A/N: Nancy, you are one of my favorite people in this fandom. And that includes Jim and Pam. ;) You are such a great fan for all of the authors here. I'm so glad that VB came up with this, because you deserve a lot of recognition on the archive, even if you don't have a story to your name. Reviews always keep me writing, and yours are some of my favorite to get. You make the craft of it fun and some of your reviews have made my day, really. You're a blast to get to know and talk to, and I enjoy our regular little chats. You're all kinds of great, woman, and I hope your birthday is no different. Happy birthday! -- Kate
Disclaimer: Not my toys.
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My first sense of anything in the world is rolling over and feeling instantly cold. And then this headache like a balloon full of cement inflating against the walls of my skull. The room is too bright and the rolling pain in my head booms against my temples. I cover my face with my palm, push my tongue out of my dry mouth to lick my lips (like sandpaper, Jesus Christ) and wish it was pitch black in here.
I reach down to cover up myself with the blanket, wondering why it's so cool, and my wrist brushes bare skin. The hell? I open one eye -- hurts too much -- and peer down.
I'm definitely naked from the waist down. Oh, and all the way up. So. Just naked.
Seriously, when is the last time I've slept naked? Blurry thoughts are in my head like a dragging train, no logic or memory following any of them. I simply need to cover myself up. I reach for the sheet and tug. And there's resistance.
I flop over in bed to see what it's caught on, my headache roughly turning with me, and I recognize her instantly, the back of her head. Soft, messy curls on my gray sheets that I've seen but never here before, and the delicate slope of her side... There's bare shoulders, her bare shoulders, curve of her spine, traces of the bones under her skin.
She's naked. That's her. That's Pam, naked.
One lone thought fights through the thick ache in my head and heads to my mouth in a volume I can't control. "Pam?" It's so loud, and I'm so confused as to why Pam is naked right next to me in my bed that I pull back quickly and drape the comforter over me completely. In the process, she turns around so fast, clearly frightened by my outburst (what the hell is going on?) and fits the sheet around her tightly to cover everything from just under her collarbone down.
"You scared the hell out of me," she says quietly, holding the sheet together on one side in a fist, while her other hand combs at her hair. It's been so long since I've seen it down, but it's not what I'm thinking about because everything about this, I just don't get.
"I scared you?" I laugh, but it stops when I look down to make sure I'm not exposed anywhere. Neither of us are, and we both seem very committed to this. "What...?"
Pam takes a deep breath and on the exhale, her face is an apprehensive smile. She has gray smudges around her eyes and her hair is still a hopeless mess. And she's naked. In my bed.
My headache continues, stays constant, but I focus on her instead. I weakly push at my hair, and I feel all the remnants of yesterday's styling products in it.
It rolls back into me like an engine. New hair cut, New York, drive to Scranton, and then it's all Pam up until...
Wow.
"Oh, Pam," I say, my face falling into concern. I feel like such an ass.
She bites her lip, gorgeous, and raises her eyebrows, clutches the sheet tighter.
I feel terrible. "Pam, I don't remember anything from last night."
She holds her breath and regards me, puzzled. Sticks her chin out in a question.
I remember going with her to a restaurant and having drinks. And lots of them. The last thing I can even picture right now is her laughing on the other side of the table, her hand curled with her fingernails between her teeth. That's all I have. That is literally all I know from our first date.
"I don't remember anything after getting to the bar..." I bend my head and bury my face in my hand. Maybe this will be a joke. Maybe I'm not naked with fucking Pam in my bed and I'm still asleep.
Wait, oh my God -- does this mean we slept together? I forgot that, too?
"Pam, I'm so, so sorry. This is..."
She laughs and it's out of context. I snap my head up and look at her, and she's giggling still, her soft shoulders shaking.
"Me, either," she says, shrugging. "Wow."
"Really?" I ask immediately, my eyebrows pushed together above my nose. What a story for the grandkids...
She shakes her head slowly back and forth. "I got nothing."
"Oh, God," I sigh, laughing awkwardly. I rake my fingers through my hair again and shake my head. "What the hell did we have last night?" I usually don't drink too much because this tends to happen, so either last night was amazing or really bad. But if neither of us remember, that's a clean slate, right?
"I haven't had anything more than a few beers in... years." She rolls her eyes and bites her lip as she looks up at the ceiling.
They pull up to the restaurant and he's not sure how he isn't shaking yet. He thinks they'll have dinner and talk things over, smooth things out like an iron on wrinkles and go from there. He wants to forgive her and he wants Pam to forgive him. Mutual hurt is basically their only curse, because there aren't unfitting significant others in the way anymore. That's enough to keep him happy for now, so happy that he isn't sure where to start. When he met Karen he knew what to do immediately, how to treat a pretty girl even if she was smarter than the others he'd wooed before. This -- the prettiest one, the best, the smartest -- was another game.
She smiles at him when he makes sure his choice is fine, it's not like they both haven't been here before (together and separately) and it's not like there's a hundred other places for them to go in Scranton. But neither of them complain much, and he's really just aching for a table, a plate of food, and her on the other side of it all.
They order a big meal, one with appetizers and entrees and dessert and drinks in-between. It's been so long since Pam has done that, she can't just stuff herself full anymore without feeling self-conscious, and Jim says he's lived off of a loaf of bread, lunch meat and boxed freezer meals for the past few months anyway. They have enough fun ordering things from the menu, trying whatever they want and making these stupid little choices together, grabbing food from each other's plates. The drinks loosen them up a little until Pam switches to water because she can't drink more than three glasses of these girly-looking specialties without feeling like falling over in a fit of giggles at everything he says.
Things only get serious for about fifteen minutes, while he explains that he broke up with Karen and it was for her.
"That has to be clear," he says, using the end of his straw to drag his napkin in a circle. He sticks it back in the empty glass and stills his hands, wipes them on his pants, picks apart a roll. Restless. "I want this to work and I think it probably can... now. We don't have anything in the way, right?"
She feels the confidence she's been working on for months bubble up like it's headed for the stage, pulling the curtain back like it's her time. Feet skipping across coals. It works now. "Just this... really, really awkward conversation, I think."
She grins slowly because he looks like he needs the help, just a push. He's had to be so conscious and wary for years; she wants to feel him unwind. Her smile makes him stop his nervous fidgeting and smirk back at her.
"Is this going to require, like, massive amounts of booze?" He says, his expression pure excitement. He looks up in the general direction of the bar and holds his hand in the air, to no one in particular. "Waiter!"
Pam shushes him as she laughs, feeling weightless and feeling like having fun. She has to look at where his elbow rests on the table, focus on it and reach all the way over to shove at him. Tipsy's a good word for this. "Jim!"
He pulls his hand back and grins at her, and she likes this. She really likes this. She can see this happening all the time. Having her friend back and being the only girl in his life.
They're just smiling at each other, the world around them clouding up and the sounds massing together, when she spots a group of guys down on one side of the bar counting to three and holding amber-colored shot glasses in the air.
Pam turns back to him and nods at the guys. Jim looks back.
