A/N: Updated faster than usual. Hope you don't mind ?

Chapter 3

Inside his hotel room, Jim saw, to his dismay, that not only were his and Pam's rooms next door to each other, they were adjoining. A door locked on both sides was all that separated them—well, that, and three years of misunderstood feelings.

Wonderful.

With a frustrated shake of his head, he threw his luggage onto the bed and began to strip off his suit, shirt, and tie. It was only seven-thirty, but a shower seemed the best idea, and he hoped that the hot water would physically wash away the anger and confusion of the day. As he stood in the pulsating spray, head bowed as the water sluiced over him, memories flashed through his mind like a slide show. Singing in the car with her to that stupid Love Supply song. Their argument about the merits of CD's versus vinyl. Lunch at Chili's. Pam's small, sweet smiles during his training sessions. Her teary eyes at dinner. The fearful look on her face when he was angry ten minutes before in the hallway.

"God, how I love her," he whispered to the tile, just so he could hear how it sounded to say the words aloud. Had he been home, he would have pounded the wall, but instead, his frustration came out in tears that washed down the drain along with hotel shampoo that smelled like eucalyptus. But he only allowed himself a minute or two of self-pity.

Buck up, Halpert.

With one towel around his waist and another to rub his wet hair, he walked back into the bedroom, intending to find a game on TV and try to forget about everything for awhile. As he rooted through his duffle bag for sweat pants and a t-shirt, he thought he heard a tentative knock on the adjoining door. He stopped, heart picking up speed as he listened again, wondering if he was imagining things. But no, the soft knock came again, accompanied by Pam's muffled voice: "Jim? Are you there?"

He went to the door.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"Can we talk? Please?"

He swallowed hard. The smart thing to do would be to tell her he was too tired, but who was he kidding? He could never say no to anything she asked—which was part of the problem. Whether she knew it or not, Pam Beesly owned him.

He looked down at his lack of attire. "Okay. Give me a sec."

He grabbed his clothes from the bed and put them on, then, remembering his damp, messy hair, he rooted around in his shaving kit for a comb, only bothering to hastily comb it back. Thus arrayed, he went back to the door and unlocked his side, listening as she unlocked hers. She slid the door into its pocket and stood before him, in yoga pants and a forming-fitting, pink t-shirt that did wonders for her full breasts and the roses in her cheeks. His mouth went dry, but resolutely, he met her eyes.

Pam's eyes widened when she saw him, so tall in her doorway, smelling like his shower and so adorable with his bare feet and hair slicked back like it was school picture day. She couldn't help her smile, despite their earlier tension.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi."

Then, both in unison: "You want to come in?"

Jim found his own smile, and he stepped out of the door, gallantly gesturing to his room. Yoga pants should be illegal, he thought, sneaking a look at how it cupped her bottom so nicely.

Pulse pounding, Pam crossed his threshold.

"Your room looks bigger," she said.

"You wanna switch?" he asked in amusement.

She laughed. "Nah. It's only for one night. I'll survive."

She sat on his queen-sized bed, and Jim, ignoring the surreality of Pam being with him, alone in his room, sitting on his bed, he pulled out a chair from the small dining table near the window. He watched as she noticed the wet towels on the floor, and, remembering that he was still pissed at her, he forced himself not to jump up and toss them in the bathroom.

There was an unusual, awkward silence, but then Pam found her courage and spoke again.

"I don't like how things have been tonight," she said. "Something set you off, and call me crazy, but I'm thinking it might have been Josh's job offer."

"Yeah," he said, though of course, that was only a very small part of his anger.

"Well, why did it make you mad? I'd think you'd be flattered."

"I guess I was…it's just…it would mean leaving Scranton…" He let his voice trail off, hoping she would pick up his meaning without his having to spell it out.

"You hate Scranton," she reminded him.

He regarded her in disbelief. Was she encouraging him to leave, again?

"I don't hate everything about Scranton." He looked at her square on, so intensely that she began to become uncomfortable, averting her eyes after a few seconds. Then, when he couldn't take it anymore himself, he asked: "Do you want me to leave, Pam? Because I could have sworn you were upset when you left the table earlier."

She looked up from where she'd been absently following the swirling pattern on the comforter with one finger. "No, of course not. We've had this argument before. You know I wouldn't want you to leave. But hearing the lovely picture Josh painted for you, I wouldn't blame you if you jumped on this chance. I mean, I watched you today during the training sessions. You're so good with people, Jim. So funny, so charming…Scranton doesn't allow you to—to use all your talents. I want what's best for you, you know that. I don't want fear, or—or habit to hold you back from these kinds of opportunities."

