they tried to decide what to do next.
“Do you want to…” Pam started, her fingers still in his hair, her mouth still just a breath from his.
He wasn’t sure what she was asking, but he certainly wanted. Whatever she was offering, he wanted.
“Yeah,” he answered, the roughness and hunger in his voice surprising even himself.
She blushed and laughed a little, just a puff of air from her mouth against his. She dropped her hands and reached for the door knob.
* * * * *
Later their bodies were hot and strangely familiar against each other and they didn’t speak in words but in touches and kisses and warm, ragged breath against skin. Her hands on his back said you were right and his mouth on her neck said I know. When he found a spot that made her gasp and arch towards him, he understood perfectly. Her fingers trailed along his chest, his ribcage, his hips, replacing her long ago protests with I can, I will, I do.
When he looked down at her, his eyes on hers, she looked away embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze. He turned her face, his thumb pressing her jaw lightly: look. She listened and they paused, breath short, skin hot, bodies restless yet still. He kissed her again, slowly, carefully, eyes open. I love you.
Her fingers traced his eyebrow, down his temple, across the ridge of his cheek and jaw, to the softness of his lips. I love you too.
Then a deeper touch, a deeper language. His body filling hers and their words were moans and sighs and gasps. Always.
And they understood each other perfectly.
Finally.
Chapter End Notes:
Whew. That was exhausting, frankly. Would love to hear thoughts on this, as it was a bit of a departure from my normal stuff (or at least I think it was). Thanks for reading, as always.
wendolf is the author of 13 other stories.
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