Eleven-thirty. Diet Coke break. It had been years since those particular commercials had been popular, but Pam Beesly still remembered her mother watching Law & Order and giggling at the tv during the ad breaks. Her dad would shake his head and tease her about the logistics of it all; how there was no way a construction worker would ever take his shirt off at a job-site, or how Diet Coke was going to kill her, what with all the aspartame and all. Every time he’d be met with a resounding “Shut up Bill!” and then he’d wink at his daughter as he escaped to the garage for the rest of the night.

Back then, Pam had secretly sided with her dad. She hadn’t understood the way her mom was falling all over herself because of a commercial and honestly, she thought it was kind of weird. And dumb. Helene had just laughed at her, wagged a finger in her direction, and sing-songed you just wait, young lady, before her attention was back to Jerry Orbach and the criminal justice system of New York City.

Well. She’d never in a million years admit to her mother that she’d been right, but today, Thursday, June 10th, 1999, Pam gets it. She really truly understands the importance of a Diet Coke break.

Sure, the scenario was a little different. It’s almost three-thirty in the afternoon, she’s drinking iced tea instead of Diet Coke, and she certainly isn’t staring at some stranger working a construction site, but she is ogling her next door neighbor, currently digging up an empty cornfield.

And it’s just so dumb. Because it’s not like she’s never seen Jim Halpert before.

She has. Pam’s spent nearly every summer, countless weekends, and a handful of holidays in upstate New York on her grandparents’ farm. The Halpert dairy farm was next door so Jim had just always been around. One of her first memories is the two of them, stuffed into blue and green hand-me-down snowsuits with plastic bread bags tucked into their boots so they could make snow angels in the field between the two farms.

She’s seen him play Little League, back before his growth spurt, when his brothers teased him relentlessly about how he was too skinny, too short, and how the blue and white uniform hung like curtains on him. She’s even seen a high school basketball game or two, though she spent more time huddled on the bleachers with Kelly and Katy, giggling over how much cuter he’d gotten since the last time she’d visited; how at 6 feet and a few inches, he definitely fit the uniform better, even if he was still goofy and awkward.

Shit, she’s seen him naked. Well, she could have if she would have looked when, inspired by a midnight viewing of Now and Then during a sleepover on Homecoming weekend; Katy had planned and executed a raid on the guys in the locker room after the basketball game.

She hadn’t looked, but Katy had, and Katy seemed to have a photographic memory when it came to these things.

She spent winter break of 1998 mocking him for his Dawson Leery hair and his J Crew sweaters. And while it’s been a year since, she still hasn’t quite forgiven her parents for making her spend the first month of that summer with her other grandma in Philadelphia and missing Jim’s misguided boy band phase.

Thank god for Kelly, who called her with weekly updates. “I swear to god Pam, he and Ryan spend more time watching TRL than I do. Ryan thinks he’s Carson Daly. He’s wearing black nail polish!”

By the time Pam finally made it back to Seneca Falls, Betsy Halpert had made Jim put his hair back to normal, and he’d ditched the puka shell necklace in favor of cargo shorts and t-shirts. But Kelly has always been a great friend, and Pam still has a photo of Jim with bleached blonde tips tucked away in a jewelry box.

So yeah. She’s seen him. But she’s never seen him quite like this.

Pam tries not to stare. She really does. But this Jim is just so easy to look at it that she can’t help herself. And though she’s never really admitted it out loud to anyone, she’s always had a bit of a crush on the boy next door.

It wasn’t like it was a one-way street either. God knows Jim has seen some low points in the Pam Beesly Grows Up collection. Had he forgotten the time she dyed her hair with black cherry Kool-Aid, and how it had stained her skin for two days? Or how he’d called her Daria for two straight weeks because of her combat boots and burgundy lipstick; a look she’d adopted the second she’d started taking art classes, even though it never actually made her feel like an artist.

The whole grunge thing had never been Pam’s favorite look and when it ended, she’d happily traded her flannel button downs and velvet chokers for the simplicity of khaki skirts and Keds and she really hadn’t looked back.

It’s been a year since they’ve last seen each other. She wonders what he’d see if he looked at her now. She wouldn’t expect him to notice anything like the time and effort she spends most day to straighten her hair, but she suspects he might notice that while she’s been gone for her first year of college, she’s finally started to look her age and not perpetually fifteen years old.

Pam takes a sip of her tea and shifts slightly in her chair. She’s been at the farm for four days now, and for the last three, she’s found herself in this exact spot on the front porch every afternoon. She tries to tell herself it’s so her grandma can take a nap but she knows better.

It has little to do with Celia being able to get a nap in before Judge Judy starts and everything to do with Jim circling the cornfield, confidently sitting on top of the John Deere tractor her grandfather had never let anyone else drive.

It’s hard not stare. At this time of day the sun is directly overhead and thankfully her sunglasses shield her from openly gawking at him, but she sees the deeply tanned forearms, notices the stretch of thin cotton t-shirts across his back as he shifts the gears of the tractor while rounding the far corner of the field. He doesn’t wear a baseball hat or have sunglasses of his own, so she can see him squinting every time he looks over his shoulder to make sure his rows are evenly spaced.

“You know, it’s the funniest thing.” Celia’s voice over her shoulder makes her jump and Pam hastily flips her sketchbook open to a pencil drawing she’s been working on of the farm. She could draw that barn in her sleep, it’s just the best she can do for a cover in case she’s ever caught. Like now.

“What’s funny?” Pam watches as her grandma looks down at her sketchpad, clucks her tongue, and then gestures vaguely to the farm in front of them.

“I’ve lived here for almost forty years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time staring at that barn as you seem to be this week.” Celia’s tone is innocent as she raises her own glass of tea to her lips and looks pointedly at her granddaughter. “Unless it’s not the barn you’re so fascinated with.”

“It’s a really pretty barn,” she insists.

“It is,” Celia agrees as her eyes drift back toward the fields. “He always was the best looking of the Halpert boys, you know,” she said casually. “You can’t see it from here, but he’s almost grown into those ears of his. Not that anyone’s looking at his ears when he’s got that a—“

“Gran!”

Celia laughs. “Honey, I’m just saying, he’s easy on the eyes. I’d have to be blind not to notice that.” She shakes her head at the look Pam gives her. “In any case, would you mind going to get him? It’s almost too hot to be out in that field, but before he quits for the day, I need him to move the lawn furniture in the backyard for my card game tomorrow night.”

“I can move the—“ Pam stops as Celia waves a hand through the air.

“Jim can do it,” she insists. “But I’m sure he won’t mind the help if you’re so inclined.” 

Pam tries not to roll her eyes as Celia actually winks at her. Still, she downs the rest of her tea and starts toward the field.

She hasn’t really walked the property since she’s gotten there. Pam hadn’t planned on spending the summer there at all, but her grandpa had died in November and then Celia had fallen and broken her arm earlier that spring. Her parents had backed off their previous demands that she spend the summer working and agreed that spending the summer helping her grandma out would be the best use of her time. This way, they could still go on with their own summer travel plans as scheduled and not feel as guilty.

Pam doesn’t care. She loves the farm and she’s happy to help where she can. Gran’s arm is almost completely healed so she’s there more for company than anything else and well, if spying on the neighbor boy is an added perk to the whole summer, then she has no complaints at all.

She reaches the closest corner of the field at the same time he does and gives him a little wave as soon as he notices her. The tractor sputters to a stop in front of her and as she raises a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she looks up at him, Pam realizes just how much trouble she’s in.

See, from her spot on the porch it had been impossible to see the finer details of Jim Halpert: Farmer Boy. Standing three feet away from him she’s suddenly and intensely aware of certain details like how his blue t-shirt is several shades darker where it’s soaked in sweat at the neckline and over his chest. She can see the tendons in his arms jump as he fights with the sticky lever to keep the tractor from switching gears.

“Pam Beesly.” She almost doesn’t hear him because at that second, she’s noticing the beads of sweat clinging to his hair.

“Hey Jim.” It’s not much, but it’s all the words she can string together.

“I heard you were back in town.”

"Just got here a couple of days ago.” She gestures back toward the house. “Gran says it’s too hot for you to be out here, but really she wants you to move some furniture for her.”

He nods and stretches, raising both hands over his head and twisting to the left to crack his back. “She’s got her card game tomorrow night.” Pam stops herself from staring as his shirt lifts from his jeans, revealing an equally tan strip of skin; but she’s not made of stone and she swallows hard as he wipes the back of his hand across his brow and turns to study the field. “I’ve only got another row or two to go and then this field is done. Come on.” He leans down, holding a hand out to her.

Involuntarily, she steps back. “What?”

Jim laughs. “Why walk all the way back there? Hop up, and I’ll drive you back.” He leans forward again and with one hand gripping the steering wheel, takes her hand with the other and helps hoist her onto a tractor she hasn’t ridden since she was eight. He watches and waits as she leans against the metal casing over the rear wheel and grips the edges behind her.

Again, Pam’s thankful for the sunglasses she’s still wearing because she knows the position in which she’s sitting, with her arms braced behind her, pushes her breasts up and out and since he can’t see her eyes, she doesn’t miss the way his own trace the neckline of her tank top before he catches himself.

His eyes flick to up to hers and she kind of melts at that grin he gives her. She’s seen that grin a thousand times before but today it feels brand new. “Ready?” She nods and he starts the tractor back up, shifting it into drive.

She’s not prepared for the tractor to lurch forward as violently as she does, and she has to reach one hand out to grasp his arm so she doesn’t completely fall off the machine no sooner than she’s on it. To his credit, he grins sheepishly and mouths sorry at her over the engine. She smiles back but doesn’t move her hand until they’ve rounded the first corner.

It’s only a few minutes before their back at the barn and she doesn’t miss how he jumps down from the tractor first, insists on helping her down. His hands linger at her waist as she steps down, her own hands resting against his chest.

“Hey.” She stops him halfway to the house. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“All of this.” She waves her hand around the property. “Gran told me she never even asked you to help this summer. That she just opened the front door one morning and you were standing there, asking her what needed to be done.”

“Yeah.” He ducks his head, but she can see he’s smiling. “After your grandpa died, I just started coming over a few times a week to see what I could help her out with. Then she fell, and I think she’d tried to hire Kenny Anderson to help with the farm stuff, but well, you know Kenny.” She made a face and he shrugged. “Dad has more than enough help on our farm and since I schedule my own hours at the bike shop, it’s easy enough to come over here and do whatever she decides needs to be done that day.”

“You’re still working at the bike shop?” She isn’t surprised. The last three summers she’d stayed here, she’d worked part-time at Katy’s dad’s ice cream shop in town. Jim had practically lived at the bike shop across the street since he’d learned to ride a bike.

“Promoted to manager six months ago.”

“Shut up, that’s awesome!” She can’t keep from grinning at him. “So you’re living the life here, huh?”

“It’s not so bad.” They’re both laughing and she kind of likes how it sounds. “You know, none of us thought you’d be coming back this year.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Oh you know, fancy new college girl and all.” She tries to hit him but he was quicker than her, dodging out of the way. “How is Penn State? Everything you wanted it to be?”

She was about to answer him when Celia meets them in the backyard and starts giving them instructions on where she wanted the tables and chairs moved to. And since he was there, would he mind filling her bird feeders for her?

Jim waits for her to head back to the kitchen with the promise of bringing him something cold to drink before he turns to Pam and points at the table they’re about to move. “We’re going to move this to that corner of the yard and she’s going to decide she doesn’t want them under the apple trees after all because what if an apple falls and hits Mrs. Vance in the head? And so we’ll move them to that spot.” He points to the left. “But she’s going to worry that the smell of cows will be too much if the wind shifts. And then you know what we’re going to do?”

Pam knows. She’s been moving tables for her grandma her entire life. “We’re going to put it back in the exact same spot we started out at.” Still, they both grab and end and start carrying the table to the cluster of trees as directed. “Hey, what did you mean earlier?”

“What did I mean when?”

“Fancy new college girl?” She raises an eyebrow at him. She knows his story. He finished a two year degree from a college two towns over and so far, he hasn’t done anything with it. According to her mom, who still talks to his mom every week to check in on Celia, Betsy and Gerald have been trying to get him to go back to school and he’s been resisting them at every turn.

She suspects his eagerness to help Gran is part of his plan to stay in town, but she knows better than to call him out on that, especially now when she’s wondering why he suddenly seems like he’s got an issue with the fact that she went away to school.

“Oh.” He looks away for a moment and then faces her again as they set the table down. “You know my mom talks to your mom. She’s mentioned to me that you barely came home at all this past year.” Cool, Helene’s lips were as loose as Betsy’s, she should have known as much.

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “There’s not exactly a lot going on in Scranton, you know?”

He scoffs as they each pick up a chair to take over to the table. “Because there’s so much more going on in this metropolis.”

