“So?” Jim asked, between bites of ice cream. “What do you think?”
Pam tapped the plastic spoon against her lips. “Very...sweet? But oddly delicious.”
“Knew it. Such a doubter.”
Pam popped a gummy bear into her mouth. “How are you feeling, Larissa?”
Larissa closed her eyes. “Tired. Moving one of your feet a couple inches is terribly exhausting.” She opened her eyes and smiled at Pam. “But I’m doing well, considering. Thanks.”
After finishing their ice cream, Jim’s parents left for their hotel to shower and nap since they had been at the hospital overnight with Larissa.
Larissa looked at her brother.
“Hey, J? Can you give me and Pam a minute to talk?”
“What, why?” Jim asked incredulously through a mouth full of gummy bears.
“Girl talk. I have three brothers. I deserve girl talk.”
Jim squinted toward her. “This feels like a trap.”
“You’re probably right. But remember how I’m paralyzed?”
“Temporarily. And now only partially. You moved your left foot today!”
“But my right one is still sleeping on the job! C’mon. Go buy me a candy bar. Or something. I just want to get to know your friend a little better.”
“So help me if you talk about George again…” he raised his eyebrows.
“Just go. George’s legacy is safe with me.”
Jim stared at his little sister, his expression almost pleading.
“Fine,” he lowered his voice. “Go easy on me, please?” he said in a near whisper.
“Relax, Jim. Love you. Now get me a Twix. I hear the ones in the vending machine on the very top floor of the hospital are the best,” she smirked. “They also taste better when you take the stairs.”
Jim huffed out a sigh, turned on his heels, and walked out the door.
Pam felt her chest tighten as Jim left, unsure what Larissa wanted to talk to her about. It seemed as if things were going really well with Jim’s family, but she wasn’t naive enough to think his sister didn’t have some underlying questions and thoughts regarding her.
“Alright, Pam,” Larissa started. “Jim and I are really close. So, as you can probably guess, I know...things.”
Pam’s face fell. “Yeah…”
“And I love my brother. He’s my best friend.”
Pam mustered a slight nod, preparing for the blow. Larissa dipped her head, attempting to make eye contact with Pam, who had dropped her gaze.
“But I also understand that I only have his side of the story. And I would like to know yours.”
Pam lifted her head. “About when he left for Stamford?”
“About all of it.”
Pam couldn’t believe the family resemblance as she watched Larissa look at her with a softness she’d seen Jim offer her before. A shiver trailed down her spine as she remembered the night they had gone on the company “team building” Booze Cruise. She had stood on the deck of that boat with her best friend, nothing but cold air and silence between them, and she recalled the fleeting thought of how she wanted to lean in and put her lips to his, feel his warmth, give in—-but quickly reminded herself she was engaged and wasn’t allowed those thoughts.
Her heart ached with the could-have-beens if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with trying to convince herself she was already happy.
Pam shifted in her seat.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Pam shrugged. “I think I always knew he had feelings for me but was scared to admit it to myself.”
“Why?”
“Jim was my best friend and seriously the ONLY thing keeping me sane at work. I think subconsciously I was afraid of that changing,” Pam contemplated. “But actually, now I think I realize it wasn’t only that. If I admitted that I knew he had feelings for me, I would have to ask myself if I had the same feelings for him too, and that was complicated.”
“You were engaged.”
“Exactly. Not only that, but had been in a relationship with my fiance for 10 years. That’s not easy to uproot. It was all I had known. I was blindsided when Jim told me how he felt and autopilot kicked in and I didn’t know how to react. Then he was gone before I could even recover from the whiplash of it all. I felt like I screwed everything up.”
“But...you didn’t marry him, right? Your fiancé?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
Pam felt her eyes burn. The lump forming in her throat prevented her from uttering the words she had denied and suppressed for so many years. With her eyes brimming, she looked at Larissa and silently raised a shoulder.
“Do you love my brother?” Larissa asked quietly.
Pam sniffed and offered a tiny nod. “I think so.”
“Even after learning about George?”
A loud laugh escaped Pam’s lungs. “Somehow.”
Larissa opened her arms and welcomed Pam into them, then took her by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes.
“Don’t wait as long as he did, Pam,” she begged.
“But, what if he doesn’t—“
A deep voice came from the doorway.
“He does.”
The two girls snapped their heads toward the door to see Jim, Twix-less, leaning against the door frame. Pam felt her breath catch and her jaw drop. Jim cocked his head and gave Pam a look that made her want to completely dissolve into him.
“What, you think you’re the only one who can eavesdrop, Beesly?”
She wiped her eyes with her shirt sleeve and walked over to him. She buried her head in his chest as he wrapped one hand around her waist and placed the other delicately behind her head.
Larissa cleared her throat. “Uh, you’re welcome.”
They broke apart and turned to Larissa as she dramatically bowed in her hospital bed.
