Archive of Our Own ^beta

He’s going to tell him.

Harvey slams open the door of his room, descends the steps with pounding feet against the carpet runner, and flies around the doorway to the kitchen. His mind is trapped in a blind wash of red the entire way—he’s been in shock for days, and only now is the sound of his mom getting fucked by a stranger being drowned out by the roar of blood in his ears. He can’t remember ever being so fucking angry in his life.

Dad, sitting at the kitchen counter and flipping idly through the Sunday paper, lifts his eyes to meet Harvey’s. He furrows his brows at the sight of his oldest son bursting in the door, chest heaving. “You okay, champ?”

“I’m—no,” Harvey blurts, gripping onto the edges of the door frame. Whatever fervor that had just seized him is rapidly waning in the face of confrontation. Next to his dad’s elbow, the card that Marcus made for Mother’s day is propped up against a vase of wilting flowers. Harvey’s gut curdles at the reminder. He hates her, and he seethes because more than that he still loves her, and he wants blindly to ruin everything in a terrible tantrum like he’s six and not sixteen.

He’s almost an adult, though, and he has to use his words.

“Harvey?” his dad prompts, warmth bleeding into his concern. “Your face is red.”

That would make sense. Harvey reluctantly releases the door frame and fully enters the kitchen, heart pounding. “I need to tell you something,” he says seriously.

Dad sets down the paper and fully turns his body to face him, expression open. “Sure, kid,” he says, gentler than Harvey expects.

Harvey opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. It should be easy to say, ‘Mom is cheating on you. She has been cheating on you for years, and she expects me to keep it a secret for her.’

Dad is still looking at him with that same soft expression. His face is weathered by time but there are no severe angles to his brows or lips; he’s not bitter like a lot of folks his age. Dad smiles a lot, to the point where Mom ribs him for it, but it’s who he is. He’s just a happy person, and when he’s occasionally unhappy, he wears his heart on his sleeve. To Harvey, it’s both admirable and embarrassing that anybody can read his father so easily. It makes him too easy to fuck over. It makes him an easy man to cheat on, because he believes the best in everybody.

“Dad, I…”

“Son.” Dad heads him off with a small wave of his hand. His wedding ring seems to taunt Harvey, glinting under the overhead light. “I think I know what this is about.”

“You… do?” Harvey asks, bewildered.

“Yes.” He leans forward and sets his elbows on his knees, loosely knitting his long fingers together. “I’m not blind, buddy; you’ve been acting weird for a few days. And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel ready, okay? But I just need you to know, bud, that I’ll love you no matter what.”

With that confusing response, Harvey deflates. He can’t do it. He’s weak; he can’t be the one to wipe the easy expression off of his dad’s face. He’ll keep Mom’s shitty fucking secret, but not for her. He’ll do it for Dad.

“Harvey? You’re worrying me a little,” Dad prods. “Actually, a lot.”

What comes out of Harvey’s mouth is wildly different from what his plan was when he first left his room, but it feels right. He can only keep so many life-shattering truths from his dad. He admits his oldest secret with a wobbling crack in his voice. “I’m gay.”

“Yeah, kid,” his dad says quietly, the edges of his lips curling up. “I know.”

¹The last person he expects at his door this late is Jessica, holding a very familiar bottle of wine, yet he knows it’s her before he opens the door. “What are you doing here?” he asks wearily, stepping aside to let her in.

“I'm here to put aside my anger,” she replies vaguely. Her heels click against the tile floors of his apartment.

“We're in the middle of a murder trial,” he replies, automatically drifting to follow her.

“We can spare five minutes for this.” She holds up the bottle, and he cocks his head when he recognizes it.

“Wait a second. I gave you that bottle when you took over from Daniel.”

Jessica flicks her eyes over at him as she opens the drawer in his kitchen that she knows holds his bottle opener. “I know.”

“I told you to only open it in case of an emergency.”

She scoffs. “You think this isn't an emergency? We're about to lose a huge murder case, and it turns out the person behind it is one of our own lawyers. And we're in business with the man who helped cover it up.” She pops open the bottle with a curl of her lower lip. “But the thing that's been most on my mind is that you goddamn betrayed me.”

He stands, frozen, waiting for another axe to drop. It never does. Instead, she retrieves two glasses and pours a generous portion for both of them.

Only once he accepts his glass does she continue to speak. “Now. The truth is, you warned me about all of this.” Jessica lifts her glass, and he mirrors her. “I’m tired of feeling betrayed by you. I’d rather forgive you.”

It’s more than he deserves.

“Can you?” he asks.

“Why do you think I’m here?" she answers with her own question.

“I never should have come after you. I'm sorry.”

She purses her lips. “You didn't kill anybody. And if I’m really going to forgive you, then I need to tell you I’m sorry I made you want to do it in the first place.”

Their glasses gravitate together with a small ‘clink.’

“What changed your mind?” he asks after the welcome burn of the first sip, curious.

“Edward.” She takes a few wandering steps to the couch but doesn’t sit. “He said Ava was family to him. And you’re family to me. And you did what he didn’t. You came clean.”

Family. Harvey shelves the fragile admission into the most secure compartment in his mind. He takes a few steps forward, the edge of his lips lifting. “Is that all you came here to tell me?”

She turns around and looks at him with an unexpected amount of understanding. “I can’t pretend to like the man, but today I had the most genuine conversation with him I ever had.”

Harvey tilts his head and drains the last of his glass. He isn’t following her path of thinking yet, but he isn’t going to show that. “Well, admitting he cares about Ava is—“

“It wasn’t that,” she cuts him off gently. “It was about his relationship with her father. And how difficult it was to be out as a lawyer, back then.”

His smile drops.

She continues. “I won’t pretend it’s much easier these days, with our kinds of clients.”

Harvey turns away to avoid her heavy gaze. Something in his stomach lurches violently and he puts all of his focus into getting his glass onto the marble counter without allowing his hand to shake. “So the guy’s human. Doesn’t change what he’s done.”

“I know. Frankly, I don’t give a shit about his moment of vulnerability. I just—“ Behind his back, he hears her hesitate. “I picked you up from that mail room by the scruff of your neck and watched you grow for two decades. I’ve noticed a lot of the things you try very hard to keep under wraps.”

“Jessica,” he warns tightly, staring at the back splash behind his sink.

“Secrets like that can’t be sat on your entire life without telling another soul.”

“And what makes you think nobody else knows?” he demands, turning around to stare at her. His volume rises a little higher than he’d meant it to, and he clamps his jaw shut to keep his voice in check.

She looks at him pointedly, and he’s incredibly relieved to find that she doesn’t hold any pity in her gaze. Instead, it’s closer to a shabby sort of understanding, and there’s a certainty to her words that tells Harvey it doesn’t really matter what he’ll say.

She knows. She’s known.

“What do you want me to say?” he asks her quietly, wishing he hadn’t finished his drink so fast.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she replies, wearing a small, weary smile, though her eyes remain piercing. “I just want you to know that I… will never see you in a different light for it. I respect you for keeping business and personal separate, but if you chose to share it publicly, I wouldn’t be in your way.”

From her, those words are essentially a resounding, heartfelt message of acceptance.

He presses his knuckles against the counter, looking down at his shoes. He just got a new pair, and they’re still stiff around his toes, just barely broken in. When he inhales, it rattles with unshed tears that he’d never let loose in front of her. He looks back up, and they both pretend not to notice the reddened rims of his eyes. “Thank you,” he says quietly. His stomach hurts with how badly he wants to curl up on the ground like he’s still a little kid, thinking his parents were the ideal. “The only person alive who knows is Donna, but I didn’t tell her outright.”