She laughs and sticks her tongue out at him. “This is different,” she insists. She stops herself from pointing out that the biggest difference is that her parents aren’t here. “Plus Gran…” her voice softens as she looks back at the house. “I had to come back.”

“I get it.” The sliding glass door on the deck is opening again as he quickly shoots a look at her. “I’m glad you did.” He says it quietly and before Celia is within earshot but she’s pretty sure her bright red cheeks are a dead giveaway anyways.

If Gran notices, she doesn’t say anything. She hands them each a glass of lemonade and then stares at her new table set up with her hands planted on her hips. “You know, on second thought, I don’t think this will do at all.” She shakes her head and looks back at the two of them. “Some of those branches were weakened in the storm last week. What if one snaps and hits Phyllis in the head? I’d never hear the end of it.”

“We don’t want that,” Pam agrees. She refuses to look at Jim because she knows she’s going to start laughing if she does.

“What if we moved everything over there?” Jim points to the second spot in the yard and they both fight their smiles as Celia nods enthusiastically at the new plan.

Sure enough, no sooner than they have everything rearranged, she’s pacing in front of the furniture and fretting that if the wind shifts, they’re all going to be in trouble.

Twenty minutes later, the furniture is back in its original spots and Celia is beaming at how perfect everything is. She’s fussing over her bird feeders when Jim turns back to Pam.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight?”

She blinks. “Oh, I don’t know. Gran? Are we doing anything tonight?”

“I don’t know about you but tonight I’m watching Ally McBeal. And the thing is Pam; I’d really like to watch it without you talking through the whole thing.” Celia’s voice is unapologetic but her eyes are twinkling as she teases her granddaughter.

“You’re funny. I don’t even like Ally McBeal.”

“Everybody likes Ally McBeal! What’s not to love?”

“Anyways.” She turns to Jim and shrugs. “I guess I’m being kicked out of the house tonight. I haven’t even seen Kelly yet. I should probably call her and see what she’s doing.”

“Darryl’s having a party. I’m sure Kelly’s already planning on going. You should come.”

“Maybe.” She already knows that if there’s a party that night, that if she wants to see Kelly or any of her friends, she’s going to have to go to it. “Probably.”

“Good.” He flashes her that same grin that all of a sudden keeps doing things to her. “I’ll see you there.” He looks down at his watch and then over his shoulder at Celia and the bird feeders. “I’m going to quick help her, but then I’ve got to head over to the bike shop for a few hours still. I’ll see you tonight?” He holds her gaze until she nods at him. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She plays it as cool as she can, smiles enough to let him know she’s looking forward to it, but internally she’s already freaking out. She really needs to call Kelly so she mutters something that passes for a goodbye and heads into the house before she can make a fool of herself.

--

“Pam! Paaaaaamy! The Pam-Meister!” Even before she turns around, Andy Bernard is racing toward them and throwing his arms around her. “I can’t believe you’re here! Jim said you were coming but this party’s been going on forever and you weren’t here and I was beginning to think he’d made up that you were back in town.”

She tips her head to the side as she steps out of Andy’s embrace. “Why would he make that up?” she asks curiously.

“The better question is; why wouldn’t he?”

“Right.” She smiles like she would at the kids she used to babysit for. Andy is wasted and she’s too sober for his weirdness. But he is right, they should have been at the party at least two hours ago, but when she’d gotten to Kelly’s house earlier in the evening, the other girl was in the middle of a very dramatic fight over the phone with Ryan Howard about something he may or may not have said about her older sister being hotter than she was. It had taken forever to get Kelly to first, stop crying, and then get dressed because once she’d decided that yes, she needed to go to this party, she declared she needed to be the hottest one there. “No offense, Pam.”

None taken, but now everyone was well on their way to being drunk off their asses and Pam hadn’t had so much as a few sips from a warm bottle of Apple Pucker in Kelly’s bedroom.

She needs to catch up. But first, she wants to find Jim. She’s pretty confident that finding Jim will also lead her straight to the keg.

“What the fuck is that?” Before she can even move, Kelly is standing next to her and screeching into her ear. Kelly had shot-gunned a beer before they’d even gotten out of the car so she’s already a little unsteady on her feet. Pam follows the finger Kelly has pointed to the middle of the room and well, she isn’t sure what she expects to see but she really didn’t think she’d see Jim leaning against a wall in the living room with Karen Filippelli wrapped around him like goddamned twine around a hay bale.

“Asshole!” Kelly’s voice was much louder than necessary and almost everyone in the room but Jim and Karen turned to look at her. “Oh my god, I’m going to—“

“Kel.” Pam stops her before she can get too far. “It’s… its fine.”

“It’s so not fine!” Kelly’s too busy giving the other couple a double middle finger salute to look at Pam’s face.  “He asked you to come tonight, Pam. Why the fuck is his tongue shoved so far down Karen’s throat? Karen? Karen.”

“Okay, calm down.” Pam is momentarily glad that she’s not drunk yet, because she knows if she was, she’d let go of Kelly’s arm and let her charge after them. “It doesn’t matter. Jim and I are just friends. He just—“ She shakes her head, giving up on words. “Let’s just go find some drinks, okay? I need a drink.”

“And a guy. Oh my god Pam, let’s both find guys tonight to hook up with. Fuck Ryan and fuck Jim!” Kelly’s voice rises again but this time, Pam is laughing too hard to try to get her to quiet down. “Except, let’s not fuck them. We’ll fuck other guys and it’ll be amazing and they’ll be sad and alone and pathetic.”

“We’ll see.” A random hook up is the last thing she wants tonight but she also knows Kelly isn’t even listening to her. She looks around the room again and this time when she sees Andy, he’s with Darryl and sure enough; they’re tapping a fresh keg.

That’s where she needs to be. Someone has turned up the crappy sound system even louder than before and she almost has to shout to be heard over some Kid Rock song to let Kelly know where she’s going.

Darryl greets her with a shout and hands her a bottle of Everclear before he does anything else. She slugs back the grain alcohol waits for everything to get a little hazy.

Before she knows it, it’s much later and she’s tired and more than a little drunk and ready to go, but instead of finding Kelly in the kitchen, she runs headfirst into Jim’s chest. Of course she does. She’s managed to avoid him most of the night.

“Easy there,” he chuckles and when he looks down at her she thinks that he’s very tall. “How’re you doing?” His voice is low in her ear and she tells herself that it does absolutely nothing to her.

“I’m great!” She puts as much emphasis as she can on the word as she shoots him a bright smile. She points around the room with her bottle, beer sloshing over the sides as she stumbles a little on her feet. “What’s not to love? It’s a party, Jim.”

“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t look convinced. “I didn’t see you come in. Wasn’t sure if you were coming or not.”

“Weird, I’ve been here.” She looks over his shoulder because she doesn’t want to look directly at him, but then she can see Karen standing in the doorway and she looks a little blurry, but Pam can tell she’s glaring at them. Or at least, at her. “Guess you were busy.”

“Guess so.” She wants to believe he sounds a little disappointed but she’s pretty sure that’s the shot or three of Popov she took with Meredith earlier talking. “It looks like everything’s winding down though. Where’s Kelly? She was your ride, right?” They both know that even if they find her, Kelly’s going to be in no shape to drive either of them anywhere.

“Kelly’s…” Pam turns in a half circle and tries to focus her eyes as they land on different people in the room. At the same time, they both see Kelly and Ryan slipping up the stairs to the second floor of the house. She turns back to Jim and smirks. “I don’t think Kelly’s leaving anytime soon.”

“Probably not.” He takes the bottle from her hand and his arm brushes up against her as he reaches around to set it on the counter behind her. “Let’s go. I’ll drive you home.”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to tell him no, that she can find her own way home, but then she realizes she wants him to take her home. She wants those few precious moments alone with him.

She wants to see the look on Karen’s face when she’s the one climbing into Jim’s truck.

“Let’s go,” she repeats, smiles widely at him, and follows him out the door.

The late night breeze is cool on her face as Jim opens the truck door and helps her down. She stumbles and the gravel crunches under their feet as she reaches for his arm to steady herself.

“That is not because I’m drunk,” she declares, giggling at the look he gives her. “It’s not. It’s my shoes.” She turns to the side and, still gripping his arm, kicks her left foot out behind her to show him the ridiculously high wedge sandals she’s wearing. “See?” She looks around and frowns. They’re parked at the end of the driveway, almost a quarter of a mile away from the house. “Why are we so far away?” Her hand slides from his arm to his hand and she tangles her fingers with his loosely.

“Because you’re drunk and I don’t want to wake Celia up getting you inside. Maybe the walk will sober you up a little.” Jim’s reasons are solid.

“You could have driven at least halfway there,” she counters, swinging their hands between them. He doesn’t try to let go of her as she pulls herself an arm’s length away, holds their hands over her head, and twirls. She knows it’s not graceful as she starts to walk backwards but she finds it hard to care when he laughs and wraps his fingers around hers a little tighter as he pulls her back toward him. “It’s so far,” she says again. “You might have to carry me.”

“Because of the shoes?” he asks dryly.

She lifts his hand again to slide it around her shoulders as she collapses into his side. “Because of the beer,” she sighs. And then they do have to stop walking because that last twirl was one too many and her head starts to spin.

She rests her forehead to his shoulder as he rubs circles into the space between her shoulder blades and lectures her on the evils of drinking cheap beer. His fingertips are cool against her skin and he’s careful they don’t slide beneath her tank top, except for the one time they do. “Do I need to carry you?” he teases lightly and she laughs again.

“No, I’m good.” She ducks her head to his chest, inhales one more time, and lets the scent of fabric softener and cologne steady her more than the fresh air or the arm around her waist does.

She vaguely remembers earlier in the evening when she told Kelly it was fine that Jim was kissing Karen.

She clearly knows now that that was bullshit.

They start walking again and she tries not to care that his arm is still around her.

“Why did you drink so much?” His tone isn’t accusatory, it’s just curious.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Why not? It’s not like I drank more than anyone else there.”

“Well no, that’s impossible when Darryl’s the one throwing a party.” He’s not wrong.

“How much did you drink?” she challenges, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him.

He stares at her long enough that she licks her lips expectantly, but then he laughs again and just shakes his head at her. She swears she hears him mutter “Not enough,” under his breath but then he’s saying something about how he’s not drunk because he has to work early in the morning and farm equipment is not friendly to hangovers and then she’s laughing and she forgets to ask him what he means by not enough.

They talk quietly as they walk, mostly about the party because it’s fun to wonder how Ryan talked Kelly into forgiving him and if he’ll still ditch her to go play video games with Andy. She notes that Angela, the minister’s daughter was there, but that she left pretty early during the night. He comments that his friend Dwight also left around the same time. They stop and look at each other, matching horrified expressions on each of their faces and this time when they laugh, it’s anything but quiet.

They stop halfway up the drive so she can take her shoes off. She doesn’t feel the sting of gravel cutting into her bare feet now but she knows she’ll hate herself for this tomorrow.

Another thing she might hate herself for tomorrow? The question she can’t stop herself from asking Jim right now.

“What’s the deal with you and Karen?”

She feels the muscles in his arm clench. “Karen?” His voice is too casual. “There’s no deal there.”

“Right.” She draws the word out over several syllables. “There must be some deal, going by that kiss tonight.” Sometimes she wishes she was a quiet drunk.

She can’t see it obviously, but she knows he’s blushing. “You saw that?”

She laughs. “Everyone saw that,” she clarifies. He doesn’t say anything else. “So…” she prods. Now that she knows it makes him uncomfortable she can’t just drop it.

“It’s really nothing,” he swears. “I know I don’t need to tell you this, but sometimes drunk people make out in public places. It’s shocking, I know.”

“I thought you weren’t drunk.”

He shrugs. “She was.”

“Hey wait.” She swings around to look at him again. “Why did you say it like that? That you don’t need to tell me that.”

He grins at her as they reach the front porch. “I know you haven’t forgotten last summer’s Fourth of July bonfire. Or as I like to remember it, the night you and Danny tipped a canoe over in the lake and you came up topless.”

“Oh my God!” She claps her hand over her mouth. “I completely forgot about that.” She remembers it now and for a second, wonders what Danny’s up to this summer. “Why do you remember that?”

“Do people really think Karen and I are a thing?” He doesn’t answer her question but she lets it slide and shrugs her shoulders.

“I don’t know. So you’re not sleeping with her?”

“I am not.”

Good, she thinks. She prays she doesn’t say it out loud.

They sit on the swing and she draws her legs up next to her and lets him do the swinging. Jim’s arm stretches out along the back of the bench, the tips of his fingers barely brushing her elbow where her head is propped on one hand. Her knees bump one of his legs as she turns toward him.

“But you have slept with Katy?”

He snickers and doesn’t even try to deny it. “Hasn’t everyone?” Again, he’s not wrong.