“I mean, I would have preferred to not get hit with a car to get you two together, but I’ll take what I can get, I guess.”
They shared laughter together and Larissa waved her hand at them, as if to shoo them away.
“Go, go...I’m fine here. Even if Jim forgot my Twix,” she scoffed sarcastically.
Jim walked over to Larissa and hugged her. “I love you, punk.”
“I know.”
———
The two of them basically jogged out of the hospital together. The brisk air hit their faces as they made their way outside and Pam stopped, fumbling with her purse to locate her keys. Looking up, she locked eyes with Jim, a smile plastered on his face. He stuck out his hand for her and she laced her fingers through his. They made their way to Pam’s car, hand in hand, silent but beaming.
Once inside the car, Jim turned to Pam.
“So, now what?”
Well, that’s a loaded question, Pam thought to herself.
As if reading her thoughts he responded. “I mean, like, where do you want to go?”
“Oh, I didn’t get that far. There was the talking, and the eavesdropping, and the lack of candy, and the…” She peered at Jim, a slight urgency in her voice. “Did you really mean it? Because all of this feels a little too good to be true and I just want to make sure I’m not imagining it. It feels like I’m in a romantic comedy or something”
He leaned over the center console of the car and slid his hand behind Pam’s ear and through her hair. Slowly, he brought his mouth to hers and she felt as if she might ignite as she rediscovered his taste and the way his lips felt against hers, soft but deliberate. She snaked her fingers through his hair and grasped it, as if it was tethering her back down to earth. Much too soon, he pulled away and looked into her eyes.
“Oh, it’s very, very real.”
She closed her eyes and put her forehead on his, Jim’s hands still tangled in her hair.
“You’re pretty good at this, Halpert.”
“Larissa made me watch a lot of chick flicks,” he said with a wink, then placed a soft kiss on her forehead. He squinted. “Maybe we really should thank her.”
--------------
They settled on watching a movie back at the hotel, stealing kisses and glances the whole drive. Pam still couldn’t quite wrap her brain around the fact that any of this was actually happening. Every little peck he gave her sent a current through her bones and she was amazed at how perfectly her hand fit in his. He was back to full Scranton Jim and then some, and she had just missed him so damn much.
Back at the hotel, they kicked off their shoes and jumped onto the bed like 6-year-olds at a slumber party. Pam shimmied her way under his arm and settled her head on his chest, breathing him in. They made it all of four minutes into the movie before either of them could delay the inevitable.
Pam shifted her focus to Jim’s face and was met with his lips on hers. His hand ran up through the back of her hair and his lips slowly parted, intensifying the kiss. His tongue met hers as she instinctively grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and threaded one of her legs between his. She felt his hand trace her thigh from her knee up to her hips, and from there his fingers slid under the hem of her blouse, setting her skin on fire. She took his lower lip gently between her teeth and he let out a deep moan in the back of his throat.
He quickly turned his body over and was now on top of her, the weight of his body setting her free rather than pinning her down. He began a trail with his mouth from her jaw, down her neck, and settling at the base of her collarbone. His hands explored her skin on her torso as he placed deliberate kisses over her chest and beneath the neckline of her shirt. Pam threw her head back in the pillows, not sure she would be able to stay in her own skin with what his lips were doing to her.
He whispered her name against her neck, and she grabbed his face to meet her lips again, needing to feel his tongue against hers once more. She threaded a hand under his shirt, along his back, feeling the ripples of his lean, built frame under her fingers, both savoring it and needing to feel everything all at once.
Jim’s intensity slowed, pulling her into deeper, longer kisses, as they were completely entwined around one another. She could feel everything he had held back in the last three years being poured out into every kiss and wasn’t sure she had ever felt this kind of love, so complete and pure.
He slowly pulled away from her lips and placed one more light kiss on her cheek. Brushing a stray curl away from her face, he looked at her, beaming.
“You are…” he shook his head with a grin, “incredible.”
She leaned forward to kiss him softly. Jim shifted and laid his head on the pillow next to her, his hand resting on her hip.
“And believe me when I say I want nothing more than to learn every part of you I don’t know, Beesly,” he said gruffly, moving his hand to her lower back. “But I want to do this right. I want to buy you dinner. I want to kiss you goodnight on your doorstep and promise to call you. I want to bring you flowers and open your door for you. And if somewhere in there we end up jumping each other’s bones, so be it.”
She laughed into his chest and then looked at him, a hand on his cheek. “I would love that.”
“Okay,” he grinned. “Then it’s a date.”
Chapter End Notes:
I know, I’m sorry I didn’t give you everything here, but I guarantee you I would have ruined it if I tried. And I like the idea of them taking it a little slower. After a hot make out session, that is. ;)
Thank you for all the reviews so far! I think I have one more chapter in mind before I wrap this up.
Thank you for all the reviews so far! I think I have one more chapter in mind before I wrap this up.