He took in what she said, believing she meant it sincerely, but her hypocrisy threatened to make him angry all over again.

"You should take your own advice, Beesly. Go for those design classes Jan offered you. Go back to college for your art. Find a job where you could work around the things you love…but it would mean leaving Scranton, wouldn't it?"

For a moment, she looked stricken, and then her face slipped suddenly into ironic amusement.

"Touché, Halpert. You're totally right. I'm sorry. I have no right to say anything about your life choices, when you know how messed up mine are." She stood to leave. "I'll uh, let you—"

He rose too. "Pam, wait. I'm sorry. I'm taking my—my confusion and frustration out on you. You've done nothing wrong. This is all me. I'm the one with the real problem. You have commitments in Scranton that I, uh, don't. And it's true—I am scared, of lots of things. Scared to move on, scared not to. I see my future and it's looking pretty bleak, and I'm too chicken shit to face the reality of it."

He stepped closer to her, reached down and took her hands in his, stared down at them, marveling at their difference in size. Her palms were slightly damp, just like his, and he hadn't thought it was possible to love her more. His eyes traveled back to hers, a beautiful, soft moss green in the low light.

"Can we please call a truce on this, at least for the rest of our trip?" he asked. "I have some thinking to do, and I haven't made any decisions yet. I really want things to go back to the way they were before dinner tonight. We were having so much fun…"

She smiled, looking up into his face. He felt her slip one hand from his to touch his cheek, then move higher, to brush aside a lock of his hair that had fallen to its usual place over his forehead. He went still, like a frightened, stray puppy who wondered whether he was about to be petted or slapped. But then she cupped his cheek, and his eyes closed involuntarily against the incredible pleasure of her touch. He would have wagged his tail if he'd had one.

"Truce, Halpert," she said, and dropped her hand from his face.

He opened his eyes and smiled, then shook the hand still in is. "Truce, Beesly."

"Are you still tired?" she asked hopefully, both of them grateful that relative normalcy seemed to have settled between them again. "I mean, it's still pretty early. You want to watch TV awhile? I still have some snack cakes…"

He laughed. "We just ate dinner—"

"Yeah, yeah, but there's always room for dessert, have I taught you nothing?"

He gave an exaggerated sigh, holding his hands up in surrender. "All right, I give up. Mi casa es su casa."

"Cool. I'll go get the cupcakes. You could go get some drinks from the vending machine…"

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. What do you want?"

They sat on his bed together, a respectable distance between them, eating chocolate cupcakes, drinking bottled water (since it was technically a work night, and they'd already had a couple drinks earlier), and laughing at old Frasier re-runs. One of her favorite episodes came on, the one where Niles and Daphne tango at a ball.

"Oh, my God," she said at the end, a little teary-eyed. "He loves her so much. It's so stupid. Why can't she see it?"

Jim stared at the end credits, not daring to look at her. "Some people don't see what's right in front of them sometimes. It's not all on her though. Niles really just needed to grow a pair and tell her."

She turned her head to look at him, and he felt her eyes boring into the side of his face. "They certainly could have saved a lot of time," she said softly. "I mean, she almost married someone else. Niles married someone else…it was all so silly and pointless."

He felt compelled to turn his head then, where it rested against the padded headboard. Their eyes met and held, each recognizing the eerie similarities between them and the unrequited couple on the TV screen, and like them, one was dealing with selective blindness, the other with a fundamental lack of courage.

"It's just a TV show," Jim murmured, hitting the mute button on the remote control.

"Yes," she said, "but that part always makes me sad for some reason."

"Hm," he said, and his hand crept over the comforter, barely touching hers with his pinky finger. At his light touch, heat suffused her face, and a sudden, sensual tension flared between them. His eyes darkened, his heart stilled in his chest as she turned to look at him. They were both painfully aware that all he had to do was lean his head a little closer, and they would be well within kissing range. There was a heavy pause, and he waited for a sign that this was what she wanted.

When she looked down at his mouth, just centimeters away, and moved fractionally closer…he pressed his lips gently to hers. She gasped at the contact. Her lips were warm and soft, and it took everything in him not to part them with his tongue and ravage her mouth, then lower her to the bed and do the same to her body. But if Jim had learned anything over the past three years, it was self-control. Infinite patience. Suppressed desire.

