Part 3
Jim woke up to a cold, sunlit room, having been too drunk to think about closing the blinds when he got home. He glanced at his alarm clock, saw that it was nearly eleven. He recalled getting up a few hours before, to use the bathroom and take off the clothes he hadn’t bothered removing before crawling between the sheets. Now, he lay still in his bed, praying as he slowly awoke that the bed wouldn’t be spinning. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but his head pounded and his mouth was parched and he smelled the disgusting odor of his own flop sweat.
He wasn’t blessed with a memory loss either, and everything from the night before came flooding back. He’d kissed Pam—a few times. That certainly wasn’t the most humiliating part, and he was glad he remembered those passionate moments, the fact that she’d kissed him back wholeheartedly. No, the embarrassing part was that he’d had to be totally wasted in order to do it and he still hadn’t told her he loved her.
He closed his eyes against the sun and the stirring of his body at the memory of their kisses. Her lips had been so soft, her mouth so hot despite the chill of the night. He’d caressed her, touched her hair, and it had been more wonderful than he’d ever dreamed. He hoped the alcohol they’d both imbibed hadn’t exaggerated the excitement and beauty of those moments, that now, in the literal light of day, she wasn’t regretting what they had done. He was not, though he regretted how it had come to be, that he still didn’t know where she really stood with him.
He remembered suddenly his conversation in the truck with his dad after they’d dropped Pam home. The cold air and kissing Pam at her door had revived him somewhat, and he remembered it clearly. He’d been prepared for a lecture, but was surprised at his dad’s sympathetic tone.
“I’ve never seen you this drunk before. What brought that on?”
“You just met her.”
“Aw,” his dad had said, “I see. Let me give you some friendly advice, son. If you want this girl, you’re gonna have to fight for her, and I worry because you’ve never been a fighter. You’ve always gotten along with everyone; everyone likes you. You’ve always been so easygoing, always the peacemaker between your brothers, even volunteering to accept responsibility for stuff you didn’t do for the sake of the peace.”
“Dad—”
“No, it’s true, and you know it. But with her…you’re gonna have to put yourself out there and fight.”
He’d sighed in frustration. “She’s engaged, remember? And her fiancé is built like a Mack truck. If it came to an actual fight, he’d kick my ass.”
“Well, hopefully it won’t come to that, but I’m thinking it would probably be worth it in her case, am I right?”
Jim nodded, unable to stop his grin at the truth of that. “Yeah, it would be.”
“And Pam has feelings for you, that I’d bet my life on. So, I think there’s hope there, if you maybe spell out how you feel.”
“That was the plan tonight. I just didn’t get around to it.”
“Look, Jimmy, I’ve been exactly where you are. Your mother was going steady with someone else when I first met her, and that gave me pause at first, but I knew she was the one for me, and I didn’t stop until I’d wooed her away. She never cheated on the guy, but she didn’t stop my attentions either. I’m thinking Pam is an honorable girl too, so you’ll have to tread lightly, but while you were passed out, she and I had a little chat. I’m convinced she is open to your…attentions.”
Jim’s heart had skipped a beat. “What did she say?”
“That you’re her best friend. That she cares about you. That she hasn’t set a date for her wedding.”
Jim laughed bitterly. “All this I know, Dad.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t hear how she said it; almost as if she were in denial of her true feelings. I’m a pretty good judge of character, son, and I’m telling you, if you love this girl, go after her. Give her a reason to choose you. That’s what I did with your mother. And look how well that turned out…”
His dad’s words echoed in his hungover brain, and he was momentarily filled with excitement at the possibilities. Between Pam’s gift at Christmas, her kisses last night, her plea for him to give her time…his dad might just be right. She’d said she needed to think. It was Sunday, and he’d give her till Monday before he approached her. Was that enough time? Hell, it had been almost three years that he’d waited for her, only dating occasionally, and not seriously, because no one else could compare to her. And Pam had been his best friend the whole time, so if she had deeper feelings for him now, they must have developed over time, since she’d given him no clear indications of a romantic interest until last night. At least, that’s what he’d thought.
