Pam had noticed a definite shift in Jim’s demeanor since sometime around the new year, he was almost always antsy, fiddling with his hands and then stuffing them in his pockets as though he had been caught and scolded for it. Pam was pretty sure on more than one occasion that she saw his hands moving even after he put them in his pockets, which she really didn’t know how to interpret. Pam hoped that Jim would let her in on whatever was bothering him, and she didn’t want to push him, but it had been days of this now and they had a sure-fire disaster coming up in the form of Michael’s office camaraderie event where they would need to be on top of their game to keep each other sane – preferably as far away from Michael and Dwight as possible.

The worst part of all of it was that Jim only seemed to be antsy around her. He talked with Kevin and Oscar just fine, no weird hand wringing or finger twisting to be seen. But when Pam made an appearance, he was all sorts of awkward. Sure, he still recruited her for the prank he pulled on Dwight with the vending machine, but her jellybean dispenser was three-quarters full when it should be time for a refill by now this late in the week. Pam had been wracking her brain trying to figure out the why of it, but so far, she’d only come up with a few theories, and none of them were especially spectacular. One, Jim was scared of women – she’d scrapped that one pretty quickly. Theory two, she had made some faux paus at Christmas and he hadn’t figured out how to tell her, but his family had prematurely disowned her – the jury was still out on that one, but they weren’t even engaged yet – let alone married, so yeah, hopefully not. Third – and most terrifying – he wanted to break up and go back to just being best friends – Pam had struggled to outright dismiss the theory as old insecurities arose like in-corporeal beings and haunted her every interaction with him, ending up with her looking for hints and overanalysing everything he said and did.

Pam was glad to momentarily forget about all of that as they sat down for a Michael conference room meeting to discuss what had been revealed by Stanley to be a Booze Cruise. Joking with Jim and stringing Michael along was a welcome respite from her insecurity and doubt, and the meeting passed quickly. Pam left the conference room and sat down at her desk and couldn’t help overhearing Roy and Darryl discussing their plans as they walked past her and out of the office.

“Who’re you inviting,” Darryl asked Roy as they strolled past, “Still seeing that Katy girl or what?”

“Nah, I haven’t seen her for a while,” Roy replied as they reached the door, “I was thinking the chick from wings night last week, remember her?”

Pam didn’t hear any more as they exited the office. Pam glanced over to Jim and caught him looking at her, so she gave him a shrug and an eyeroll. Who was she to judge Roy for his lack of commitment, wasn’t that why she had left him in the first place? Pam wasn’t sure what to think other than she was glad she was done with him, even if she had noticed he’d been working on losing his beer gut. Not like she had much of a choice with all of the times the vending machine downstairs had apparently been out of stock lately, leading to him stopping by her desk at least once a day. Pam didn’t really have much to say to him though, and she noticed Jim tense every time Roy came to talk to her. Maybe this whole secret office romance thing was starting to wear at him, and that’s why he was antsy? Pam just didn’t want to tell anyone in the office, it was none of their business, and she thought that Jim felt the same, or at least he had the last time they talked about it. Maybe it was time to revisit that conversation, Pam didn’t really feel too strongly about it, but she could already imagine some of the ‘jokes’ that Michael would come up with if he found out, and wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

The day wore on and Michael finally let them all go early, as attendance to his ‘Leadership Training’ was mandatory. Pam shot a sympathetic smile at Brenda, the lady sent from corporate, as she and Jim left the office to go home for a quick dinner before they were required to be at the dock. After quickly eating some cold sandwiches, Pam noticed Jim was doing the antsy thing again as he stood in the doorway waiting for her to get her shoes on. Tired of trying to read into things, Pam finished slipping her shoe on, before she stepped over to him and gently pushed his back up against the wall, placing her palm in the middle of his chest. Once she had him there, she reached up to run her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck and kissed him hard. He responded immediately, before reluctantly pulling back before they got carried away.

“As much as I don’t want to right now, we should probably go,” Jim nodded in the direction of the door, “We won’t hear the end of it from Michael if we skip a,” Jim made finger quotes, “mandatory event.”

Jim turned to make his way out the door but Pam wasn’t done with him yet, “Jim,” she caught his arm, “Whatever’s eating at you, I love you, you know you can tell me anything right?”

Jim’s gaze was heavy and Pam felt like the air had left her lungs, “I know Pam, I love you too,” Jim finished with a nervous looking smile, before wrapping his arm around her shoulders and ushering her out of the house, “But I’ll tell you later, we really need to get going.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay,” Pam finally relented, if he wasn’t ready to share yet, she could respect that.

