“It’s not fair to make you listen to me babble, I know,” Pam’s apologizing, as the elevator moves up, somehow, both agonizingly slowly and far too fast. She laughs a little at herself. “You can’t say anything bad, because then you’re the jerk that complained about my fiancé.”
Jim isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say to that. “Yeah, kind of,” he tries, risking a glance at her face. She’s still smiling, if anything wider than she was before.
Jim and Pam agreed that, once every two weeks at least, it was absolutely necessary to eat lunch at a place outside of Dunder-Mifflin, even if it was McDonald’s and they were stuck sharing greasy, unappetizing fries that would stick to their stomachs. So, they’d save up lunch time for weeks in a row, in the break room with its harsh neons, to escape once in fourteen days or so. Neither of them was willing to own up to the sanity it provided.
That day, in the Glider Diner, when they walked by the glass cases displaying big fat chocolate cakes, Jim tapped the transparent material, making a hollow noise. “Cakes look good,” he muttered absentmindedly.
“Yeah, well, you’re more interested in looking at cakes than Roy,” Pam snapped in response. The look on Jim’s face was something approaching alarm, because she rarely spoke so harshly, even around him. “Sorry,” she responded, softer. He nodded, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a buoy.
“It’s fine,” he dismisses with a half-shrug, hands slipping into his pockets. Pam sketches his long, almost elegant fingers on Post-Its more than she cares to think about.
She knows it’s a dangerous thing, to complain loudly about her fiancé to her best friend who, secretly, makes her ache for a better life than the one she has now, but that’s what the lunch break turns into. She’s been engaged for well over two years, but whenever she brings up the thought of an actual wedding to Roy, he squirms and begs her for more time, like he’s a third grader that doesn’t want to do his homework. Whenever she hears him speak, she has to keep her facial muscles relaxed, so they don’t curl up in weak disdain.
“He’s just being, well, an ass about the whole thing,” she snarls, carefully poking a hole in a cherry tomato so it won’t squirt when she stabs it like she’s so wanting to. Jim isn’t usually so quiet, but he’s just nodding and occasionally cracking a stupid joke or something. She can tell he’s trying to downplay the tension, but the barometer’s cranked so high already.
He’s still just listening to her complaints, all of which constantly dance on the tip of his tongue, as they come back to the Dunder-Mifflin building, Pam’s cheeks flushed almost red in the November cold. It’s like she’s curling in on herself in the passenger seat of his car, her own universe of wild curls Jim, unfortunately, isn’t privy to. He wants to wind his fingers through her hair, wants to see it messy and tangled on his pillow in the mornings. Sometimes, in the sun, her hair flashes like spun gold or flames, and it’s so pathetic, but he’ll feel his chest cavity lurch so palpably.
They stand outside of the Dunder-Mifflin office, delaying the inevitable, for a few more minutes after lunch, Pam still talking, Jim still not daring to say a full sentence for fear that too much will come out. “I’m sorry,” Pam says for what seems like the thousandth time that afternoon, when the conversation’s reached a lull. “It’s just – you’re really the best friend I think I’ve ever had.” She cringes, a little. “That sounds so stupid, but I mean, except for Roy, I don’t talk to anyone from high school, and I was only in college for that year, so...”
“No, it’s fine,” he replies, with a laugh, this heady wave passing over him, both sliding down to his feet and fizzing in his head. “You’re kind of my best friend, too.”
“Awesome!” Pam exclaims. Sometimes, he’ll have to catch his breath, when he makes her happy just like that. He digs a heel into the ground to keep himself from reacting any further when her hand stretches out and takes his. “Thanks. Really.” Each word is its own distinct sentence, and her hand is so warm and small against his rough cold one, his fingers completely taking over hers. “Here –” and without warning, she’s perching up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
Her lips touch his cheek, and the skin’s so unexpectedly soft and even. She feels the strange tattoo of stubble she can’t see against her face, and she swears, she can feel the heat move up, notch by notch, on his face. She tries to resist, then, but she’s spent the past hour and a half complaining almost non-stop about her fiancé, imagining the tendrils of a different world moving out to ensnare her. His lips are a magnet, but when hers touch his, it’s more than a little bit like when she lolls in her sheets on weekend mornings, all smooth and coiled energy.
Jim has no idea what to do with her lips on his, her palm just brushing the front of his new white shirt. They’re ensnared in this trench, but can go no further. Then, too fast, she’s broken the kiss, their mouths making this soft suction noise when she steps back. “Back to work,” she almost whispers, pushing the door to Dunder-Mifflin’s suite open and striding through it, a little too quick, though you’d only notice if you knew Pam’s gait as well as he did.
The rest of the day, he unabashedly keeps glancing at her, mentally sifting through any reasoning possible. She never quite meets his eyes, and he never can rationalize it. At the Dundies, almost a year later, he recognizes, just milliseconds before she reaches him, this certain sheen on her face, of joy and something he wouldn’t dare to call love, the same look from the hallway just outside that frosted glass door. He knows to kiss back. Under the dark lights and amid the hum of computers still on, he knows to kiss first.
Author's Chapter Notes:
"The first time we kissed, even, was right outside..." -Jim, 4.14 "Goodbye Toby"
Chapter End Notes:
I do think Jim was talking about the Casino Night kiss when he said that quote, but, hey, why not.
As ever, I don't own The Office, but oh my God, I actually finished writing something!
As ever, I don't own The Office, but oh my God, I actually finished writing something!
bigtunette is the author of 7 other stories.
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