After a few seconds, he released her mouth and opened his eyes to gauge her reaction. It was up to her. It had always been up to her. Dazed, hazel eyes met his, and her lips parted. He watched the emotions play over her face—shock, desire, and finally, horror. He wasn't surprised by any of it, though his heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces when he saw her regret.

Abruptly, she jerked back, stumbled off the bed. "I—I can't," she said sorrowfully. She practically ran back to her room, sliding the door between them once more. The sound of her turning the lock on her side of the door hurt worse than her actual rejection.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Pam spent the next half-hour pacing agitatedly back and forth in her room, her fingers on her lips where Jim's had been only minutes before. The mechanics of the kiss had been almost chaste, innocent enough that had she not felt like her world had turned upside down she would have had no need to feel guilty. But it had meant something, and she had felt it in every nerve ending of her body. She didn't want to imagine what might have happened if he had kissed her more passionately, because instinctively, she knew what would have happened. She also knew that if she didn't have this damn ring on her finger, she would be naked in Jim's bed this very moment.

Since she was too keyed up to sleep, she found her flip-flops in her suitcase and, taking her key card and cell phone, she left her room via the hallway door.

She got out of the elevator on the first floor, not really knowing where she was going, just that she needed to get out of the room where she could hear Jim's movements next door, could hear his mattress shift, the toilet flush, even heard him cough once or twice. She passed by the door to the indoor swimming pool, and, finding that it was still open, she went inside and sat in a chair by the water, the steam from the heated pool almost comforting. Idly, she wished she'd thought to bring her swimsuit. No one was swimming; she would have had the whole pool to herself.

When her cell phone rang in the front pocket of her yoga pants, she jumped. Retrieving it, she saw it was Roy calling, and another wave of guilt washed over her. She hadn't even called to check on him today.

"Hey, babe," said a very congested Roy.

"Hi. Sorry I haven't called. It's been a busy day. How are you feeling?"

"A little better, I guess. Mom's taking pretty good care of me." He punctuated that guilt-inducing statement with a pitiful cough.

"I'm glad she's there for you," Pam replied, choosing not to take the bait.

"So what have you been up to today?" he asked. "Michael driving you nuts?"

Now was the time to confess, but at the memory of Jim's kiss, she found she couldn't.

"Not at all," she said instead. "We went to two branches today, the training sessions went fine. After the Stamford one, the manager there took us out to dinner at this beautiful restaurant on the harbor."

"Oh, that sounds cool. What did you have?"

"Fried cod and shrimp," she said.

"Lucky you. I'm getting pretty tired of chicken soup and Jell-O," he said.

They continued to small talk, and Pam was able to neatly avoid anything to do with Michael or Jim, and with the mundane, familiar connection with her fiancé, she began to calm down. Nothing had happened really. Her brief kiss with Jim didn't have to change anything between them, or between her and Roy. By the time she ended the call, claiming exhaustion after the long day, and the need to get up early the next, she had decided the best course of action would be to pretend like it never happened, much like the kiss they'd shared at the Dundies a few months ago. They'd never spoken of that again either, and she'd let Jim assume she'd forgotten it. True, neither of them had been drunk tonight, but they hadn't lost control either. Thanks to Jim, she realized with a shiver.

He'd given her a chance to have second thoughts, to move away from the fire. She took a deep breath. It would be all right. She wouldn't put herself in the position again to be tempted, and things would go back to normal, or some semblance of it.

It had to.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jim barely made it to breakfast on time the next morning. He'd heard Pam leave shortly after the disaster on his bed, and he couldn't go back to sleep until he heard her come in again. He'd wanted to go after her, to make sure she was okay, to apologize. But he sensed and respected her desire to be alone, and he decided to leave it till morning to try to make things right, to salvage the friendship he might have ruined forever with his impulsive kiss.

What the hell was I thinking? He asked himself for the millionth time as he waited for Pam at a small table in the breakfast room. It was a free buffet, and the smell of waffles wafted through the air as promised. All Jim could muster though was a cup of coffee and a piece of buttered toast.

She appeared at 7:35, looking beautiful as ever, though her eyes seemed tired, and he could see she'd tried to cover the dark circles beneath them with more makeup than she usually wore. He'd looked at himself in the mirror that morning and it seemed like he'd aged ten years overnight.

Despite all this, the attraction that had always hummed between them was now a dull roar, and his heart leapt at the sight of her. His eyes were drawn to her mouth, and he imagined that the sweetness of her lips still lingered on his. He regarded the faint outline of her hourglass figure beneath her conservative work clothes with new appreciation, now that he'd seen what she looked like in a tight t-shirt and yoga pants that molded to her curves.