It had taken them a long time to get to where they were today, so she grudgingly accepted that she could wait a little longer to figure out what had been eating at him. Pam blushed as they got into the car and she tried to rationalize the kiss at the door. Pam justified it to herself by mentally scratching out the theory that he wanted to go back to best friends, best friends did not kiss back like that, Pam thought with a small grin as she stared out the passenger side window of Jim’s car at the passing streets. Pam zoned out and a short while later Jim was nudging her arm and telling her that they were there. Pam jolted, and upon looking up to see the docks quickly got out of the car.

They made their way towards a file of their coworkers on the gang plank, Pam brushing her hand against Jim’s every twenty feet or so just because she could. Pam grimaced upon spotting Michael greeting everyone in turn as they walked onto the boat. Pam really didn’t want to hear whatever crass comment he was about to make about her and Jim coming together, after she had been so careful to only let her hand brush his four times on the walk over – she hadn’t even held it.

Michael frowned as they approached, “Blegh, you guys are so boring,” he complained, “You didn’t even bring anyone!”

Pam gave him a practiced blank stare, and felt Jim shrug beside her, “Whatever, I guess you can go aboard, just try not to suck all of the fun out of the party,” Michael said as he stepped aside to allow them passage.

Pam could swear she heard Michael mumbling something about ‘Fun sucking vampires,’ as they walked away, but she couldn’t be bothered to really address it. Jim stopped when they got onto the main deck and looked towards her with a shrug, wordlessly asking her where she wanted to sit. Pam jerked her head towards the front of the cabin area, where she could see some dimly lit tables closer to the corner of the space where they were less likely to get roped into whatever Michael was planning for tonight. Pam also couldn’t help noticing that the small boat did not contain purely Dunder Mifflin personnel, there were other party goers here as well. Pam settled onto the bench seat at a table nicely tucked away and scooted over so that Jim could sit down beside her, taking the opportunity to link their hands underneath the table away from prying eyes. Pam wondered what kind of person would willingly go on a booze cruise on a tiny lake in Pennsylvania in the middle of winter, but quickly turned her attention to the centre of the deck where Michael and someone that had introduced themselves as Captain Jack were fighting over the microphone. Captain Jack shut Michael down and announced a Limbo competition, Pam wasn’t surprised to see Meredith was one of the first ones up there.

Pam was holding Jim’s hand and staring out the porthole at the lights dotting the shore when she felt Jim shift slightly, alerting her that someone was approaching.

“Hey,” Pam looked up to see Oscar greeting them with a drink in hand, “Mind if I sit?”

Jim shrugged and deferred to Pam.

Pam nodded, “Sure.”

Pam happened to like Oscar. He appreciated art, and because of that they’d had some great conversations over lunches when Jim was on sales calls or otherwise occupied in the recent months since Pam had started her classes. She’d even become comfortable enough with him to show a few of her pieces, and his way of giving her honest and constructive feedback had meant a lot to her. She could always rely on Jim to encourage her, but when it came down to critiquing her work and helping her improve, he was pretty hopeless. Jim thought anything she did was worthy of being put in a museum, which didn’t really help her with growing her style. That’s not to say that Pam didn’t love that about Jim, but sometimes she needed a neutral observer who would tell it to her like it was. Oscar was constructive with his criticism, he always told her why he didn’t like something and suggested a piece he had seen that had done it differently or better, so that she could improve. Oscar wasn’t shy of giving her praise though, and the hard-earned, honest approval and appreciation from him meant a lot to her. They sat and chatted with Oscar for a while, but eventually the cacophony of noise in the cabin became too much for Pam and she excused herself, moving towards the washrooms at the front of the boat.

When Pam didn’t return for a few minutes, Jim got worried. He excused himself and set off towards the bathrooms at the front of the cabin area. Jim was scanning the crowd looking for her face, wondering if maybe she just got caught chatting with someone, when he caught a glimpse of her pink coat and curly reddish-brown hair out one of the portholes. Jim made his way out onto the deck and stopped suddenly, watching her as she leaned against the railing and gazed up at the stars. A chill started in his scalp and ran down his back, sending tingles down his arms. Jim’s neck and palms began to sweat. This was it, Jim thought, as he stared at her simple beauty under the stars. He was going to ask her to be his wife on a mandatory office outing that just so happened to be a booze cruise in the middle of January. Jim hoped that one day they could look back on that and laugh together, as opposed to the terrifying reality of the other alternative, where she said no and never spoke to him again, then moved to Europe or someplace equally out there. Jim clamped down on these thoughts. She loved him, Jim repeated the mantra in his head, she may say not yet, but he didn’t believe she would say never. He had to believe that, otherwise there wasn’t really a point in asking. Jim didn’t think she saw it coming, and he knew how much she hated surprises, but he hoped for his sake that she would make an exception for this.