“I haven’t,” she teases. She tilts her head one way and then the other. “I kissed her once though. That wasn’t terrible.”

“I’m sorry, you what?” The swing stops moving as he plants both feet and turns fully to face her.

“Shh,” she scolds him. “Gran is asleep right above us.” She points to the second story of the house to emphasize her point.

“I will not ‘shh’.” He holds her gaze to see if she blinks first, but even in her current state of tipsiness, she stares back confidently. “You didn’t kiss her.”

“Oh come on.” She nudges her knee into his thigh. “Last year. You were at that party, weren’t you?”

“Is this the face of someone who was at that party?”

She laughs again. “I could have sworn you were. It was at Karen’s house actually. We were playing spin the bottle.” She lifts her hands as if to say what can you do? “The rules of spin the bottle are unflinchingly rigid, Jim. You have to kiss whoever the bottle lands on.”

“How did I miss this party?” He shakes his head.

“You were probably hanging out in Mark’s basement, getting high and listening to Dave Matthews Band,” she teases. He can’t protest because he knows she’s right so he smirks and leans back, waiting for her to continue with her story. “But anyways, ask Gabe about it if you don’t believe me. He was so mad that it landed on Katy and not him that he threw the bottle across the yard and hit Dwight’s Trans Am.”

“Shit. That sounds too right for you to be making this up.”

“I’m telling you, it happened.” She makes a face as they start swinging again. “I can’t believe you slept with her.”

“Hey, give me a break. There’s not a lot to do here in the winter.” He looks at her and then looks away. “”All the pretty and smart girls go back to college, remember?”

“Katy’s pretty.” She doesn’t say anything about her being smart.

“She’s okay.” Katy’s more than okay and they both know it. “I think that’s enough about me though. What about you?”

“What about me?” She flutters her eyelashes at him and starts to claim she’s a perfect angel when he fires his shot.

“Roy.”

“Oh.” She leans back and shrugs sheepishly. “Yeah, that happened.”

“Roy Anderson,” he repeats. “Why did that happen?”

“Honestly?” He nods. “I don’t know, it was like, last summer was ending and I realized I didn’t want to leave for Penn State still a virgin and Roy’s never made it a secret that he liked me…” her voice trails off as she remembers that night. The end of the summer party at Andy’s parents’ lake house.

“Yeah, but Roy?” He gives her a pointed look and she gets it. Roy’s the guy you go to if you need someone to go jet skiing with, or to pull your car out of the mud when you get stuck two-tracking in the middle of the woods. He’s the one crushing empty beer cans against his head and asking people to punch him in the stomach as hard as they can.

He’s a fun guy to have at parties, but he’s not the guy you lose your virginity to. At least, not unless you’ve already been drinking jungle juice all night long anyways and your brain starts playing tricks on you by reasoning that hey, at least it’s not Gabe or Toby and he is kind of cute of in a jock kind of way and you really could do worse.

“It’s your fault,” she says before she can stop herself. He shoots her a look that tells her he has no idea what she’s talking about and she figures she’s in this deep; she may as well run with her train of thought. “You weren’t there.”

The swing shakes back and forth as he’s caught in between laughing and coughing at her statement. “What does that mean?” he finally sputters and she just laughs.

“Come on, Jim,” she says quietly, leaning against his shoulder and tipping her face to stare at the sky. “Unless you wouldn’t have.”

It’s quiet for a long time before Jim lets out a long, slow breath and shifts against her without moving away. “You’re killing me,” he mutters with an exasperated chuckle.

“Yeah?” She grins up at him. “Well, that’ll teach you to skip out on parties this summer, won’t it?”

“We were both at the party tonight,” he points out.

“I know.” She sighs. “But you were a little busy, weren’t you?” She raises an eyebrow to show she’s only teasing and laughs as he tries to stammer out a retort. “Guess there’s always next time, huh?”

“Killing me,” he repeats and this time she throws her head back to laugh at him. By the time she collects herself, he’s got his hands on his knees and is pushing himself up from the swing. “I’d better go and you should get to bed before either of us gets into any trouble.”

She can’t resist. “What kind of trouble do you think we could get into?”

“We can talk about that when you’re not drunk.”

“Or we can talk about it when you are drunk.” She’s just plain sassy now but with the way he’s looking at her, she doesn’t really care.

“I’d ask you if you’re okay to get yourself to bed but I’m pretty sure you’d just say no at this point to get me to come inside." Jim is already off the porch and headed toward the driveway. “”But are you okay to get into the house without waking Celia up?”

“I’m good,” she promises. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

“Anytime. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey Jim.” When he turns around again, she’s leaning on her elbows over the porch railing and smirking at him. “No kiss goodnight then?”

He shakes his head but then he’s walking back toward her, one finger pointed as sternly as he can while trying not to laugh. “Go to bed, Beesly.” Jim’s lips are dry and warm against her forehead as he smiles into her skin.

She calls goodnight after him but stands there and watches until his truck pulls away. His headlights flash twice in her direction and she sits there for a few minutes more before quietly heading inside and going to bed.

She’s not sure if it’s the pounding in her head or the pounding coming from somewhere outside that wakes her up, but either way, Pam’s awake and stumbling into the kitchen at the too-early hour of eight the next morning.

While Celia has always been a morning person, she seems exceptionally so this morning. Pam leans against the doorway for a minute and watches as her grandmother flits around the kitchen, singing along with whatever 60s girl band is playing on the radio as she transfers muffins from a tray into a basket.

Her headache is killing her but she still smiles. She knows the last six months have been rough so she’s relieved to see her gran getting back into the swing of things.

The smell of freshly baked goods is too strong of a pull to linger in the doorway any longer. “Morning Gran.” She winces at how rough she sounds.

“Good morning!” Celia is especially chipper as she grabs the teapot from the stove and brings it to the table along with the basket of muffins. “Chocolate chip or banana nut?”

“Yes.” She reaches for one and yawns as Celia pours her tea. Her eyes fall to the teal teapot, a staple of her grandmother’s kitchen for as long as she can remember. There used to be six matching teacups but now there are only two, and as far as Pam knows, she’s the only other person allowed to use one. Which she does, every morning that she’s at the farm.

“Rough night, Pammy?” Celia’s eyes twinkle beneath perfectly arched eyebrows. The oven timer goes off before she can say more.

“It wasn’t so bad,” she lies. Celia pulls a cake from the oven and sets it on the counter next to the cookies. “What are you doing? Why are you Betty Crocker this morning?”

“Church bake sale this weekend.” Celia hip bumps the oven door shut and turns back to Pam. “So it wasn’t so bad, hmm?” She asks, tossing her oven mitt into the sink. “I have to say, you’ve looked better.” She tips Pam’s chin up with one hot pink tipped finger. “No offense, love.”

Pam rolls her eyes and picks at the top of her muffin. “None taken. I didn’t wake you when I came in, did I?”

“Wake me? You mean when you came home at three am, had a party on the front porch for twenty minutes, and then traipsed up the stairs next to my bedroom door?” Celia takes a sip of her tea. “Didn’t hear a thing.”

She laughs and the room only spins a little. It’s progress. “Sorry, I really did try to be quiet.”

“I was awake before you got home. My damn arm was hurting again and—“

“It was?” Pam frowns, her own hangover temporarily forgotten. “Are you okay? Should we call the doc—“

“I’m fine. Nothing a little whiskey and Tylenol couldn’t help.”

“Oh we’re self-medicating now. Good. That’s good.”

“I’m fine, Pam.” Celia brushes off her concern with a wave of her hand. “But if it makes you feel better, you come with me to my appointment next week and tattle to the doctor.”

“Great, I think I will.”

Celia shakes her head and changes the subject. “So who drove you home last night?”

She’s not quick enough in raising the teacup to her lips to hide the smile that’s suddenly there. “A friend.”

“Mmhmm. Is that the same friend who’s outside building me a new fence?”

“Is that what that noise is?” Pam feels her eyes slide to the patio door but she can’t see him from where she’s sitting. “Wait, why is he building you a fence?”

“The old one was falling apart. The Anderson boys were supposed to have it done the week before you got here, but they never showed up.” Celia’s eyes cut to her sharply. “You don’t hang around with them, do you?”

Pam swallows quickly, the tea burning her throat on the way down. “I mean, they’re around, but no, we’re not friends or anything.” She looks down at the muffin she’s torn to pieces so Celia can’t see her blush.

“Good. Anyways, I think Jim finally got tired of having to drive everything around that pile of posts, so he said he’d do it.” Celia shrugs. “Honestly, I didn’t even know he’d know how to build a fence, but he seems to be doing okay.”

“I’m really glad he’s been around to help you this year.”

“Me too. Though I’m pretty sure this has less to do with helping me out and more with my granddaughter making heart eyes at him all of the time.”

“Gran!” She coughs on her last sip of tea and shakes her head. “Stop that. We’re just friends.”

“Honey, don’t lie to me. It’s only going to make your headache worse.”

“It’s not a lie!” she protests.

“Whatever you say. I need a few things so I’m going to run into town. Do you want to come with me or are you going back to bed?”

The idea of crawling back into bed is tempting and she yawns just thinking about it. “I think I’ll just hang out here. Do you want me to put any of this away?” She gestures to the low-scale bakery that’s taken over the kitchen.

“Leave it. I’ve got a very specific way of packaging everything for the sale. I’ll show you when I get back.” Celia takes their dishes to the sink and then unties the apron from her waist. “Oh, but if you’re wondering. Jim takes a break every morning at ten. He looks like he might need a cup of coffee by then.” She clucks her tongue. “Poor boy looks like he was up awfully late last night. Know anything about that?”

Pam sighs and shakes her head. “You’re worse than Kelly, Gran, and that’s saying a lot.” She lets Celia kiss her on the cheek and as she heads out the front door, Pam heads back upstairs; taking a shower is the only plan she has for the immediate future.

She turns the water as hot as she can stand it and waits for the small room to be blanketed in steam before she steps in. She feels a thousand times better the instant the spray hits her skin so she closes her eyes and leans against the tiled wall and waits for the water and the Tylenol she took while waiting for the shower to heat up to ease her headache.

Different moments from last night float through her mind as she stands there. She doesn’t she like the way she reacted to seeing Jim kiss Karen, and more importantly, she doesn’t understand why she reacted that way.

She tells herself she straightens her hair because she has nothing else to do with her time. She puts on a little more make-up than usual because even though she feels better, she’s still paler than normal. She plans on going into town later to see the girls, so it only makes sense that she dresses now, so she doesn’t have to change clothes later.

The biggest lie of all is when she tells herself that it’s just a coincidence that she feels like having a cup of coffee and –notices- that it just so happens to be ten o’clock.

She makes it into the side yard unnoticed and leans against the wall of the barn for a moment, watching as Jim knocks a splintered fence post loose from the ground. It’s true that she’s very much enjoyed Tractor Jim these fast few days but now she finds herself mesmerized as he swings an old sledgehammer into the post again.

She clears her throat softly to let him know she’s there and while he still jumps, at least he doesn’t drop the hammer onto his shoes, which definitely aren’t steel-toed.

“Morning.” She nods at the two cups she holds in her hands. “Looks like my job this summer is keeping you hydrated.”

“Jim grins as the hammer falls to the ground with a dull thud. His fingers brush purposefully against hers when he takes the coffee she’s holding away from her. “Does that mean I have to tip?”

Okay, so they’re still bantering this morning. She nods as seriously as she can. “Nothing less than twenty percent either. I know what your salary is.”

“Have Gran take it out of my pay.” He leans one shoulder against the wall so he’s half facing her. “I’m surprised you’re up already. You went pretty hard last night.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” she insists. She hopes that by holding his gaze a second longer he knows that she remembers everything. “Don’t forget, I just got through a year at Penn and the only thing you major in there your first year is the art of the hangover. And poly sci.”

“Must have made the Dean’s List then. Did you get extra credit for learning how to do a keg stand?”

“I did not do a keg stand last night.”

“Shot-gunning a beer?”

Okay fine, she did do one of those but she’s pretty sure Jim wasn’t around to see it and she particularly feel like owning up to that specific talent right now.

Thankfully, Jim moves on before she needs to respond. “So, last night.” He punctuates the last word by catching her hand with his.

She freezes for a second and racks her brain, trying to remember if she at all made a fool of herself last night. “Yeah?” she asks when she comes up with nothing.

His next words don’t make her feel much better. “That thing with Karen. I know you just said it didn’t really bother you, but—“

“I thought you said there was no thing.” She wonders how forced her smile looks because the corners of her mouth feel locked in place.

