October, 1994

"Oh my god!" Pam was laughing so hard, tears were coming out of her eyes. "You can't be serious."

Jim fixed her with a level gaze. "Do you think I would make that up?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "You do really well in creative writing class."

"Okay," he agreed, "but if I were lying, would I be bouncing? Seriously, could this bus be any slower? I might die."

"Didn't you just go after last period? Are you 92 or something?"

Jim glared. "I told you what happened! You try peeing when Andy Bernard is locked in a stall singing "I'll Make Love to You."

"As God is my witness," Pam informed her friend, "I will never pee in a room that Andy Bernard is in."

"Yeah, well neither could I," Jim scowled. "And I was going to miss the bus."

Mercifully, the bus arrived at their stop six minutes later. Jim scrambled off the bus, and after being told by a disgusted Pam that he "wasn't a puppy," repressed his instinct to relieve himself in Mrs. Glickson's hedge and raced down the street toward his house, yelling to Pam that he'd see her later.

Four hours later, when she answered her door, Jim was standing in a pair of jeans and a red and black striped rugby shirt. His eyes popped at the sight of her flapper costume – green fringed dress, red bobbed wig, feathered headband and fishnet stockings.

Pam shifted uncomfortably. "Come on, don't look at me like that," she begged.

Jim shut his mouth. "I, uh, thought we were going to go as Sonny and Cher to the Halloween dance," he said, which was the only thing he could think of to say besides a lot of things he was pretty sure wouldn't help with that uneasy look on Pam's face. He pointed to his "Hello my name is SONNY" nametag that was affixed to his shirt.

She shrugged apologetically. "I know, but I saw this costume and just….are you mad?"

He shook his head. "It's cool. Do you have a pen?"

She produced one and he peeled the label off his shirt, crossing out the "Sonny" and replacing it with "Dave."

"Why Dave?"

Jim shrugged. Pam laughed.

"You, uh, you look really pretty," he mumbled.

She blushed.

"What?" Jim pleaded, over the sound of Real McCoy's "Another Night."

Pam shook her head. "No way, it's a surprise." She grinned at him. Jim pulled at the neck of his shirt.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He shook his head. "What?"

"You've been tugging at your shirt like that all night, freak," she teased, but her eyes were concerned. "Are you okay?"

Jim nodded, a little too enthusiastically. "Yeah, yeah," he replied. "Yeah I'm fine. Fine. Totally fine."

"Okay," she replied. "I'm gonna…" she pointed toward the girls' room on the other side of the gym.

"Right," he nodded. "Yeah."

Pam wove her way through the crowd of high school freshmen. Jim yanked at his collar again.

"Shit," he whispered to himself. "Just do it. Just…just do it."

Scanning the room, he spotted Kelly Kapoor. They were friends, kind of, in that Kelly loved just about everyone, and Jim felt kind of bad for her because of the way guys talked about her in the locker room. They liked her body but basically wished she'd shut up. He didn't really want to deal with her right now.

A group of girls pushed past him, heading toward the bathroom. A pretty redhead was in the middle of the pack, dressed in a princess costume.

"Hey Katy," Jim called out. The pack stop, turning to stare at him.

"Um, yeah?" The others giggled as she looked expectantly, and yet boredly, at Jim.

"If you see Pam Beesly in there, will you tell her to meet me in the hall?"

A look of surprise registered on Katy's face. Popular girls weren't used to delivering messages to girls like Pam, girls who didn't pass notes in class or who sometimes spent her lunch period drawing, her turkey sandwich forgotten.

"Sure," Katy said coolly, "it's John, right?"

"Jim," he replied. He wasn't sure if Katy was pretending to forget his name or if she really didn't know it, but he wasn't surprised if she didn't know who he was, even though they'd French kissed at Kelly's party in the sixth grade. From what people said, Katy had done an awful lot of French kissing.

Jim, well, not so much.

"Hey," Pam pushed her way out of the gym and into the hallway. Jim was leaning against the lockers. "Why are you out here?"

Jim tugged on his shirt collar again. Pam glared at him.

"Why do you keep doing that?" she demanded, stalking toward him. "It's really annoying. Are you sure you're okay?"

He sucked in air. "Pamwillyougooutwithme?" he sputtered without taking a breath.

She froze, right in front of where he stood. "What?"

Jim sighed. "Will you go out with me?"

Pam looked scared. "Are you teasing me?"

He shook his head. "You know I wouldn't do that to you. I'm not like those jerks on JV football."

"No, I know," she said, starting at her shoes. "It's just…well, it's weird."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I know. If you don't want to, it's okay." He wanted to be anywhere but there right now. He thought about sneaking out to the field and running laps, anything but this.

"No," she said hurriedly. "It's just…it's like in "When Harry Met Sally" when they say that guys and girls can't be friends because of the sex getting in the way? I don't want to not be friends."

"I don't want to not be friends, either," he told her. "You're my best friend, Pam."

She smiled. "You're my best friend."

"It's just," he sighed, and took a deep breath, gathering the last of his courage. "It's just I also like you. Like, like you like you. As more than friends."

Pam looked stunned.

"Do something," Jim said. "Hit me or run away or something. Stop staring at me."

"I like you too," she whispered.

Jim felt a whooshing of air leave his body. "Oh."

He stepped toward her so they were only an inch or so apart. He was pretty sure what he was supposed to do now.

They stared at each other, breathing hard. Reaching out slowly, Jim puts a hand on Pam's cheek as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

"One…" Jim counted in his head.

"Two…" Pam counted in hers.

"Three."

They pressed their mouths together, and just as soon as it began, their first kiss was over.

Jim stared at Pam.

Pam stared at Jim.

They both started to laugh, relaxing. As they laughed, their eyes locked and they moved in again. This time, Jim put his arms around Pam's waist and she put hers around his neck. He bent down and she stood on her toes, and then, they were kissing again.

It wasn't as weird as they'd thought it would be. In fact, it wasn't really weird at all.

Jim nudged Pam's lips apart with his tongue. Pam remembered what Sarah had told her about making out.

"Put your fingers in his hair and write your name in his mouth with your tongue," Sarah had said. She had older sisters.

Pam did what she'd been told and Jim seemed to like it, because he pushed his own tongue further into her mouth.

She'd gotten to the A in Pamela when "The Sign" by Ace of Base stopped playing and the DJ said: "This next song is dedicated to everyone's favorite math teacher, Mr. Hudson, from his favorite student, Andy Bernard."

Jim and Pam broke apart, laughing, as "I'll Make Love to You" began playing.

He stared at her. Their eyes were both wide, their lips pink and wet.

"Is this what you did when you went up to the DJ booth?"

She nodded happily.

Jim shook his head. "Pam, I swear, I could kiss you."

Realizing what they'd just been doing, Jim and Pam chuckled nervously.

"I mean, again," he amended.

They laughed again and shuffled nervously.

"So, um, what do we do now?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I never had a girlfriend before."

Pam's eyes widened. "I'm your girlfriend now?"

"I mean, if you want to be," Jim stammered.

She nodded. "I…yeah. Yeah okay."

He grinned and kissed her on the cheek. When he pulled away, Pam felt a tingling where his lips had been and a funny feeling in her stomach.

She was pretty sure this is what people meant when they talked about butterflies.