“Honestly I don’t even know why I tried to reason with him. It’s not like that’s ever worked in the past. Just thought I could prevent another incident like “Desk Sanitation ‘04”. Futile…” Jim moaned dramatically, his long frame leaning against reception, hands dangling over the edge of the desk.
Another day at the office, another day at reception, another day spent wasting away the hours at a job he hated with a woman he couldn’t dare tear himself away from. Another story – only slightly embellished, for her amusement of course – about another fight with Dwight, told in words separated by jellybean-crunched pauses amidst the steady interval of her laugh.
“Pam? Are you listening? This is a serious issue. I’m going to have to evacuate my desk area for like a week until the fumes evaporate or…Dwight dies, or something,” he pantomims a quick slice of his finger across his neck to further his point, but she’s not looking. Brow furrowed, eyes trained on…what? His hands? His wrists?
“Uh, Pam…”
“Shh. Just a couple more seconds,” she whispers, fingers suddenly wrapping tightly around his wrist that’s dangling in front of her. He jumps a little in shock; leaning farther over the desk and watching as her eyes never leave their spot. Goosebumps spring up his forearm at her touch, a million and one ideas dancing behind his eyes and into his imagination before dissolving into the tension-charged air around them.
He watches as she leans forward slowly, curls spilling over her shoulders until she stops, hunched over, waiting for something, he thinks. Her lips mouth words he can’t make out….numbers? Whatever she’s waiting for, he sure as hell doesn’t want to ruin it, especially not when her attention is so intensely focused on him. Well, on his wrist. So he waits. Always waiting.
“40, 41, 42, 43,” she murmurs softly, wispy remnants of her words blowing against his knuckles. Her eyes close at ‘41’, and a smile twitches at her lips while she mouths the rest. Then, suddenly, her face disappears behind auburn curls as she leans all the way down and…..
“Mwah!” comes the muffled sound of her lips against his watch. This time he really does jump, the sound and pressure causing his elbow to jerk back with a start and then forward towards her just as quickly. She just kissed his watch.
“What the?!”
“Ta Da!” she exclaims, holding her hands up in a magician-like gesture that he instantly adds to his list of ‘Cutest Things He’s Ever Seen’ (the top 17 spots are proudly occupied by Pam, though she doesn’t know that of course). He’s about to start laughing when she looks up at him and grins the way she usually does when she has a secret to let him in on, so instead of laughing he tilts his head in question and waits.
“It was 4:44 and 44 seconds, Jim!” she beams, pausing for his reaction. When none comes, she sighs jokingly and shakes her head in mock distress.
“Oh, Jim, please tell me you've heard of the ‘Wishing Game’...?” she asks, tucking her smile into a frown. He has no idea what she’s talking about and tells her so as she clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth disapprovingly, only her eyes giving away the joke.
“Jim, Jim, Jim. When a watch or a clock or whatever has the same number in the hour, minute, and second spot, you get to make a wish. For whatever you want,” she adds quickly, blinking away a flash of something he swears he sees flit across her face.
“Ah, of course,” he says very seriously, nodding his head and holding his hand under his chin as if thoroughly invested in learning this game. “How could I not know of such a thing? The hilarity, the anticipation, the high stakes - fun for the whole family! Have you thought about making a move to copyright? This could be bigger than Monopoly, Pam,” he says, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth to match her own growing one, amazed at himself for being able to joke after such an…intimate moment. And, goddamn, he’s pathetic.
“Yes, I thought about copyrighting but I need a better name than the ‘Wishing Game’… Too bland,” she sighs, resting her head on her chin in feigned hopelessness.
“Tragic, such a good idea going to waste,” he agrees, absently inching his hands further over the desktop to their original resting place by her ear.
"Tragic," she agrees solemnly.
Silence fills the space between them and she shifts in her seat. “Yeah, well, anyway now you know about it, so make a wish sometime and try it,” she says and begins to stack stray papers, the game over for her now.
Not for him, though. “Oh, I can hardly wait. I’ll be glued to the clock ‘till 5:55:55,” he smiles. “And, why, um…” he trails off, “…the kiss?” He means to sound more confident, to maintain his previous tone, but his voice cracks somewhere around the word ‘why’ and he really is a fucking girl right now.
Her eyebrows shoot upwards, almost pulling her eyelids up with them before a slow, calculated force pulls them back down. She pauses before her response.
“Oh, that,” she snorts, nonchalance dripping from her tongue and turning to the taste of acid under his own, “that’s just something I do, usually. To finalize the wish, I mean.”
“Right. Like blowing out the candles on a cake, I guess,” he murmurs. She steals a quick glance up at him, pleased with his response, he gathers by the closed-lip smile that spreads over her features, both thanking and warning him. Play it safe. Don’t break the rules.
“Right.”
He nods and she nods. He grabs a jellybean and she turns her chair back to the computer. This is how their conversations usually end, with something new shared, an understanding reached, simultaneous nodding and perhaps a knowing glance or two.
He begins the walk back to his desk but stops short two steps away, pivoting on his heel and waiting until she looks up, surprised. He raises his finger in the air like he’s just thought of something brilliant, when in reality it’s been on the tip of his tongue the whole conversation. He licks his lips slowly, then speaks. “Maybe you could call it the ‘Kissing Game’.”
He pretends not to notice when her mouth drops open and her head twitches to the side. Just grins a half-smile and turns back to his desk.
He likes playing games too.