“Exactly,” he says firmly. “It wasn’t anything. She and I—“

She really doesn’t want to hear any details about whatever relationship he does or doesn’t have with Karen. “Jim, it’s fine,” she says lightly. “Even if it was something, it’s not like you owe me anythi—“

“It wasn’t anything,” he repeats. His thumb slides over knuckles in a way that feels like maybe they’re always supposed to hold hands. “Anyway, I don’t have an excuse for it. I know it was jackass move to invite you to that party and then—“ the tips of his ears are turning red in an adorable way and her smile feels much less forced as he tries to dig his way out of this one. “I know I said I wasn’t drunk but I definitely wasn’t sober and I know that’s not a reason, but—“

“Jim.” She’s laughing as she places her hand flat on his chest to shut him up. He’s warm and solid under her palm and she thinks maybe his bare skin will burn against hers one day. “Would you feel better if I told you I kissed Darryl last night?”

The look on his face is priceless. “Did you?”

She shrugs as she remembers the innocent peck on the lips she gave their friend after they’d won a third game in a row of flip cup. “It didn’t mean anything,” she answers saucily.

“Hmm. Well. I don’t like that.” His eyes flit down to her lips and she wonders if he’s going to kiss her right there in the middle of the farm in broad daylight.

She’s disappointed when he doesn’t.

Instead he lets go of her hand. “I should get back to—“ He points at the half-built fence behind him.

She sets her coffee cup down next to his and slaps her hands to her thighs. “I want to help.”

The look he gives her reminds her of when they were kids and he wouldn’t let her jump out of the hayloft with him and his brothers. “No way.”

“Please?”

“No. Pam, you’re going to hurt yourself. Or me. Probably both of us.”

“I promise I won’t.” She reaches for the sledgehammer at his feet but he’s quicker than she is.

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I’m pretty sure though.” She juts her lower lip out the tiniest bit and holds her hand out for the hammer. “Come on. Please?”

“Absolutely not.” He sighs and she knows she almost has him. Just like the hayloft. Never mind that he’d been right then too and she’d broken her arm, but still. He wasn’t the boss of her then and he certainly isn’t now. “Look.” He sighs again and she tries not grin because yeah, she definitely has him. “You’re not getting a hammer, but if you really want to help, you can hold this log steady for me.”

“That’s what she said.” She grins triumphantly at the look of utter defeat that crosses his face.

“Do you want to help or not?” He doesn’t sound nearly as mean as his words try to be so she nods and steps over to where he’s holding part of the fence. “Okay, hold here—“ he takes her hands and moves the fence post until it sits neatly in its groove. “Keep it steady and I’m just going to—“ he picks up a smaller hammer and gestures to where he’s going to nail it into place.

“Got it.” She nods confidently because really, how hard can it be?

Three times she pulls her hands away before he can hit the nail with the hammer. The fourth time, he drops the hammer to his side and gives her a look of pure exasperation. “You know this is why I get to hold the hammer and you don’t, right?”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to say something absolutely dirty, but she stops herself. “I’m sorry! But what if you hit my hands?”

“I won’t.”

She knows he’s telling the truth, but when they try again she still flinches at the last second and pulls her hands back.

“Okay.” Jim laughs at her as he takes her by the shoulders and moves her away from the fence. “You’re done here.”

“Yeah. I think we both know I wasn’t going to be any good at this.” She accepts her defeat graciously.  “But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“How do you even know how to build a fence?”

He shrugs. “It’s not rocket science. An entire childhood spent playing with Lincoln Logs gave me the skillset necessary to do this.” He shows her how sturdy the new part of the fence is and sure enough, it doesn’t move when he shoves against it. “Plus, I thought I’d go ahead and nail something Roy hadn’t.” He says it so casually that she almost misses his meaning.

Almost. “Oh, you’re so dead, Halpert.” She lunges toward him with little strength and the distant memory of his being ticklish.

Jim’s always been quicker than her so he manages to both sidestep out of her reach and catch her before she careens into the barn wall. “I’m real scared.” He holds her arms stretched and away from both of their bodies as she tries to throw her weight against him. “What are you going to do now?” he taunts.

“Let me go and I’ll show you.” It’s a bold dare. She mirrors him when he raises an eyebrow at her. It’s a silent standoff until she tries to hip check him again but gets nowhere near him with the hold he has on her. Jim smirks and releases one of her hands from his grip.

He yells sharply when her fingers find their target, digging into his ribs. Again, she finds herself surprised by the amount of lean muscle she comes into contact with, but there’s plenty of time to think about that later because she knows she’s only got a few more seconds before he gets the upper hand again and she’s going to make this time count.

He gives her two seconds before he turns into her and catches her hand again. “That’s the game you want to play, Beesly? You sure about that?” She gets one more jab into his side before he presses her into the barn, pinning in her place with his knee. “Fine. We can play this game.”

In her excitement over remembering how ticklish Jim was, she somehow forgets that’s she’s even more ticklish than he is, and more importantly, that she hates being tickled. He reminds her quick enough, the fingers of one of his hands starting at her waist and tickling their way up her side to just underneath her arm, zeroing in on the only place she can think of where she doesn’t want his hands.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she chants, twisting away from him as much as she can with the little space he gives her. He’s got her hands pinned above her head with just one of his, the other skimming back down her side, where she’s no less sensitive than before. “Stop.” She’s a little breathless and a lot whiny and not at all prepared when the hand at her waist stills and squeezes decidedly tighter than tickling. She swallows hard.

“Does the Roy thing really bother you?” Her eyes trace the lines of his face, noting how the side of his mouth quirks at her question and how after he blinks twice, his eyes are a little darker than they were.

“No.” His grip loosens on her wrists but he doesn’t let go. “Does the Karen thing really bother you?”

She can’t stop staring at his mouth as she shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. “Kinda pissed about Katy though.” When she forces her eyes up to his she sees that his are on her mouth.

His laugh vibrates through her. “Same,” he murmurs. And then he leans forward at the same time she closes her eyes.

The moment is shattered; first by the exaggerated and prolonged honk of a car horn, followed by one of Jim’s older brothers yelling across the two yards for them to get a room.

Jim drops her hands and they fall naturally to his arms when doesn’t move away from her. “Hey, Tom’s home,” he mutters.

“I never liked him,” she grumbles back. They share a laugh and it’s shakier than the previous one. Both of them squeeze wherever they’re holding each other and then he takes a step back and she takes a deep breath.

“What are you doing tonight?”

She wasn’t expecting that. “Oh,” she stammers. “Gran has her card party tonight so Kelly said something about a movie night? We haven’t done one of those in a while.”

“You guys have been getting drunk and watching Dazed and Confused on Friday nights for like, three years now. Is it still fun?”

“First of all, you’re the one renting Dazed and Confused every weekend. We’re watching Empire Records.”

“It’s the same thing. You should skip it tonight.”

“And do what? I’m not going to stay here and play gin with my grandma and her friends.” She kicks a rock toward his foot. “They’re all cheaters.”

He kicks the rock back toward her. “Hang out with me tonight.” He says it so casually that she’s not convinced he doesn’t mean for her to come out with him and like, Mark and Josh too.

“Hmm, tempting.” She kicks the rock again, watching as it bounces over his foot. “But can you promise me a better time than wine cooler drunk Kelly screaming ‘damn the man, save the empire’ into my ear all night long?”

Jim looks so offended that she thinks he might think she’s being serious. “So yeah. I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that. We both know I can.”

“Okay,” she says before she can stop herself. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she repeats with a grin. She jerks her thumb back toward the house. “So I’m gonna go. Gran will be back soon and I promised to help her in the kitchen.” It’s not technically a lie but she really just wants to leave before she ends up embarrassing herself.

“Sure. I need to finish as much of this as I can today.” He gestures at the fence. “I’ll pick you up around seven-thirty?”

“Sounds good.”

“Good,” he echoes. They stare at each other, grinning, for a moment before she turns to walk back toward the house.

She takes exactly three steps before he calls out again. “Hey Pam?”

“Yeah?”

The smile he shoots at her makes her blush. “It’s a date.” He turns back to the fence before she can say anything, which is fine by her because she’s pretty sure she forgets how to talk. So she bends down to pick up their forgotten coffee cups and walks back to the house. She only turns back once to look at him and she really likes the way he smiles at her. 

--

“Who knew Pam Beesly would turn out to be such a shameless cheater at mini-golf?”

“I am not!” Pam bumps her shoulder into his as she laughs at the look he gives her. “Anyways, you cheated way more than I did.”

“You kicked the ball into the hole like, four times.”

“You insisted on being scorekeeper and then gave yourself four holes in one in a row!”

“It was three.” He rubbed his left cheek, just under his eye. “You still didn’t have to throw that pencil at me when you found out.”

The idea that a tiny golf pencil could inflict any type of injury to his face makes her giggle as she leans forward and brushes her thumb over his cheekbone. “I think you’ll live,” she says as seriously as she can. “And maybe you’ll think twice about cheating next time.”

“Maybe.” He leans forward and she thinks that this is it; he’s finally going to kiss her.

Because that’s been an issue between them tonight. For whatever reason, the universe seems to hell-bent on keeping him from kissing her. He’d tried when picking her up, and they were interrupted by Celia popping into the house at that exact moment to get more ice for the vodka lemonades she was mixing up for the girls. They’d been super flirty at the golf course, complete with insisting on helping her improve her swing just to get his hands on her. She knows he would have kissed her at the eighth hole if it hadn’t been for the nine year old who lost their grip and sent a golf club flying in their direction. She had tried kissing him when they went for ice cream after, but just as she was leaning in, she’d spotted Karen, of all people, out of the corner of her eye and well, she’d rather have Gran as an audience than Karen, and so they’d snuck out of there before being spotted.

Now it’s just past midnight and they’re sitting in his truck, at the edge of the driveway and she knows that any second now, he’s going to kiss her.

At least, he would have if the front door hadn’t been thrown open at that exact moment, with Celia hustling Teri Hudson and the newest member of the choir, Cynthia, out and toward their cars as they argued loudly about the fact that Cynthia kept calling Teri’s husband at all hours of the day and night.

“Shh.” Pam puts her finger to her lips and motions for Jim to open his door. She slides across the seat and slips out behind him, noticing the way his hands linger at her waist as he helps her down. She shuts the door quietly and then motions for him to follow her through the shadows into the side yard, where their hidden by the apple trees as Celia puts an end to the women fighting and sends them both on their way. They watch as she shakes her head, mutters something under her breath and then puts a smile on her face as she goes back to her party. If she notices the two of them twenty feet away, she doesn’t let them know.

“Card night gets wild, huh?” Jim whispers in her ear as they wait for her to disappear into the backyard again. “Is that where you learned to cheat?”

“I barely cheated. Besides, I can’t believe you weren’t going to let me win.” She rests her back against a tree and crosses her arms in front of her. “What kind of gentleman are you, Jim?”

“I was going to let you win,” he informs her. He steps closer, leaning into her as he braces his elbow on the tree trunk near her shoulder. “Until you cheated.”

“I’ll beat you fair and square next time.” It doesn’t sound like as much of a threat as she wants it to.

“Can’t wait. Did you have fun tonight?”

“You know what?” Pam smile widely as his fingers close over one of her wrists. “I really did. Did you?”

“I did.” She hears something in his voice that she can’t quite pinpoint but it sounds a lot like surprise. Either way, she guesses it’s a good thing because his other hand is on the small of her back, pulling her into his space. She blinks and finally, he kisses her.

His lips are slow and steady against hers. And then it’s a little harder, more insistent. She’s not ready for him to pull away, so she moves her free hand to grip his elbow. She’s pleased when instead of pulling away; he moves the hand at her back to wrap fully around her waist. He lets go of her other hand, and slides his up her ribs, over her arm, and tangles it into the hair at the base of her neck. There’s a new urgency in his kiss as he softly pulls the hair wrapped around his fingers and waits to see how she reacts.

She doesn’t think she means to gasp but she does and his tongue slides into her mouth and then he’s really, truly kissing her and yes, it’s still perfect. He tastes like chocolate ice cream.

Finally, he pulls away and she feels as dazed as he looks.

Jim’s hands frame both sides of her face, his thumbs stroking at her jawline. He looks so confused that her heart drops and she bites her lower lip as she braces herself for whatever he’s going to say next.

“I—“ He frowns slightly and she watches as his eyes first search hers before moving to her lips and then back. His head dips and he kisses her again, solidly and soundly. He looks even more confused as he pulls away. It’s her turn to frown as she raises her hand to the side of his face.

“Jim?”

He blinks at her voice. “How did I miss this?” he asks quietly.

“Miss what?”

“This.” His fingers tighten quickly around hand. “You. Has this always been here? How could I have—“

“No,” she says quickly. “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s new.” This time she rises on the balls of her feet and presses her lips to his. “We’ve always been friends. Just friends,” she stresses. “But Jim, you were older and I was…” she blushes. “We were just friends.”

“Friends,” he repeats. A short laugh escapes him. “I don’t think just friends is good enough anymore, do you?” His mouth is on hers again before she can answer but she doesn’t mind because yeah, all of a sudden, being friends is the last thing she wants to do with him.