A small nod of understanding. “Your father?”

He swallows thickly. “Yeah. I told him two days after I found out about mom.”

She inhales and exhales deeply. Behind her, far past the floor-to-ceiling windows, a blinking plane whizzes by over the nighttime skyline. Harvey tracks it with his eyes. “He took it well.”

“Better than I’d expected. He wasn’t perfect, but he… believed in love.” Harvey chuckles, and is surprised to hear it come out so bitter. “He was a sap.”

“That’s only a bad thing if you practice law,” she replies, approaching with her empty glass held in her hands.

“And here I am.” He gestures at the grand, empty apartment that he loves because the only people that enter it are people he allows into his life. Nobody has ever stayed more than a few nights. “Rich and happy, right?”

“You can do both, you know. Robert Zane seems to have pulled it off.”

“Zane got his white picket fence by marrying a female affluent socialite who could afford to sit and raise a kid.”

Her eyebrows lift, a look of faint surprise. “You want children?”

“I—I want it all,” he admits, craning his head up to stare at the lights over his kitchen island. “I want…so much, but life doesn’t work like that. I’m living plenty of people’s dream. I’m one of the best lawyers on the East coast. I have no reason to feel unhappy.”

Jessica sighs. “You’re lying to yourself.”

One of his hands lifts to spread wide, mocking. “Tell me, Jessica, what’s the alternative? I can see the headline already: Pearson-Hardman Senior Partner spotted in gay bar in Queens!” He spat the last part.

Her eyes narrow. “It wouldn’t be easy, but you’ve never been the kind of person to back down from a difficult task.”

“If I think there’s a chance for me to win, yeah. But this—I’d lose. You would lose. Clients would ask to be removed…”

“As if they’d fire the best attorney they’ve ever had just because of his sexual preferences. Harvey, half of our clients are already privately homosexual or bisexual anyway.”

“You’re saying “homosexual” like it’s an STD,” he says, but with some levity. His panic from earlier has receded to make way for relief, and he leans against the counter and crosses his arms to try to physically regain some control back over the conversation.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not very practiced in telling my mentee I care about him regardless of his sexuality. We don’t do feelings, Harvey. Cut me some slack," she says, and he catches the small amount of hurt in her tone.

He bows his head in acceptance. “It’s the last thing I expected you to say right now. I thought you had an idea for the trial.”

“Oh, I do,” she says pleasantly, smirking when he perks up. “But there’s one more thing I want to ask. About Mike,” she adds, and there it is.

Harvey sighs. “He’s not gay. And I wouldn’t tell you if he was,” he established. “It wouldn’t be my information to tell. But he’s straight.”

“I got that far. I was going to ask if you’re in love with him.”

“Jessica,” he reacts instinctively, recoiling away from her with his hands raised. His ribcage expands and contracts rapidly as he tries to calm his breathing. “What the hell are you talking about; I’m not attracted to Mike. He’s my associate. That would be inappropriate, and—I’m not,” he repeats uselessly.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

“I’m may not be a romantic like your secretary, but I’m not stupid.” She pauses. “I want you to pursue the white picket fence, Harvey, but don’t waste your time pining after him.”

He drops his hands. “Is that advice from Jessica, my friend, or an order from Jessica, my boss?”

She smiles a little, but it seems melancholic. “I think you know the answer to that question. Now, about my idea…”

Jessica switches the conversation so abruptly he's able to force the entire last ten minutes out of his brain. They spend half an hour discussing her idea for the murder trial and what she needs from him, and then she leaves without bringing up the intricate minefield she touched earlier.

Once the door shuts behind her, he sits heavily on his couch and stares out at the New York City skyline. He tries his best not to think about the memories of his brilliant associate looking to him for approval, or Donna’s questioning gaze through the glass of his office, or the heavy hand his father put on his shoulder as he prepared to explain to Harvey just what kind of private life he’d have to lead as a gay man.

All of it floods his head anyway, and he needs three fingers of scotch before he can quiet his mind enough to fitfully fall asleep.

² “Jesus, you look like shit.”

“I was up all night. I couldn't sleep,” Mike replies, stumbling into his apartment.

Harvey frowns as he shut the door behind him. The tag of Mike’s dress shirt is sticking out from the crumpled collar. Christ, what a hot mess. “I told you I didn't need anything on Tanner yet.”

“I'm not here to talk about Tanner, or the lawsuit, or the merger, I just... I want to know how you do it.” Mike spins around and pins him with that same goddamn look he always has, as if Harvey has all of the answers. Harvey is bad at dissuading him of the notion—he doesn’t want that adoration to fade into resentment once Mike figures out that he’s bullshitting his way through life.

“How I do what?” he drawls, watching Mike walk through his apartment like he owns it. He’s let the kid get way too comfortable.

“Not let people in. I need to know.”

Harvey opens his mouth and immediately says the third thing that comes to his mind. (The first: He does let people in and it kills him every time they leave. The second: Mike cannot be this goddamn bad at reading people; he’s a lawyer.) “You don't know what I do and don't do.” He keeps his face carefully blank.

“What I know is that you seem to have relationships again and again, and they don't eat you up, or spit you out, or seem to affect you at all.”

“I have a picture of Dorian Gray hanging in my closet.”

“It's not funny.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I wasn't joking. I was trying to get you to leave so I could have my morning without you judging me,” he quips honestly, wishing away his budding headache.

“Harvey, I'm not judging you, all right? I'm just—I just need to know what your mindset is.”
Harvey sends him a look that hopefully conveys I’m entertaining your antics out of the finite goodwill in my heart. “My mind-set is, I don't talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. I keep my personal here—“ He gestures around his apartment. “—and my business over there.”
“I'm happy that's working for you, but it doesn't seem to be working for me.”

Harvey huffs, tamping down his frustration. “I wasn't giving you advice. I was answering your question. You want advice, call Dr. Phil.”
That isn’t enough for Mike, because nothing ever will be. “Harvey, I'm not trying to attack you here, okay? I'm struggling with something. I just—I'm trying to get your take on it.”

“And I'm not trying to be defensive, I'm just telling you I don't know everything about everything,” he said, closer to a real admission than anything else that leaves his mouth these days. “Look Mike, you want to know how to be a lawyer, I'm your man. You want to know how to deal with love,” and he tries not to make his chuckle sound too bitter, “That's not my area. There’s coffee and bagels in the—“

“What about you and Scottie?”

Harvey pauses, stuck between being annoyed that the conversation was still happening and stressed that Mike is probing him. “You must be having serious trouble with the paralegal, if you’re digging into my relationships.”

“Her name is Rachel. And I know you and Scottie had a thing. How can you still work with her, completely unfazed—“

“Mike,” he growls, tensing.

“I’m serious,” Mike wheedles, so wrapped up in his own problems that he can’t catch Harvey’s warning tone.

“So am I. There’s no easy answer. Yes, Mike, working with the person you’re in love with is hard,” Harvey snaps. “But I’m a goddamn professional. Like I said—business there, personal here.”

Mike stares at him. “You’re still in love with her?”

His hands tighten on his forearms. Shit. “Mike,” Harvey begins quietly, unable to lie about this. “Just drop it. I can’t help you.”

Mike doesn’t move, slack-jawed with his hands by his side. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How many times do I have to explain that business is there—“

“But I’m here.”

Harvey’s trapped. “I’m not in love with Scottie. I've never been in love with her," he says honestly.

Mike’s face crumples in confusion. “Wait, what?”

Harvey refuses to deal with this conversation any longer. He softens his tone and gestures to the fridge. “I have the deposition; I need to go. There's coffee made and bagels in the fridge. Why don't you take the morning off?”