"We should do shots," she says, nodding with mock-confidence. The last time she attempted to do a shot, it was embarrassing. Like, the liquid ended up somewhere in her sinuses and caused a sneezing fit.
Jim widens his eyes. "What?"
She shrugs and clears her throat. "You know how there's all those weird names for shots that you've never tried... Let's just take turns naming them and we have to take them. No chickening out. Otherwise... you lose."
"Lose what?"
"The... game." She nods confidently and suddenly bursts out laughing. Jim seems taken aback by this. Okay, so she's a little bit further down the line than he is at this point. That can change. She takes a long sip of her water.
She's smacking her lips when he nods. "Okay. Let's do it. This game won't last for long though because I know you can't take a shot to save your life. You told me that."
"I know, I was terrible in college," she says absently, beginning to throw all of her trash on their empty plates and cleaning up the table.
"Are you clearing the playing field?" he asks, tossing straw wrappers and napkins and stacking the plates.
They're finished with a pile of garbage between them when she takes a deep breath. "Let's do something easy first... Cherry bombs."
"Let's do it," he says easily, remembering everything that her smile has made him do in the past few years.
"There were shots," I say, nodding, staring into space. "I know that."
"Yep," she confirms.
It's silent, and I know maybe I shouldn't... Maybe I should just assume. But I kind of have to know either way.
"Did we...?" I slide my finger back and forth between us on the mattress.
She looks perplexed again and then her face flushes completely pink and she grits her teeth. "Uh..." She stretches her neck to look over her shoulder -- gorgeous -- and points a finger at the floor below her. "I think so."
I look at her briefly, tighten the comforter around my body and kneel forward to see what she's referring to on her side.
And that's a used condom. In all its glory. On the hardwood floor.
I stare at it, gaping and shaking my head. "Oh my God, Pam, that's so disgusting. I'm so sorry." I look up at her and she's biting her lip. She won't look at me, but she's smiling. So wrong. "Oh my God, that's so gross. That's..."
"Yeah, that's disgusting," she laughs, and I feel her breathe on my shoulder. Now, I know I'll never forget that little whisper of air against my bare skin, so how in the hell did I forget sleeping with her? Which, I'm pretty sure, was on my list of things to do before I die? Every inch of her is perfect, and maybe I got to see everything she would let me last night, and I don't remember any of it?
I back up suddenly, almost not feeling like I'm worth all of that, and catch the sight of a black bra hanging from the lamp next to my bed. God, do I want to take a picture of that. I really want her to lay down with me right here. My head hurts and apparently I have no recollection of our first date. I want to sit here and put the pieces back together with her, fully-clothed and together.
I don't feel like such a jackass since she doesn't remember a thing either, but I don't want that memory gone forever. May seventeenth could've been the best day of my life, for all I know -- and I'm sure it was -- and it's just totally... gone --
Hey. Yesterday was May seventeenth.
"Hey," I say, an epiphany. "Happy birthday."
She smiles big, this pretty smile without her teeth showing. It makes her cheeks shine and stand out. "Thank you."
I contemplate just about everything about this next move, and it seems like an okay idea. Plus, I kind of need it. I still need to make sure she's real. I lean across the space between us, careful not to knock my knees against hers or kneel on her fingertips, and press my dry lips onto her cheek.
When I pull away, her eyes drift open. I grin at her and stay close before shrugging, glancing to the side and kissing her other cheek. She hums something like a laugh and bites her lip.
"Thank you," she says again.
Jim and Pam are both pretty much there, a history of small glassware between them. Pam arranges hers in color groups according to the remnants in each glass. It's actually really pretty, or maybe he's just drunk.
"I'm about to do something really immature," he warns her, glancing down at her and shrugging animatedly.
She giggles, drunk all over, and nods.
The waitress is a good sport, but Jim knows she'd rather not be serving them tonight, maybe.
"Can we have a couple of blow jobs?"
"Ew!" Pam erupts, glorious smile on her face as she reaches across the table and swats at him. The waitress is already gone with the order, hardly amused but keeping a friendly smile on her face.
Jim holds his hands up and sputters another laugh while Pam shakes her head. "What's even in that?"
"I don't know," he says, waving his hand in the direction of the bar. "Amaretto and something else. Mark makes them just so he can put them on the counter when he's drunk and say, 'Hey, Steph, will you give me a blow job? Relax, they're in the kitchen!' to his girlfriend. Thank God she's a good sport. The man deserves to be single."
He's drunk, he knows this because he feels like kissing her every time she laughs. Not like normal kissing. Like, using his hand to wipe every shot glass left on the table off of the table (and his double vision indicates there are many) and just... picking her up and setting her on the table and lying on top of her and kissing her until neither of them can breathe. It makes him warm to even think about it.
Pam rolls her eyes and the waitress brings them their shots. She sets them down quickly and gets out of there, and Pam knows it's because she's anticipating another bad joke. It's funny, because she knows Jim's embarrassed with the one that he already made, but the only thought in her head now is the glass suddenly against her palm and Jim's waiting eyes.
"On three this time," he warns, tipping his head down. "Because you counted to six for some reason last time...?"
She snorts, and it's totally unladylike and maybe embarrassing for her, but Jim knows he's fucked up and totally in love with her. More than ever.
"You know," I say, thumping my palm against my thigh. "I got you a birthday present! I just didn't give it to you because... Well, I didn't know if I'd be back or whatever --"
"Right," she says, nodding and smiling.
I squint at her. Again. "What? Did I mention it last night or something? Did I already tell you what it was?"
"No, no," she insists, shaking her head. "At least, um, I don't think so. What is it?"
I smile crookedly and nod. "Let's get dressed and I'll show you. I mean, Jesus, maybe I'll buy you breakfast like a proper morning after."
Pam blushes and sits patiently. " 'Kay."
I nod again. "Well... go."
She balks and shakes her head fiercely. "Ha. I'm not getting up first! I'm not... wearing anything."
"I know, I can see through that sheet."
I laugh as she scrambles to cover up her chest with her free arm. "What?"
"I'm kidding, relax," I say. "Besides, I've already seen you naked, apparently. So. Give it up." I'm not quite confident enough to pull this off, but for some reason, the words just keep falling out of my mouth. And my cheeks burn, so I'm sure she's not convinced, anyway.
"Yeah and you don't even remember what it looks like, so, no, absolutely not." She smiles and it's almost like she's aiming to be sexy. The way her eyebrows arch and her eyes soften. I've never seen her with that kind of attitude. It's great.
"I'm trying to be a gentleman and let you use the bathroom first, Beesly."
I bow my head and cover my eyes with my hand.
"You're not going to look, right?" she says, unsteady.
I meet her eyes quickly. "I'm not going to look," I say softly, shaking my head. "I promise. You can back out of the room if you want... Just please take all of your lacy underwear with you, it's distracting."
"Oh God," Pam murmurs. "Okay, put your head down."
There's rustling sheets and then her bare feet slapping against the floor as she picks up all of her clothes. We must have had serious, like, movie star sex. I've never been with a girl who legitimately throws her clothes around the room while they're coming off. It's usually a practiced pile on the floor.