She kind of wants to stay right there all night because in less than five minutes, kissing Jim has become her favorite summer sport. She stifles a giggle as she thinks about gold medaling in it and wraps her arms around him and shakes her head when he tries to ask her what’s so funny. She kisses him for as long as she can before she’s distracted by the rest of Celia’s guests leaving the party and the tree trunk cutting into her back.

Jim is as reluctant as she is to stop. “I should go,” he says without making any move to leave. “I…” he shakes his head. “I didn’t expect that,” he admits.

She almost asks him what he did expect but he still looks so freaked out that she gives him a break from her teasing. Still, she can’t stop herself from asking, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” The way he says it has her wondering if he’s trying to convince himself more than her. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He kisses her again, unhurried and open-mouthed and for a second, she forgets about how her back is starting to sting.

“I’m going to go.” He looks at the house and then back at her. “Should I walk you—“

“No,” she says quickly. By now Gran has for sure seen his truck in the driveway and since she’s not shining a flashlight through the yard from the front porch, Pam knows she’s only minutes away from starting a search party. She laughs. “No, we don’t need to give Gran any reason to be nosy.”

“Okay.” He lets go of her then and she wants to throw herself back into his arms but he still looks uneasy so she settles for standing on her toes and kissing his cheek. “I really did have fun tonight.”

“Me too.” They walk to the edge of the yard and stop just short of his truck. “I uh, I won’t be here tomorrow morning,” he says. “Not because of this,” he adds quickly, pointing between them. “I don’t work here on Saturdays. I have to be at the bike shop all day and—“ It’s adorable, the way he’s tripping over his words and she can’t help but grin as he stumbles his way through telling her his work schedule so she doesn’t think he’s all of a sudden avoiding her.

She kisses him once more, to shut him up, and then the porch light blinks twice and she knows they have an audience. “Good night,” she whispers. She squeezes his hand once more and then heads toward the house before Celia can do anything else to embarrass her.

Surprisingly, Celia says nothing as Pam comes inside other than, “Did you have a good night?”

“I did.” Pam nods her head. “How was your party? Teri and Cynthia didn’t break anything, did they?”

“Oh, those two.” Celia rolls her eyes and drops the dishtowel she’s holding onto the counter. “I’ll never repeat this to anyone else, but between you and me, Stanley Hudson isn’t exactly a prize, you know what I’m saying? How he has two good women fighting over him…” her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “Aside from that, tonight was good. I’m getting too old for this hosting stuff though. I’m exhausted.”

Pam frowns. Celia does look more tired than usual but she reminds herself that the woman was up before the sun that morning. Then she remembers how she mentioned how she’d been in pain the night before and makes the decision that she needs to pay more attention to these things.

“Just leave all this,” she says, waving her hand over the kitchen. “I’ll take care of it all tomorrow morning. You go to bed. Can I bring you some tea?”

“I’ll be asleep before the water’s done boiling.” Celia looks around the kitchen once more and then nods at Pam. “But I won’t say no to you doing these dishes for me.”

“It’s no problem,” Pam promises.

“Yes, I think I’ll go to bed.” Celia kisses her goodnight as she passes by her on her way upstairs. “Oh, Pam?”

“Yeah Gran?”

Celia smirks from the stairs. “Just friends, hmm?”

Pam smiles, but feels the blush creeping over her cheeks. “Goodnight, Gran,” she says pointedly. Celia’s laughter follows her as she goes around the house, turning off the lights and locking the doors. It’s not much later when she ends up going to bed herself.

She spends the next two hours lying in bed, trying to convince herself to not get carried away. It was one date. A handful of kisses. No obvious or outright declarations of intent of any kind.

Still, she knows she’s in deep enough that she’ll never be able to be just friends with Jim again.

--

Monday morning she barges into Hudson’s Bike Shop—yes, Stanley Hudson is Jim’s boss—frantically looking for Jim.

She doesn’t mean to barge in. She’s gone over this in her head all morning, and for the entire drive into town, and in each of those scenarios, she opens the door calmly like a normal fucking person and doesn’t scare anyone.

Instead, she flings the door open so hard that the window display shakes and the bells overhead jingle obnoxiously. From her spot just inside, she searches the store frantically, until Jim sticks his head out of the small office door just behind the counter.

He smiles and she thinks maybe he says hi, but she steamrolls ahead without hearing him. “Did I break your brain?”

“I…” he rolls his chair out of the office and stands up before walking around the counter to where she’s now standing. “Maybe?” His head cocks to the side, clearly amused.

She’s not. “This isn’t funny,” she says. “I just need to know, that’s all.”

“I’m going to need a little more than that from you, Beesly.”

“It’s just…” she falters. All of a sudden, the entire speech she’s mentally rehearsed is just gone from her memory. “I mean…okay.” Nothing. She’s surprised she even remembers her own name at this point. “Forget it. Never mind.” She turns to leave, but that’s embarrassing, so she turns back and takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t see you Saturday morning.”

His forehead creases. “No, I told you I’d be here all day Saturday.”

“Or Saturday night.”

“True.” He nods, agreeing with her. “But I did call you to see if you wanted to go out and you had already made plans with Kelly and Katy, so…”

“And yesterday morning you practically ignored me in church and—“

“That’s a lie.” Jim leans back against the counter, resting on his elbows. “I said hello to you after Church. We had a whole conversation about how you guys watched Dirty Dancing and She’s All That instead of Empire Records.”

“But you—you didn’t—“ She gets the sense that she’s overreacting which is entirely possible, but she’s been awake and working herself up over this since six and she’s not letting it go that easily.

“Didn’t what? Kiss you?” He waits for her to nod her head and then he chuckles. “No, I didn’t kiss you at church bake sale. Call me crazy, but that seemed like a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, which I’d be more than happy to list for you if you want me to.” He holds his hand up to stop her from speaking. “And the only reason I didn’t come over yesterday was because my brother and his wife were in town with the new baby, and my mom was really insistent on a whole family day. Believe me, I tried to get away but it was late by the time she let everyone leave and your house was dark.”

Oh yeah. She and Gran had gone out for a late dinner last night.

“And then today—“ she stops herself this time because obviously, he’s not at the farm because he’s at the bike shop.

“Today I’m here,” he confirms. “For another hour at least. I was planning on coming by the house today to see you and finish that fence.”

“Oh.” Well, she’s thoroughly embarrassed. “So, I didn’t break your brain?” she asks again. Because she’s thought of little else in the last forty-eight hours and she can’t forget how freaked out he was at the end of their date and she really needs him to tell her that he’s not avoiding her because of it.

He surprises her. “I think you did. At least, a little.” He pushes himself up and away from the counter and stands in front of her. “Maybe I didn’t see you this weekend, but I sure as hell haven’t stopped thinking about you since Friday night.” His hands slide up her arms and around her shoulders. When he speaks again, his voice is lower than before. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to kiss you at the bake sale yesterday.”

Emboldened by the look he’s giving her, she hooks her fingers into the belt loops of his jeans and tugs him toward her. “Show me.”

Every imagined insecurity she’s worked up in her head dissolves when he kisses her. There’s zero hesitation in the way his arms wrap around her or in the possessive way his mouth claims hers.

When they pull apart, he breathes a little heavier and she feels unsteady on her feet. He reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Hi.”

She can’t help it. She smiles. “Hey.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

--

In the week that follows, any lingering worries she has about having broken Jim’s brain quickly disappear.

Her days are still spent with Celia; they run errands or take care of the flower gardens at the senior center. There are two bake sales this coming Sunday and Celia teaches her how to bake bread. Thursday and Friday, it’s too hot to do anything, so they drink iced tea and watch Sandra Dee movies.

But her nights? Her nights are spent entirely wrapped around Jim.

They’ve explored every secret spot on the farm and some that weren’t exactly hidden. She visited him at the bike shop until Stanley caught them in the stock room and threatened to tell both Celia and Betsy what they were up to. They’ve tried spending time at his apartment but Jim’s weird about that, and she kind of understands because Mark is always around and the walls aren’t exactly soundproof.

It’s not like she’s kissed a thousand guys but like, she’s kissed enough guys to know that Jim is better at it than the rest. Right now, kissing him is her favorite thing to do in the world.

They don’t just kiss but they still mostly just kiss. It’s been eight days (not that she’s counting) since that first date and while they haven’t slept together yet, Jim’s hands have easily found their way up her shirts and as of last night, down her pants. She’s exceptionally skilled at driving him crazy over his jeans or through the basketball shorts he wears when it’s too hot for what he calls real clothes.

She thinks it’s charming, his reluctance to take that next step with her. They both know it’s only a matter of time, definitely sooner rather than later; however her definition of sooner seems to be different than his.

“What’s your rush, Beesly?” He was as good at teasing her with words as he was with his fingers, but she thinks maybe he wasn’t expecting her to remind him that the rush was she was only in town for three months and she wanted to spend as much of that time fucking him as she could.

Yes, she had been drinking before that. But she likes to think she would have said the exact same thing sober too. And it had worked; well, it had gotten them past kissing at least.

“You just want me for my body,” was another line he liked to throw at her. And to that, she’d stop whatever she was doing, raise an eyebrow at him, and ask him if he’d looked in a mirror lately. Because yes, she definitely wants him for his body.

She’d feel worse about objectifying him to his face but the feeling is completely mutual. She’s seen the way his eyes rake over her when she’s sunbathing with the girls. Felt his hands grow bolder when he realized she’d let him touch her everywhere. Heard his own breath catch in his throat when she learned to do that thing with her tongue and his ear that was so clearly his favorite.

So no, she didn’t feel sorry at all for agreeing that yes, she very much wanted his body and could he just give it to her already?

Even so, kissing him still feels like the best thing she’s done all summer. Until tonight.

Tonight she wants more.

Tonight they’re in the back of Jim’s truck, parked at the edge of the lake. The heatwave that’s been gripping the town for the last three days is still holding strong and even though it’s nearing midnight, the temperature is a miserable eighty-seven degrees.

Pam’s back is hot and sweaty against the quilt they put down in the bed of the truck. Her skin burns under his skilled fingers and while she can’t help but shiver at the things he whispers in her ear, she wants nothing more than to peel off both of their clothes.

“Jim,” she pleads, sliding her hands under his t-shirt and over his back. For all the teasing they’ve done with each other, they’ve also talked about this seriously; that his reluctance to have sex with her is because it’s only been a week, Pam, and this could be more than a fling. It’s sweet and frustrating at the same time and okay fine, it has only been a week so she sees his point.

She really can’t be mad at him when they’re tucked away in the darkest corner of the hay loft, and he whispers things like I think I’m falling in love with you to explain why he wants to wait just a little longer.

His insistence that this is more than a summer fling only scares her a little because even though she tries not to think about it, she knows he’s probably right. She doesn’t know what to do with that so she deflects every time he says it. She distracts him, with jokes or pranks if they’re out with friends; or with her hands and mouth if they’re alone.

He pulls away from her, looks down and grins at the look she knows she’s giving him. “You’re cute.”

“Ugh.” She rolls away from in a huff. She’s not mad at him but she’s hot and cranky and honestly, his body pressed against hers only makes her feel worse.

“Where are you going?” he asks, sitting up as her feet hit the ground.

“The lake,” she tosses over her shoulder. “You coming?” She’s halfway down the dock and kicking off her sandals before he catches up to her.

“Pam.” He raises an eyebrow at her as she makes eye contact with him in the moonlight. She unbuttons her shorts before sliding them down her legs and stepping out of them. Her hands are at the hem of her tank top when he finally speaks again. “What are you doing?”

“Going swimming,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He takes a few steps closer to her but doesn’t move to take any of his own clothes off. His eyes sweep over her from head to toe before he catches himself. He shakes his head at her and then looks up at the sky before closing his eyes, as if he’s counting to ten.

“Jim.” She giggles softly when her shirt hits him squarely in the chest and falls to the dock when he doesn’t catch it. She reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra, and waits for his eyes to meet hers again before sliding the pale pink straps down her arms one at a time.

“You can look.”

You can look.

The words echo loudly in her head as four impossibly long seconds of silence stretch between them. You can look. What the hell is she thinking? Who does she think she is? She’s standing there naked while Jim stares at some empty spot over her shoulder and neither of them is saying anything and now its seven seconds and she definitely feels like an idiot.

A naked idiot, which is so much worse. You can look. She feels her cheeks grow hot as she looks down and wonders which item of clothing to reach for first.

“What are you doing?”

She peers up at him, shirt clutched to her chest. “Getting dressed,” she says. “Clearly you don’t—“

“I was looking.”

“What?”

His arms are folded over his chest as he looks her square in the eye. “You told me I could look. So I was.” His eyes drift lower. “I am.”

