Pam Beesly was killing him. She really was. Sure, she had some bad habits but it wasn't anything he couldn't live with. More than once, he had covered her with blanket when she's fallen asleep on the couch. And sure, more than once he carried her to her room. Her brightly colored room with her water-colored bedspread, wishing that he was invited in here for less innocent reasons. He looked around at the various knick-knacks displayed in her bedroom, famous paintings pinned to a pinboard along with an orange and white wedding display. He asked her the next morning why she kept that picture and she smiled sadly.
"To remind myself to only marry the person I love with all my heart." He didn't press for any more details.
But he couldn't help but smile as he leaned on the doorway, looking at Pam's sleeping form on the couch, a forgotten television show rolling in the background., Her hand pillowed under her face with her face looking serene. He imagined her laying like that next to him. He got the slightly bigger bedroom due to his obnoxiously huge queen bed that his parents got him. It was sometimes too big for him sleeping alone.
Aside from the hot tub incident, she hadn't done anything super sexual but she didn't have to. She was effortlessly sexy to him. How sometimes when he was painting, she threw up her hair and pinned it with a spare paintbrush. Which wouldn't be that bad except for the action pronounced the lickable line of her neck. And how she would concentrate on her sketching the painting she had in her head on slow Saturdays and she would start painting her idea on canvas, the sunlight pouring around her. He would sit at the breakfast bar and just watch her, pretending to sip a coffee in the morning, sitting in basketball shorts and a tee.
And the reaction he had with her wearing his sweatshirts nearly did him in. He knows he should not have such a reaction to seeing her in his clothes but he couldn't help the thrill it gave him. He kind of wanted to see her wear something that was distinctly his to the office, so everyone could see that she was his. But she wasn't his. At least, not yet. He wanted to wait for the right moment.
Day by day, he was falling more and more in love with Pam. He was around her all the time. He saw her coming out of the bathroom, her hair dripping, the curls weighed down by the drops of water, wrapped only in a towel. The perfume of her shampoo and body wash emanating in a cloud of scent that he smelled on a small level when he hung around her. How adorable she looked when she didn't have her contacts in and wore her huge dorky glasses and he gave her crap for it and she pouted. How she had such a hard time getting up in the morning and was so grumpy until she had some coffee. How grumpy she would be when he would knock on the door to make sure she got to work on time.
How sometimes she would be on her cell phone with her sister or mom and she would sit on her bed or the couch on her stomach and kicked her legs out in back of her swishing as she talked. She acted like such a 90's kid sometimes, it was adorable. He could just imagine her wrapping her fingers around a cord as she talked on the phone with her best girl friend. Pam definitely wasn't making it easy for him to not fall more in love with her.
Pam looked up as a young man approached her desk. He had red hair and green eyes and dressed in casual clothes so she knew he was a warehouse worker.
"Hello." He intoned with a flirtatious tone. Pam saw out of the corner of her eye Jim look up and run his eyes over the young man. Nope, he didn't like him.
"Hi..." Pam said awkwardly.
"So, do you have a name?" He asked leaning in. Pam stopped from rolling her eyes.
"Yes...Pam Beesly. Can I help you with something?" She queried, professionally.
"My name is Warren. I need to talk to HR about my employment application." Pam nodded.
"Hi Toby, it's Pam. I have someone here to speak to you. Could you come out?" She listened for a second. "Thank you." She hung up. "He'll be out in second." She said, turning back to her screen, not feeling comfortable with his gaze. She tried to put him out of her mind.
One night after work as Jim was attempting to leave, Michael cornered him to muscle him join in a friendly game of basketball between the warehouse crew and the office staff. He wanted to get home and watch the game that was on and he agreed to just get out of there so he wouldn't miss it.
That evening, Jim finally arrived back at the house that Pam and him shared and walked into a wonderfully smelling house.
"What is that smell?" Jim asked as he hung up his jacket and loosened his buttons around his wrist and loosened his tie. Pam looked up and smiled as she poured herself some wine.
"Just some dinner. The game should be on soon. I thought you'd like some pizza to watch during it. I made it. It should be ready soon." He'd love to do something even more domestic than this scene was right now and kiss her head affectionately but he settled for hugging her tight. She laughed and pushed him away. "Enough of that, Halpert. I picked up your favorite beer too." How did Roy let her escape? She's like the perfect girlfriend.
"You're the best, Beesly." He murmured as he sniffed the air and went to the fridge and got a beer and cracked it open.
"So, what took so long to get back? I left a while ago." Pam opened the oven to check on the pizza.
"Michael's making me participate in that stupid basketball game tomorrow." Pam scoffed.
"Really?" She shook her head incredulously. "I mean, how's your game?" Jim raised his eyebrows at her. "I mean, I have to know if I should just vote for the other team if you suck."