I hear her grimace at the evidence of last night's activities still on the floor and I groan inwardly.
"Don't look," she says quietly.
"I'm not," I promise seriously.
The door clicks closed a moment later and I look up; she's gone. I hear running water in the bathroom. I start picking up my clothes, running them over to the hamper and tossing everything inside. I grab a Kleenex and pick up the condom off the floor -- maybe I should have offered to get up first so she wouldn't have had to step around that -- and drop it into the trash. I throw on some new clothes, some comfortable things to accommodate the stretching hangover. Making the bed takes about five minutes; the fitted sheet is pulled away from the top two corners and there are pillowcases on the floor. So. Okay. I had the best sex of my life with the most amazing woman on the planet for the first fucking time and I remember nothing and the evidence is just throwing itself at me.
Damn it.
I hear her start running the shower, so I lay back on the bed and clothes my eyes. I really just want to remember anything from last night. I want to be able to talk about our first date... Hell, maybe I won't even get to. Maybe it didn't go so well and we'll have another one today and it'll just be a repeat. Maybe we only had sex because we were drunk and right there.
I shake that out of my head. I don't think I could do that, no matter how drunk I was. I never got drunk and had a one night stand in college or any time after or before, like most of the other guys back then, so why would I start now? With her? No. I don't think it was like that. It must have gone really well. Right?
I don't like that I don't know anything about our first date. No memories at all. I know where we went. I don't even know how we got home. I wouldn't drive that wasted. I don't remember kissing her...
God, I don't remember our first actual kiss? Or any of the ones after that? However many we had?
I lie there and keep my eyes closed and start to get really down about it, just lying there with my arm over my eyes for a long time. Eventually, Pam wakes me up when she walks in. Her hair is curly, dark and wet on her shoulders. She ruffles it lightly with her fingers and comes to sit next to me.
"Where's my birthday present?" She asks, her face looming over mine, just smiling.
I cover my face with my hand and sit up slowly. The headache starts to ebb away but I'm still sore. "So greedy. Can I take a shower first?"
She whines, "Aw, come on. I'm in my old clothes from yesterday, I didn't get to change! And I'm so hungry."
I scrunch my nose at her, suddenly tired and still feeling a little pessimistic about last night. But she's adorable. "Where do you want to go?"
"You choose."
"It's your birthday," I laugh, poking her knee through her jeans. "And I chose last night."
"That's right, you did," she says gently, looking up at me through her lashes. "Do you remember which restaurant it was?"
"Well, I wasn't trashed when I got there," I say, looking away and tracing her name on the comforter. "Are you upset because I don't remember anything? Honestly?"
"No," she says, slowly tilting her head. "Let's go to Cugino's."
"For breakfast?"
"It's one," she says with a laugh, nodding at the alarm clock on my nightstand.
"What? What the hell?" I squint outside and grab my phone. Three texts and a missed call.
Looks like I missed a call from my mom, and have two texts from Mark and one from a guy I haven't seen since high school, Jeff.
we'll have to meet at the park again soon! good to see you again don't forget to tell mark hey. your girlfriend's cute, bring her too ;)
Um, okay.
I don't show that to her because she's standing up and smoothing her hands over her jeans. It looks familiar. I think it happened last night. There, I think bitterly. There's my memories if this all works out. Mommy wiped her hands on her jeans all night, that's how I knew she was the one.
Pam wipes the palms of her hands on her jeans when she stands up. She wobbles a bit and Jim stands to catch her, and he does, but bumps his hip into the table in the process.
"Shit," he murmurs, rubbing the sore spot. "Did you see that?"
"Everyone did," she says quietly into his ear over the roar of the restaurant.
He's past drunk now. He's sure he won't remember a thing in the morning. Their shot glasses have been picked up, most likely washed and reused by now, and they've talked about everything. Roy, squirrels, Michael, the shitty copier, whether or not it snows in Texas, Karen, who has the bigger pile of laundry to do at home, what wearing heels all night really felt like, freedom fries, alcohol...
No, really, they've talked about everything. She keeps stretching out across the table and laying her flushed cheeks against her arms, looking up to talk to him. He guesses that they're kind of past the socially acceptable drunk and just keeping it hidden really, really well. He feels like instead of kissing the hell out of her on this sticky table, he'd rather just pull her into his arms and lean against this wall and close his eyes. Feel her whole entire blushing existence next to him.
He loves her. Wholly. Like, he can't see straight right now because his senses can only focus on one thing at a time and they all want him to tell her that instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing right now. He just wants to tell her that a million times.
"I got you a birthday present," he slurs as she picks up her glass of water to take a drink before they leave.
She smiles instantly around her straw. "Where is it?" She sets the glass down and looks at his pockets expectantly.
"Oh, well, it's at home," he nods. "But when... When I didn't know if I was coming to be going back --"
"Aw, you can't talk," she says kindly and starts giggling, in this silent way that takes over her shoulders.
"Going to be coming back," he states and looks at her through heavy lids. She swims in his vision when she nods. "That's what I said." She closes her eyes and shrugs, waits for him to continue. "But, anyways, I have it at home and now I can give it to you one day. But it's not midnight yet. So. No."
Instead of going on, they grin at each other slow and sloppy and walk out to wait for the cab he'd called ten minutes ago. He thinks it would be easier to walk if they had each other to hold onto but even when he's filled to the gills with things like Blow Jobs and Lemon Drops and the Three Wisemen (the one that lost Pam the game), he still isn't bold enough to reach out and grab her hand. He considers this.
"Have you liked me for a long time?" she asks, suddenly slumping against the brick wall and facing him, bathed orange light. The lamp buzzes above her.
He looks at her seriously. He knows this moment weighs more than he realizes right now, and he knows he shouldn't just speak every single thought that's in his head. But he really, really wants to. He kind of wants to tell her... everything. Because when he was driving back to Scranton earlier today, he was imagining what the course of action would be if she so much as said yes. How patient he could be dating her, and following all the right steps, eventually telling her how he really felt --
"Yeah," he says, nodding heavily and leaning against the wall on her left side. His forehead feels the heat from the light there. "Yeah. I have."
She nods. "Me, too, you know."
They start staring at each other, the way that makes the air vibrate between them and the rest of the world stand still. He's not even thinking about the cab that should be here in seconds. Because she looks up at him with her eyes, easy and relaxed with their drinks and he watches her blink because he can and he wants to and for once, he knows for sure they want the same thing.
"You..." She licks her lips, looks dizzy. "You never kiss me when I think you're going to."
This shakes him out of his haze. He tosses his head to the side, squints at her. It almost makes him lose his balance, the way he moves, and the way she mentions a kiss. It's impending, now. "What?"
She scrunches her nose and shakes her head. "You never do. Sometimes you look at me like you're going to kiss me and then... Then you just don't. And so I never know."
"Never know what?" he asks, trying to be careless, looking around the parking lot wildly until he sees only her again.