“Oh.” She watches him watch her for half a second and then tilts her head to the side. “Could you just… come closer?” she asks. She breathes a sigh of relief when he takes a couple of steps toward her.

“Are you always this impatient?” She feels one of his hands slide around her back and nudge her closer. His other hand takes the shirt and lets it drop to the ground before he links his fingers with hers and draws her arm up and around his neck.

“Yes,” she says because it’s useless to lie now. Goosebumps cover her arm wherever he touches her and because she’s already admitted her impatience, she grins and tugs his head down until he kisses her.

And, it’s kind of perfect. The moon shines bright above them and she can hear the waves hitting the deck below their feet, there are crickets chirping off in the distance, and right in front of her, Jim is whispering how beautiful she is against her skin.

Well, it’s almost perfect. She tugs on his t-shirt again and leans back, laughing when he’s reluctant to let go and moves with her. “This isn’t fair,” she protests. “You’re still dressed.”

“Uh huh.” His mouth closes around her right nipple and she lets go of his shirt with a sigh. “Stop distracting me.” She feels his mouth curve into a grin and she laughs and pushes him away. “Come on.” She sits at the edge of the dock and dips her feet into the water.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

She grins up at him. “Distracting you,” floats airily back to him. “I told you, we’re going swimming.”

“I didn’t think you meant swimming-swimming.”

“Oh, I did.” Bracing her hands on the dock behind her, she gingerly lowers herself into the water. It’s colder than she expects and not cold enough. She wades out until she’s in just over her waist and then looks back at Jim. “What are you waiting for?” She motions for him to undress, twirling her index finger through the air. “You’re not going to leave me out here all alone, are you?” She grins smugly when he pulls his own shirt off and it falls on top of hers.

“Turn around.”

Pam blinks. “What?”

Jim’s hands are planted low on his hips, two seconds from removing his remaining clothes. “Turn around,” he repeats.

Her eyebrow shoots up before she can stop it. “Why? Don’t tell me you’re shy, Halpert. I know you’re not.”

“What if I am? For all I know, you spent all last year around naked football players.”

She laughs, absolutely delighted by everything he’s saying. “Just get in here.” They stare at each other for a moment and with a roll of her eyes, she caves first. “Fine, fine.” She sticks her tongue out at him before turning her back. “I swear to god, you better not ditch me out here.” It’s quiet for a few seconds and she listens intently for the sound of his body hitting the water. “Jim?” She cranes her head over her left shoulder but can’t see anything. “Come on, this isn’t funny.” Still nothing. “Jim!” She lets out an exasperated huff but he’s right there when she turns around and she almost collides with his chest as his hands snake around her waist.

“You really are impatient,” he teases. He drags his hands up her sides and around her front to cup both breasts from underneath.  She shivers when both of his thumbs brush against her. He leans down and kisses her; first her lips, then her jaw, and down the nape of her neck. “Why?”

Pam flattens her hands over his chest and slides them around to his back and then down over his ass. Satisfied that he was as naked as she was, she dips her head to catch his mouth with hers, pulling his lower lip between her teeth as one hand glides back to the front of his body and down the solid wall of muscles that jump under her touch. He has no idea how much she prefers the cut angles of his body over anyone else’s, football player or not, and she makes up her mind right then to let him know before the night is over. They both gasp when she finally takes him into her hand and she bites his lip even harder before soothing it with her tongue. “This is why,” she whispers. She only manages a few strokes over his entire length before he drops his head to her shoulder and grabs her wrist to move her hand away.

His hands curve under her thighs and she’s so tempted to wrap herself around him but instead she uses all of her willpower to push away from him, putting a few feet of space between them. She grins at the hurt look on his face and splashes him gently.

Because as much as she wants him right now, she’s still not convinced he isn’t going to end this before they get anywhere new. The idea of swimming is to tease him, to work him up to the point that it’s physically impossible for him to just take her home with a goodnight kiss on the cheek.

So they splash. And swim. She touches him a lot and he’s eager to follow her lead; whether it’s the way their legs tangle when she swims past him, or the way he catches her hand just before she swims out of reach and pulls her back. Their kissing gets sloppy. Hands linger lazily before pressing insistently against each other.

“You wanna get out of here?” She nods yes before he’s even done asking the question and this time she does wrap her legs around him and hangs on while he floats them back toward the dock.

Her fingers trace through the drops of water beading over his arms as she runs her hands up over his shoulders and up to cup both sides of his jaw. “Hey.” She stops him as he backs her up to the dock. She kisses him slowly and leans her forehead to his. “I really like you.”

“You better.” He lifts her onto the dock and then kisses her again. “Stay here. I’ve still got towels in the truck from when we went swimming yesterday. I’ll go get them.”

“Okay.” She feels him drop one more kiss on her shoulder as he pulls himself onto the dock beside her. “But this time I get to look.” She wiggles her eyebrows at him before unabashedly raking her eyes over him as he stands up and shakes the water from his hair. She leans back on her hands and definitely enjoys the view.

“You’re staring,” he accuses, helping her up by the hand and wrapping a towel around her.

She nods unapologetically. “So much better than a football player,” she declares, unable to keep her voice as serious as she’d like. He just shakes his head and they half pull half drag each other back to his truck.

It isn’t much later that they’re both stretched out in the truck bed again, towels tossed to the side, and Pam’s finally sure that they’re past the point of no return; that she lets herself give into the moment. Jim’s mouth grows more demanding against hers, his hands bolder when his fingers finally slide into her. She’s weirdly aware of music playing from somewhere over their heads. She doesn’t remember him bringing out the radio, wonders if it was when he came back for the towels, but then his thumb brushes against her and as she bites back a moan, she forgets all about the depressing Cranberries song playing in the background.

“No.” He shakes his head. His thumb presses harder and his fingers curl slightly and she jerks so hard against him that her head comes entirely off the blanket. “I want to hear you.”

She isn’t sure how it happens but just like that, he’s in control and she’s just along for the ride. Literally.

There’s a moment. When he’s hovering over her and smoothing the hair out of her eyes with one hand while balancing his weight on the other, and he looks down at her; there’s a moment where time actually seems to stand still. She gets it now; she understands why they’ve waited for tonight. That maybe he’s not the only one of them in love.

It isn’t graceful. After all, how can it be when they’re in the back of a beat up pickup truck? But it’s perfect. She knows that much. Every scrape of her nails across his back, each indent of his fingertips on her skin. The quiet sigh that slip past her lips into his and the rough moan he brands into her shoulder when she hooks one of her legs around his back and pulls him deeper into her.

After, she lays on top of him, arms tucked around his waist, and cheek pressed to his chest. It’s not comfortable at all but she’s in no rush to slide over and he doesn’t seem to want her to. They’re both quiet, happy to lay there and let their hands idly wander wherever they can reach without either of them actually having to move.

In the background, Bittersweet Symphony fades to an end and blends into the next song. She moves just enough to prop her chin on her fist on his chest and they make eye contact as the beginning of Lovefool breaks the spell around them. She isn’t sure who cracks first but soon they’re both laughing enough that the truck shakes beneath them.

“What is this?” she asks through unabashed giggles. “Is this your favorite song? It is, isn’t it?”

“No,” he scoffs. His excuses come a little too quickly for her to entirely believe him. “Not at all. But this song was part of a prank we played on Andy last year. I needed another song for this tape, that’s all.”

“Uh huh.” She makes up her mind right then and there that this mixed tape is coming home with her. “Love me, love me,” she sings along with the song, mocking him in a high-pitched, slightly off-key voice.

“Shut up.”

“Oh my God.” She lifts herself even further up on his chest to tease him better. “Jim, is this – is this our song now?” She raises an eyebrow at him and gestures at their still naked bodies. “”Am I going to have to tell Kelly that we had sex to this song? You know she’ll tell everyone. Are you prepared to defend your song choices to Jos-“ She squeals as he flips her over, but still wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back just as eagerly.

“Just don’t tell Kelly anything,” he mumbles into her neck.

She’s still laughing. “I think we both know I’m going to tell her everything.” She kisses him again but pulls back as soon as the chorus kicks in again. “Love me, love me, say that you love me.”

“I hate you.”

“Hey, you’re the one who’s going to have to explain to our parents why we have to dance to this at our wedding.” She holds her breath, wondering if she went a step too far in her teasing but Jim just rolls his eyes before leaning down to shut her up with another kiss.

“It’s getting late,” he says reluctantly. “I should get you home.”

“No.” She pouts a little, sticking her lower lip out. “Can’t we just stay here tonight?”

“Celia will kill me.”

“Celia’s already asleep. She’ll be madder if I wake her up when I come into the house. Just…” she shakes her head. She really doesn’t want to leave this moment yet. “Have me home by six, and we’ll be fine. I promise. If she comes after you with the shotgun, I’ll take the blame.”

“Like she’ll believe that you’re the bad influence.”

“Jim.” Her voice is soft as she wraps a hand around his arm and forces him to look at her again. “Please?”

“Okay.” He kisses her forehead. “Yeah. We can stay. But here.” He reaches over her and grabs his t-shirt. “At least put this on so you’ll be somewhat covered if Celia sends out a search party.”

“Deal.” They dress, barely; and then stretch back out. Pam snuggles herself into his side and tucks her head under his chin. “Tell me a secret.”

“A secret,” he repeats. His fingers brush against her bare hip. “What kind of secret?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“Hmm.” He stretches and then crooks his arm behind his head so he can look down at her. “When I was nine, I stole a can of soup from the store.”

“A can of soup?” Her voice is laced with disbelief and curiosity. “Why soup?”

“My brothers.” That explains everything. “It was a stupid dare. I was supposed to steal candy, but panicked and grabbed the closest thing to me and ran out of the store.”

“Soup,” she repeats. “What kind?”

He laughs. “Cream of potato. The most boring of all of the cans I could have picked. God, Tom and Pete still haven’t let me live that down.”

“What a loser,” she teases. She kisses the underside of his jaw. “I was hoping you’d tell me something else though.”

“You had a secret in mind?”

“Maybe.” She drawls the word out over several syllables as she spider-crawls two fingers up his chest.

“Shoot. I’ll tell you anything.”

It’s the opening she’s been waiting on for the last two years. “What actually happened between you and Mrs. Levinson-Gould?” Pam’s never set foot in a Seneca Falls classroom, but she knows exactly who the French teacher is; and gossip travels fast in a small town. It practically travels at the speed of light when it involves a recently divorced thirty-something woman and one of her former students.

Jim lets go of her to run his hand through his own hair. “Pam,” he sighs. “No.”

“Come on,” she needles. “I’m not mad about it; I just really want to know what’s true and what’s not.”

“Nothing. Nothing you’ve heard is true.”

“So nothing happened?”

“You should know better than to believe rumors.”

“That’s not a yes or a no.”

“Pam.” He waits for her to look up at him. “Tonight has been… it is one of the best nights of my life, okay? I’m really happy being here with you right now. Can we not ruin tonight by talking about a rumor from two years ago?”

“Fine,” she relents. Her lips quirk at the relieved look that washes over his face and she can’t help herself. “What about tomorrow night then?”

“Beesly.” He sighs again, so deeply that it rumbles through both of them. “Behave, or I’m going to take you home right now.”

“Okay okay.” She’s pretty sure he’s confirmed everything she wanted to know anyways. She lays back and looks up at the sky. They’re still for so long that she swears she hears him falling asleep. “Hey,” she says softly, catching his attention just before he drifts off.

“Tonight’s my favorite, too.”

--

“Tell me a secret.”

Pam’s eyes snap open and she plants her hands on his bare chest as she slows the steady, even thrust of her hips until she’s in his lap and he’s fully inside of her. “Now?” she breathes, arching an eyebrow at him. “You want a secret now?” She squeezes herself around him to emphasize the now.

“Now,” Jim confirms with a lazy grin. This is their favorite game; the one where they have sex and then tell secrets. One of his hands loosens from her waist and he reaches up to smooth a piece of hair behind her ear before cupping her jaw and bringing her head down to kiss her. Her breath catches at the subtle shift in their bodies and his other arm wraps around her, holding her still. “You tell the best secrets when I’m fucking you,” he whispers against her ear.

She sighs as his tongue traces the length of her neck. She knows exactly what he’s talking about but plays dumb as she slides her hands from his chest to his shoulders as he raises himself into a sitting position. “No way, you know the deal.” Her nails dig into both of his biceps when he drops his head between her breasts. “You have to tell me all about Jan before I tell you anything else.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His words are muffled and she can’t help but giggle.

“Liar.”  He bites her just hard enough to turn her giggles into a gasp as she arches against him, desperate for any bit of friction she can find. His grip on her waist relaxes long enough to push into her three times before he stops again and holds her in place. “Jim,” she whines.

“Are you sure you don’t have anything to tell me?”