“Hold on, you’re leaving me alone in your apartment?” Mike asks, bewildered, as Harvey grabs his suit coat and shrugs it on.

“Don’t break anything,” Harvey calls out on his way through the foyer, since he sure as hell can’t say I trust you with my apartment because I trust you with my life. If Mike replies, Harvey doesn’t hear it; the door’s already shut and he’s heading to the elevator with his heart thudding in his chest.

³ Without thinking, Harvey's feet carry him down to the bullpen after Ava Hessington gives up the lawsuit. He might call Mike a puppy, but he’s also guilty of defaulting to seeking out his associate with good news just to see him break into a bright smile.

The bullpen is almost entirely dark. The motion lights that the building splurged on last quarter are dormant, with only one fluorescent strip illuminating Mike’s cubicle. He’s standing there, collar loose and hair ruffled. Harvey knows from an offhand comment that Mike hates staying seated for too long; there’s a pressure on his spine.

“I hear we won,” Mike says without looking up, sifting through something on his desk.

“We hit a single. Just kidding; we knocked the son of a bitch out of the park.” He makes a small motion like he’s swinging a bat.

“Congratulations,” Mike replies tonelessly, and Harvey’s good mood goes stale.

He approaches slowly, taking in Mike’s ruffled state. “Congratulations to you. I hear you're representing Stephen Huntley now.”

“Yeah. Might as well be.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Harvey asks, circling around the cubicle and stopping. Mike’s desk is a mess. He catalogs the unusual state while he leans against the cube wall.

“It means we sat and had drinks when we thought Ava was guilty. Now Stephen is.” Mike looks up, lips pursed. “What's the difference?”

It seems like Mike’s still stuck in whatever existential crisis he was having that morning. “Guess your morning off didn't do the trick.”

Mike drops the files he’d been holding with an abrupt, jerky movement. He spins to fully face Harvey. “What are we doing here, Harvey? We spend every minute of our lives in this office fighting with each other over meaningless shit for clients that we don't even know, and then when some real connection comes along, just some little piece of happiness—“

“Mike,” Harvey interrupts, quiet but firm.

Mike inhales raggedly. His hands are trembling by his sides. Harvey throws some caution to the wind and crosses the distance between them to rest a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Mike seems to melt into the touch, and Harvey can’t help but think, Is it me? Do I ground you?

They stand there for as long as it takes to push the limits of plausible deniability. His knees unlock so he can walk away, but he can’t find it in himself to move. Mike turns slightly, eyes bright and wide. A small freckle punctuates his left eyelid.

“Harvey?” he utters softly.

“I’m sorry,” Harvey says quietly, and finally moves his hand away, immediately missing the warmth of his shoulder through his white shirt. Guilt sits on his skin like a foul stench, and he’s paranoid Mike can pick up on it.

The moment’s gone, and Mike’s back to being maudlin. He stares at the desk with a furrowed brow. “Did she tell you what she did?”

Harvey literally never talks to Mike’s girlfriend unless she’s uniquely useful, as she was when they were fighting Robert Zane. “Rachel?”

Mike squints, and Harvey realizes he’s been way off base. “I guess not. Jessica's basically forcing her to go to Stanford instead of Columbia.”

Harvey rocks back on his heels and sighs. “She found out about you two.” It was inevitable. He wonders if Jessica already knew, when she was in his apartment telling him to pursue anybody but Mike. A small amount of anger blooms in his chest; if she told him to move on out of pity…

“I don't want her to go. And there's nothing I can do about it,” Mike says desperately.

“What does she want?” Harvey asks, because he may not like her much but he understands Mike’s main character flaw: with his insanely fast brain that picks up intricate details, he tends to forget that there’s a bigger picture than whatever’s happening that very second. He can at least try to offer Mike clarity.

“She wants to go to Stanford,” Mike whispers, and Harvey’s heart aches.

“Then why are you keeping her here?” he asks, a tinge of desperation in his tone.

“Because—it won’t work if she goes there.”

“What won’t work?”

“This relationship.” He gestures angrily into thin air. “Her and I.”

“Because of the distance?”

Mike answers “Yes,” but then he hesitates for a moment. “No,” he breathes, cupping his forehead, frantic.

Harvey holds himself very carefully, feeling like they’ve entered completely new territory.

They share a lot between the two of them, through brief, heavy words and looks, but they never outright talk about these things. The closest they got to a feelings talk was their maudlin conversation when they were both baked during the Hardman fiasco. He says nothing, afraid to scare off this fragile vulnerability.

Mike’s icy eyes are trained on the far wall. “I love her. But I don’t feel like I know her.”

Thank god Mike isn’t looking at him, because Harvey’s face cycles through several inappropriate expressions (dismay, then hope, then bewilderment, then hope again) before he manages to school it again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He blows out a long puff of air. “I feel like a shitty person for even—thinking this.” He springs up and starts to pace. Harvey watches him make circles, wrapped up inside his own brain.

“I won’t judge you. Just talk about it, or your head is going to explode.”

Mike laughs humorlessly. “You won’t judge me?”

Harvey lifts his brows. “I don’t lie to you. You didn’t murder anybody.”

Mike tightens his lips and whirls around. “You’re supposed to know the person you love, right? Like, the sex is great, and we can joke around easily. That’s what it is—easy. Rachel makes life easier. But that’s not what—“ he shakes his head, frustrated, and runs his hands through his hair and making it spike up. “That doesn’t mean we’ll work. I feel like there will always be this barrier between us, like a glass wall. And nobody can see it except for me. I’m the problem, Harvey,” he says, stilling his harried steps and looking him in the eyes. “I have a great relationship with a gorgeous woman and it just feels like I’m going through the motions that a guy in my position is supposed to. And she deserves better than that.”

Harvey’s been frozen for the whole spiel, but Mike’s looking at him with that same look again—waiting for Harvey to give him a solution to his problem. “Mike, it sounds like you don’t actually love her,” he says quietly, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Mike’s wide-eyed expression sours, and he averts his eyes. “It does, doesn’t it,” he mutters bitterly. “Shit. Shit, I’m dragging her into my mess of a life and I’m not even sure I mean it when I say I love her. What’s wrong with me; I’m the guy who got the girl, and I’m sitting here fucking complaining about it. If she moves to Stanford, Harvey, I’m not going to be able to force things. I’m going to have to let her go.”

“Then why are you trying to keep her here?”

Mike swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs with the motion. “Because I don’t know what’s wrong. And I think if I just have enough time to work out…” he gestures vaguely at his head. “Whatever the hell is wrong with me, then it’ll be fine.”

“Thinking that way isn’t fair to her, at least not without saying anything.”

“How am I supposed to tell her?” Mike asks desperately.

Harvey’s heart is heavy, but a certain suspicion flares to life in his mind and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get the chance to dig into it like he can now. He reaches behind him and grabs the nearest chair, pulling it close and settling into it. “And with Jenny?”

Mike narrows his eyes. “What?”

“Did you feel the same way with Jenny?”

Mike falters. “I mean—we weren’t together as long. But…yeah.”

“You ever feel like you really loved a girl?”

Mike stares at him. “I’m not gay,” he says thinly, and the fact that his brain even jumped to that denial without Harvey asking says more than either of them have said aloud.

Harvey knits his fingers together and thinks of Jessica’s warmth, the soft buzz of liquor in their systems as she flayed him open. “Bear with me for a second.”

“Okay,” Mike says slowly. “Bearing.”

That earns a twitch of his lips, immediately smothered by the dread consuming his system. “I felt the same way. In high school, in college. I haven’t loved very many people. I was in relationships in and out in college, when I was older. Sex is sex, which is always great, but it’s not necessarily the same thing as a relationship. Scottie and I didn’t work out because no matter how picturesque we were on paper, I was never going to be able to love her like that.”

