It felt good to clear the air with Pam, Jim realized. He had been walking around Sydney, trying his best to enjoy himself, trying his best to be himself, but something had been missing. He confessed to the fact that he had basically not even been thinking when he’d left: his move had been like a wounded animal, chewing its own leg off  to escape (he made her laugh when he pointed out that if he made that comparison to Dwight, the salesman would probably boast that he could chew his own leg off in half the time and then proceed to attempt a demonstration). As he admitted this, a weight rose off his chest. He could breathe again.

She was telling him, once again (not that he minded hearing more) that she was so, so sorry that she’d said he had misinterpreted things. That she hadn’t really meant that, that she’d just been on autopilot in denial and trying not to feel like she was cheating on Roy. But much as he enjoyed that she was so willing to admit that she was wrong, that she loved him, that he hadn’t misinterpreted anything, he knew that this conversation could last for hours, and they were still standing in the plaza in front of the Sydney Opera House. In fact, even though it was a public space, they were starting to get some odd looks.

And it was warmer in Sydney in the winter than in Scranton, but it still wasn’t that warm.

“Hey, we could stand out here apologizing all night, but…you want to go get a drink or something?”

She stopped mid-sentence, her mouth agape in adorable confusion for a moment.

“Yeah. I really would.”

“Great. It’s a date.” He thrust out an elbow and she slid her arm into it like it was the most natural thing in the world and they strolled forward.

“I hear a rumor there might be somewhere to drink inside the opera house.” He turned their steps that way, suiting the action to the word.

“One should always listen to rumors,” she answered, and then she blushed the deepest scarlet he’d ever seen a human turn.

“Care to share with the class, Beesly?”

**

No she would definitely not like to share with the class, Pam thought. Nuh-uh. No way. Because what she’d been thinking about went all the way back to last year, and the barbecue they’d had at Jim’s house. The one where she’d sleuthed out (correctly, she still held) that Dwight and Angela had a thing, and she’d tried to see if Phyllis thought the same, and Phyllis had jumped to the conclusion that she was talking about herself and Jim.

A “secret office romance” indeed. Well, Phyllis had been righter than she knew. Or at least than Pam knew. It occurred to her that Jim might actually have confided in Phyllis—they were old friends, of the “would be in a bridge club together if either of them actually played bridge” kind of way—and that Phyllis might have been sussing her out, rather than the other way around. But that wasn’t what made her cheeks red.

What made her cheeks red was the implications of that word “romance.”

You should always listen to rumors. Including the rumor that she and Jim were…knocking boots. Dancing the horizontal tango. Making the beast with…no that was a bridge too far.

And now she was still bright bloody red and she was laughing and Jim was staring at her with this adorably confuddled look on his face and it was all too much, so she pulled his face down and kissed him.

She could do things like that now.

“I was just thinking about the rumors about you and me.” She grabbed his arm again and pulled him in the direction of the Opera Bar, which she could see a sign for now that they were closer to the opera house itself. But Jim stayed obstinately in place.

“Rumors about you and me?” He raised his eyebrows in what she was sure was intended to be innocent surprise but registered for her with an underlying layer of suggestiveness, likely because of the trend her thoughts were already taking.

“Yes.” She tugged on his arm.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that to get me going, Beesly.”