With his mental pep-talk concluded, Jim closed the rest of the distance. When she turned to see who was coming and smiled sheepishly up at him, all the speeches he might have prepared for the moment flew from his mind, leaving it a barren plain with only humor and their daily shared experience to fall back on.

“Sorry,” Pam grimaced, “It was getting kinda rowdy in there, and then I looked out and the stars were so beautiful,” she trailed off with a shrug, scooting over to be shoulder to shoulder with him where he had stopped to lean against the railing.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Jim cracked nervously, “Darryl, Darryl, Darryl,” he imitated awkwardly, still winning a giggle for his efforts, she beamed up at him.

Coworkers be damned, Jim couldn’t not kiss her, attempting to capture some of the joy and warmth radiating off her face for himself. She met him halfway as he lowered his face towards hers, and he felt the warmth of her body through his coat as she moulded against him.

Pam wasn’t sure what had gotten into Jim, kissing her with such abandon in a place where not only strangers but also their coworkers might see, but she forgot about that as her knees became weak and she leaned against him for support. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but when they finally broke apart Pam was breathless. Pam felt Jim’s hands fall from her hair and trail down her arms to hold hers and let him hold her up as she leaned back, holding his hands tightly. She felt light-headed and before she could stop herself, she was giggling madly, she buried her head in Jim’s jacket as she tried to control herself to no avail. After a minute or so of Jim rubbing patterns on her back, she finally felt settled enough to try and look him in the eyes, when she raised her head and looked up, she couldn’t.

‘Jim just kissed me silly,’ was all Pam could think, bursting out into another fit. Jim pulled away from her slightly and she tried to meet his gaze for the second time.

“Pam,” he asked, finally drawing her eyes up to his face from where she’d been resting them over his left shoulder.

“You just literally kissed me silly,” Pam gasped out, still short of breath, “Like, how cliché is that?”

“Pam,” Jim said her name and reached up to caress her cheek with his right hand, and Pam finally noticed the intensity of his gaze, it took her breath away all over again.

“You are,” Jim paused, “The warmest, funniest, kindest person I know,” he started haltingly, picking up speed and confidence as he went on. Pam’s heart was racing, this was the kind of speech that was a leadup to something big. Was she about to get friend-zoned?

“You’re my best friend, confidant, and partner in crime,” Jim continued, his hands trailing down to hers again as Pam felt herself starting to float away, Jim was shrinking out of her sight.

“And you know me so well,” Jim said from below her as Pam realized that no, she was not floating away, Jim was kneeling.

‘Oh my god, Jim is kneeling,’ rang through Pam’s head, this was so not what she had been expecting.

“The thing that’s been bothering me is,” Jim trailed off as one of his hands fumbled in his pocket, so reminiscent of the nervous tic Pam had noticed over the last week or so, “A question that I need to ask you,” he finished as he fished out a small black box.

Pam couldn’t tear her eyes off the box, but Jim’s voice drew her back up to his face. In her periphery she saw the box open, and the ring inside sparkled under the stars, dazzling her. There was a far-off commotion and maybe a splash, but Pam barely registered any of it for the man kneeling before her.

“Pam, will you marry me,” Yes, “And be my partner in life,” Yes, “My best friend forever?”

Pam let out a squeak, her vision blurry with unshed tears. Words wouldn’t form for her, so she nodded frantically. Jim removed the ring from the box and took her shaking left hand in his as he poised the ring just beyond the tip of her ring finger, before looking back up at her with a nervous smile and a quirked eyebrow.

“Pam,” Jim prodded.

“Yes,” Pam managed to squeak out, tears streaming down her face as she kept nodding.

Jim slipped the ring onto her finger and stood, pulling Pam into a tight embrace.

“Oh thank god,” he breathed into her hair as they swayed there.

“You’re a jerk,” Pam mumbled into his jacket, “I thought your mom had cancer or something.”

The rest of the night was a blur to Pam. They ran into Michael tied to the railing out on the deck, and he was not nearly as insufferable as he usually was, so they stayed to chat a while. Pam remembered Jim putting a hat over his ears for him. She didn’t think any of her coworkers even noticed she was wearing a different ring on her finger when they made their way through the gathering to get to Jim’s car. When Jim dropped her off, she almost didn’t let him leave, but tiredness and the need to call her mom won out and she bid him farewell with one last kiss. Pam called her mom and gushed until one in the morning, when her mom ended their conversation with something along the lines of ‘Well, that boy certainly doesn’t waste any time.’

Pam fell asleep with both a smile on her face and a ring on her finger for the first time in a long time.