Jim scratched his head. “Well, that was…”
“Uneventful?” Pam shrugged.
“Yeah...” Jim marveled. “I thought for sure Michael would have cracked some joke about us doing it in the cafeteria or something.”
It had been one month since they had returned from winter break and the two of them decided it was finally time for them to tell people they were together. They had wanted to do it sooner, but Jim was quickly thrown back into coaching the basketball team and Pam had been commissioned by the school to paint a small mural on one wall of the gym. Every day, Jim had to try extremely hard to focus on zone defense and Pick and Roll plays with her in the gym, her hair tied up in that messy way he loved, covered in paint splatters, and completely immersed in what she was doing.
They met with both Michael and Jan in Jan’s office after school one day, and let them know they were dating. Jan had simply thanked them for letting her know and Michael somehow managed to keep his cool and not say anything to make anyone cringe (though he did tear up a little bit and insist Jim give him a hug). They passed by Phyllis on the way out, who gave them a coy smile. Jim swore he heard her mutter, “I knew it,” under her breath as they walked out the door.
As word spread, people were either completely unsurprised or really didn’t seem to care. Daryll was happy for him and even happier that Oscar owed him twenty bucks. Toby tried his hardest to put on a smile and congratulate them and Angela simply gave them an eye roll.
They still tried to refrain from showing too much affection while they were at school, but Jim felt like he could finally breathe without constantly being worried someone would catch him if he involuntarily placed his palm on her lower back or if his hand lingered a second too long on her knee, especially since they hadn’t been able to see each other much during the week. The basketball team was in a major playoff push with one game left in the season that they had to win in order to qualify and go to the state championships. It would be the first year in ET Memorial history that the team would make the playoffs and Jim felt the pressure of that. He was offering two-a-day practices for any players who wanted them and spent many nights drawing up plays and reworking the lineups.
Pam had been working hard on her mural, often staying at the school until close to midnight and Jim saw the way creating it made her happy and he loved to see her do something that made her shoulders straighten with pride. But truthfully, he missed her. He longed for the cabin in the Poconos and the nights where she would come over and scratch away in her sketchbook, her legs draped over his lap while he read a book. Suddenly life felt so busy.
One particular Friday night, Jim was sitting at his desk at home researching the team they were playing on Monday when he glanced up and saw the picture Pam had painted for him for Christmas. He felt a tug in his chest and picked up his phone.
Hey, Picasso. How’s the mural coming?
About 15 minutes later his phone lit up.
It’s almost done! Just a few more retouches and coats of paint in a few places. How is your night? I just realized it’s been almost a whole week since we have gotten to see each other outside of the school and now I’m sad. :’(
The pang in his chest deepened.
I know, I miss you. So does my bed.
Tell the pillows I say hello. ;)
He put his phone down, then quickly picked it right back up along with his coat and keys and headed out the door.
—————
As he walked down the dark hallway of the school, he could hear Pam’s voice coming from the gym. She was singing—loudly—to “Bye Bye Bye” and a giant grin came to his lips. Once he reached the gym, he double checked that she wasn’t on a high surface that she could fall from when he inevitably scared the crap out of her. Luckily, she was just on the gym floor refilling paint.
“I’m more of a Backstreet Boys kind of guy, myself,” he pronounced and she nearly collapsed from the shock of his voice. She picked up a paintbrush and hurled it in his direction, smiling.
“What are you doing here?!” she laughed, walking toward him.
He lifted up the two bags in his hands and shrugged. “Sustenance.”
She gasped excitedly and grabbed a bag from his hand and gave him a quick kiss. “Jack’s?! Thank you! I haven’t eaten since…” she checked her watch. “Holy crap, is it really 10:30? I totally forgot to eat dinner!”
He chuckled. “I figured. You tend to do that when you paint,” he said with a wink. “Got you the bacon cheeseburger.”
“No tomato?”
“Naturally.” He pulled her closer and kissed her more solidly this time. “I know you, Beesly. Now eat.”
They sat on one of the bleacher benches in the gym, laughing and talking as they ate. Jim gestured to the giant painting on the wall.
“This looks amazing by the way.”
