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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is my first time posting my fiction ANYWHERE; I've been writing it for years and years but was never brave enough to show it to anybody. Hope you enjoy! -s*
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

“Angela, please? I don’t live too far away from you,” Pam pleads. Angela sniffs and looks away.

“You’re drunk,” she accuses. “I don’t think I want a drunk in my car.”

Pam looks at her in a mixture of disbelief and hatred. Sure, she’s drunk, but it’s not like she does this all the time. She has gone out of her way so many times to be nice to Angela—nobody in the office likes her—and for what? So far she’s accused her of being a whore, of not doing her work, and of being untrustworthy. One of these days…

“Please, Angela?” She tries one last time. “I’ll…” her voice trails off. I’ll what? What the hell does Angela even like?

“No,” Angela says primly. “If you need a ride, why don’t you ask your boyfriend?”

Pam gives her a confused look. “Angela, Roy—”

Jim,” Angela says pointedly, her eyes focusing on something over Pam’s shoulder. Pam whirls around and sees Jim talking to Kevin. Just at that second, he looks up at her through his shaggy hair and gives her a nod, pressing his lips together.

“Jim is not—” Pam starts, turning back to Angela, but all she sees is Angela’s retreating form, headed for the parking lot. Shit.

Jim watches her—she looks like she’s trying to talk herself into something—as she slowly, slowly turns to face him. Giving him a sad little smile, she looks around the room; aside from Kevin, the only other person still here is Michael, which means Dwight is lurking somewhere. The look of dismay on her face makes his heart sink. What’s wrong?

She slowly walks towards him. “So,” he says brightly. “Looks like your ride left.”

“She told me she didn’t want a drunk in her car,” Pam says glumly. Jim can’t help but chuckle. “What? I’m not a drunk,” she insists, and somehow, fate chooses that moment for her to lose her balance and stumble into him.

“You’re a little drunk,” Jim says, his voice thick and gravely and full of held back laughter. She looks up at him, startled, and he offers her a knowing smile.

Pam lets her head fall so she’s looking at her feet. Hey, Jim, could you please drive me home? “Um…”

“So,” Jim clears his throat. “Oh, wait, sorry—were you saying something?”

“No, I—”

“Do you need a ride?” He asks quickly, before she can bring up something else.

“Oh!” She says, startled. That’s easier than having to ask. “Yes, thank you.”

“Any time, Beesley,” he can’t help but grin when he uses her last name; this goofy grin that would almost make him want to kick his own ass if she didn’t giggle at it every time.

They walk out to his car; his heart is pounding and his hands are shaking and he hopes she doesn’t notice but when he takes his keys from his pocket and immediately drops them he’s sure she knows why. When she teeters on her feet and starts to lose her balance again, he wraps his arm around her waist to straighten her and she’s sure she’s going to die right there, have a heart attack and melt into a puddle of God it feels good to feel his arm there. He helps her into his car before walking around to the other side to open his door. Before he can, he has to stop and take a deep breath, count to ten. It’s just a ride home. She didn’t mean to kiss you before. She was drunk. She’s…drunk.

Oh my God, did I…kiss him? She’s thinking, waiting for him to get into the car and all she can conclude is that she can’t go home to Roy, who she’s still very upset with by the way, while this is on her mind.

All he knows is he needs to find a way to keep her here, keep her with him. “Do you want to get a drink?” He asks suddenly, not knowing he was going to say anything.

“Oh!” She says for the second time that night. “I’m…” afraid that if I drink even one drink more I won’t have anything left in me to stop me from…

“Right,” he says, understanding. “No more alcohol for you. Maybe…” he points as they slow to a stop at a traffic light; there’s a coffee shop on the other side of the intersection and it looks like it’s still open.

“Yeah,” she says, sounding unconvinced. “Yeah, that’s…”

“Ok,” he says, the light changing, the car bringing them into the lot. They sit in the car and stare at the entrance to the shop as employees trickled out, the last one flipping the sign on the door to say “closed” and locking it behind him.

“Well,” Jim says, out of words.

“I think the only places open this late around here are…” Pam’s voice trails off.

“Bars,” he finishes her sentence for her.

“Yeah,” she looks at her hands.

“Well,” he says again, turning the car around and pulling out of the lot.

Next thing she knows, they’re in front of a bar she’s never been into before. “Where…” She says quietly, in awe.

“My brother likes it,” he shrugs. Going around, he opens her door for her, perfect gentleman, and offers her a hand, hoping against hope for another opportunity to steady her.

They go in and Jim immediately orders a beer for himself and a Shirley Temple for Pam. “No more alcohol for you,” he reminds her, his eyes shining.

“Right,” she smiles so easily at him when they’re sitting down facing each other. Almost like it’s a date. Almost like they’re on a date.

“So,” he says, giving her that cheeky smile again.

