It was the kind of feeling that starts in the pit of your stomach and spreads through your veins and into your ankles and palms, standing every hair on your skin on end and tingling under your fingernails. Your chest tightens and your knees throb like your heartbeat and your eyes dilate so quickly you can feel your corneas thump. Akin to the feeling that one gets when swooping down a 90 degree angle on a roller coaster at Six Flags, it’s the feeling that steals your breath in an icy gasp and pulls down the fire alarm in your frontal lobe. You feel a cold sweat under your arms and you jostle your shoulders and really apart from the jostling and the pupils no other changes in your physical appearance are visible, but your mind is a stock car and your body is Dale Earnheardt. This feeling is the kind of feeling that you can’t fake or reproduce because it really only does occur when you least expect to remember or realize something. You know what I mean, right?
- But you have to understand that Jim Halpert isn’t at Six Flags right now, nor is he secretly a NASCAR phenomenon. Jim Halpert actually realized something, and his hair-raising, breath-taking, cold-sweating moment isn’t even attributed to anything negative or fear-provoking. He’s actually grinning right now. Seriously, hardcore grinning.
- Like an idiot, let me tell you.
- He’s sitting in a booth of a dimly lit Olive Garden, and he has to wiggle his toes and fingers to flick the feeling away, because she’s staring at him with her head tilted like she’s concerned about his sanity (she should be, honestly) so he rearranges his facial features in what he hopes is an inconspicuous manner but apparently it’s not, because as soon as he glances down at the stark white napkin contrasting against the khaki of his pants she says with a hint of dry wit in her entirely female whisper,
- “What?”
- “What what?” he teases uneasily, and he’s thinking that Come on, he’s such a better liar than this. She raises one eyebrow (he’s always wanted to be able to do that) and smiles at him, close-lipped and challenging and he wants to rub circles over her pink cheeks.
- “Why are you smiling like that?” she says slowly, raising her glass of the house Merlot to her already stained lips. Those perfect, pink, smirking lips that wants nothing more than to—
- Okay, calm down now. Deep breathes. In, out, in…oh, hell. He’s such a fucking dork.
- “You’re going to think I am the biggest dork.” He says shaking his head and peeking up at her under raised eyebrows. She’s instantly shaking her head, curls bouncing on her exposed shoulders as she tips the wine glass away from her mouth.
- “Impossible. There are dorks much bigger than you, Jim Halpert.” She challenges.
- “Who comes to mind then?” he wonder aloud, stroking his chin with thumb and forefinger. He’d much rather be stroking something else with his thumb and forefinger right now, like—
- Again, a little too carried away. Let’s take it down a notch, shall we?
- “Easy,” she finally sets her wine glass down, folding her arms on the table and leaning over on them, giving him a fantastic view of her—hey! “Dwight. Andy. Jackie Chan. Seth Green…my list is extensive, should I continue?”
- “No, no, I get it. I’m pretty much the epitome of cool. I’m Brad Pitt and you’re People magazine.” He tosses out and he’d really like to change the subject right about now, hoping she’s forgotten what they were talking about in the first pla—
- “What were we talking about in the first place?” she asks absent-mindedly and he thinks maybe she can read his mind or they’re connected telepathically or something.
- “I don’t remember eith—“
- “Oh right! Why would you consider yourself to be the biggest dork in the first case, and why are you still smiling like that?”
- Christ. He might as well just tell her. Like, maybe if he starts being honest then the floodgates will open and they can get past the awkward, “so-what’s-up-with-your-ex?” conversation.
- “Um, I don’t know. It’s just like, I can’t believe I’m sitting here…at Olive Garden...” He pushes forward the sentence like he’s giving birth to it. Which, ew, but still.
- “As opposed to what? Like Ruby Tuesdays or something? Is Olive Garden not a frequented “hang-out” for Jim Halpert?”
- “No,it’s not. Chili’s is my usual. They all know my name there. Then again, they all know your’s, too, so…”
- “Touché. Okay, you win. I can’t believe we’re at Olive Garden either.” She sighs dramatically and looks at him expectantly, because his bewilderment with their dining selection can not be what he meant to say. He chuckles and leans forward a little, running his finger disjointedly around his wine glass. He’s staring down at his finger and so is she because oh my god.
- “No, it’s like, I can’t believe I’m here at Olive Garden,” he glances up and gives her an accommodating look, “with you.”
- Pam’s sure she’s blushing so hard that her whole hair is pink, so she takes another swig of wine and now their both blushing and drinking and smiling like idiots and all Jim really wants to do is take her back to his apartment and taste the wine on her lips, her tongue, her teeth.
- “Oh no, trust me, I’m literally just waiting for an alarm clock to go off and to wake up because this is—“ Pam is abruptly cut off by the arrival of their waiter with salad, breadsticks, and a note pad, quickly jotting down their orders with the pen behind his ear. Shrimp primavera for her, eggplant parmesan for him.
- “Okay, keep going.” Jim says as he tossed the salad. Her eyes are fixated on his wrists for what seems like ten minutes, but in reality is probably only about 15 seconds.
- “Uh yeah, no, I agree. It’s…this is crazy, being here at Olive Garden…with you. Like it’s blowing my mind and kicking my ass all at the same time…” they meet each other’s eyes and his are wide his mouth is dropped open but slightly smirking and she giggles and shakes her head like, “Okay, that was…innately sexual but yeah. Still…” and he thinks she’s perfect and he should have never left her.
- Much later they are finally at her apartment door and the moment is charged, but he knows her and he knows them and he will not wake up in this apartment tomorrow. But she’s doing that thing when girls look up at you from underneath their eyelashes and it’s so unbelievably perfect that he has to fold his palm underneath her chin and tip it towards his. She exhales as their lips touch and he kind of rests his mouth against hers, giving her the chance to turn around and shut the door in his face. Instead, to Jim’s blissful enjoyment, she meets him the rest of the way and she’s so soft, so soft, under his mouth and his tongue and she tastes like red wine and strawberry cheesecake and he wants to be here forever.
- He wants to buy this moment and put down a mortgage and just move on in because holy mother of God.
- He’s lightly pressing her against her own front door and it registers through Pam’s mind that there is at least one family with kids that live on her floor, but she can’t bring herself to care because he’s delicious and masculine and she wants him to crawl into her life, like, permanently. His hands are framing her face, calloused fingers brush her shoulders and weave through her hair. She runs her palms up and down his chest, around his waist and over his long, long back, before wrapping them around his neck.
- When his lips leave hers, his eyes open immediately and scan her face but she’s grinning and her eyes are sparkling and he wants to never, ever stop kissing her. He forces himself to be gentlemanly because this is too new (old) to rush into anything. Yet.
- “Um so, dinner tomorrow?” his voice is sort of a gravelly whisper and he knees wobble a little (a lot) and she just nods and, with her arms still around his neck, hugs him to her.
- “It’s good to have you back.” She whispers against his neck. He shivers, grins.
- “Good to be back.”
