Over a year later they were once again in a parking lot.

"Jim, wait!" her words echoed across the empty asphalt, but he wasn't about to slow down. She finally caught up to him at his car, her eyes pleading with him to hear her out. It was the last straw. He couldn't do this again.

"No! Pam! How can I make you understand? I am so sick of waiting! I just can't wait anymore. I thought for sure when I broke up with Karen that we could be together, but--"

"We can." Her interruption startled him.

"What?"

"Jim." Her voice was softer this time and he quickly shut his face down to hide the growing anticipation in his belly. If this wasn't what he thought it was... but then she looked up at him and he could see the smile hovering behind her eyes.

"Jim," she repeated. And it sounded as though she was trying to prove to both of them that he was really here. That they were here together. "I'm sick of waiting too."

Without warning, her hands were on both sides of his face and her lips pressed softly against his own. He shut his eyes tight. If this was just another dream, then he would stay asleep forever.

But it wasn't a dream. He could tell by the way her fingertips were cool as they brushed along his scalp. And the fact that he could hear cars rushing past a few blocks away. Her hair smelled vaguely flowery, and he never smelled things in his dreams. This was real.

His lips were still on hers as he reached around to cradle her whole body up against him. The soft little moan she made only encouraging him in his goal of making this last as long as possible. He certainly hadn't been expecting it but this was their first real kiss. The first time they had both been free to do this in exactly the way that he had always wanted to. 

It hadn't happened the way he'd imagined, but he knew that all he really wanted now was to make it perfect.