She grinned. “Thank you. It’s been a lot of work but I think I’m finally happy with it.”
“You should be! So does that mean you’re done?” he asked hopefully, running his hand up her thigh.
“Almost,” she said with a slight wince. “Just a few last things. Do you want to hang out and wait for me?”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I guess,” he said with mock disappointment followed by a smile. He walked across the court and found a stray basketball that one of his players must have left behind. He dribbled it a few times and shot it, the net making a satisfying whoosh as it passed through.
“And the crowd goes wild!” Pam yelled from the bleachers. Jim chuckled and ran over to the ball to continue shooting. The two things in his life he had always been sure about were books and the feel of a basketball in his hands. As he looked up at Pam, who had now turned around to finish up her mural, he realized he could now add her to that list. He loved her with a confidence and surety that he had never felt before.
After about 30 minutes, Pam joined him on the court. He let off a jump shot and her hands wrapped around him from behind as he landed. The ball swished and he twisted around in her arms to face her and put his own arms around her. He leaned down and kissed her quickly, then they both turned their heads to look at the mural, Pam’s head on his chest.
“Nice work, Beesly.”
“You think so?” she asked timidly.
“What? Of course! It looks so good. And now it’s done. Which means I don’t have to resort to coming to the school on a Friday night to see my girlfriend.”
She leaned back to look at him and rolled her eyes. “Okay, Coach. Pretending like you haven’t been busy too,” she smirked. He smiled and brought his lips to hers again.
“I missed you this week,” he whispered against her lips.
“Me too,” she whispered back.
They pulled apart and Pam picked up the basketball. “So, when are you going to teach me to shoot the outside J?”
He laughed. “You learned that from High School Musical, didn’t you?” Then self realization set in. “Wow, I am so sad that I know that.”
She walked a little closer to the hoop and tried her best to make a basket. It stopped about a foot short from even hitting the rim and fell to the court.
“Maybe I should stick to painting,” she giggled.
Jim retrieved the ball and dribbled it back to her. “Here,” he said, positioning himself behind her. “Put one hand here and one hand here. Good. Now, you’re going to mainly use this hand to shoot and this one to aim and steady the ball.” He placed his hands on top of hers over the ball and his head next to hers, the smell of her favorite conditioner now fogging up his brain. He put his lips to her neck.
She smiled. “Is that part of the tutorial?”
“No,” he hummed against her skin. “You just smell really good.”
She shimmied him away playfully, serious about wanting to learn to shoot. “Now what?”
“Okay,” he said. “You’re going to jump straight and extend your arm that’s under the ball, then snap your wrist at the top.” He stepped back to let her try. She did what he told her and the ball sailed up, bounced on the rim a couple times, and fell through the net. She threw her arms up and cheered, then turned around and threw them around Jim’s neck.
“You’re a good coach, you know,” she said, kissing him. “We’re totally going to win state.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “That’s what we’re trying to do, right?”
He chuckled and nodded. He loved how she used the word “we” instead of “you”. He didn’t ever want to push the game on her like he knew Roy had always done with football, so it was nice to feel like she was inserting herself into that part of his life on her own. She willingly came to every game, knew the schedule of who they were playing next, and once he even looked up and caught her intensely booing the refs during one of their games, which to him was adorable and made him love her even more.
He grabbed her hand. “Here, come show me your mural.”
They climbed to the top of the bleachers where she still had all her paints set out. She showed him each part of the mural, her inspirations behind it, how long it took to perfect it, and at the end admitted she was really proud of herself. Pam didn’t always have the easiest time admitting her own strengths. It was something Jim was trying to help her do more of, so to hear her boldly say she was proud of what she had done made Jim’s chest swell with love for her.
“Is this part still wet?” he asked in a low voice, pointing to the wall next to them.
“No, I painted that part yesterday.”
“Good.”
He turned her and pushed her against the wall then pressed his body flush up against hers. He kissed her intensely, parting her lips with his tongue. Running his fingers through her messy curls, he began kissing down the base of her jawline, stopping right under her ear. He snaked his hand under the side of her paint-covered sweatshirt while nipping and kissing her neck and ear, the small breaths and moans escaping her sending a hot current straight through him.