"Beesly! You're an office staff, you have to cheer for me!" Pam leaned into the kitchen counter.
"Says who?" She intoned, grabbing her wine glass and taking a sip, not taking her eyes off of the man in front of her.
"Says the guy who was a varsity basketball player..." Jim leaned into Pam as well, the tension heightening between them.
"Well, I guess I'll have to root for you then, huh." Pam pulled back as the timer went off on the oven and the moment was shattered. Jim pulled back reluctantly and Pam went to take out the pizza from the oven.
Pam wordlessly handed him a slice. She smiled warmly at him.
"I'm going to take a bath and read a book while you watch the game. Let me know who wins." She told him with a wink. He watched her go get her bathrobe and could hear the water starting in the bathroom. He shook his head free of thoughts and put the game on and tried not to think of Pam naked in their bathroom.
He wasn't that successful.
Warren was standing outside the building, lighting a cigarette and he tilted his head back as he thought about that uptight secretary that he met yesterday. He might try and get her. She seemed like a quiet one and they all say the same thing about the quiet ones... Crazy in bed.
A Toyota rolled through and parked in a spot down further in the parking lot. The uptight secretary he was just thinking about rolled out of the car, laughing at something the driver said to her. He thought he might just be dropping her off but then out stepped a salesman that he saw on the floor when he was upstairs before he met Toby to finalize some paperwork.
This ruins his plans. He would overcome this obstacle and he would make her his. Then he saw this salesman get a duffel out of his car and swing it over his shoulder. So, he was playing in the basketball game. Interesting...
Jim had settled at his desk when Michael strolled.
"Jim, you ready?" Jim held up his bag. "Good man. Ryan, you ready?" Ryan held up his bag.
"Michael, aren't you going to ask if I'm ready?" Dwight queried, lifting his own duffel bag. Michael just turned and walked away.
Soon, the lunch time approached and everyone shuffled downstairs to the warehouse to watch the friendly basketball game. The loser had to work that Saturday. Jim did not want to work this Saturday so he was going to do something he rarely did at work... Try.
He quickly changed and headed downstairs while warming up a little bit standing next to Pam. She turned to him.
"Good luck, Jim. I don't want to work this Saturday. I'll be your cheerleader." She smiled at him, neither of them seeing Warren's jealous stare.
"I appreciate that, Beesly. Be prepared to take notice of my mad skills." She giggled and pushed on his shoulder playfully. A whistle blew and Pam watched Jim go to his teammates, even Dwight.
"Alright, everyone. Nice, fun game. We're all family here. Dunder Mifflin family." Michael enthused.
The game began and it was getting really aggressive quite early between some staff. Namely, Jim and Warren. Jim got a shot and made it and Warren would steal and make the shot. Pam cheered when Jim got a shot in the hoop, making sure her saw her. But for the most part, she stayed quiet as the warehouse was racking up the points but then Jim switched to being the main player and he was swishing the ball in effortlessly. Muscle memory was a real thing. She knew that if someone put a volleyball in her hands, she'd school them. Not a lot of people knew that she used to be athletic in her high school and college days. Well, except Roy but he didn't count. Not anymore.
Over the past couple months, Pam really started coming into her own. She went and got highlights in her hair, she got some new clothes, she started painting again. She was just really happy with her life. Someday maybe she would be open to a new relationship maybe with Jim but she was pretty happy with how their relationship was headed right now.
"Foul!" Michael crowed. "Aggression, Jim, are you okay?" Jim had his hand over his mouth and he pulled it back and it was bloody.
"Oh my god." Pam uttered. She rose up from her seat and hurried over to Jim. "Are you okay, Jim?" He nodded but his hand kept coming back with more blood when he took it away from his mouth. "Let's see if we can get the bleeding stopped." She guided him over to the chair and had him sit down and went to get the first aid kit and some paper towels. Warren stomped over.
"Hands off." Warren growled. Jim raised an eyebrow.
"Excuse me?" Jim rose to his feet, towering over the little punk.
"I call dibs." Jim scoffed incredulously.
"First of all, she is not a prize to be won, she's a person. You can't call dibs. Second of all, you're a punk." Jim looked down serenely at the person who dared disrespect Pam.
Pam entered the room with some paper towels and dabbed at his face to see where the bleeding started to see if he damaged something. She really didn't want him to lose a tooth. She loved his smile and she would be really angry if his smile got damaged by some warehouse guy. She didn't pay any attention to Warren, who's smirk faltered as he saw that his plan was backfiring on him. She wasn't paying any attention to him; all her attention was on Jim. Jim wrapped an arm around Pam's shoulder, not breaking eye contact with Warren.