"How you kiss!" she says loudly and laughingly, shrugging enough to glide down the wall a little. He hears her shoes click when she steadies herself. "I never know what that's like."
"Oh," Jim says quietly, looking down at her with a smirk.
She blinks up at him, slowly. A part of him inside, somewhere, explodes like a new star. "Oh?"
The alcohol swimming in his system has him leaning towards her anyway, this flirtatious bend of his waist he really can't help much. He steadies himself with one hand on the wall until he's turned almost directly in front of her, and Pam closes her eyes with a small smile on her face.
"Oh," Jim repeats, moving closer to her, trapping her close against the bricks. It's unfamiliar how blatantly sexy this all seems. It hasn't been this intense since he was much younger and all of these kinds of things were his first tries. Now it's just intense because it's Pam and they're outside and it's orange everywhere because of the light above them.
"Oh," Pam breathes again, and it all sounds scripted and trite, but he never even entertains the thought because eventually, all he hears besides the rush of one car behind them on the street is the sound of his lips touching hers and pulling away. It's brief, but he doesn't go away. He breathes onto her lips and she doesn't move. She feels it everywhere.
She opens her eyes enough to see his lips still close to her and tilts her head up, chest heaving, and waits for more. He kisses her for real this time, the kind with lips that rest on top and under and over, the kind with tongue that touches corners and deepens movements. She doesn't know where to put her hands so she slides them around his waist, pulling him close. It's a lot of movement, that makes him suddenly reach out and brace himself against the wall. She moans, a delicate noise in the back of her throat.
He has to kiss her, wherever that came from, he needs to find that place and put his lips on it. It's all he knows just then, as Pam swipes her tongue across his bottom lip and sighs.
"Here," I say, handing her her gift wrapped in the Target bag. Nice, I know. But it's mostly because I hadn't planned on giving it to her at all, but things have drastically changed, so.
"Lovely," she says simply, slowly unwinding the bag around the figurine inside. She opens it fully and I smile when she does. "You mean this isn't guarded by, like, laser-detection safety system kind of thing?"
"Guess not," I say with a shrug. "But I'm sure his desk will be surrounded by police tape on Monday. I mean, obviously."
She weighs the bobblehead in her hands, and I can see the cogs in her head turning. She's adorable, brilliant, perfect. She looks so thoughtful. "Gosh, what are we going to do with this, Jim?"
I laugh at her sincerity. "I don't know! I mean, have we done a ransom note before?"
"I don't know..." Pam trails off and keeps her chin down as she grins at me. "It's awesome, though. I love my birthday present. Thank you."
I snort. "You're welcome. Seriously, we've got to figure out a plan."
She tapes the little moonfaced character against her chin, then starts. "Oh, my God. Let's not hold him hostage. Let's... Let's have little Dwight run away by choice. Oh, oh, Jim! Let's take pictures of him all around the city and leave them for Dwight!"
God help me, my heart practically skips a beat. I'm that inspired. "Like, leave him a Polaroid a couple times a week or something?"
"Yes!" She drums her fingers on the table. "Jim, he's going to be like the Travelocity gnome."
"Awesome," I laugh, grinning broadly as our waitress sets our food down in front of us. I'm having a moment where I really just want to throw all of these plates off the table and lay Pam down on top of it instead and just hold her down. Tell her I love her. Kiss her like crazy. I don't know. I shiver and play it off like it's nothing. "You're awesome. Best idea... ever."
She twirls her hand a little and bows her head. "Thank you." She grins, tucking a curl behind her ear and setting out for the parmesan cheese. "Where should we head to first? What does little Dwight feel like seeing today?"
I shrug and laugh at her. "Is this really how we're spending your birthday?"
"This is definitely how we're spending my birthday." She nods and sprinkles the cheese across her fettuccine.
We eat lunch and end up driving around town with bobblehead Dwight and Pam's Polaroid camera that she has in her purse. She said she used to use it for a project a while ago, and was saving the film for a special occasion, since it's so expensive anyway.
Pam gingerly places the bobblehead on the palm of her hand next to the Coal Mine Tour sign. "Make sure you don't get me in this at all, not even mine hand."
"I won't, I won't," I hold the camera steady and snap a picture of it quickly before I get too shaky. "You're a busy guy today, bobblehead."
"He sure is." She comes back over to me with a smile on her face and takes the blank film from me, shaking it in the breeze.
It slowly appears, and it's the fifth in our collection. There he is. Just another Scranton tourist, too short and too ceramic to join the coal mine tour.
I laugh and Pam approves.
Across the dashboard of my car (which was retrieved via cab to the restaurant), there are eight pictures by the end of the day. Enough to last us for a while. Maybe once a week is good. Every Friday, Dwight will hear from him.
"I think," Pam starts, as we're eating ice cream later -- the only birthday thing I could think of on the road -- and sitting in my car outside of my apartment, "that we should write a little caption on the bottom of every one of them." She swallows her mouthful and shivers when it goes down her throat. I watch this. "He can be on, like, a self-discovery journey. He could be finding himself. Dwight won't be able to fault anyone for that."
"Ooh, that's good," I agree, dipping my spoon into chocolate and wiping my mouth with my napkin. "In my head, I have this vision of Dwight pinning all of the pictures on a line above his desk --"
Pam smiles around her spoon and giggles. I join in and pretty soon we're just shaking, just smiling at each other and chuckling to ourselves. I imagine last night went pretty well, if today is any indication. The sun is already going down, the day totally having escaped us, and I feel like I've been next to her for years. Or maybe, just minutes. We've spent the entire day together, and I'm not ready to get rid of her at all.
She balls up her napkin while her laughter fades into a soft different kind, and puts the wad into her bowl. She takes a deep breath, and in one smooth movement, she sets her bowl and mine onto the dashboard, turns, leans over the gearshift and takes my face into her cool hands. Kisses me, and I forget none of it.
They're in the back of the cab, streetlights illuminating their faces only once in a while. He keeps his hand over hers and watches her while she watches the streets pass by the windows. He only gives them one address, and not because he's that kind of guy, but because all he knows is that he doesn't want the night to end and the only way for that to happen is for them to be in the same place and the only address -- out of the two of theirs -- that he has memorized is his, obviously.
His head flops against her shoulder. When he closes his eyes, Pam looks down at him and smiles, bends to press her lips to his forehead. He's warm and relaxed, sated against her body, curled over and against her. She feels her own eyes grow heavy as she keeps her lips there.
"Can I tell you something?" Jim asks quietly as the taxi rounds a corner sharply.
"Yeah," Pam says, barely moving her lips.
When she kisses him there again, he swallows and opens his eyes. He watches her shadow on the seat in front of him, the occasional flicker of it. "I feel like I'm going to forget this whole night. I haven't drank this much in a long time."
"You won't forget it," she laughs in a hush.
"I might," he says in a low voice, all rocks and sand. "And you might, too, but I have to tell you this anyway."
"What?" Pam asks in a different voice, feeling like she should be paying attention.