“Like… what?” Mike says, and Harvey knows he’s not stupid. He’s following Harvey’s train of thought easily enough that it’s pretty clear that he’s spent some time considering this as well.

“Like someone I’d ever want to marry. We were better off friends. Actually, every woman I ever dated—it never got too serious because I couldn’t love her the way she deserved.”

Mike’s quiet.

It feels like a dream, admitting this in the bullpen long after everybody’s gone, like the last decade never happened. “I slept with another associate, my first year. We were drunk. There were stakes, but we ignored them. It was off and on for a few months. We separated when we were scared of getting caught.”

“I’m confused. Associates are allowed to date if they just do the paperwo…” Mike trails off. “It was a man. Wasn’t it?”

Harvey blows out a small, self-admitting breath. “Yeah.”

Mike shuts his eyes and huffs. His voice is strangled when he says, “Okay. But I like women, Harvey.”

“I believe you. Can you love them?”

Mike’s protests die on his tongue.

Harvey sighs. “It might not be a sexuality thing. It might just be that she’s not the one for you.” Harvey stands and rolls the chair back, hoping he hasn’t irreparably screwed up his relationship with Mike. “But it also might be worth thinking about. Don’t trap her here while you’re figuring out your own shit.”

Mike doesn’t say anything else, and Harvey shoves his hands in his creased pockets and walks out of the bullpen.

“Harvey.” His name cracks on its way out of Mike’s mouth, and he pauses and looks back over his shoulder. Mike’s still standing, arms held limply by his side and something like grief in his eyes. That backbone of his, though… Mike sets his mouth in a firm line. “Thank you for telling me.”

Harvey sends him a small shrug and a half-hearted smile. He doesn’t say that Mike’s the second person he’s ever told. He doesn’t admit that he’s selfish, and wants his and Rachel’s relationship to fall apart. He turns back around. “Think about it.”

⁴They don't talk about it.

The following Monday, they find out Mike’s in serious danger of getting caught for fraud they both committed, so they have bigger things to worry about. Harvey pays hundreds of dollars to fly to Boston in one day and back, lies to Jessica about why, and bares himself to Louis, all to solve this world-threatening problem.

It’s easy, to fight for Mike.

It wasn’t a bluff, when he told Jessica he’d leave if she fired his associate. He’s insane for it, and it would rip him to pieces to leave the firm behind. That’s how she knew, because the only thing Harvey cared about more than the firm and his loyalty to Jessica was holding on tight to the people he loved.

Harvey can’t exactly call his devotion healthy, but he’s irrevocably far gone for the man who’s so brilliant he outshines every other person in every room he’s in, who follows Harvey with blind trust, who’s blind to the way Harvey looks at him when he’s talking passionately about law. On the plane back from Boston, when he realizes the one thing he can’t fix is this, is Mike’s future, he goes into the bathroom and curls around the toilet until everything he forced down that day is lost to the hole at the bottom.

Nearly an entire week of stress and gut-churning fear passes, and they don’t talk about it.

Louis comes through, and Mike vanishes during the lecture, and Harvey wonders if he’s gone to Rachel. They still don’t talk about it.

And then—

A short knock on Harvey’s office door interrupts his train of thought on the Keller briefs. He doesn’t look up when he acknowledges, “Mike.” Nobody else would be in this late unannounced, and he hasn’t heard from his associate since late the day before. He rides the wave of familiar joy at Mike’s presence.

“Can we talk?”

Harvey sets down his papers and looks up at Mike. He gestures silently, and Mike sits in the chair across from his desk and wrings his hands together. His tie flops forwards as he meets Harvey’s eyes like he’s looking for something.

“When you said talk, I assumed you had words to say,” he says, when it’s dragged on long enough that his skin is prickling.

“Sorry,” Mike mumbles as he looks away, red creeping up his neck. “Just—Um. Rachel and I aren’t together. Anymore.”

Harvey’s head bobs once, slowly, and he leans back in his chair. “Are you okay?” he asks genuinely.

“It happened a few days after you and I talked in the bullpen,” Mike replies, scratching his jaw. “So, yes. I was the one to let her go.”

“Is she alright? I haven’t heard from Donna…”

“I asked Donna for advice, and she told me not to drag it on longer. I had just asked her to move in, and she hadn’t agreed yet, so I just… it wouldn’t be fair to waste her time.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m, um. I wasn’t honest with you.”

Alarm bells resound in Harvey’s head. If Mike’s lied to him about something else… He keeps letting himself get duped, and it’s ripping him to shreds. “About what?” he asks tightly.

Mike’s right foot taps furiously against the floor. “I loved Trevor.”

Harvey blinks. He sees the red live indicator on the intercom shut off as Donna tactfully removes herself from the private conversation.

“I was in love with him,” Mike amends. “I gave up everything for him. And then it—to be clear, I’m not trying to put all of the blame on him. I know I screwed myself and my future over badly. That’s on me. But the mistakes I made—they were for Trevor. And Rachel was safe. She’s kind, and funny, and was never going to ask me to commit a felony for her.” He chuckles morosely. “I love her as a friend.” Then, he makes a face. “Which sounds bad, but it’s true.”

“I get it,” Harvey says quietly, tilting his head towards Donna’s desk outside.

“Yeah. Which, by the way, I had no idea about your, um.” He purses his lips. “I’m realizing that what I said in your apartment that morning was stupid.”

“Remind me— do you mean when you insinuated that I’m heartless?”

“I never thought that,” Mike says. His tone is tinged with desperation, so Harvey waves him off to show he hadn’t taken it personally.

“I know,” he murmurs.

“I just never thought that you were hiding that you were—“ Mike’s eyes dart towards the comm.

“She’s not listening. It’s off.” Harvey reaches over and turns it around so Mike can see the dead light. “And she knows, anyway.”

Mike nods. “I didn’t think you were gay. Or—bisexual?”

Harvey waves his hand vaguely. “I don’t think about it enough to have a specific label. I probably fit into the former category better.” It’s weird, talking about it so openly—even in the privacy of his office with one other person. It’s a little like he’s been flayed open, and he’s casually walking around with his guts open and exposed to the world. He keeps waiting to bleed out, but it’s just… not happening. “So I helped your ex-boyfriend avoid prison?”

“Boyfriend’s a stretch. He and I…” Mike hesitates abruptly, like he’s remembering he’s talking to his boss. “…experimented. But he wasn’t really into it. And he never knew how I felt.”

“So you knew you were gay.”

“I knew I was something,” Mike sighs. “But like I said, it’s just… safer with a woman. Like, even without the fact that Trevor and I made really bad decisions together. In general. The stakes are so much lower, if people find out I’m dating a woman rather than another man.” A long pause. “So I’m sorry I lied. But I was lying to myself, mostly.”

Harvey crosses his legs. “You don’t need my forgiveness for that,” he says gently. “And you look exhausted. If there’s nothing else…”

Mike gets the hint and rises. “Are you sending me home or kicking me out of your office?”

“Both,” Harvey replies.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be here.”

Mike studies him for a moment. Harvey very intentionally looks back at the papers on his desk like he doesn’t notice. “You said you have to work with somebody you’re in love with. I thought it was Scottie, but…”

Harvey freezes and his stomach plummets.

“I’m not dumb, and I know what that means. But I’m also not an asshole, so I thought you shouldn’t have to wonder if I know or not.” Mike teeters on his feet, and when Harvey doesn’t look back up, he leaves the office.

The red light turns back on.

Harvey groans and buries his head in his hands.

