Jim and Pam wandered down Macquarie St. in search of food. This should not have been particularly difficult, he thought, as logically there had to be plenty of people who ate before whatever show was on at the Opera House. His attention had been mostly focused on Pam, for obvious reasons, but he had had enough brain space available to notice that there were a lot of different shows on at the opera house, not just opera, and so there logically had to be food for those people.

On the other hand, he was doing a very good job of not finding such places. And now his stomach as well as Pam’s was rumbling, which fortunately she seemed to find amusing.

No, not amusing, apparently. Adorable.

“It’s just…” she tried to explain as she laughed. And while she was, indubitably, laughing at him, he found that he didn’t mind it. He’d worried for years about Pam laughing at him, about the possibility that she and Roy were going home arm in arm in the evening and just laughing at the patheticness of the salesman who thought he mattered to her. But now he was finding that the actual thing, Pam laughing at him, was perfectly fine and dandy—adorable even, to use her word—as long as she was laughing at him while she was with him.

“It’s just?” He prompted her as she failed to finish her sentence because of the laughter.

“It’s just that everyone in my life has spent so much time telling me how wrong it was to let my stomach rumble, as if I had any choice in the matter, and here you are rumbling away like…like a subway car, and paying it no mind.”

“A subway car?”

“Yeah, you know, like in New York. All rrrrrrr-bmbmbmbm-clunk.”

“My stomach did not go clunk!”

“I’m not sure you were listening hard enough.” She collapsed into laughter again and he decided that the next open door, they were asking for directions. She wasn’t drunk, he thought at least, but she was definitely loopy, and that meant they needed food stat.

It turned out that the next open door, which he’d thought was a hotel lobby, was….well, was a hotel lobby, actually, but was also the entrance to a seafood restaurant with a full-wall glass window overlooking the harbor, with ferries going to and fro sparkling with lights.

“Dinner, milady?” He bowed and she curtsied.

“Why thank you, sir.” She winked at him and took his arm again and they slid up to the host stand, where a very snootily-dressed staff member turned out, against all odds, to be a lovely human being.

“Ah, young love.” The man smiled hugely, and what had felt like a looming confrontation about how they were dressed turned into being seated at a table for two directly overlooking the water. “Drinks? No? Then Jeremiah here will be back in a few minutes to take your orders.”

**

Jeremiah was indeed back in a few minutes, although neither Jim nor Pam had actually taken the time to look at the menu, or indeed anywhere but at each other and over the water. Pam was about to ask him for more time when Jim, very smoothly in her opinion, turned the question around.

“You can probably tell we’re not from around here; what would you get if you’d never been here before?”

Jeremiah described what seemed to Pam to be a heavenly dish primary composed of fresh seafood and seasonal vegetables. She clapped her hands. “One of those, please!”

“Two, actually.” Jim handed Jeremiah the menus and winked at her. “And a yogurt parfait to start.”

Pam hadn’t even noticed him checking out the menu—but then, she saw as she looked at Jeremiah, he hadn’t had to. The front page was all appetizers in large type, and at the bottom of the list there it was: “yogurt parfait: mixed berries and cream.”

If she hadn’t been in love with him already, she was pretty sure that would have been the moment.

The rest of the meal was as delightful as the start. Jeremiah’s recommendation proved superb, and while Pam slightly regretted that she and Jim had the same meal, so they couldn’t share and compare, she realized as she cleaned her plate that she wouldn’t have wanted to know that Jim was missing out on something this delicious just to have a second dish to try.

When she expressed as much to her date, he nodded. “My only regret is that I never got to find out how that parfait tasted.”

“Oh.” Her hands flew to her mouth. She’d eaten the whole decadent concoction as soon as Jeremiah had put it down in front of her, and she’d thought he’d been happy watching her eat. But obviously that had been a selfish impulse; no matter how hungry she was, his stomach had been rumbling too, and no matter how much she loved mixed berry yogurt, she’d eaten the first thing to arrive in front of him without offering him a bite.

Just before she was about to apologize, he put a hand over hers. “I was kidding, Beesly. I ordered it for you.”

She blushed. “Thank you. I was worried…”

“Don’t be.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s me, alright?”

“That’s the problem.” She tried to explain. “I know it’s you, Jim, my best friend, but you’re also, like, Jim.” She could see this wasn’t getting through to him. “I mean, I did my best not to let myself notice because I was engaged, but come on, Jim. You’re the hottest guy I know. When we were stuck outside after Ryan started that fire, every single woman in the office said they would do you. Jim, Jim, definitely Jim. And now I’m on a date with you. And I’m in love with you. So I really, really don’t want to screw this up.”

He squeezed her hand again. “Well, the way I think of it, you have a couple advantages here, Beesly.”

“Oh?”

“Well, for one, I’m in love with you too.” He smiled, and his eyes twinkled reassuringly—and lovingly, she realized. How had she never noticed before how expressive his eyes were? “And two…” he drummed his fingers on hers and she enjoyed the feel of his hand, but she did have to wonder why he didn’t lean over and kiss her. “This isn’t our first date. Remember?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like the first two ended all that well.”

“I don’t know…we’re here, aren’t we?” And now, finally, he did lean over and kiss her, right before Jeremiah brought over the menus for dessert.