It was strange how things happened.
They probably never would have had this conversation if Pam hadn’t gotten the call about Mama Honey dying at the office. If she’d found out at home, or even on her lunch break, she wouldn’t have had to leave the room to let the initial shock sink in. Jim wouldn’t have followed her. She wouldn’t have started blathering about waffles.
If she’d gotten the call from her father six hours later, when she’d been at home, she would have called the office and left a message saying she would be out for a couple of days to go to the funeral. She’d have come back to a card signed by her co-workers, filled with messages of varying degrees of inappropriateness. Jim would have rapped her desk with his knuckles as he made his way between the coat rack and his desk.
“Hey, I’m really sorry for your loss,” he would have said, quietly and sincerely, but not offering anything more.
“Thanks,” she would have said, with an appreciative smile, because she’d have known that he meant it, and she would have appreciated it.
They would have kept eye contact for about two seconds, two seconds of honesty between them, before…
“Uh, I better…” he would have mumbled, making some gesture toward his desk.
“Right, yeah, yeah,” she would have responded, flustered, grabbing the closest item and feigning interest.
And the lies would have come bashing back.
It was strange how things happened.
“I can’t believe that was you,” Pam said, for what felt like the hundredth time. Wrapping her brain around the fact that she and Jim had met as kids was one thing: They’d both grown up in Scranton; it wasn’t too far fetched to think that their paths had crossed at one point or another.
But they’d kissed. Fifteen years ago, she and Jim had kissed and she’d never realized it.
Jim Halpert had been her first kiss.
That was just… insane. It was impossible. It was bizarre. It was crazy. It was altogether completely fucked up.
It was somehow… right.
“I know,” Jim said, gobsmacked. “How did we not know that? How did it not come up?”
Pam sighed. They might as well continue with this honesty, which, if she were being honest, might only take place within the confines of this stairwell and this conversation, well then the truth was…
“We never talked about a lot of real things,” she said quietly, watching his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat.
Jim exhaled. She was right. Most of their conversations had been about how to prank Dwight, or how crazy Michael was. And of course there were the talks about Roy.
But those had been far from honest.
If they’d be honest, he would have said “He’s not good enough for you, Pam. He doesn’t appreciate you for how talented you are, or how funny, or how sweet. He appreciates that you’re there, sometimes, but you deserve to be with someone who knows how lucky he is to have you.”
Since his return, in the few conversations they’d had, she’d given him advice about sleep cycles and not freaking out about Karen moving to an apartment nearby. And she’d hated telling him to go easy on Karen. He knew that. The devil in him had actually enjoyed it a bit. He’d hated himself a little that day.
Though not as much as he’d hated himself the day he came back and Pam had asked him to coffee.
“I sort of started seeing someone,” he’d said, and watched her try not to let her face fall as he just thought about what an absolute ass he was.
Because the truth was that he hadn’t asked Karen out on a date until he’d realized that he had no choice but to go back to Scranton. Because the truth was that he knew going back there and facing Pam without a shield was more than he could handle.
But if they were going to have a shot at having any truth between them, he needed to know.
“Why didn’t you call me after you canceled the wedding?”
Pam shook her head ruefully at him. “What was I going to say? ‘Hey Jim, it’s Pam. Just wanted to let you know I called off my wedding. And, look, I know I shot you down after I took advantage of our friendship for years, but if you still want to hit this, give me a call.’”
Jim burst out laughing. “ ‘Hit this?’ Beesly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘hit this.’”
She loved hearing him laugh. Laughing was truth. But there needed to be other kinds of truth too.
“I thought you hated me,” she confessed. She stared at him, stared into him, her eyes at once bold and shy.
He wanted to kiss her then. He wanted to breathe her in and swallow all her doubts. To press forgiveness to her lips and suck second chances from her tongue. He wanted to lick love on the roof of her mouth and moan truth down her throat.
“I could never hate you, Pam,” he murmured, and even though he knew, he knew it was too soon and completely wrong, his head inclined anyway and he reached out to touch her cheek, lowering his lips toward hers.
“I can’t.”
He was such an idiot. She probably just wanted to be friends again and here he was trying to kiss her? What the hell was he thinking? He wondered how well a six foot three inch white guy would do selling sombreros on a beach in Mexico.
“Not yet.”
Jim gulped. “What?”
Pam shook her head
“If we’re going to do this,” she said, “if we’re going to have a chance, I want to start doing things right.” She reached out to touch his cheek, just for a second, pulling her fingers back quickly. “And it’s not right when you’re with Karen.”
Karen. Jim had kind of forgotten about her for a minute.
“I-” he started to say.
“Unless that was going to be a lost kiss,” she pressed on. “And I don’t do those. Not anymore.”
He sighed. “Definitely not, Beesly. You are definitely not a lost kiss girl.” He nudged her. “I’m going to talk to Karen, tell her it’s over. Because this?” He gestured between them. “You and me? I can’t not.”
Pam nodded. “I have a funeral to go to,” she said quietly. “And we probably have a lot to talk about.”
Jim nodded.
“I think we might actually be on the same page, finally,” she said. “But we need to do this slow.”
He could do slow. He was patient. He had waited before. He could wait again, so long as he knew he was waiting for something.
“Well, maybe in a couple weeks,” he said, “I could take you out to breakfast.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Chapter title comes from Billy Joel's song "Honesty." That's basically the theme of the chapter.
Chapter End Notes:
This is the last full length chapter. There will be two short epilogues. I tried to figure out a way to stretch this story longer, but everything I tried just felt unnatural and forced. I hope y'all will like how it all wraps up, and as always, I'm grateful for your thoughts.
