Three days after our first date I spent the night at Pam's. She probably wouldn't want me to tell you that, but hey, can I help it if I'm completely irresistible? Besides, we'd been waiting for years. After that long, there's no point in waiting any longer than you absolutely have to. Of course, even after knowing her for years there were still a few things I didn't expect to see in Pam's apartment.

The walls were all different colors. That was the first thing he noticed when he walked into her apartment. The second was that Pam had a lot of pictures. They were everywhere. In fact one whole wall of her kitchen was covered like a collage with photos, pages from magazines, a few posters of famous art and even some swatches of brightly colored fabrics. It was a complete hodgepodge, but still pure Pam. Well, not the Pam that came into the office and answered the phone with the same old greeting a thousand times a day, but the other side of Pam, the one he'd come to know so well in those little stolen moments when it was just the two of them. The side of her he still couldn't quite believe was all his now.

"Sorry, I'm almost done," she called from down the hall. "Just stay there."

"Pam, seriously, it's just me, you don't have to break out the guest towels or anything."

"I know, but it really is a huge mess. Just give me five more minutes."

He chuckled softly to himself, but he knew there was no point in arguing. She'd been very clear in the car that she really, really wanted him to come up, but that she'd been working on a project earlier and he would have to give her a few minutes to clean up her room. That was another thing he knew about her. She wasn't a totally organized person, but she did like to have everything where it belonged, especially if she knew someone else was going to see it.

He was still checking out the collage wall when she walked back into the kitchen with a jar full of dirty paintbrushes, which she deposited in the kitchen sink before grabbing the paper towels and attempting to rush back out. Jim caught her at the doorway and planted a kiss on her forehead.

"Stop cleaning. I don't care what it looks like. I just want to be with you."

"Well I care."

"Okay, fine." He grinned but didn't let go of her shoulders. "Hey, are these your nieces?"

"Yep."

"They look a lot older."

"I know. I need to bring in some new pictures for my desk."

"Hey, are you sure you don't want any help?"

"No way. It's my room. I'll clean it."

"I know, but seriously I don't mind helping, and it'll be faster with two of us."

"No. I want you to see it clean the first time you see it."
"Okay." He shrugged, knowing it was pointless to keep pestering her.

"I'll only be a couple more minutes. Make yourself at home." He did so, spending the next few minutes checking out the cd collection that lined the shelves next to the tv in her living room.

"Hey, Jim? Can you put my leftovers in the fridge?" Pam asked in a muffled voice from down the hallway.

"Oh yeah, sure." He grabbed the box they'd gotten from the restaurant and opened the fridge.

"Pam?" he called a few seconds later.

"Yeah?"

"What is this doing here?"

"What is what doing there?" she asked, walking back into the room. "Oh, that, right. Um...well, I just...I like it sometimes, you know?"

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Since when?"

"Would you stop looking at me like that?" she asked, closing the door to the refrigerator. "It's not like you found my hidden stash of porn or something, it's just soda. I drink soda."

"Okay first of all, this is not the look I would give you if I'd found porn in your fridge," he said, leaning back against the counter behind him. "And secondly, I know you drink soda, but that's grape."

"Yeah? So?" She stepped closer to face him, and he reached out to place his hands on her hips.

"So you don't drink grape soda, Pam." He said, shaking his head at her. "Or, well, okay, you don't buy grape soda, you drink mine. Pam, have you been cheating on me with some other grape soda drinker?" he asked mock seriously.

"How could I have been cheating on you?" she smiled. "Our first date was like three days ago, remember?"

"So then what's it doing here?" he said pointedly.

"I don't know. No special reason I just wanted it." He gave her a piercing look, which she returned with an innocent look of her own. Finally she sighed. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."
"Fine then. I might have maybe missed you just a little bit."

"I knew it." He smirked.

"And also it was my back-up plan if the yogurt lid didn't work."

"What?"
"The yogurt lid medal. If you didn't do something after that, I was gonna do something with the grape soda." He wasn't sure how to react to that. It still hurt to think of what she must have been through in the past year or so. Not that he hadn't been through some hard times of his own, but still. The fact that Pam, of all people, had thought she needed to come up with something like this just to get his attention, was just wrong.

"What would you have done?"

"I don't know. I didn't get that far," she answered quietly. "And to be honest I'm glad I didn't have to."

"You know what? I'm really glad you didn't have to, too." he replied, leaning down to kiss her lightly on her forehead, then her lips, her jaw, and then her neck.

She sighed with pleasure then whispered, "Jim."

"Yeah?" he asked, between kisses, his hands now moving slowly up and down her sides.

"I think my room's clean enough now."

"That's what I thought."

See? How could I not love her after that? I mean, she missed me so much she bought an entire ten cans of soda that she wasn't even planning to drink? That's just so...adorable.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, her room was totally clean enough for what we had in mind.