“I can tell you that my right leg is three seconds away from cramping up and I’m about to pass out in this heat so maybe you better stop talking and start fuc-“ He kisses her hard on the mouth, swallowing the rest of her words. They both laugh as her back hits the blanket they keep hidden in the corner of the hay loft furthest from the main house.

“Better?” he asks, helping her stretch her legs out as he settles over her. His hand drifts back up her leg and slides over her stomach and higher still.

Her laughter dies on her lips as she arches into his strong hands. She manages a smile and nods, squinting up at him through her lashes. The loft is mostly shaded but the mid afternoon sun pierces through the slatted boards of the walls and casts shadows across them. “God, I—“ This time, she catches herself.

He still hears and the smile he gives her is almost gleeful. “Yes?” he challenges.

His already tanned skin glows golden in the filtered sunlight and his eyes are dark with want and the thing she’s trying to keep unspoken between them but it’s on the tip of her tongue and she shakes her head back and forth quickly before wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing his mouth down to hers.

He tastes like lemonade and sweat. He’d spent the morning clearing out the side of the barn that Pam’s grandpa had kept all of his woodworking tools in, stopping only when she’d shown up after lunch with a cold drink and the suggestion that he take a little break.

They’ve taken a lot of ‘little breaks’ in the two weeks since that night at the lake.

He indulges her kiss only for so long before he pulls away, grinning down at her. “I think you were about to say something?” he teases.

“No,” she says stubbornly. It’s not her fault that two days ago they were at a party at Meredith’s house and she accidentally slipped and told him she loved him. It wasn’t even that she told him, it was that she told him while he was fucking her on the pool table in the rec room while everyone else was outside and that possibly couldn’t count. Not when he’d already told her in the sweetest possible way after an actual date the night before that.  Still, she wasn’t mad at herself for feeling these things as much as she was for saying them. He’s right; she realizes. She has absolutely no filter when he’s seconds away from making her come undone.

It’s kind of annoying. Well, she thinks she’d be annoyed if she wasn’t so distracted by his hands.

“You sure?” Jim asks again as one of his hands slides lower between them.

“Nope, I’m good,” she gasps. She brings her knees up to cross her legs behind his back; hoping that the sounds she makes when he takes her cue and starts thrusting steadily into her lets him know just how good she is at the moment. “Mm, just like that,” she sighs and then all talk of secrets disappears when he can’t hold off any longer. He’s quick to make her come before he does, though just barely, and she’s absolutely content as he collapses into her, exhausted and spent.

She runs her hands through his hair and sweat drips down, pooling between her breasts. It must be at least ninety-degrees in the loft at this time of the afternoon. She doesn’t care about any of it.

“Just say it,” he mumbles against her.

And, she wishes she could. She really does. She would say if it everything else that went along with it didn’t scare the shit out of her. It’s already almost the middle of July and there isn’t much time before she has to leave again and they haven’t talked about what her leaving means for them. She thinks bringing love into it now would only make everything messier. Things right now are simple. They’re both happy. She wants that to be enough.

So she deflects. “We’ve been gone a really long time.”

Jim sighs and pushes himself up on both elbows to look down at her. She gives him one of her best smiles, the ones she saves only for him, and sure enough, it works. He only shakes his head slightly and kisses her cheek. His mouth lingers against her skin and then he rolls away, looking for the clothes they’ve discarded all over the loft.

She knows she doesn’t deserve him, but she’s so, so happy she has him.

“Oh, there you are.” Celia barely looks up from the book she’s reading on the front porch swing. “Your mom just called. I told her you’d call her back.” A faint smile dances across the older woman’s lips when she finally lifts her eyes from the page. “You know, as soon as you were done with chores.”

“Hmm.” Pam is careful to avoid Celia’s eyes, focusing instead on taming her hair back into a ponytail. “Did she say what she wanted?”

“I didn’t ask. She did say you haven’t called her in the last week though, so.” Celia snaps her book shut. “Call her. But first, come here.” She crooks a brightly pink painted finger at Pam. “Jim, you’ve got your own place, don’t you?”

“I have a roommate, but yeah, we’ve got an apartment in town. On Peachtree.”

“Uh-huh.” Celia pulls a piece of straw from Pam’s hair and raises her eyebrow at both of them. “Look, I’m not blind and I’m certainly not an idiot so here’s the thing. I don’t care what the two of you do, but Pam, if you fall out of the hay loft and break your arm again, I’m not going to lie to your parents about what you were doing up there.”

She feels her face burn as Jim tries to mask his laughter by coughing. “I haven’t fallen out of the loft since I was ten,” she argues, even if it confirms where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing.

Celia shakes her head. “I’m just letting you know where I stand with this, that’s all. Seems to me an apartment in town is more comfortable than an old barn, but what do I know?” She sets her book aside and stands up. “Pammy, call your mom.” She swats her on the butt as she passes by her. “Jim, can I borrow you to grab a few things out the car for me?”

“You got it.” Jim turns toward Pam. “I’m gonna go when I’m done helping her. I told Mom I’d come over for dinner tonight and I need to shower first.”

“’kay.” She leans into him when he bends to kiss the top of her head. “Want to come over after? Since you’ll already be next door and all.” She wrinkles her nose against his chest. “You really do need to shower.”

His fingers find her ribs easily before she can swat him away. “Call your mom. I’ll see you after dinner.” He glances over his shoulder to see if they’re being watched. They are, so he gives her a quick peck on the lips, grins at her once more, and then heads for the driveway.

Pam watches them until Celia gives her a pointed look and only then does she go into the house, the screen door bouncing shut behind her. She’s put off calling her mom for as long as she could but if Helene was getting Celia involved, she definitely wasn’t going to hear the end of it until she gave in and called.

She dials and counts the rings, hoping that the answering machine will pick up but Helene answers on the fifth ring and Pam sighs.

“Hey Mom.”

--

“Did you talk to your mom earlier?”

Pam presses her cheek into Jim’s thigh where her head is resting in his lap and nods as she keeps her eyes on the TV. They’re watching baseball because its Jim’s favorite and because it reminds her of her grandpa. “Yeah.”

“How is she?”

“Fine.”

Jim combs his fingers through her hair, massaging his fingers at the back of her head. “Are you guys fighting?”

“No.”

“Well. I definitely believe you.” She can’t see him but she knows he’s frowning when she doesn’t say anything. “Come on Beesly. Lay it on me.”

She sighs. “She’s mad because I told her I don’t want to go back to school in the fall.”

“What?” His hand stills over her back and she cringes because he’s using the same tone Helene had. “Don’t be silly. Of course you do.”

“No.” She bites back a wave of annoyance as she rolls onto her back to look up at him. She shakes her head. “No, I really don’t think I do.”

“Pam, come on. Of course you’re going back to school.” He must still think she’s joking because he laughs awkwardly and nudges her in the ribs. “What? Are you just going to move up here permanently and get your job back at the Super Scoop?”

“Maybe.” She stares at him hard enough that he finally realizes she’s serious. “Okay no, maybe not the Super Scoop.” She moves so that she’s sitting next to him. “But I really don’t want to go back. Mom called last week because mail had come to the house about my having to pick classes for the next term and I told her I didn’t want to, and that’s what we’re fighting about.”

“What do you want instead?”

She looks down at her toes tapping against the white carpet. “Art school.” She immediately hates the uncertainty that creeps into her voice. “Maybe,” she amends. “There’s this school in New York. I haven’t applied or anything and they don’t have any openings until winter semester but I’d rather take a few months off and then focus on something I actually want to do instead of wasting my time with more psychology and civics classes that I’m never going to need.”

“Helene doesn’t like that idea?”

“Helene thinks art school is a waste of time.” She leans heavily against him until he lifts his arm around her shoulders. “And I’m not saying that’s what I definitely want to do. It’s just an idea right now but she says they won’t pay for it and if I don’t pick my classes by the time they’re here next weekend, then she’ll pick for me and I can either go or I can pay them back for a wasted semester.”

“Why don’t you apply to art school but go back to Penn and wait to see if you get in and then go from there?”

“Because I don’t—“ Pam sighs and crosses her arms tighter around her stomach. She’s already had this fight with her mom, and she doesn’t want to have it again. Especially when Jim’s saying the same things Helene had. “Can we drop it? You asked if I talked to my mom, I talked to my mom. Let’s just watch the end of the game.” She grabs the remote from the other side of the couch and turns the volume up, ending their conversation whether he wants to or not. She’s not mad and she doesn’t want to be so she hopes he accepts her silence and doesn’t try to force the issue.

She feels the rise and fall of his chest against her back as he takes a deep breath and clears his throat. “Spring break, freshmen year of college. Eight of us guys decided to go to South Padre Island.”

“Was this the trip when Andy was so drunk at the airport they didn’t even let him on the plane?”

“Yes, thank god. No doubt he would have gotten arrested on day one of the trip and ruined it for anyone. So, we get there and it’s exactly what you’d expect.”

“Booze and boobs?” she asks dryly.

His fingers find her waist and pinch gently. “Beesly, I’m trying to tell you a secret here. Stop talking.” He snorts. “But yeah. Booze and boobs pretty much sums it up.”

“The second night we’re there, Josh finds out about a cougar contest at a hotel down the street from us. I swear, for every college girl we met there were at least three older women trying to act like they were eighteen. It was insane.” He sighs. “Can you guess who was being crowned Queen Cougar as we were walking into that hotel bar?”

Pam contorts herself on the couch until she’s fully facing him, not caring that her knees are digging into his stomach. “Mrs. Levinson-Gould,” she says, unable to contain her glee.

“I think you mean Ms. Levinson. She – uh – Jan,” he actually blushes as he admits to knowing her on first name basis. “She was there with a couple of girlfriends; I guess she had just finalized her divorce. It was—“ he shakes his head. “Honestly, I still can’t believe that out of anywhere in the world, she ended up in the same place as all of us, but I swear to you, it happened.”

“I just want to know who hit on whom first.” She shrugs at the look he gives her. “I need to know, Jim. It’s important.”

He won’t look at her. “I bought her a drink,” he mumbles. “To celebrate her divorce.”

“And then?”

“Pam, no. Isn’t this enough?”

“No way. Tell me everything.”

He looks like he wants the couch to swallow him whole. “And then she suggested she and I take the party back to her hotel room and I didn’t see the guys again until it was time to go back to the airport.”

“You spent the entire week with her?” Pam laughs as she moves again, throwing one of her legs over his and resting her hands on his shoulders.

“I’m not proud of it!” he shoots back. He still won’t look at her directly and she leans forward and presses her lips to his cheek.

“Not even a little? Be honest,” she presses.

He refuses to answer her. “Why are you so happy about this?” His hands drop to her legs when he finally looks at her.

“I wouldn’t say I’m happy about it,” she admits. “But I’m not mad about it either. I do think it’s hilarious. And I still mean what I said earlier.” Her lips skate against his throat. “I need to know what all she’s responsible for teaching you.”

“You do not.”

“I do,” she argues. “If I’m going to write her a thank you note, I need to know what I’m thanking her for.” She sucks the skin behind his left ear between her lips and loves the way he shudders beneath her. “Be specific.”

“You’re sick.” He’s laughing as he pushes her away. “Promise me we’ll never bring this up again.”

“I can’t do that,” she says solemnly. “Jim, what if we’re at the bar on darts team night and she’s there in those super short jean cutoffs and that blue and white halter top she always wears, and she sees you and thinks, ‘I want him’? What am I supposed to do then? What are the rules? Do we fight it out, or do I respect my elders?”

“I can leave right now.”

“You won’t,” she says confidently. She makes faces at him until he cracks, and then she leans forward and kisses him when he laughs. They make out for a few long, blissful moments but when his hands start to creep under her tank top, she can’t stop herself from teasing him one last time.

“Just tell me if she’s the one who taught you to do that thing with your tongue that made me black out yesterday and I’ll never bring it up ag—“ She shrieks with laughter when he tosses her to the other side of the couch and pins her there easily with one hand while he tickles her with the other.

“Are you done?” She shakes her head and he continues his assault for a few seconds more before she gives in and breathlessly concedes to him. He bends and gives her a quick kiss on the nose. “Better?” he asks quietly.

She presses her lips tightly together and nods her head. “Better,” she whispers. “Thank you.” His mouth is almost on hers again when they hear the front door open.

“I’m home!” Celia shouts louder than necessary. “And even though this is my house and I don’t have to, I’m still letting you know that I’m here and you have about three seconds before I walk into the living room and I can see that all of the lights are on so I’ll definitely be able to see anything that might be—oh!” By the time she reaches the living room, they’re sitting upright and smiling innocently at her from opposite sides of the couch. “Well now, nothing at all looks suspicious in here.”

“Just watching the game.” Pam gestures to the TV where thankfully, the game is still going on. She prays Celia doesn’t ask her who’s winning. “How was your night?”