Warren saw red. He went to push Jim but at the last second, Pam moved and he pushed her instead and she went careening closer to Jim, who lost his balance and fell into the metal chair which crashed to the ground under the strain of the two people falling. Phyllis gasped and immediately tried to help Pam and Jim up.
"Warren! My office!" Toby declared. He may not have a chance at Pam right now but he'd be damned if he let an act of aggression hurt her in any way.
"Pam, are you okay?" Jim helped her get up with Phyllis' help.
"Yeah, I hit my shoulder a bit but I will be okay. God, what is his problem?" She scoffed angrily. "He was totally creeping me out when he needed to sign that thing from Toby the other day." She shivered. Jim wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. "Are you okay? You landed pretty hard." He squeezed her arm where he could reach it.
"I'm fine, Beesly. We'll definitely enjoy the hot tub tonight." He whispered conspiratorially in her ear, relishing in her giggles.
Jim drove them home after work which the rest of the day was relatively quiet aside from Warren storming out of the conference room and slamming the door behind him. Pam heard he was fired for aggression against her but she thought he might have been trying to hit Jim.
They backed into the garage, talking lightly as they entered the house. Jim went to go check the water, testing it quickly and coming back in to change. Pam toed off her heels and started defrosting some meat to make meatballs for dinner. She picked up her heels and went into the bedroom to change into more comfortable clothes which did not include a sweatshirt of Jim's, unfortunately. She got talked, read forced, into getting a Victoria's Secret lounge set by Kelly when they went to the mall the other day. She thought it was way too much money for a stupid sweatshirt and sweatpants but they were baby pink which she thought looked good on her. It didn't help that Kelly hinted that Jim thought she looked nice in pink too. That didn't have anything to do with it at all. She padded out to the kitchen and rolled up her sleeves to get to work rolling out the meatballs, blending herbs and spices as Jim walked back in to the house. He looked at her with her hair in a ponytail, no makeup on, glasses perched on her nose and in a sweat set and though she never looked more beautiful.
"That's new." He commented as he plopped on a barstool at the breakfast nook, watching her roll out the meatballs. Jim offered to help her with dinner loads of times but she seemed to enjoy making dinner for the two of them but he was adamant about cleaning the dishes as she hated to do them, preferring to let them pile up. Pam looked down at her new around the house outfit.
"Yeah, Kelly made me get it." She dropped meatballs into the bottom of the Pyrex dish and took out a jar of gravy from the cabinet.
"I like it." She dimpled at him.
"Thank you." She smiled. She threw the meatballs in the oven and grabbed the kitchen timer and spun it for the correct time. "Now who's ready for some hot jet tub?" He raised his hand and high fived it. "Let's go get changed." Soon, they met at the hot tub and dipped in, Jim groaning at the muscles he hadn't used in a while got massaged by the jets. "Are you alright? From the game?" Pam queried as she took advantage of the jets. Jim nodded.
"It was going fine and then he elbowed me right in the nose." Pam frowned.
"Is that normal?" Pam didn't know much about basketball.
"Definitely not normal. I don't know what his problem was but he was being super aggressive towards me. I still have some dried blood I think." Pam leaned forward and took a look at his nose, touching it lightly to see if it was bruised or if the light was just too dark.
"He's a psycho." Pam shook her head. "It doesn't look bruised or anything. Did it hurt for the rest of the day?"
"Nah. Just a little twinge here and there, I'll live. It was just like caveman attitude. He frazzled me a little."
"Oh, no. Not frazzled." Pam joked as she leaned back away from Jim back into her corner. Time passed slowly as they joked and spoke about lighter subjects until the buzzer went off next to the hot tub and Pam reluctantly left the warm water and wrapped herself in the towel as she headed inside. Jim rose, water dripping as he grabbed a towel as well, stepping into the warm house after dripping as much as he could outside. Pam grabbed the meatballs out of the oven and started serving them on a couple plates.
"Bon appetite!" She crowed. Jim dug in, mumbling how good the food was.
"So, Pam. I wanted to talk to you." Jim started. Pam made a questioning sound. "I feel like you should definitely enroll in some art classes over the summer." Pam just looked at him. "Come on, the crews won't be here, plus I'll be taking some classes as well... I've been thinking about getting back into marketing like I went to school for, I wanted to take some supplementary classes at the local community college. It'll be fun." Pam mulled it over, picking at her dinner as she pondered it.
"I don't know. It's kind of expensive..." She trailed off. Jim knocked his shoulder into hers. "Plus, I don't even know if I'm that talented..."
"Beesly, come on!" He rolled his eyes. "Think about it." He pointed his fork to her. She sighed, giving in.
"Okay, okay, I'll think about it." She popped another meatball in her mouth.
"Great because I already got you some pamphlets and printed off some classes I thought you'd like." He grinned cheekily at her unimpressed look. Score one for Jim.