He pondered the last few years, the smiles, the meaningful looks, the seemingly innocent touches that set his pulse racing, the few warm embraces that hovered just at the line of something more than friendship. Like him, she might have been fighting it for the sake of honor, like his dad had said. She’d committed to Roy, was living with him. A girl like Pam didn’t just throw that all away because of a night of drunken weakness. But she needed time to think.
It occurred to him that if she truly wanted to be with Roy, there’d be nothing to think about.
Gingerly, Jim sat up at the edge of his bed, aching head in hands. He needed a shower, some coffee, maybe some dry toast, and a handful of ibuprofen. Then, maybe he could think a little straighter, summon the courage to do tomorrow what he had planned but failed to do last night. If Pam was going to make a truly informed decision, she had to know his true feelings. She wasn’t going to leave Roy for a crush or for sexual attraction. He had to make it perfectly, soberly clear what he was offering. What’s more, Jim needed to know what she was feeling too, so he could cut bait and move on once and for all if she didn’t want him that way. It was only fair, to both of them.
Thus resolved, he stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the shower, still thinking about Pam and those amazing kisses in the dark.
He’d heard nothing from her on Sunday, so that by Monday, completely sober and anxiously anticipating the day, he walked into the office with no idea what was going to happen. He was glad that the doc crew would still be gone another week for their holiday break, so at least he didn’t have to worry as much about his expression when he saw her.
Pam was behind her desk on the phone, and their eyes locked as he entered. She flushed prettily, before averting her eyes to her computer. That seemed promising, though not any clearer. He frowned, hung up his coat, and went to his desk.
“That was a real dick move the other night,” Jim said to Dwight, setting his messenger bag beneath his desk.
“I texted you where you could find your keys the very next morning. You were so wasted, I probably saved your life, so you’re welcome.”
“You owe me twenty bucks for my cab ride to Kevin’s to pick up my car.”
“Ha. Good luck collecting. As Grossvater used to say, you can’t get blood from a beet.”
“Yeah, but I could from a beet farmer,” Jim replied menacingly. Dwight just rolled his eyes and made a scoffing noise under his breath.
Jim was in no mood for Dwight’s idiocy this morning, so he chose to ignore him the rest of the day. Meanwhile, Pam had finished her phone call, and he could feel her eyes on him. The moment his computer booted up, he saw she’d sent him an instant message.
Receptionitis15: Let’s go out for lunch.
He waited a moment, his heart in his throat, and when she didn’t message him back, he couldn’t resist asking:
Jim9334: Are you all right?
He looked over at her and she instinctively looked up at him from her desk. She nodded, her face expressionless. Well, that wasn’t helpful, he thought in frustration.
By the time noon rolled around, Jim was going out of his mind. He’d barely gotten any work done, and mostly stared at a spreadsheet on his computer without really seeing it, or gave up and mindlessly played Minesweeper. He avoided staring at Pam—that only made things worse, but when twelve o’clock rolled around, he met her eyes and abruptly got up to get his coat. She soon followed and they rode down together in the elevator.
“Hey,” he said awkwardly, inhaling the seductive fragrances of roses and apple shampoo.
“Hey.”
More than anything, he wanted to grab her and kiss her against the wall, and the tension built up inside of him so quickly that he had just moved to do it when the door slid open.
It wasn’t until they were sitting in his car that they spoke again. He turned on the car and turned to look at her.
“What are we doing, Pam?” he asked softly, and she could have either taken that to mean where were they going for lunch, or more accurately, what the hell were they doing?
“Just drive, please,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to see us together.” By anyone, of course, she no doubt meant Roy.
Jim’s brow furrowed in annoyance, but he did what she asked and pulled out of the parking lot. He drove toward a park down the street, pulled in, and parked in a space overlooking empty playground equipment. It was still cold and snowy from the New Year’s storm, and since it was also the middle of the day, no one was around. He turned off the engine and sat and waited in the silence.
“Jim, the other night—”
“I’m in love with you,” he interrupted impulsively.
