~~~~~
When I walk through the door on Monday evening, the apartment smells like cumin and bell peppers. Jim steps out of the kitchen to greet me, a Corona in each hand and a big smile on his face. He hands me one, juice from the lime wedge crammed in the bottle's mouth running down the side, kisses me, and says, "Hola."
"Wow. Hola." I step out of my shoes and, at the same time, manage to stuff the lime all the way into the bottle with my thumb. "What's for dinner?" I take a drink.
"Fajitas and fancy rice out of a box. I got home earlier than I thought I would, so," he gestures with his bottle, "I got ambitious. Hope you don't mind."
"Of course not."
We're still new at this, still at the point where meddling in each other's lives and kitchens feels like a good idea until you have to admit what you're doing. It has only been a month and a half since he came back from the city without Karen, and this is the first weekend we've been apart since then. He was in Jersey, attending his cousin's bachelor party and visiting his aunt. We had talked about my going along and spending the evening he was out with her. I've never met her, and I wasn't sure what I'd say to her without Jim there. I couldn't picture it, so I said I'd just stay home for the weekend and he didn't press the issue.
He left work before lunch on Friday, after coming up with some weird excuse to get me alone so he could kiss me goodbye. I tried to scold him and remind him of our rule, but he just said "I love you" and kissed me again, stepping back until I was against the stairwell wall. I pressed a copy of my apartment key into his palm and told him to come to my place when he got back. He said something about momentous occasions while he threaded the key onto the ring that held his others.
I step into my bedroom to change out of my work clothes and Jim heads back into the kitchen. I yell, "How was your weekend?" down the hall.
"Good. Busy."
When I join him, he's adding a foil package of tortillas to the already-set table. "How's your family?"
Another smile, another kiss, and we sit down together. "Everyone's good, except maybe David. I bet he's still hung over."
"What did you do to him?"
"Hey, I was just along for the ride. It was all his best man." He reaches for the sour cream. "He actually did shots out of a stripper's cleavage."
"What?"
"Advances in stripper technology! It's like this test tube they put between their -" his cheeks color, "and kind of shove themselves in your face." He presses his upper arms into his sides and leans forward.
"Wait. Your face or, like, one's face?"
He won't quite look at me. I've only been dating the man for a month or so, but I've been his friend for years, and avoiding eye contact is his big tell. He buys himself some time with a forkful of rice. Still chewing, he says, "Jack Daniels, unfortunately."
I can't quite close my mouth. "You did a shot out of a stripper's cleavage." I keep my voice flat and dry.
"Her name was Lauren and David sent her after me. She's a philosophy major at Rutgers. 19. Nice girl." He shrugs.
"You made friends with the stripper whose cleavage you did a shot out of."
"Like I said, she was nice. I think I talked to her more than I talked to the guys I went with. I like my cousin, but his friends are a little too Jersey for me."
He's trying to change the subject, but I'm not having it. "Please tell me someone got a picture of this."
"No cameras in the club."
"Dammit."
He's finished his first fajita and is constructing another. Casually, he says, "If you'd like, we could dramatically reenact it later."
"Unfortunately, my sequined thong is at the cleaner's."
He smirks at me. "So what did you do this weekend?"
"A shot out of a stripper's cleavage." I concentrate on my plate so I don't laugh.
"Shut up."
I roll my eyes and relent. "I pretty much just stayed in. Watched tv, read, drew a little. I missed you." It's another one of those moments where I wonder if admitting it is too much, but I say it, anyway.
"I missed you, too." The only sounds are the slosh of the beer in the bottom of his bottle and the scrape of my fork before he adds, "Carla says hi, by the way."
"I hope she wasn't offended that I didn't come."
"No. She thinks you're shy." He tries to say 'shy" with a Jersey accent, but it doesn't come out quite right.
"A little, maybe. I just didn't know what to say to her."
"Oh, God. She'd do all the talking, show you baby pictures, humiliate me while I wasn't there to defend myself."
"I probably should have gone, then."