“So,” she returns it.

A half an hour later, they’re laughing. “You did not,” she’s insisting and he’s laughing and assuring him that he did. For her, the alcohol is slowly, slowly wearing off. For him, it’s slowly clouding his judgment. Something is making him more brave, more able to take her hand in his to illustrate a part of one story, giving him the ability to switch sides of the booth and sit next to her in the middle of explaining something but now they’re sitting here, arms touching, and she’s just so mouth-wateringly close, he doesn’t know what to do but he knows if he moves away even slightly the spell will be broken.

The bartender is suddenly announcing last call and she’s starting to panic; they’re going to have to get up, get back into his car, leave. He’s going to stop leaning on her, stop taking her hand, and tomorrow it’s going to go back to normal.

“Well,” he says, his voice deep and gravely.

“Yeah,” she says, unable to mask the regret in her tone.

He hesitates, this delicious moment where she wonders if she might have the courage, suddenly, out of nowhere, to grab his hand, to pull him close again; if he might find the strength to turn back to her, to press his lips to hers…but it’s over so quickly she can barely stand it and she almost pulls him back out of instinct. But he pays the tab and then turns to smile at her and nods toward the door. They leave.

In the car, they try to get back to the witty banter they’d found so easily at the bar, but it’s somehow impossible. The silence stretches out further in front of them than the dark roads they’re traveling down, and more than once she’s tempted to ask him if he’s lost; he’s purposely taking turns he knows won’t lead him to her house, because he can’t stand the idea of dropping her off so she can go to bed with him. But still, finally, he can’t avoid it and slows to a stop next to the tiny house she lives in with Roy. It looms in the background, taunting him: you’ll never have her, you’ll never have her, you’ll never have her.

And it physically hurts him to know that she’s about to leave him again, to smile at her and hear himself saying things like “I had a great time,” and “do you need help making it to the doorstep?” in a voice he hardly even recognizes. He’s drunker than he’d like to admit and he sees a night of drowning his sorrows ahead of him and he’s seething and in pain and aching to touch her again and then she does the strangest thing—reaches across the seat, places her hands on his shoulders and presses her lips to his cheek.

This is the second time in one night her lips have met his skin—his face—and he’s so taken aback he doesn’t even know how to control his expression, to keep the what the hell is going on here?! look at bay and when she quietly whispers “Sorry,” eyes wide, and moves to return to her own seat he doesn’t even know what to do. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears—she is, in fact, swallowing them down with all of her might, silently repeating I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry in Jim’s car in her mind—and he knows he looks like he’s in shock, with wild eyes and a mouth hanging open and dammit, Halpert, what the fuck is your problem?

And he doesn’t know what makes him do it, but she’s been so brave all night and he loves it when she’s brave more than anything and he just does it—does what he’s been holding in for the last three years and, oh hell, he reaches out to her, puts a hand on the back of her neck, and pulls her face towards his and he kisses her. Really kisses her. Like he’s always wanted to. Like he means it. He puts everything he’s ever felt for her—everything he’s ever felt, period—everything he can remember into that kiss, communicating things he could never find the words to say through his lips that are hungrily and sweetly moving against hers. I love you and choose me and you’re beautiful and a thousand other thoughts are being screamed out in his brain and all he can do is kiss her and kiss her and kiss her.

She doesn’t mean to let the sob escape her throat. To be perfectly honest, she’s always wondered somewhere in the back of her mind what this would be like—to kiss Jim in his car, or at his desk, or at hers, or up against the break room door, or in his bedroom, in his bed, under the covers, pressed up—

Jesus Christ, Pam, what are you even thinking?

And when it does escape, she wants to cry for letting it happen—not the kiss, but the sound—because the second she can’t hold it in any longer, she knows this is all over. He freezes up and she tries desperately to keep kissing him but it’s like he remembers that she’s not really his and he pulls away, ducking his head so that his hair tickles her nose. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice gruff and strangled and thick with emotion and lust and want.

“No, Jim, I—”

“Do you need help getting to the door?” He won’t look at her. Why won’t he look at her?

“Jim,” she pleads.

“Ok, well,” it takes everything inside of him to force himself to lift his head and face her. “Night, Pam.” His voice sounds thin and his eyes are wide and he looks stunned and she knows she looks horrified or confused or shocked or something but she can’t control it and there are so many things rushing through her head, so many things to say like I’m sorry and we shouldn’t have done that and take me home with you and she’s not sure which will come out of her mouth first and when the words “Night, Jim,” come quietly out into the night, she’s shocked and relieved and sad.

She sleeps on the couch that night, and leaves for work in the morning before Roy even gets up. She spends the day surreptitiously running her fingers over her smooth lips, telling herself she can still feel the tingle of his lips against them if she just concentrates hard enough.


watchthesky84 is the author of 10 other stories.
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