“Hey, kid. You can’t keep hiding in here instead of dinner.”

Harvey looks up as his dad’s body fills the doorway and blocks the hallway light from seeping into his dark bedroom.

“I still don’t want to talk about it,” he mutters, going back to beating the mitt he’d been coaxing a better shape out of. “Stop bothering me.”

“Where’s the ice?”

“It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

Dad takes a few steps in and settles next to him on the bed. “It’s only been a few weeks. It’ll feel better.”

Harvey keeps his gaze down, face hot. “Yeah, right. Even when it stops hurting, it just doesn’t—” he punches the mitt with more force than necessary, with his good arm. “It just doesn’t feel right. And I’m a right-handed pitcher, Dad, I can’t just start throwing with my left.”

“Harvey—“

“I’m never going to play again.”

“Harvey,” Dad presses. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not!” he bites back. Furious, he throws his mitt across the room, earning a twinge in his shoulder and a disapproving glance from his dad.

“Throwing a tantrum isn’t going to reverse the injury,” he says quietly, rising to retrieve the mitt.

“Baseball was the only reason I even had friends. Now they’re all gonna ditch me.”

“Not if they’re real friends,” Dad replies swiftly.

Harvey rolls his eyes. “I don’t care if they’re real or not. There’s safety in numbers. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“Well, if you really plan on never playing baseball again, you can still put that competitive nature of yours to good use.”

“You’ll teach me how to box?”

Dad laughs heartily. “Hell no. Your mother would kill me.”

Harvey sulks, taking back the proffered mitt.

“I meant academically. You ever think about joining debate or something, in school?”

Harvey snorts. “And get a wedgie every day at lunch? No thanks.”

Dad thinks for a moment, leaning against his dresser. “Well, if people knew you boxed, they’d probably leave you alone. Of course, you’d gotta work on your injured shoulder. You may not be able to pitch the same, but you could still learn a mean right hook.”

Harvey looks up at him suspiciously.

“How about that, huh?” Dad nudges him. “I’ll take you to boxing lessons—as long as you’re not getting into any nonsense fights at school—if you join one of those nerd clubs for six months.”

“Six—?” Harvey asks with dismay.

“I’m serious. You got some serious smarts up there, kid.” He knocks lightly on Harvey’s forehead, and Harvey pulls away with a frown.

“Fine. You promise?”

Dad holds up a finger. “I promise, if you can get your mom to agree.”

Harvey grins, for the first time feeling some of the joy that had snapped away the second he threw the fastball with too little control. “I’ll convince her,” he says confidently.

“That’s my boy,” Dad replies, smiling with pride and clapping him on the shoulder.

Harvey holds the mitt in his lap and grins.

⁵A month passes uneventfully. Mike and Harvey are the same as they’ve always been— ribbing each other, winning cases, moving through life in sync. Rachel leaves to do a preparatory course at Stanford for the summer to prepare students who haven’t been in college for a while. Apparently her departure is amicable, and Mike keeps up with how she’s doing through Donna.

Well, things are almost the same, enough for plausible deniability. Mike’s a little quieter than he was before. They both skirt around any jokes about the two of them dating, no more quips about putting out. Mike gifts him a case against his enemy and together, they win. It’s a joyous thing, and at the celebratory dinner, Harvey’s staring at his dimples and trying to forget about the two glasses of wine in him that are loosening his inhibitions.

Whatever satisfaction they taste is soured immediately when Jessica makes Mike realize that the fraud they’re committing is keeping him permanently right where he is. He’ll never be partner track. He’ll never be able to grow. The mess with Tony and Jonathan Sidwell only serves to push at the bruise, and though Mike denies it, it’s a big enough deal that it doesn’t leave Harvey’s mind, even after Mike solves everyone’s problems. And if it’s still on Harvey’s mind…

Harvey’s practically waiting him to come that night. It seems like they gravitate towards each other not only after victories, but also when things get too heavy. When he hears the sound of knuckles rapping against his door, he sighs and heaves himself up from where he’s been sitting in pathetic silence.

On his way to the door, he catches his reflection in the window and remembering that he’s got an old black cardigan buttoned halfway up. It makes him feel older than he actually is. He opens the door.

“Jesus, you look like shit,” he says lightly, and Mike snorts to acknowledge the callback. He steps back and Mike moves in, still wearing his suit from the day. This might be the first time, Harvey realizes acutely, that Mike’s still in work clothes when Harvey isn’t. “There’s apple juice, beer, and coke in the fridge. Pick your poison.”

“This really is a bachelor pad,” Mike mutters, opening the door and retrieving the coke can. “You only have Diet? What the hell?”

“The regular kind tastes disgusting.”

“You taste disgusting,” Mike retorts half-heartedly, then makes a face. “Okay, I know how that sounded.”

Harvey smirks faintly and leans against the counter on his elbows. “What’s on your mind?”

Mike takes a strong swig of the soda as if it has a %alc more than 0.0. “You were right. This isn't about William Beck or Jonathan Sidwell. It's about me.”

Harvey heaves himself off of the counter and grabs a beer. He wanted to hear the topic of the day before he decided on his poison, and right now he’s too wrung out to drink anything worth more ten dollars a bottle.

“I want to go legit.”

Harvey knocks off the cap and says without looking up, “You can't.”

“I can go to law school,” he says, but it’s not Harvey he’s trying to convince. “For real, this time.”

“Even if it didn't matter that you've already presented yourself as having gone to Harvard law, you'd have to take the bar again.”

Mike tosses a flippant hand in the air. “Okay, well, I passed it once, so I'll pass it again.”

“Not under your own name. And if you take it now, you'll draw attention to yourself in a major way.”

“Then I get Lola Jensen to hack into the bar and just put me in there, just like she did with Harvard.”

Harvey sets the bottle down but it’s louder than he intended and he grimaces. “Are you insane? Hacking into the bar is twice the crime you've been committing. Rule number one of not getting caught, you don't move the goddamn body.”

“You do if they're about to find it.”

“They're not about to find it.”

“They're always about to find it! Mike, committing another fraud to cover your fraud isn't going legit. It's just covering your ass, and it doesn't undo the fact that you've already committed the crime.”

“You think I haven't thought about all of this? Harvey, I'm stuck. There's no way up, there's no way down.” He chuckles, a little manic. “I can't live my whole life like this.”

Harvey watches him unravel, grieving for what Mike could’ve been, if he’d just stayed in college and gone to law school. Would they have met? “Okay,” he says quietly, looking out at Manhattan’s skyline. “You want to be legit, there's only one way. You go to a small town in Iowa where nobody's ever heard of Harvey Specter, Jessica Pearson, or anybody else. You go to law school, hang out your shingle. Nobody will ever know. I guarantee you'd be king of the hill—But you could never come back to the mountain. Not here in New York, Chicago, or L.A.”

Mike breathes in sharply. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Yeah, I know. You're in the major leagues, and you get to go toe-to-toe with the best there is. And I can't tell you if that's enough for a lifetime, but if you want to stay, there's nothing more you can do.”

Mike cocks his can of Diet Coke. “Did I ever tell you I got in?”

It’s an interesting way of phrasing the question, since Mike is well aware of everything he’s ever told Harvey. “Got into what?” Harvey plays along, taking another sip from his beer.

“I got into Harvard. Undergraduate, obviously. I got my transfer acceptance letter the week Trevor and I got caught. I wasn’t just kicked out from college—the Dean reached out to Harvard and had them rescind my acceptance.”

Harvey grimaces. “Mike…”

Mike looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head. “At least back then, my mistakes only messed up my own life. Now I’ve dragged you in, and Jessica, and…I’m sorry, Harvey.”