“What?”
He unbuckled his seatbelt so he could turn to look at her.
“I think you heard me.” He reached for her hand to help soften his words. She met his eyes, let him hold her hand. “And I think—I think you might feel the same way.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is, though. It is that simple.” He grabbed her other hand, looked unflinchingly into her eyes. “If we love each other, we can get through everything else. I can wait forever for you, if I know you feel the same about me. But if I’ve misinterpreted things, if I’ve been wasting my time on a pipe dream, then let me go, okay, so we can both move on. I just need to know one way or another or I might go totally insane.”
He wondered if she could hear his heartbeat, if she could feel the sweat that dampened his palms, if she could see in his eyes how close he was to tears. She blinked rapidly, closed her eyes. He noticed her chest was rising and falling rapidly, heard her heightened breathing. Jim, however, held his breath.
“Yes,” she said shakily, the single word barely audible. “Oh, God, Jim, I do. I do love you,” but the words came in anguish, as if torn from her body, and she threw her arms around him, mindless of the console between them as she held on tightly. He embraced her back, his face in her hair, the tears that had threatened now falling against his will.
“I—I don’t know how I can do this, to Roy. To his family. You don’t understand how hard this is going to be to hurt everyone. We’ve been together since we were teenagers.” Her words rushed out haltingly, muffled against his coat, and he knew she was crying too.
He drew back from her, lifted his hands to her wet cheeks, wiped at the tears with his thumbs. He sweetly kissed her trembling lips, realizing how much he’d meant that the rest didn’t matter, as long as she loved him. But he could hear how much it mattered to her.
“It’s okay. Take as much time as you need. I’ll be here for you through all of it, I promise. I’ve been waiting for you for forever, since the day we met—I’ve loved you that long.”
Her eyes widened at that admission, and she smiled through her tears. “Seriously?”
He nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“No! I—I wish I had known, that I had seen—”
He caressed her cheek, brushed her bangs from her eyes. “You would have seen, if you’d been looking close enough. God knows I had a hard enough time hiding it from you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I honestly didn’t realize—or maybe didn’t allow myself to realize.”
“It’s okay, because you realize it now.”
“I do,” she repeated, and she moved her lips up to his. Drunk, their kisses had been sloppy and wild and uninhibited. Sober now, in the middle of the day, it was no less wonderful, but they were more mindful of the significance of the moment, their passion making them feel drunk, not the other way around. Now, there was nothing to blame on the alcohol. This was real, this was perfect, this was unabashed love at its purest.
They kissed this way for several minutes, and it felt so freeing, making out like teenagers in broad daylight. Finally, for want of oxygen, they pulled away, breathless and intensely happy—or at least Jim was. Her eyes became shadowed as they sat there, and, suddenly feeling the cold inside the car, he turned the key and was grateful for the heat that poured out of the vents.
“Are you okay?” he asked for the second time that day.
She nodded. “Yeah. I think I’m just…in shock or something. I can’t believe this is happening, that we’re doing this.”
He reached for her hand again, squeezed it, and suddenly, he let out a bark of laughter.
“What?” she said, bemused.
“I had worked myself up for a fight here,” he said. At her raised eyebrow, he continued: “My dad had basically said I needed to man up and fight for you, that I should woo you away from Roy. I had no idea this would be so easy, Beesly.” He laughed again. “Easy Beesly.”
“Oh, my God, don’t ever call me that again.”
He chuckled. “I’m sorry, was that ever a thing with you?”
“Yeah, in high school. When Roy and I first started dating, one of his football buddies made the mistake of jokingly calling me that to some of the other kids. I was tormented with the nickname for about a week before Roy found out who’d started it. Beat the guy to a pulp. No one ever called me that again.”
“Jeeze. Sorry. It just sounded funny. For the record, I don’t think you’re easy, in any sense of the word. As a matter of fact, I think you’re the most complicated woman I have ever known.”