He shifts against her so he can put his chin on her shoulder and look at her closely. She looks afraid, like he's going to say something to break all of this into a hundred pieces.
"I love you," he slurs, bowing his head into her neck and under her ear. His eyes flutter closed again and she quickens her breathing. "I love you so much, and I don't remember any time when I didn't. Like, I love you when you're mad at me and when I was dating her, I loved you. I love you, not past tense. I think about you all the time. I've thought about you all day."
He presses his face closer, into her shoulder and breathes hotly against her skin. They both shift on the leather when the car takes another corner. "I love you, just like I told you last year and it still won't go away and I'm so glad because I want you to stay right here and I'll just... I'll just keep it there. It'll just stay there because I think it's supposed to." He shakes his head and swallows, losing his words to the confusion of all of the alcohol in his system as Pam slowly circles one arm around him. He can hear her heartbeat against his forehead, where it meets her pulse in her neck. "I really love you. I want to love you more than anyone even thinks they can."
He's dizzy and exhausted, drifting back and forth from thinking these thoughts and trying to make his mind form the words. Her hands are suddenly there on his cheeks, holding him like a child until she tips his head back and she kisses him again, slow and soft like pouring water. She kisses him on his mouth and on his cheeks and on his chin until she stops and hugs him so tightly, he feels more Pam than he does leather and polyester around him anymore.
"I love you," she says sweetly into his ear, and it's all she says on the subject, but it's more than he ever thought he would hear, and he burns when he wishes for this to never escape him.
We're tugging on each other, going back and forth over the center of the car, our lips pulling apart and meeting again when we decide it's just not going to work in here. I pull away and swallow audibly, running my hand through my hair and sighing.
She presses one more kiss to my lips and casts her eyes over to the ice cream shop door and squints.
"Hey," she says in a higher voice. "Isn't that the Jeff guy we saw last night?"
I look over, mostly disinterested. And it does look like him, but my head snaps back her way.
"Hey, what --" I narrow my eyes. "How did you know we saw him last night?"
She bites her lip. "Oh. How did you know we saw him?"
I jerk my thumb into the direction of the guy that is most likely Jeff, or his twin. "He sent me a text sometime between last night and when we woke up. How did you know we saw him?"
She bites her lip again. She shrugs.
"I don't get it," I say, shaking my head.
She tilts her head to one side and weaves her fingers together in her lap. "I didn't forget anything about last night. I wasn't as drunk as you were. You were... really, really drunk."
My stomach sinks. "You remember? Everything?"
She nods gently. "Yeah."
My first thought is that I hate this. At least before, when neither of us knew anything, it was more like a mystery than a sad story of alcoholism, pretty much.
"Pam, I never drink that much. Ever." I lower my head. "Wow, I feel like a dick."
"Why?" she laughs, careful smile still on her face. "You had such a rough day. You kept telling me how bad you felt about that day, and then about the whole year... About dumping Karen and coming straight back for me and you apologized for being kind of distant all year..." She shrugs, but I still can't just look up at her. This sucks.
"Pam, I'm sorry," I say quietly. I look up at her, and she just looks so kind. I feel like I took something major away from us. "I didn't want to forget anything about last night --"
"I just didn't want to stop you Jim because you were having fun, and I'd missed you laughing and talking to me so much," she says in one breath, wringing her hands together. "Maybe I should've stopped you at some point, but I was drinking, too and... I don't know. We were both having fun and it's been so long since that's happened..."
She smiles sheepishly up at me and I nod sadly.
"You don't have to be sorry," she says surely, and shakes her head. "It was really, really fun. Last night and today have been, like, the best possible birthday present, ever. Ever. I mean it."
He rolls his eyes. "Oh, God." He looks up at the top of the car. "What did I give you for your birthday? Because I think I remember that."
"You do?" she asks in a high voice, turning towards him. "What did you say? It was pretty bad."
I close my eyes and groan. I'm pretty sure I referred, in some way, to my penis as her birthday present and I don't know why that is the first piece that comes back to me, out of the entire night. "Was it really bad?"
She giggles and touches my hand with her fingertips. "No. It wasn't so bad. 'What do you want for your birthday?' 'You.' 'I think I put your present in my bedroom...'"
"I didn't say that!"
She throws her head back against the headrest. "Something like that. But we laughed it off. You weren't totally serious. It was a while before we actually... you know."
"I really hate that I don't remember that." I close my eyes and sigh loudly. "Was that part awful?"
"No," she says calmly.
"Was it... good?"
"Yes," she says, just the same, turning only her head to look at me, blushing down to the collar of her shirt.
"Oh. Okay." I laugh and scratch at the back of my neck awkwardly, shifting in my seat. "Well. So much for taking things slow."
"Yeah, that's kind of decided for us, isn't it?" She says quietly. "That's okay, though. Maybe we've been taking it slow... for years, you know?"
I shrug. No, it's kind of just sucked for years. Parts of it, anyway. I look over at her and she's smiling at me, encouragingly. She's trying to get me to smile back and I realize that I might as well just do it. Have a good time. This is Pam, who I woke up next to this morning, and I thought that would never happen. And now I'm thinking it'll happen again and again, more times in the near future, and the fact that she's ready for that and wants it maybe as much as I do is enough to make me stop pouting.
"Okay," I say, nodding. "I won't be a downer then."
I smile as she nods and says, "Good," and rubs my shoulder. "Besides, you took like a hundred pictures on your phone of last night. I'm sure some of them will trigger your memory."
"Really? I did?" I gape at her and pull out my phone, quickly finding -- indeed, about a hundred -- new pictures on my phone. "Yep. Shots." She laughs and cuddles into my side to look over them with me.
"That was a Blow Job. That was our first one."
"Oh, our first Blow Job. Very sweet." She punches me in the arm and I laugh. "That's what Mark always makes."
"That's what you told me," she says quietly.
I click the right arrow endlessly, going through pictures of drinks, me with my mouth open in a stupid face as I point to different drinks and people I met -- there's Jeff -- and sometimes it's just random things. Or maybe the inside of my pocket.
"Ha, I like that one," she says softly as I stop on a picture of the two of us. I obviously held the phone out at arm's length to take it and it's blurry and the lighting's weird but it's funny, because I kind of remember taking that one.
"And that is right after I kissed you." I hold the phone carefully, rubbing my thumbs over the keys. "Right?"
"Yeah," she says, turning to look up at me. "Do you remember kissing me?"
I narrow my eyes and think. Maybe I do, a little actually. Kissing her now in my car has kind of brought some of that back. I know that the lighting was obnoxious, orange like it is in the picture, and -- yep -- we're up against a wall. I close my eyes and try to picture it, and while I do that, Pam covers my mouth with hers again, slides her arms around my waist and kisses me. Again.
We keep kissing, the phone folded shut now in the palm of my hand. God, I love her.
We both sigh as we pull apart from each other again, with Pam's fingertips sliding softly to the edges of my shirt, like she's not going to let go. It feels possessive; I love it.