“I’m the one who hired you. The only thing you should be sorry about is being a pain in my ass for entirely non-felony related reasons.”

Mike snorts softly, and it seems that for a moment, the mania that had seized him is gone.

Harvey walks over to the living area and settles back on the couch. “You might as well sit. I’ll put on a game. It’s always better to be maudlin while you’re watching a team fumble a winning streak. Feels more appropriate.”

“Which game is it tonight?” Mike asks, following him and dropping into the chair across the coffee table.

“Yankees and Sox.”

“Who’s winning?”

“We’re about to find out,” Harvey replies, reaching for the remote. “Probably not us.”

“Are we for the Yankees?”

Harvey cocks and eyebrow. “Be very careful with what you’re about to say.”

Mike chuckles weakly. “I don’t really follow baseball.”

“You’re incredibly lucky I’ve never put you in the room with Brian McCann.”

“How do you get so many famous sports players as clients, Harvey? Geez.”

Harvey finds the channel. At the moment, the Yankees are winning. “By being good at my job and being even better at flattering them. These guys have massive egos.”

“Oh, so it’s like a kinship thing, then.”

Harvey cocks his beer at Mike, a light-hearted warning.

“Why are you so into baseball? Did you play?” Mike asks, switching topics.

Harvey huffs softly. He forgets, sometimes, that he’s kept Mike at such an arms length for so long. He forgets that Mike doesn’t know everything there is to know about him. “Yeah, I played. I joined the intermediate baseball team in seventh grade because I liked—as in, liked—one of the eighth grade players. I didn’t know anything about the game at the time.”

Mike’s eyes go as round as marbles. “No way.”

“Yes way,” Harvey replies with a small, amused smile. It’s nice, to be able to explain that he liked an older boy. It feels like a dirty secret, but Mike doesn’t treat it that way. “It became much more than that.”

Mike grins. “Yeah, now you’re a fanatic. How long did you play?”

Harvey lets loose a small, nostalgic chuckle. It was such a large part of his formative years, but for whatever reason it’s history that he keeps private. “Years. I was good, good enough for a track to Division 1 college baseball. I permanently injured my shoulder at the end of junior year. Never was able to pitch the same speed again. Changed the trajectory of everything in my life. My dad convinced me to join the debate club while I was deciding what the hell I was supposed to do. I did, and…” he sweeps his arm out. “Here we are.”

“Is it okay for me to say that I’m glad that the universe pushed you this direction?”

“Yes.”

“Debate club.” Mike chuckles. “So you were a nerd.”

“I was a jock-turned-nerd.”

“That’s the worst kind, I hope you know.”

Harvey laughs softly. “Well, baseball taught me how to win.”

“What about the boxing?”

Harvey pauses with his bottle halfway to his lips. “How do you know about that?”

“Well, when you fought Tanner for the suit, I didn’t think you were stupid enough to walk in with no experience.”

“The only reason I joined debate was because my dad promised to put me into a youth boxing group.”

“Ah, I see. So your dad’s the guy to thank for the best closer in New York City?”

It catches Harvey off guard, momentarily, that Mike doesn’t dance around the topic of his late father. It makes sense, though. Long before he lost his grandmother, before Harvey lost Dad, he lost both of his parents and endured years of pity and delicate platitudes from the people around him.

The year Mike lost his parents, Harvey would’ve been, what, twenty? He wonders absently what he’d been doing, the night that Mike had to open his grandmother’s front door to see an officer on the stoop, his hat in his hands. Would he have been studying his ass off in the library? Maybe retiring early after a long exam? Staring at the ceiling, wondering if he had what it took to make it big in law?

“Harvey?”

He clears his throat and comes back to the present. “Yeah. He is. I wouldn’t be who I am without him.”

Mike offers him a small, delicate smile. “It sounds like he’d be proud of you.”

Harvey exhales and focuses on the game. “Maybe,” he murmurs, and Mike drops it wisely. They watch the Yankees fuck up an easy double in silence.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Harvey has the naive and childish wish that his dad had made it long enough to meet Mike. He would’ve liked him.

Mike brings Sidwell’s job offer directly to Harvey.

Harvey sits at his desk and scans the page, heart plummeting to his feet, while Mike stands on the other side with his hands in his pockets.

“Well?” Mike prompts, when Harvey’s been silent for longer than it should take him to read a page.

Harvey swallows thickly and looks up. His heart thuds heavily in his chest and it’s all he can hear. “I think you should take it,” he says flatly, trying not to let any cracks show in his tight, impassive mask.

“Harvey—“

He gestures at the paper that’s about to end the best few years of his life. “It’s spelled out pretty clearly on here. Obscene amounts of money. You can still do your boy wonder stuff, but without the shadow of fraud hanging over you.”

“Harvey, that’s not—“

He ignores Mike, steamrolling forwards before he can do something stupid like beg him to stay. “You get to stay in the major leagues; you’re just playing a different sport.”

“Harvey!” Mike raises his voice.

Harvey smacks the papers down. “What, Mike? What the hell do you want from me? To lie to you and tell you that there’s any good reason for you to stay?”

Mike gapes, and then makes a small, unintelligible noise of fury. “No,” he replies, so keenly that it’s practically a cry. “Stop doing that— stop looking at me with that same bullshit mask on. Don’t sit up here, in this corner office on your throne of glass, and act like the answer to everything is to pretend how you feel doesn’t matter.”

Harvey doesn’t move. He can’t. His hands tremble as he rests them on the desk. “How I feel, in this context, does not matter,” he says, fighting to keep his voice even.

“It does. You can’t push people away to guarantee that they’ll never leave you, because all that does is keep you trapped up here, all alone. You can’t close relationships like you can clients, Harvey. This—“ he gestures between them. “—Isn’t transactionary. It may have started that way, but you and I both know that now, it’s much more than that. There’s love involved.”

Harvey recoils like he’s been hit. Neither of them have moved but it feels like they’re in an all-out brawl right now. He’s got no gloves on; they’re just swinging wildly with their bare fists. Mike just drew first blood. “Don’t you dare throw that in my face,” Harvey says, volume dipping dangerously low. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the blurry shape of Donna stand.

“I’m not—“

“I told you that in confidence. You’re aiming really fucking low, Mike, and I don’t understand why. I just want you to be happy,” he says desperately.

“And what about you being happy?” Mike demands, throwing his hands up and then clawing his fingers like he wants to grab Harvey’s shoulders and shake him. “I know I’m blind about a lot, Harvey, but I can tell that you’re obliterating your own feelings to support mine. And that’s not— That’s what you do when you love somebody.”

Harvey takes three very deep breaths. “Get out.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not finished. Harvey—“

He stands. The chair he just was sitting in rockets backwards and slams against the wall. “Get the hell out.“

Fire flares in Mike’s eyes— they’re almost gray. “You’re not listening to me. I’m not taking the fucking job!”

Harvey falters, losing momentum, and his anger leaks out of his body as he slumps forwards and presses his knuckles to the surface of his desk. There’s a groove below his right fist, a small indent from his wrist sitting there for the last decade as he worked himself to the bone. “Why,” he asks wearily.

“Because I love being a lawyer.”

“That’s a bullshit answer. With that brain of yours, you’d also love being an investment banker and you know it. Try again.” He circles his finger in the air.

“Because I—“ Mike’s voice hitches and he blows out a breath that sounds like he’s trying to prepare himself. “Because I love you.”

Harvey wets his top lip and shifts on his feet. “What?” he croaks, and it comes out humiliatingly small. He doesn’t even try to repeat himself.