“I don’t think I’m complicated,” she said thoughtfully. “Just confused and unsure of myself, just…trapped for too many years in something I was too afraid to get out of. I guess that might seem complicated, especially given what I’m doing here in this car with you.”
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to be insulting, I promise. I—sometimes I tend to get flippant when I’m overwhelmed. And this is pretty damned overwhelming, not to mention totally surreal.”
He ran a shaking hand through his hair, his other hand tightening on hers. He’d hoped for this moment, but never really believed it could happen.
“So, what’s next?” he asked softly, because his impatient mind clamored for a plan.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I need to talk to Roy, obviously. But I think I should keep you out of it. I’m not just breaking our engagement because of you. There are other things that I’ve been ignoring for years, things that show how we really aren’t meant to be together. It’s going to be a shock to him, because I’ve never raised much of a fuss about those things, and that has been one of the main mistakes of our relationship. But it’s too late to fix any of that, to expect him to change, and besides, I love someone else now.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “If he saw us like this, he’d kill me, and rightly so,” said Jim solemnly.
“Yes, he would. So I think it best if we keep quiet about us, at least for awhile. Don’t you think?” She looked up at him, obviously fearful he would be angry at her suggestion.
“I totally agree. I really didn’t want to be that guy, Pam—the dishonorable guy who breaks up a relationship. I mean, much as I dislike Roy, he doesn’t deserve this; I broke the man code, kissing another guy’s girl. I swear that on New Year’s Eve, my intention was to tell you my feelings, not to act on them. But I drank too much and did the exact opposite, which was totally wrong of me. The last thing I wanted was to make either of us into cheaters.”
“But it’s not like we’ve—”
“No, but it’s still wrong, as long as you have that ring on your finger.”
She sighed. “You’re right. I’m just dreading this, you know?”
“Me too. And I’ll be here if you need to talk, but after today, after now, we shouldn’t be doing this anymore, not until you’re totally free.”
He couldn’t believe he was saying this, that he was actually pushing her away when he was finally able to hold her, to kiss her like he’d always dreamed of doing. But being chicken hadn’t been the only reason he’d restrained himself with her these past three years. He believed in the sanctity of commitment, in doing the honorable thing, and he didn’t want this budding relationship to be tainted with something dirty, or scandalous. When they could finally be together, there would be enough speculation as it is.
“Okay,” she said. “You’re right. But we still have another half-hour of our lunch break.” She gave him a smile that was pure seduction, and he had no idea how he’d be able to resist her now, not after he’d tasted her, felt her warm body pressed to his.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and glanced meaningfully at his back seat. His eyes widened. “Beesly—”
She put her finger on his lips. “I’m kidding, sort of. I just want to be close to you while we can, just kiss you a little, I promise. That will help get me through the tough times ahead.”
He sighed in recognition of his own failings, and turned off the key again before they both got out of the car. In the cozy backseat, he held her to him, their hands slipping inside each other’s coats, purely for warmth, they told themselves. After their first heated kiss, he pulled away, breathless.
“Did my long, inspired speech about honor mean nothing to you, woman?”
“It was a very pretty speech,” she teased, kissing her way along his jawline, then pausing to whisper in his ear: “Almost Shakespearean.”
He closed his eyes tightly, shivering in reaction to her touch more than to the gathering chill.
“Does this mean we’re not getting lunch?” he asked as his mouth hovered once more over hers. He was sure she must have heard his stomach growling; he had been too nervous to eat breakfast that morning.
“There’s always the drive-thru,” she said against his lips.
“God, I love the way you think.”
He cut off her chuckle with his mouth, and he couldn’t help the moan that escaped from his throat as her tongue tangled with his.
It was two long weeks before she could come to him, completely free. They’d spoken on the phone every night, or stolen quick, whispered conversations alone in the breakroom, where he’d listened as she alternately ranted or cried. Roy hadn’t taken it well, understandably, and Jim had been afraid of his temper where she was concerned.