He felt her hands grab at the hem of his t-shirt so he stood back briefly and lifted his arms so she could pull it off of him in one impressive motion. She looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes and a devilish smile before he crashed right back into her, feeling her hands run their way up his back, still dewy from playing basketball and the heat rising to his skin from simply touching her, kissing her.
Now she flipped him around and pushed him to sit down on the bench below them. She straddled his lap, the feel of her through his thin basketball shorts driving him mad. Her kisses were hard and wanting against his lips, her tongue hot against his. Not sure he could take it much longer, he stood her up. Her sweatpants fell to her ankles at the same time as his basketball shorts and she slid herself back over him. Moans, names, and four-letter-words were now echoing through the walls of the empty gymnasium.
She rested her head on his shoulder after both of them had recovered, breath heavy, and she chuckled softly against his skin.
“You really like my mural.”
He pressed a soft kiss on her shoulder with a smile. “I really do.”
They giggled together and Pam reached for her pants on the bench but stopped abruptly. “Uh...when did this happen?” She lifted up her fingers, which were covered in blue paint.
Jim looked next to him on the bench as he pulled on his shorts. There was a palette of paint to his right, the blue paint now smeared all over it.
“Oh...my…” Pam’s mouth gaped open and pointed behind Jim. He flipped around to see a fresh blue smear of paint on the wall. “How the hell did I not notice that?!” Pam exclaimed.
“Well, I am pretty good…” Jim joked, admiring the blue paint smeared all over his chest and neck, and pulled his t-shirt back on. He stood back to look at the mural.
“It’s not that bad! You can’t even really tell it’s a handprint.” He laughed to himself and smirked. “Or that it got there while I was fu--”
She smacked his chest. “Shut it. You really can’t tell it’s not supposed to be there?”
He put his arm around her waist. “Honestly, I can’t. It’s right next to all those other firework-looking thingies. I bet if you just took some red paint and made it look like the others, nobody would know the difference.”
She cocked her head and squinted one eye toward the mural. “You know...you might be right, Halpert.” She grabbed a brush and some red paint and ran them in smooth strokes on the wall. When she was done, she stepped down the steps to look at it, grinning. She looked at Jim who kissed the tips of his fingers like an italian chef.
“They’ll never know.”
----------------------
It was the fourth quarter, 13 seconds left in the game. ET Memorial was down two points, and a win would send them to the playoffs. Porter Reed, Jim’s starting point guard, had the ball and was dribbling it down the court.
“Cover him!” Jim yelled. “Beckett, screen!”
Another player ran forward to set a screen as the point guard broke to the left of the court.
5…
4…
3…
2…
“SHOOT!”
Reed set up behind the three-point line, the ball left his hands, the buzzer sounded, and…
SWISH
The players shot off the bench as the crowd erupted in cheers. Fans and students alike rushed onto the court, lifting players up, jumping and celebrating. Jim, elated, ran to his starting point guard and locked his arm around his neck, ruffling his hair. The team came together in one giant group huddle, Jim at the center. Amidst the chaos, he still searched out one set of green eyes in the crowd. He found them and she hurriedly made her way through the sea of people and wrapped her arms tight around him. Not caring who saw and who was surrounding them, he planted a kiss firmly on her lips.
Suddenly, they were both covered in ice cold water. Jim whipped around to see his players running away with the water cooler shouting, “Sorry, Ms. B!!”
They looked at each other in shock and then burst into laughter. He hugged her again and looked up toward her mural on the wall and squeezed her a little tighter, happy that he didn’t have to hide it anymore. Then his eyes fixed on one splotchy little firework at the bottom.
At least there was still one secret to still keep.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Alright, I think it’s time to get back to the school, don’t you?
Chapter End Notes:
I hoped you enjoyed that one! :)
I have a few more chapters in mind for this Jim and Pam. I hope you all stick around for them! It will be hard to say goodbye to English Jim when the time comes, that’s for sure. Thanks for reading and reviewing as always!
I have a few more chapters in mind for this Jim and Pam. I hope you all stick around for them! It will be hard to say goodbye to English Jim when the time comes, that’s for sure. Thanks for reading and reviewing as always!