“That’s when I figured it out, when Sidwell was talking to me about the job and its benefits. Of course I thought about the freedom I’d get. It’s perfect, and I would enjoy it, and I’d be really, really good at it. But then—all I could think about was that I would never take it, because it would hurt you so badly. And like I just said: I didn’t give a shit how I felt, because how you feel matters more.”

“That can’t be the entire reason.”

“It’s not. But it was a large enough reason that it made me realize that I love you, too. Not like a crush-on-a-baseball-player or an infatuation-with-my-closest-friend kind of love. I don’t think I can comprehend exactly what the hell is going on with how I feel, but I know for sure that my life will be bleak if I leave you behind.”

“You can’t stay here for me,” Harvey says quietly, devastated. “I can’t be the reason you hold yourself back.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you want me to leave. Tell me you’d be perfectly fine with me gone.”

Harvey’s jaw stays clamped shut. He can’t even pretend, at this point.

“That’s what I thought. I’m going to call him and decline. I just—“ Mike’s breath rattles. “I just needed to make sure.”

Harvey’s a damn coward, because he can’t unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth and tell Mike to take the job. Not now, when he knows that he’s not keeping Mike around like a sentimental fool with an unrequited obsession.

Mike leaves his office in silence.

Harvey’s stuck leaning over his desk, forearms trembling, when Donna catches the glass door as it’s shutting and slips inside.

“Harvey,” she says gently, and he squeezes his eyes shut at her gentle tone.

“You heard.”

“I wanted to make sure a fistfight wouldn’t break out.”

Harvey swallows. “Well, it didn’t.”

She reaches out and grabs his wrists with a loose grip, guiding him off of the desk and back into his seat. He goes easily. His eyes are unfocused, staring vaguely at how his vinyl collection looks like a sea of dark blurry lines.

^;6Donna settles in the chair across from him and crosses her legs. “Do you want to know why I never batted an eye when you hired a kid who never went to law school?”

“Because it’s the kind of bullshit I’d been itching to pull for years.”

She laughs, short and sweet. “No. It’s because I knew what was inside you, and I thought if you had a protege to follow you around, particularly one who wasn’t some know-it-all from the Harvard factory, it would bring out the softer side of you. The side you like to pretend doesn’t exist. And, as usual, I was right.”

“You’re always right,” he murmurs. “I need whiskey.”

“You need sleep.”

“You’re not going to ask when the hell I told him I loved him?”

“You didn’t,” she replies, and smiles pleasantly when he looks up to meet her eyes. “Mike came to me.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

She tsks. “He’s my friend too, Harvey. It wouldn’t have been fair to share something he told me in confidence. And he was so confused; he was coming fresh out of his relationship with Rachel and didn’t want to say anything until he figured out if you were a—a rebound crush, or a misguided attraction coming from your power difference and him putting you on a pedestal.”

“You think he’s figured it out?”

Donna snorts elegantly. “Sounds like it.”

“And what do you think?”

She hums for a moment, not contemplating her answer, but considering how to deliver it. “I think that he read you well. You prioritize other people’s happiness over your own. Particularly those that you love. Your dad, Jessica, me, Mike—“

“Wait.” He holds up a hand. “My dad?”

She hesitates. Gently, she explains, “When you didn’t tell him about your mom. You didn’t do that for yourself, and you sure as hell didn’t do it for her. You did it for him, even though your tight moral guilt was killing you inside.”

Harvey purses his lips. “What’s your point.”

“My point isn’t even a point, really; it’s an observation. Mike does the same thing to you. I think you two together would be terrifying for the world of corporate law but really, really good for each other. And for once, you can make a decision knowing that the other person’s happiness doesn’t come at a cost to you— it comes as a benefit. And I’m glad that Mike can call you out on your bullshit and actually get you to listen.”

“Is this a blessing?”

She nods, still smiling. Her eyes hold more warmth than he can take. “You’ve been putting yourself through purgatory for decades, denying yourself from getting close to men in case you fall too hard. I understand the risk, Harvey—you know I do. But Mike will never, ever take you down if things don’t work out.”

“I’m not afraid of him telling everybody. He’s a good man. I’m afraid of it not working out, because I’m too closed off or I’m not good enough or—“

“First off, you’re plenty good enough. You may not be very nice, but you’re kind, kinder than anybody gives you credit for, which makes you an outright hypocrite when you fault Mike for having a bleeding heart. Second, I think it’ll work out. Really, truly, I do, because if you two are still close after the tension of the last two years, then nothing short of adultery would rip you two apart. And I don’t think Mike would ever do that.”

“He slept with a married woman.”

“I didn’t say he was very smart. He was also grieving, which isn’t an excuse but it does make the situation an outlier. Mike is loyal to you, Harvey. Not because he owes you—At this point, he’s given you an ROI that’s large enough to keep Jessica from booting him from the firm. He’s loyal because he cares about you. I don’t think that a relationship between two good men who have unconditional loyalty can go wrong easily.”

Harvey hesitates. His fingers itch for the stem of a wine glass, or the detailed edges of two fingers of whiskey. Something to sip, to buy himself time before he responds.

Donna sense his hesitation and reaches out to grab onto his hand. She squeezes lightly. “There’s always risk in relationships. You are never, ever going to find a relationship where you can guarantee that everything will work out.”

Harvey’s lips thin, which they both know means that he’s giving in. “What am I supposed to do now?”

She cocks her head. “Don’t be dense. Court him, Harvey; ask him on a date. Try to do lovey-dovey normal-people stuff before you two have sex, hm?”

Harvey really, really, really wishes he had alcohol in his system. “Okay,” he replies quietly.

Donna gives one more squeeze before she releases him. “Go home, and get some sleep. I’m canceling your appointments for the rest of the day. Also, you owe me a very nice handbag.”

“Take my card,” he says needlessly, and she waggles her fingers at him as she exits his office.

Their TA for their Patent Law course is well known among the first-year law students, but not for being first in his class. Jin Lorence is a tall, cocky, self-assured pretty boy that has every girl wrapped around his finger. He’s stunning, with high cheekbones and a habit of forgetting to button the top of his dress shirts.

Harvey’s attracted to him. Of course he is; even the straightest man in the 1L Harvard class has looked at Jin’s ass once or twice. Jin could’ve gone into modeling, if he wanted to, but instead he’s spending his nights grading their papers on 19th century patent protections. He’s friendly and warm with everybody he meets, which helps his reputation. As far as anybody knows, he doesn’t fuck and tell, and speculations about his sexuality are thrown around in the mocking way that’s considered accepting in the 90s.

Jin takes a particular liking to Harvey, greeting him with a friendly wave before class or if they pass each other in the large, echoing halls of Austin Hall. Harvey doesn’t think much of it, until he’s sitting in a bar across campus, and Jin’s sauntering up to him with a smirk on his face.

“You come here often?”

Harvey narrows his eyes. “No, actually.”

“Are you here alone? Mind if I keep you company?”

Harvey shakes his head, and drops his chin with an easy grin. “I don’t know if you want to be seen in public speaking with a lowly 1L, though.”

“Most of the first-years suck. You’re alright,” Jin teases, and Harvey realizes acutely that Jin is eyeing his exposed collarbone.

“What a compliment,” Harvey replies, and he blames the alcohol in his system for the way he drifts a little closer, heart hammering in his chest.

Jin leans closer, grinning. His lips get close, but they bypass Harvey’s mouth and stop at his ear. The line of Jin’s jaw brushes against Harvey’s cheekbone. A soft kiss is pressed to the spot where his jaw meets his ear. If anybody happens to be looking at them this moment, it only seems like Jin is only whispering something private. Well, if he pulls away.

The thing is, Harvey wants it so badly. He’s pressing back against Jin’s thigh and breathing shallowly at the friction against his crotch.