“Roy would never hurt me,” she’d reassured him, but there was no doubt he’d punch Jim’s lights out if he knew what had happened between them since New Year’s Eve, so she’d kept her word and kept Jim out of it. After Roy’s initial shock, anger had set in. When she called on her parents and her sister to help her move her stuff out from their house to an apartment closer to the office, apparently, Pam’s dad had to block Roy’s path into the house. Jim’s hands had fisted in anger when she’d related the story to him later, and he felt helplessly that he should have been there.
She’d taken a day off to move while Roy was at work, but somehow he’d found out she wasn’t in the office, so he’d followed her home. Roy hadn’t laid a finger on Mr. Beesly, however, but he’d paced and cussed furiously outside the house until everything had been loaded among their three cars. She’d left all the furniture, only taking her clothes, some of the kitchen supplies, half the linens, and a few personal items she couldn’t bear to part with. She’d set her engagement ring on his dresser in their bedroom. She had to change her cell phone number because he wouldn’t stop calling and texting her.
For the next week, Roy had come to the office, whispered to her desperately over her desk, until finally Michael had come out of his office to put a stop to it. When he’d turned on the boss, Jim and Dwight had rushed to hold the big man back, while Michael had yelled that Roy was absolutely, totally fired, wiping at his bloody nose with the backs of shaking hands. Jim had laughed in the past when Dwight had bragged about his sleeper-hold abilities, but he wasn’t laughing when Roy fell to the floor in a heap, down for the count.
“Roy!” Pam cried, running around and dropping to her knees by her unconscious ex-fiancé.
“He’ll be fine,” said Dwight confidently, cracking his knuckles.
Jim looked from Dwight to Roy and back again, shaking his head in wonder, while Oscar called Security. Sure enough, Roy had come around by the time Security arrived, and they hauled him off the property, cussing under his breath.
From then on, Jim escorted Pam to her car after work, and followed her back to her parents’ house since he didn’t want her staying alone in her new apartment yet. At the end of the second week, she’d learned that Roy had moved in with his brother thirty miles away, and had gotten a construction job. Michael hadn’t pressed charges against Roy, after he’d called to apologize. Things seemed to calm down, but it was days before Jim didn’t look up anxiously every time the door to the office opened.
Three days after the Roy debacle, Pam went home with Jim. He hugged her in the middle of the living room, while Mark made himself scarce.
“I’m sorry,” Jim said into her hair, “I should have done something to stop him. I had a feeling something like this was going to happen.”
She shook her head, tears falling silently down her pale cheeks. “He would have come after you, Jim, and everything would have been ten times more complicated if he thought I’d been cheating on him.”
He knew she was right, but still, the man in him had felt decidedly ashamed that he hadn’t done more.
“It’s over now,” she was saying. “I’m free, and there’s a restraining order against him now.”
Jim closed his eyes, holding her tightly. “I can’t even believe it, that you’re finally here.”
She pulled back from him, looked up at him through watery eyes, more sage green now than hazel with her tears. “Will you kiss me now? Please?”
He smiled, and immediately obliged her. The weeks of not touching her caught up with him, and he kissed her with growing heat. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said hoarsely. She nodded, and he took her hand, leading her up and into his bedroom. He shut the door, took her into his arms again, his hands flying over her back, her bottom, her breasts, while his mouth took hers over and over until her legs grew weak and her hands grasped his shoulders for support.
He picked her up and carried her the short distance to the bed, laying her down gently on his blue comforter, only to follow her quickly, covering her body with his own. He resumed their deep, sensual kisses, while her impatient hands loosened his tie. She pulled his work shirt from his slacks, finding the hot, smooth skin of his stomach. His muscles tightened beneath her hand and he gasped, his own fingers busy at the buttons of her blouse.
Her full breasts encased in a simple white bra made him pause, pulse racing in his ears. She was more beautiful than he’d imagined, and he followed her blush as it cascaded from her cheeks down to her chest, her breasts rising and falling rapidly.
“I have no words,” he said, in awe. She didn’t point out that he’d just used a few, and the darkness of his eyes told her plenty.
“Then quit trying,” she said with a smile, “and help me get you out of those clothes.”
THE END