He made the meal, so I clear the table before joining him on the couch. We watch tv and play with each others' hands and, eventually, just sitting there turns into kissing, and kissing turns into him pressing me back onto the couch cushions and giving me one of his looks where everything he's thinking and wanting is right on his face. We still have to sneak up on sex about half of the time. His being away for a couple of days seems to have given a bit of our awkwardness a chance to come back, that funny we-really-do-this-together feeling. He's on top of me, up on his elbows, and holding my face lightly with both hands while we kiss. I can feel how hard he is, so I reach for the button on his jeans, wanting to touch him. I'm pulling his zipper down when he stops me. "Hey, are you -"
I'm confused for a second, hazy from his kisses and my plans, before I figure out how to complete his sentence. "Oh, no. It hasn't come yet."
Like digging around in each other's kitchens and copping to how hard three and a half days apart was, biological reality is still new, too. Thanks to Dwight's freaky little chart, I'm pretty sure that, if he was paying attention, Jim has been aware of when I get my period for quite a while. But the first time I got it when we were dating, two weeks in, he spent fifteen minutes or pressing me for information before taking me out to get me a milkshake and then using his big, lovely, warm hands like heating pads between my hipbones while I sat between his legs and leaned against his chest. It felt so good it brought tears to my eyes.
He pulls his head a little further away. "I thought it was supposed to be this weekend."
I shrug and finish unzipping his jeans. "A couple of days off is no big deal. It's not unusual for me."
"You sure?" There's a small crease between his brows.
I'm sliding my hand into his jeans and down the front of his boxer shorts, which makes him a teeny bit crosseyed for a second. He twitches against my palm and I smile. "I am totally sure. And you're talking too much."
We end up making love on the couch, slow and clumsy and holding onto each other more than normal (I love, by the way, that we have a "normal"), because the cushions aren't cooperating and my leg keeps slipping off, but it feels too good to stop long enough to move. And, anyway, he looks so beautiful and distracted that I don't want to suggest it. I stare at him, touching his hair and his cheek, and he smiles at me and lightly bites the end of my nose. I swallow my giggle when he alters the angle of my hips with a less-than-gentle push of his pelvis. I think he says "aha" under his breath, but he's suddenly got his hand between us, making soft circles with his thumb, and I'm having a very hard time concentrating on anything else. We say "You feel so good" at the same time, and I think about calling jinx. He's got me trapped under the weight of this dragging pace he's found and I can't speak voluntarily while he's carefully adding to the warm, soft roundness that's building below my belly button. He abruptly feels a little deeper, a little larger and that roundness pops like a water balloon, sliding everywhere under my skin. I hear myself make a loud, happy noise.
Before I'm completely back, I'm pushing up on his chest and half-leading, half-dragging him down to the floor with me. I grab a pillow for his head and straddle his hips, sliding him back inside of me. It changes the angle and the way that he breathes. I come again, using my own hand, trying not to be self-conscious about the view he must have. His wide eyes tell me that I shouldn't worry about it too much. I know he's close when he grabs my hips, holding me down while he presses up, chasing the sensation. He says "Oh my-," his back arches, and his eyes go blank for a second. A few seconds later, he rubs his face with his hand, his eyes focusing again, and says "I really did miss you." He pulls me down into his arms.
I untangle our limbs and help him up from the floor. He kisses my back and touches my hip and I wobble to the bathroom. I clean myself up and, even though I was expecting it, there's no blood on the washcloth. He's waiting for me in bed. I don't mention it and he doesn't ask.
~~~~~
Story Notes:
I've been following wendolf's new one, Philly Jim, and she wrote something in response to one of my reviews that I'd like to note here. "I just never saw them deal with all that season 3 hurt... And if they never dealt with with the hurt/guilt/confusion/etc. up front, out loud . . . that could lead to some serious sh*t down the road (i.e. this story)." I agree completely and I'm kinda tickled that she and I are dealing with the same problem, but in very, very different ways. Since things seem to be working out for them, I'm going to go ahead and assume there was some sort of tipping point. Let's play around with the possibilities, shall we?
Author's Chapter Notes:
The setup. Pam 1st person POV, because I'm practicing for something a bit more ambitious (read: foolhardy). Does it sound enough like her?
Chapter End Notes:
Next up: Jim gets to talk. Because he's a pain to write and I'm a masochist.
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.