I'm close to her, with my eyes heavy when I ask her, "What should we do for your birthday?" I lick my lips and I'm so close, I nearly catch hers, too. "We've been driving around with a bobblehead and a Polaroid camera all day. I'm the worst friend ever."
We both chuckle at this until she presses another quick kiss to my lips. "You're not. Today has been really fun. And, Jim, I'm really happy... this day has been, like, the perfect way to get rid of a lot of last year."
I must get a sad look at my face, because it's kind of what that makes me feel, but she stops me by shaking her head fiercely.
"No! No, we don't have to do that again," Pam says easily, rubbing a thumb on my cheek. She seems hyper alert of it after a moment and draws her hand back into her lap shyly before she goes on. "We talked, in length, about it all last night, and we both apologized for stuff. I know what you're sorry for, so you don't have to repeat yourself and we don't have to mull over it. And, if you don't remember, I apologized for all of the... I don't know, misinterpretation, time wasted, never getting my act together, making you leave --"
I shake my head at her. "You didn't make me leave. You were engaged and I expected a lot, I think. It sucks, but... well, we both sucked back then, maybe."
She smiles big and says, "That's almost exactly what you said last night... Or something close enough."
I hope these bits and pieces of the night keep coming back to me. "Yeah, I think I remember that now that you say it."
I'm trying to think of more of the night while we sit in silence, and her hand is tracing a circle on her thigh. I absentmindedly wonder if she can feel her fingernail through her jeans. Then I wonder what she would feel if I put my hand there, if she could feel the heat of my palm.
"So," she says, exhaling and surveying the photography in front of us. "You think we have enough for now? It's getting dark."
"Yep, I think so," I decide and start to stack them into a little pile, tucking them away into my glove compartment. "Hey, who carries a Polaroid camera around, by the way?"
She giggles. "Well, I used it for something the other day. I just think it's fun to have Polaroid pictures. Just the way they look and, I don't know. They're just fun."
I nod, and look over at her, just thinking about the way she thinks. Her artistic side that comes out like this, like it's just a secret and it's no big deal. It's effortless for her. I wonder if she thinks in pictures I can't come up with, if her colors are ones that the rest of us don't even know about.
"And we used it last night. Remember?"
I smile wide and shake my head. "We did? What did we do?"
"We just took a bunch of goofy pictures in your bed --"
"Please tell me there are not naked Polaroid pictures of me out there somewhere --"
"No, no," she says, grinning. "Jim, we were, like, lying around in your bed for a long time before we did... anything."
"Really?"
"Yep," she says, looking down and blushing.
"You mean I didn't just pass out right away when we got home?" I ask, my brow raised slightly.
"Nope," she says, biting on her thumbnail and smiling up at me.
They walk into his apartment, and it's not even a question of where they're going. The sloppy kisses ended in the car and instead they walk up to his apartment, Jim thinking aloud of how tired he is and how much he loves her. Pam smiles up the flights of stairs, drunk and trying to pull directions out of Jim. She hasn't been here before.
When he finally fits the key in the lock, he drops everything -- his wallet, his keys, and his shoes -- and takes her by her hand and suggests they lie down. Pam thinks there's probably some kind of lesson from her mother in all of this, but she pushes most of what she knows out of her head and leaves it all up to him. He's enjoying himself.
"It's May eighteenth," Jim says suddenly, turning around, making both of them dizzy. "Happy birthday, Pam."
Her face warms when she smiles up at him. "Thank you."
"Twenty-eight," Jim says, clicking his tongue.
She gives him her best yikes kind of face and nods. "I know. Getting up there. I think it's going to rain, because my hip hurts."
He rolls his eyes as she blinks hers, big and green, his way and it gets quiet between them. They haven't even turned on a light, they're just halfway to his bedroom and stopped in the hallway.
"What did you get me?" Pam says seriously.
He looks down at her unwavering face and considers. "I think I put it in there." She throws her head back and laughs, shoving him a little in the chest, when he points his finger at his bedroom door. He laughs, late in realizing how sleazy it sounded when he actually has that stupid bobblehead in his bedroom, and puts his hands up.
"You're terrible," she says, tugging on his hand. "Let's go lay down. I'm cold and tired... And I can tell you are."
He doesn't do anything but hug her to his side and stumble to his room with her. Before she can climb in he pulls her away, almost roughly because all of his movements are overdone and miscalculated, so she looks at him, perplexed.
"Wait," he says, a rare moment of clarity, even though his words sound like they're coming out through a mouthful of something. "Just... I should probably do this."
She asks him about three times what he's doing, but he can only pull the bed apart or talk to her -- it can't be both at the same time, right now -- and he knows he has to do this because he's not going to fall asleep to beautiful, sweet, love-of-his-life Pam when Karen slept under these sheets days ago. Plus, he knows how Karen smells on his bedding, flowery and stuffy, and he doesn't want to feel that when he's intoxicated and when Pam's there and it's her birthday and she might let him hold her, if he's lucky.
He pushes his armful of bedding into the hamper, tripping over his feet when he uses both palms to stuff it all the way down.
She points toward the hallway. "Are new sheets in the linen closet?" Maybe she understands. He really doesn't feel like explaining that. It's too awkward and it doesn't fit in with their night at all.
"No, they're in here," he says, opening the bottom dresser drawer and pulling out gray sheets. They're softest, anyway. She and Jim make the bed wordlessly, and all she can focus on is the motion of their hands unfolding, spreading, smoothing before the bed looks too good not to collapse into.
She rolls onto it and pulls Jim down with her, so they end up in a heap together, pressed up along side one another. She's had her purse on her shoulder this entire time, so it comes down with a heavy thud next to them.
"Jesus Christ," he murmurs, throwing an arm around her. He likes that all the drinks make him feel like he can fast forward a bit to the super affectionate guy he wanted to eventually be in their relationship, if they would ever have one. He likes feeling this comfortable around her. "What's in the bag?"
She purses her lips in though. "Oh." Her hand retrieves the anchor he thought she would pull out. "Camera."
"Ha, nice," he says, closing his eyes as she watches his face change to something serene. She wonders if he even knows that he's rubbing his thumb back and forth over her bare skin like that, right over the top of her jeans.
Pam cradles the camera in her hands and points it at him, nudging him with her toe so he'll open his eyes.
"Smile."
When we get back to the apartment, having talked about these pictures all the way home -- and Pam admits that maybe she's a little fuzzy on what exactly the pictures were of other than goofy faces -- we're more interested in finding them than doing anything else.
"Where would I have put them?" I ask, lifting up piles of mail on the countertop and shifting the contents of yesterday's paper all around.
"I don't know," Pam calls from the bathroom. She's looking in the bathroom, she'd said, because I was drunk and everywhere in my apartment last night, apparently, before we settled down. "You just said, 'These need to be in a special place, Beesly!' and took off with them."
I stop and roll my eyes at myself. I move towards the linen closet in the hallway as she flicks of the bathroom light, crosses my path and looks in the magazine rack in the living room.
"Wow," I say, embarrassed. "Thanks for even spending the day with me, let alone your birthday."