“It was good. I didn’t realize it was so late though. I’m headed right up to bed, I don’t want to bother you two. I just wanted to say goodnight.”

Jim takes the hint and stands. “I should probably get going. I’ve got an early day tomorrow at the shop.”

“Don’t leave on my account.” Celia smirks at them. “Unless you’re worried about the fact that my bedroom is directly above this room?”

“Gran!” Pam buries her face in her hands.

Celia laughs. “It’s your own fault for making it so easy.”

“I’m walking Jim out.” Pam stands and follows him to the door.

“Night Celia,” Jim calls over his shoulder before opening the screen door and letting Pam walk past him first. Celia winks and waves before turning around and heading up the staircase.

“Do you really have a long day at work tomorrow?” Pam asks, leaning against the porch rail.

He nods. “Stanley wants a full store inventory done before he decides what sales he’s going to run during Founders Fest. He wanted Kevin to do the whole thing by himself but I thought I should be there to you know, recount everything after he’s done.” Pam laughs to herself as she imagines Jim’s co-worker Kevin trying to do anything math-related.

“Yeah, no I guess you should definitely be there. Kelly, Katy, and I are going to the movies tomorrow night so I guess I won’t see you?”

“Going to miss me?”

“Maybe.” She shrugs and tries her hardest to look nonchalant but immediately nods her head. He steps forward to give her a one-armed hug and kisses the top of her head.

“I’ve got Friday off. We can do whatever you want all day long, okay?”

“You’re the best.” She means it as she says it, and hopes he doesn’t press her to say more. He doesn’t. He kisses her a few more times and then tears himself away to leave. She watches him get into his truck like she always does before turning to go back inside.

“Hey.” He catches her before she opens the door and she looks over her shoulder to see him leaning out the driver’s side window.

“I love you, Pam Beesly,” floats from the driveway and across the yard as he drives away, Lovefool playing from his tape deck. She laughs and waves.

She really is going to steal that tape.

--

Friday night finds them, at Celia’s insistence, anywhere but at the farm. She has things to prepare for the VFW dinner Saturday night and no, she doesn’t need their help and yes, they would be in the way, so could they please just disappear for a few hours?

Pam doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s threatening to rain so Jim suggests they get everyone together and go bowling. But first, they need to stop at his place so he can change clothes.

Two hours later, they’re still in his room but he hasn’t changed.

“We’re going to be so late,” Pam murmurs. She makes no move to disentangle herself from Jim’s arms. His bed really was a thousand times more comfortable than the hay loft.

“It’s bowling. Who cares?”

She really doesn’t. Even if she’s genuinely good at the sport, and had every intention of beating him frame for frame tonight. “It was your idea,” she protests half-heartedly. Her eyes slide shut when his lips find her neck again.

“They’ll get over it.”

Before either of them can say any more, they hear the front door open and shut and then Betsy’s voice carries up to the second floor. “Jim? Are you home?”

Pam pushes Jim off of her and straightens her clothes as she sits up. “What does your mom want?”

“No idea.” He runs his hands through his hair a few times but only makes it worse. He opens the bedroom door. “Up here, Mom! What’s up?”

Betsy takes the stairs quickly. “Sorry to barge in Honey. I tried calling but the line’s been busy and it’s important.” Pam suspects this means Mark is in his own room, using the internet for god knows what. “I’m looking for Pam, and I assumed she’d be with—“ Betsy appears in the doorway and stops. “Pam, honey. We’ve gotta go, it’s Celia. She’s fine, but she’s at the hospital.”

“She’s what?” Pam practically flies across the room. “How? What happened? We were just there and she was fine.”

“All I know is she fell down the stairs. She,” Betsy sighs. “She drove herself to the hospital and then she called us.”

“I...” Pam’s head is spinning. She barely registers Jim handing her sandals to her. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“Mom, can you drive her?” Jim grabs his keys off of his dresser. “She was cooking when we left her. I’ll go back to the house and make sure everything’s turned off and locked up and then I’ll meet you guys at the hospital, okay?”

Pam nods, blindly accepts the kiss he plants on the top of her head, and lets him guide her down the stairs and sends her off with his mom.

It’s a four minute drive to the hospital and Betsy talks the entire time. She keeps saying they shouldn’t worry. That Celia sounded fine on the phone.  That if she was well enough to drive herself to the hospital, that’s she’s probably fine, just shaken up.

They get to the hospital and it takes almost ten minutes for the nurse to let Pam into Celia’s room. When she finally finds the room and throws the door open, Celia just looks up at her and nods.

“Oh, Pammy. Good. They found you.”

“Good?” Pam echoes. “All you can say right now is that you’re glad someone tracked me down? Gran! What happened?”

“Honey, I’m fine.”

Pam gestures wildly at her. “Fine?” Celia is already in a hospital gown and has at least one set of wires attached to her. “What about this is fine? What happened?”

“It’s not a big deal. I fell down the cellar steps and broke a few jars of canned peaches. They put me in this gown because I’d ruined the clothes I was wearing. And this?” Celia waves off the beeping monitors. “My blood pressure was a little high when I came in, but I really think it’s down again.”

She really is fine. Now that Pam can see that, her initial panic turns to annoyance and exasperation as she sits down on the bed next to her grandmother and folds her arms across her chest. She gives Celia a look that they both know she learned from the older woman.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I was on the roof fixing loose shingles. I fell down some steps. That’s all.”

“I asked you if you needed me to do anything before I left.”

“And I told you no.” Celia shakes her head. “I can go up and down my own damn cellar stairs without your help. I’ve been doing that close to forty years and I’ve only fallen twice.”

Pam looks pointedly at the sling covering Celia’s left arm. “You’ve broken your arm both times!”

“Only once so far,” Celia corrects her. “I’m still waiting for them to take me for an x-ray to see what damage is done here.”

“Oh Gran.” Her annoyance quickly turns to worry as she reaches for Celia’s good hand and gives her an awkward hug. “Does it hurt?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Whatever they gave me for the pain is finally starting to work though, so I’m okay.”

“Where’s the doctor?”

“He’ll be back soon. He’s not in much hurry here so I must be fine.”

“Uh huh.” Pam sighs. “I should have stayed and helped tonight.”

“Stop that. I’m the one who kicked you out.” Celia pats her hand. “I love you, Pammy, but you can’t hang around the house all of the time.” Pam stops herself from reminding her that’s literally why she’s there for the summer. “We’d kill each other. Besides, we both know I’d still have gone down there whether you were there or not. This isn’t your fault.”

Pam’s silent for a moment, thinking. Finally, she lifts her eyes back to Celia’s. “You drove yourself to the hospital.” It’s more statement than question. She tries again. “Why did you drive yourself to the hospital?”

“What else was I supposed to do? Betsy and Gerry weren’t home from what I can see, and I couldn’t get a hold of you. What? Was I supposed to call an ambulance?”

Pam stares at her. “Yeah. Yes. When that kind of thing happens, you absolutely call an ambulance. That’s what they’re for.”

Celia scoffs. “What a waste. They drive like maniacs and I’d rather spend my money on a cruise to the Bahamas than a 5 minute drive across town. Plus you know a paramedic is the reason your grandfather had his second heart attack, right?”

“That’s not even a little bit true!”

“He said so, Pammy. He told me he was fine after the first attack and he was trying to rest in the back of that death trap but the one guy insisted on keeping him awake and wouldn’t stop rambling on and on about his Beanie Baby collection and my Frank’s heart couldn’t take it. Bam. Second heart attack.”

Thankfully, a doctor walks into the room just then to take Celia for her x-ray and saves Pam from having to lecture her grandmother on safe driving.

Jim is sitting in the waiting room with Betsy when she wanders in. “She’s fine,” she says with a quick laugh. “They’re taking her for an x-ray to see if her arm is broken, but she’s—“ she laughs again. “She’s Gran. She’s fine.” She collapses onto the couch next to Jim and rests her head in her hands. “She drove herself here,” she mutters, more to herself than to anyone else.

Her mother is never going to let her hear the end of this.

Fuck. Helene. She needs to call her mom and let her know what happened.

Betsy must read her mind because she leans over and touches her arm. “I tried calling Helene, but there wasn’t an answer and I didn’t want to leave something like this on her answering machine. I can keep trying if you want?”

It’s tempting, but Pam reluctantly shakes her head. “Thanks, but no. I’ll call her. Thank you so much for coming to get me though.”

“Of course, Sweetie. Do you two want me to stay?”

“No, you don’t have to do that.” Pam shakes her head again. “Hopefully we won’t be here for too long; and she really does seem okay. There’s no need for you to stay. But I’ll call you if anything changes.”

“Okay.” Betsy stands, and then leans down to kiss her on the cheek. She kisses Jim’s next. “Keep an eye on both of them,” she tells him needlessly before she leaves.

“You okay?” Jim asks when it’s just the two of them.

She nods. There isn’t anything else to say and nothing else to do until the x-rays are done.

Jim holds up a box he must have grabbed off of Celia’s kitchen table where they’d been playing it earlier in the day. “Up for another game of Boggle?”

Almost an hour passes before Pam can see Celia again. The x-rays confirm she did indeed break her arm for a second time, but that thankfully, it was a clean break, easy to set, and her recovery wouldn’t be any more difficult than before. However, her blood pressure had spiked during the x-ray and they hadn’t been able to bring it back down again so just to be on the safe side, and in spite Celia’s vehement protests, the doctor decided to keep her in the hospital overnight.

It’s another hour before Pam can get her mother on the phone, and when she finally does, it goes as terribly as she knew it would. Helene, understandably upset that her mother is in the hospital again, lashes out at Pam for not keeping a closer eye on her. For a minute, Pam thinks her mom is going to get in the car and make the two hour drive there that night, but then she admits that she has an appointment in the morning that she can’t miss, and she and Bill were already planning on driving up on Sunday for the week to celebrate Founder’s Fest so it doesn’t make sense to drive through the middle of the night.

Pam assures her that everyone is fine one more time, reminds her that Betsy is there to help in the next two days if needed, and that she’ll see her parents on Sunday before Helene finally gives in and agrees. She’s exhausted when she finally hangs up the phone.

As tired as she is, she still manages a smile at Jim when he looks up as she walks back to the other side of the waiting room where he’s sitting. “I told her not to come up until Sunday as planned,” she says, sinking down onto the couch again.

“While you were talking to her, I snuck into Celia’s room to see how she was. She told me I have to take you home.”

“Good luck.” Pam raises an eyebrow at him. “You can go if you want, but I’m staying here tonight. Gran doesn’t have to know.”

“It’s cute that you think she doesn’t have spies all over this hospital.” He leans back and puts his arm around her. “I told her we’d be staying.”

“You don’t have to stay.” She already knows he is, and even as she says the words, she feels her body falling into his. She tucks her legs underneath her as she tries to get comfortable on the most uncomfortable couch in the world, her knees propped against his leg and her head on his shoulder. “Did she say anything else?”

He laughs softly. “She told me I had a cute butt. I think she was a little loopy from the pain meds.”

“I think she’d say that completely sober.” She giggles and reaches for his hands. “You do have a pretty cute butt.”

“She also told me not to let you beat yourself up about any of this.”

“Yeah, well.” Pam sighs. “Good luck with that one. I feel terrible right now.”

“I know.” He tightens his arms around her. “She’s right though. It’s not your fault. Does she ever ask you to go down to the basement for her?”

“No, but—“

“Exactly. She’s never asked me to either. We both would have let her go down there if we’d be there.” She hears the guilt in his own voice and tries to curl her fingers around his, frowning when there’s something in the way. She turns his hand over and takes the Boggle timer he’s been holding onto from him.

She flips it over and they both watch the sand slip from one end to the other.

“Did she tell you her thoughts on ambulances?”

Jim laughs. “Yeah. Pam, your grandma is crazy.”

“Yeah.” She leans her head back against his shoulder. “She’s pretty great though.” They’re both silent as the timer ticks down to nothing and she turns it over again.

“It’s not your fault, Pam.”

“I know.” She taps the bottom of the plastic timer against his knee. “It’s not yours either.”

“I know.”

Thirty seconds pass and neither of them move. Pam closes her eyes and inhales deeply. The antiseptic smell of the hospital permeates the room around them but she’s completely consumed by the boy sitting next to her. He smells like hay and sunshine and all of her favorite things, and in that moment, she’s so incredibly thankful that he’s sitting next to her even though he doesn’t need to be. She loves that he’s not forcing her to talk right now, that they’re completely comfortable in the silence between them. She loves that he cares about Celia almost as much as she does, and that he isn’t even hesitating at the thought of sitting there all night with her.  She just…

“Hey Jim?” She watches the last grains of sand slide to the bottom of the hourglass-shaped timer.

“Yeah?”

She closes her eyes and turns her head into the crook between his shoulder and neck. She inhales again. Yep. It’s still there.

“I love you too.”