She just wanted to know.
This day has been so fucking awful. He was already struggling to keep it together just long enough to get to his car, to his apartment, to the beer he knows is in the fridge waiting for him, but nothing could have prepared him for this. No matter what he says, he knows they both know that his feelings for her have only grown since they first met, have only deepened. How could she not know? And it's just unfair of her to try him out because she's curious. It's selfish. He's staring at her and even though he can see how terrified she is of what she just did, of what it will mean and what it will take to get them out of this, he still can't help feeling angry. She has to know what she's doing to him. She can't possibly not know.
Right?
What does that mean, I just wanted to know? Did she want to know what it was like to kiss someone in an elevator? What it was like to kiss him, in particular? What it would be like to wrench his heart from his chest and dangle it before his eyes?
The elevator dings softly as they pass the second floor and it pushes his anger an desperation over the edge. He can't even think straight.
She just wants to know?
Fine.
He reaches out and punches the emergency button and the elevator stops immediately. She jumps and then turns, her mouth open to say something, but he doesn't care. He ate lunch today at Hooters with Michael Scott. She just wants to know. Jesus.
The force with which he kisses her actually startles him and it's enough to propel him forward and her backward until her back is against the wall of the elevator. He wonders briefly if she'll push him away but in a fraction of a second she's kissing him back fiercely. He's never kissed anyone like this, it's intense and desperate and God, if this won't get through to her, nothing will. He feels like he's holding on for dear life as he runs his tongue along her lower lip and then she moans softly and it's all he ever wants to hear again for the rest of his life. Her lips taste like strawberry lip gloss and he forces himself not to dwell on it, to file that fact away for later, to concentrate on this, now. She nips at his lower lip with her teeth and he's absolutely lost. He is so desperately in love with her, so hopelessly gone. He struggles to stay focused, on what he's doing, how her hair smells, how perfectly they fit together. This isn't some quick tequila-fueled peck at the Dundiee. She is going to remember this one. He pushes his body more firmly against hers, feeling reckless. He's giving it everything he's got because he'll need to remember it, too.
The voice over the intercom stops them and he can't catch his breath. It takes her murmuring his name for him to come back to himself and realize he's trapping her against the wall with his body and he backs away, sets things in motion again. Hands her her bag because even though he's shaken and unsure, he is who he is. The guy who hands her back her purse after it's fallen to the floor, not the guy who kisses his engaged best friend.
They reach the ground floor and she says his name, more clearly this time. He can't even look at her. So many things are swirling through his mind, so many things to say, so many things to do. "I guess," he says finally, and his voice sounds tired, flat. "Now you know." He waits a few seconds, but that's all he can manage right now. He leaves without looking at her.
"Hey, Halpert!"
Oh, you have got to be tucking kidding.
Roy jogs over to him in the parking lot and claps him on the back jovially. "Hey man," he says, "You seen Pammy?"
She hates that nickname. "Uh, yeah."
"She still upstairs?"
He shakes his head. "She's in the elevator, she's on her way down." He doesn't hate Roy, not really. It's not his fault that he's engaged to the woman Jim is in love with.
"Everything ok?" Roy is asking now and Jim just stares at him.
"Yeah," he says, finally. "Pam just seemed a bit...feverish." He's not sure why he says it, exactly. Some part of him knows Roy will tell her what he said and she'll know that he knows that he had an effect on her.
"Oh, man," Roy's brows shoot up. "I'll go get her, then. See ya," and he's off.
Jim stares after Roy as he walks away, then shakes his head and gets into his car. When he gets home, he goes for the whiskey instead.
Author's Chapter Notes:
It only seems fair to give Jim a point of view on this one. You'll have to suspend reality for long enough for Jim and Roy to get in a conversation at the end that, while quick, is way longer than the length of a set of elevator doors hesitating to close.
Oh, and I don't own anything.
Oh, and I don't own anything.
watchthesky84 is the author of 10 other stories.
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