I run my hands over all the comforters and push them aside, and the top shelf reveals that hidden shoebox that's full of things of her. It was a joint effort, and not by my choice at all, really. When I finally chose to move to Stamford, slow-moving and depressed, my parents were over to talk and pack up things and Mark was weaving through our old duplex, beer in hand and constantly patting me on the back. It was almost worse than the night of the casino fundraiser.
My desk, my room, my shelves were full of these little things that reminded me of her that I'd collected over the years, not even realizing I had a collection until my mom told me I needed to pack it all up if I wanted to save it. Mark is the one who sympathetically handed me a shoebox with a shrug, and my mom is the one who suggested I keep it. So it sits, still, with two different moves behind it now, on top of this shelf because I haven't brought myself to look at any of it since I first put it together. I haven't seen any of the contents since I used my palm to slide them all off the edge of my desk and into the box.
Sure enough, though, when I open it now, for the first time in a year, a bunch of Polaroid’s are scattered there. I close my eyes, laugh and lean against the doorway, testing the weight of the box in my hands.
"Jim," Pam calls and I hear her footsteps getting closer. "This."
I twirl around and she's looking sheepish as she holds up a little note with a yogurt lid attached to it. It's the one she left for me that I found during the interview in New York only yesterday.
It's the most tangible confrontation we have, maybe, because that note combined with David's question is why I'm here right now, why my lips know hers better than anyone else's, and why I'm holding this box of years in my hands.
"That..." I think. "That should go in... here."
I hold it out to her and she doesn't look at the contents, really. She looks confused, arching one eyebrow as she drops the slip of paper among everything else and I nod, slipping the lid over the top again. I nod my head at her and we walk to my room together, flipping on the light and sitting cross-legged across from each other. Everything in the box is dumped between us, and then she knows.
Before we head into the past, though, she holds up one single Polaroid picture from last night. I remember taking this one. In a flash, just like that, it comes back to me. And even if it's the only memory I have that's clear and so obvious, it might be my favorite ever and I even have something to remember it by.
She smiles and places it on her knee as she drags her fingers through the rest of the pile, and we think back together.
She's smiling, something saucy she hasn't ever tried before, and ready to pull off her shirt because they've been alternating between talking and kissing on his bed for an hour and a half, and she wants something else.
When he sees this, he thinks it's almost like he forgot to approach the subject because as drunk and as bold as he thinks he's become, he's still holding back. There are still some places that seem too far and too much and he doesn't want to go anywhere if it ruins, so much as touches what he's had so far.
But she drops the hem of her shirt and reaches for his instead, placing her fingers along the edge of it.
His face gets darker and she nods and they start taking their clothes off. Everything starts moving faster, and Jim thinks it's too blurry and maybe rushed, but even her hands pulling off his shirt feel so good. His body throbs waiting for her, bare and beautiful, resting against him.
The lighting in the room changes and he laughs when he realizes it's because her bra is covering the lamp next to his bed. It's uncharacteristic, he thinks, that his room would even see something this, well, sexy but he likes it. It's something to laugh at and, you know, it's Pam's underwear all over his things, so.
He starts to pick up his speed and get his act together when he figures out that they're actually doing this, that this is where they're actually headed. Plus, Pam hasn't stopped moving since she started.
He rolls himself on top of her, and it's seamless, the way they keep kissing and bumping noses and laughing at themselves just trying to do this. She's naked in his palms as they press into her back, his fingertips overlapping each other. He rests his body weight on his elbows and looks down at her, their stomachs bare against each other, and he breathes, smiles at her through half-open eyes.
She pushes her hair out of her face with her wrist and mirrors his expression, roots around to the side of her while he kisses again.
He's finding her tongue when she takes a picture and he pulls back suddenly.
"Did you just take another picture?"
She nods and crosses her wrists behind his neck to pull him down for another kiss. He complies, and it's soft and wet before he retracts. "You're naked."
She bites her lip. Beautiful. "Well, if anything's in it like that we're throwing it out and tearing it up --"
"...Or keeping it forever," Jim reasons.
She rolls her eyes and waves the film in the air. "No." The picture fades into focus. It's close enough so as not to reveal any of the curves Jim's touching, but they're definitely and obviously naked in this picture. From the collarbone up, they're visible. Pam's hair is soft and swept, Jim's in disarray on his forehead. Pam's eyes are closed, a light smile on her face, while Jim's lips are attached to hers. The hint of the smile on his doesn't escape either of them. Their close proximity in the picture makes them both glow and tingle.
She thinks she'll never forget how she feels right then, cradled in his forearms like this, and if she does, this picture has his fingertips peeking around her shoulders to remind her. She closes her eyes and tosses the picture onto the floor, lets his lips meet the side of her neck.
"Or, maybe we will," she says as he laughs against her skin, and then everything changes. They change, and they change, and they change.
There's paper doves, Polaroid pictures, a deck of cards and sketches of coworkers scattered on the floor with a crash and she tears her lips off of mine to apologize.
"Oops," she says, ducking away to pick it up, "that was me."
I pull her back by her hand. "Leave it," I breathe, fitting my mouth on hers again. We're kissing fully-clothed on top of my sheets, in the same places we were this morning and I wonder how weird it would be if we'd done this all this morning, hadn't re-dated for the entire day. I'm glad we didn't. I'm glad I know this will work. I'm so glad she's here.
When we get to the point, during all this kissing, of taking our clothes off, we both get shy. I touch the sides of her shirt and then put my hands firmly back on her waist, and I can feel her doing the same. I'm not sure if this means she doesn't want to yet, or if she wants to and can't work it out, like me.
"I kind of feel like we should go back to this morning," she says quietly, humming as I trace my tongue down the pulse in her neck. Her hands curl on my chest. "Do this without looking at each other."
I smile, feel my eyes shut tighter as I move my lips over that same pulse point. I have to keep doing it because she keeps gasping when I do, and I love that sound. "With the blankets around us?"
"Yes," she sighs, and lands one palm on the back of my head to guide our mouths back together. We kiss for minutes again until I pull away and echo her words from this morning.
"Don't look," I say with a smile on my face, and undress pretty quickly because she only has her head bowed with her hands over her face and I feel like an eight year-old getting ready for a bath for a moment instead of a grown man. I wrap the discarded comforter around me and sit back on the bed. " 'Kay. Your turn."
She opens her eyes and her face is so pink, that I lean forward and kiss her cheeks. They're warm. "We don't have to do..." is the only thing I can think of, even though I'm almost hurting between my legs and I really hope that we do because I've spent the whole day wondering how I could possibly forget one very important thing about last night, and, seriously, I'm jealous that she remembers it and I don't.
"No, it's not --" Her hands cover her face. "Am I blushing that bad?"
I just smile, shrug and bow my head, cover my eyes with my hands.
She takes longer than I do, and I feel the bed shift with her weight as she sits across from me again.
"Done," she says, and when I look up, her face is tipped into a smile and she's holding her bra over the lamp. She drops it carelessly and bites her lip. "Recreating the mood from last night."