He was relieved when she gave him a wry smile, and walked directly to the buffet. She came back with coffee, a bowl of cereal, and a banana. He guessed the excitement of waffles had been ruined for both of them.

"Good morning," she said shyly.

"Morning."

They endured the silence for a few minutes, while she cut her banana in half, then sliced it on top of her Cheerios. She held out the other half of her fruit, and he grinned in spite of himself at her peace offering. He peeled it and stuffed it all into his mouth at once, and she smiled too.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, after he'd chewed and swallowed. She met his eyes, startled at first by his directness. She nodded.

"Me too. Let's just try to put it behind us, okay?"

If that's how she wanted to play it, he could live with that, at least for the next two days, for the sake of keeping the peace and preserving what was left of their friendship. But he didn't think he would be able to do this much longer, he thought sadly, not when they got back to Scranton. Not when she continued to plan her wedding. He could still go to Australia, like he'd planned; he just needed to call the travel agency again and give them his credit card number. When he got back, he could give Josh Porter a call, but he wasn't ready to dwell on all that, or he'd be sad and angry the rest of the trip.

And so they both resolved to sweep it under the rug. Of course, things weren't quite the same as the day before, and there was a new awkwardness between them that neither of them liked. During the three- hour drive, to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, they talked stiltedly about safe things, like the music on the radio, movies they wanted to see, gossip about the office back home. Jim gave his presentation in Pittsfield, they had lunch at a local diner, drove on and repeated things three hours later in Nashua.

Pam noticed his enthusiasm from yesterday seemed more forced today, though he'd whittled it down to a little over an hour. The lightness seemed to have gone out of the entire trip, and by the time they were ready for their hotel that night, all they felt like doing was driving through a burger joint to eat in their rooms before going to bed. The stress of being pleasant when neither of them felt that way, plus the long hours of driving, had finally begun to wear on them. Once again though, their rooms were adjoining, but neither of them dared suggest hanging out together.

"Good night," Jim said tiredly, as they both keyed open their doors at the same time. He gave her a weak smile, which she returned, wishing him a good night as well before they disappeared into their rooms.

Jim had just finished his burger when he heard Pam's cell phone ring next door. The TV was down low, so he could hear everything she was saying on her side of the conversation.

"Roy, hi! How are you feeling today?"

Jim was about to turn up the volume in respect for her privacy, when the tone of her voice suddenly changed, and he was no longer ashamed that he was listening. She sounded obviously upset, and a little frightened.

"What? Who told you?"

A pause, assumedly Roy answering. Jim knew immediately what this conversation was about: Roy had probably found out Jim had gone on the trip instead of Michael. He got up to stand closer to the adjoining door. This concerned him too, he justified to himself, especially after he heard his own name.

"Look, it's no big deal. Michael was sick, and it just worked out this way…No, there's nothing going on…I wasn't lying to you, I just didn't want you to get upset. You've been sick…Yes, I have my own room, Roy…Jim's not here, I swear…how dare you say that to me, especially after what you did last summer!"

She was obviously crying now, and Jim could only imagine what angry things Roy was saying to her. Then, her last words registered: What the hell did Roy do last summer?

He vaguely recalled Pam being upset about something after the Fourth of July holiday, but she wouldn't give him any details, just said that Roy had gotten really drunk. Had the bastard cheated on Pam? He felt himself growing angry, conveniently forgetting he'd kissed Pam just last night.

"You know what, Roy, you can just forget it, do you hear me? This is the last straw. If you can't trust me, after I have tried so hard to forgive you for the Fourth, then you can just go to hell, because I'm done…I'm going to finish this trip with Jim, and when I get back, I'm moving out…What about the wedding? How can we get married when we can't trust each other?...No, I'm tired of talking about this…Fuck me? Well, fuck you, Roy! Fuck you!"

She ended the call, and he could hear her crying in deep, wrenching sobs that ripped his heart in two. He heard her phone ring again, but she didn't answer it, and then it sounded like she'd thrown it against the wall. He knocked insistently on the door.

"Pam! Are you okay? Please, let me in." He unlocked his door. "Pam?"

At first, his pleas were met with silence, and he thought she was going to ignore him, or that maybe she hadn't heard him because of her crying. But a moment later, she unlocked her door, slid it open, and threw herself into his arms.

A/N: A little bit of a cliffhanger. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks so much for reading.