I laugh and lean forward to kiss her again, which is funny because we both have our entire bodies covered and if she's anything like me, it's pretty much the opposite of what I want right now.
Somehow, one of us decides to make this more than just kissing and flips a switch. We start to rub our hands on the bare skin we find, which is harder for me because she has the sheet pulled so tight across her breasts that all I can see is her nipples straining and visible through the fabric. Her hand tucks into a space under the blanket, drags up my shin and finds me in her hand.
I groan and move faster, and I can't hold my blanket around me anymore because I need both hands to touch her. We're kissing feverishly until I drop my blanket around me and push it away. She moans surprise into my mouth and strokes me and it feels like a gust of something blows in through the window, because suddenly, I move up and against her, gathering her in my hands and putting my mouth over her nipple through the sheet, falling back onto the bed with her.
She rests both hands in my hair and watches me suck on her, and my mind is fuzzy. I remember things about last night in a wave, hazy like antiques or brick walls covered in ivy. The way that she was gasping with her lips by my ear, the way she laughed almost when we were finally without clothes and on top of each other, and the way she breathed I love you to me when we were done, kissing my nose.
I pull the sheet down with two fingers and kiss the space between her breasts and weigh them in my hands when I reach up to kiss her again. She sighs and I fit my hand behind her back, smooth on the sheets.
We reach down at the same time to touch each other, smiling awkwardly as we kiss at this, and when we're both feeling each other, it gets harder to concentrate. She runs her thumb over the tip of me and works her hand like she's playing an instrument, forcing the best noises out of me as she moans into the air above us. I start kissing her breasts again and nuzzling the sides of them, and it goes on for long enough before I need to just remember a very solid part of all of this.
When I slide into her, I'm propped up onto one arm and using the other one to figure things out. She watches me until I'm all the way in, and we both groan at the feel of each other. I move slowly at first, because my brain is full of clouds right now, and take it easy so I don't make a complete fool of myself. She's smooth, something I know I'll be thinking about for a long time after this ends.
Her hands clutch my shoulders and she whispers, "Harder." Her ankles hook behind me and I moan when she squeezes. She's so good, every part of her.
Everything about her seems too symbolic when I start to work harder over her. Her voice pours out of her mouth in breathless panting, my name occasionally slipping out when she grips at my arms. We're both frantic and thrusting, and I actually stop for a moment to pull us down in bed because I'm shoving her up towards the headboard with each movement. At one point she curls her neck and rolls her head on the pillow with a deep breath and holds onto my thighs briefly before she grabs the back of her own and bends until her knees are against her chest. Everything shifts and I end up deeper than I was before, and I push further and close my eyes, my hands scrambling to find something of her to hold onto when I let go, because I can remember this now, and I'm sure there were fireworks.
"Oh," she says quietly, and follows it with a moan that wakes up the walls a little bit. I watch her face change silently until she moans again and I quickly spread her legs apart when I thrust against her so I can kiss her while she comes. I keep a hand against her between her legs, and it takes coordination, but I kiss her as she's beautifully distracted by it all and she clenches around me, and I don't even try, I just let it go.
I make a sound that's near animalistic into the hollow of her throat and she immediately pulls her hands up to wrap them around me, holding me close to her. My first thoughts are this is nothing, nothing like anyone else I've ever been with and there's no way that all of last night compares with today, and all I need is to bury myself in her and all over her.
"Mmm," she hums against me.
I think of last night again and shrink back to look at her. She watches me blink, hazy, until I breathe out I love you and kiss the tip of her nose. We smile together as she realizes.
"You remember that?"
"Mmhmm," I say as I dip my head and kiss her long and slow, keeping my fingertips at her chin. And, I kind of feel like an alcoholic maybe (this seems more appropriate for early twenties than late twenties), having to piece all of the memories back together simply because I got so fucking drunk on my first date with the girl, but she's a good sport and she's wonderful and gorgeous and smiling at me.
"Do you think I'm prettier than Karen?" she asks, naked against his form in bed, with her hand curled around him.
"Yep."
"That sounds like a boyfriend answer," she drones, her eyes drifting shut. Jim has just dropped the condom they used over the side of the bed, and maybe it's been on him for too long because it's been at least half an hour since they've had sex, and he's wiping his hand on his thigh because it feels sticky, and it's probably the stupidest thing he can do (maybe all of these things, actually), but he's still just drunk. It starts to sweep over him like a headache instead of fuzzy pleasure and he thinks, a happy fleeting thought, accidentally getting Pam Beesly pregnant would be fun. And pretty sexy. But it sounds like he wants to give her a baby right now as a surprise, and that's just weird so he tries to pull her closer.
"What do you mean?" he says through a yawn.
"It was too fast. And you didn't elaborate." She moves so she can put her face on his shoulder and he feels each breath on his neck.
"Oh. Well. Am I your boyfriend?"
"I think you should be," she murmurs, running her hand over his stomach, up to his chest, and back down again.
"Okay," he says, smiling, worn and fatigued and in love, "Then my answer is 'are you kidding me? Pam, I've never seen anyone so fucking gorgeous in my life.'"
She snorts and gets quiet. "Good night."
He hugs her, the beginnings of the headache dry and dull above his neck, and figures, really, just knowing she's here is all he'll ever need.
I don't remember when we fall asleep, but shit. I'm used to that, I guess. I turn over in the morning, delightfully headache-free and see her looking eerily like she did yesterday, the slope of her bare back with her hair cascading onto my gray sheets. It's early, so I slip out of bed and think that this could easily be some kind of Groundhog Day disaster, and someone's telling me that my sorry way of celebrating her birthday yesterday needs a second try. And I'm almost tempted to think this is what's happening until my foot hits a paper dove on the floor and I slide about four inches to the left.
I think it's appropriate, though. It's Sunday and she's still here, and she's spent the last forty-eight hours with me. Part of me thinks she might want to go home and be on her own for a while, maybe she's seen a little too much of me. But, instead, I'm remembering the box of waffles I'm always too lazy to pull out of the freezer and thinking I could just start another birthday today, get it right from breakfast on out.
They're in the toaster and the syrup is on the counter when I quietly walk back into the bedroom, just to stand in the doorway with my arms crossed over my chest. She's curled up on her side, some of her hair spilling forward into her face. Her eyes are closed delicately, her mouth pouting slightly. Each time she breathes, her side expands and contracts, and every now and then she sighs, twists a little, relaxes. The floor around the bed she lies in is covered with artifacts, years and years of us, that I've been too chicken to look at all this time. And the Polaroids, the pictures scattered on the floor, are enough of the new us and enough mystery to keep me guessing. I use my toe to drag one over to me, looking down to the floor at a picture of her blowing a kiss to the camera, my arms wrapped tight around her.
The waffles pop up, but the sound is miles away. I smile once more at her as she sleeps and cross my ankle over the other, glance down at the picture, then over to the others. Okay.
So, this is how we begin.
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This story is part of the series, let?s celebrate birthday month in style today.. The previous story in the series is First Birthday. The next story in the series is Get in Line.