It’s inexplicably his mother’s voice echoing in his head that makes him yank himself away. She has no idea about Harvey’s sexual identity, but he can hear her as if she’s right there in the bar, judging him for being queer while she sleeps with every man she sees.

It doesn’t help that they’re standing in the center of a bar frequented by Harvard students. This can’t happen. It doesn’t matter what Harvey wants.

“I can’t,” Harvey gasps shakily, jerking his head away. “I’m sorry.”

Jin rears back, confused. “You can’t? You’re clearly into this. Do you have a boyfriend or something?”

Harvey shakes his head. “No, I just—I’m straight,” he lies desperately.

“Bullshit,” Jin replies quietly, but he’s lost some of his tension. He has a weird sort of unsurprised disappointment hanging on his shoulders. “Whatever. I’m not an asshole; I won’t push. I hope you figure yourself out, kid.”

“I, um. Yeah,” Harvey replies lamely, and flees. The cab he finds asks for a location, and for some reason he says Scottie’s address.

When she opens her door and sees him, she silently allows him in. They fuck multiple times that night, hard and relentless and cruel, and Harvey has no issues getting off from it.

It’s only when he’s laying in the bed while she’s showering, sweaty and exhausted and hollow, does he think about Jin. He wonders what it would be like to press his lips to his thigh, or curl around him in the afterglow of sweet, hot sex.

He leaves before Scottie gets out from the shower. His throat burns like he’s eaten something that doesn’t sit right in his stomach.

The semester ends without Jin and Harvey speaking any more. Harvey moves on. Jin publicly finds a boyfriend, and it’s a big fucking deal with the 1L girls who liked him. Harvey considers telling them that Jin’s bisexual, but from their reactions to the news, he doesn’t think they’d have a shot in any case.

Life goes on. Harvey hasn’t seen Jin in over a decade now. The world keeps spinning, and he knows that it wouldn’t have changed anything, if he’d given in that night.

Still, he wonders.

⁷They never get a break. Some asshole from the Attorney General’s office decides to stick Harvey in his sights, and Mike’s collateral. Mike and Harold get arrested, Harvey has another bout of mindless panic, and his heart rate doesn’t get back to a healthy level until he and Louis finally get to speak with their clients, and he’s opening the door to Mike’s interrogation room.

He was going to make some quip, but his mouth runs dry when he sees him. “Mike,” he says, shutting the door behind him.

Mike turns around, pale. “You'd better have some good news for me. Harvey, this Woodall guy is serious.”

“We know,” he placates, gently guiding Mike by the shoulder to sit down.

“Then why am I still in here?”

Harvey sits heavily in the chair on the other side of the metal table. “Because we're waiting for Louis.”

Mike furrows his brow. “Louis? To do what?”

“Convince Harold not to talk.”

Mike rockets up and Harvey instinctively rises to settle him back in his seat. “Holy shit” he groans, dismayed. “Louis is in with Harold? Harold hates Louis!”

“It's our best shot.”

Mike stares at him, breath hitching. “Okay,” he says. “I trust you. What do we do now?”

“We wait,” Harvey replies, resting his hand on the table.

They realize at the same moment that their hands mirror each other on opposite sides of the table. Without discussion, their hands drift together, smooth fingers interlocking. The frigid cold of Mike’s fingers against his warm, sweaty palm is enough to make the sharp line of his jaw wobble. Harvey has long musician’s fingers, like his dad, and he reaches out with his other hand to wrap them around Mike’s hand and warm it up.

“I love you,” Harvey whispers, because it feels right.

Mike smiles, genuine despite the tight stress seizing his features, and squeezes his hand. “Even though I might go to prison?”

“You’re not going to prison,” Harvey replies immediately.

“We should talk about my defense strategy.”

Harvey cocks an eyebrow. “This is your defense strategy.”

Mike shakes his head and tugs his hand free. Harvey grimaces and flattens his hands on the metal. “If this doesn't work, you're gonna want to talk to a different lawyer than me.”

“Harvey, I don't care what Harold gives them on me, I'm not giving them you.”

Harvey stares at him. He’s too noble for his own good. “I want to tell you a story.”

Mike shoots him an incredulous look. “I don't want to hear a story.”

Harvey continues as if he hadn’t heard anything. “It's about the time I decided to tell my dad about my mom. You remember what I told you about her? I was twenty, out of the house, and I told her I would never tell him as long as she never brought anyone—“ His voice fails him, and he has to steel himself. “I came home to do laundry one day, and I heard—I heard, and then I saw, and I told him that night. Because sometimes it's better to tell.”

“She deserved that.”

Shit, he’s not getting it. Harvey’s leg bounces against the share as he shakes his head. “And so do I.”

“This whole thing was my idea,” Mike says, like it matters.

“I gave the go-ahead. It's me Woodall wants.”

“Well, he's not getting you!” Mike snaps, and Harvey’s body stills. He looks at Mike dead on, trying to get it through his thick fucking skull that Harvey will always lay down on the tracks to save Mike from the train.

“Yes, he is,” he says firmly, barely restraining himself from yelling.

“No. I don't care what happens in that room, I'm not giving you up!”

Harvey grits his teeth. Panic and dread and the fear from the last five hours has been fraying his nerves into nothing, and he feels them about to snap. “Don't be a fool,” he growls. “Be selfish for once in your life—”

“Don't be an asshole!” Mike cries, brows furrowed.

Harvey stands. He can’t lose him. He can’t— “Listen to me, goddamn it, I'm giving you permission—“

Mike rises as he speaks and shoves his face centimeters from Harvey’s. He snarls, “I don't give a shit what you're giving me!”

That’s right about the second that whatever’s left of his self control snaps. Very deliberately, he grabs the chair by its legs and uses the muscle he’s earned from decades of boxing to lift it like it’s nothing and crush the camera in the corner. It falls to the floor with a deafening clatter, which spooks Mike. Harvey advances on him, and Mike backs up so quickly that guilt flares up somewhere deep in Harvey’s flood of panic.

“I HIRED A FRAUD!” he roars his crime (his crime) with his full fucking chest. “And then we crossed the line with Clifford Danner, then with Lola Jensen, and then with these witnesses, and to top it all off, we suborned perjury with Edward Darby. I allowed it. I condoned it. I’m the one in the position of power. If it comes to it, you will point every fucking finger at me, you got that?”

He’s got Mike in the corner, staring at him with wide, red-rimmed eyes.

Harvey’s breathing is jerky, and he just needs Mike to say yes and mean it.

“Let's just hope it doesn't come to it,” Mike says softly. It’s a blatant denial, and Harvey wants to call him out on it, but the door flies open.

Louis doesn’t seem to have any idea what he’s just walked in on, and tells them they’re free.

When they get to the car, Harvey takes the passenger seat and resolutely looks out the window the entire drive back to the firm.

Once they get Woodall off their back, even if it’s a temporary fix, Harvey realizes that he’s sick and tired of waiting for the right time. At this point, calm is rarer than crisis, and he’s taking advantage of this reprieve.

He comes into work early the next morning, makes a call. When Mike arrives, Harvey falls into step with him. “Morning.”

“Someone’s cheerful.”

“I have a proposal for you. Low risk, high reward.”

Mike raises his eyebrows, interested, and holds out an expectant hand. When Harvey doesn’t move to hand him any files, he frowns.

Harvey looks ahead and tries not to preen that he’s caught Mike off-guard. “You, me, two tickets. Yankees versus Blue Jays. Private box.”

“Haven’t they had a horrible season? You want to take me just to watch your favorite team lose?”

“You can be their good luck charm. You know, if you’re not busy tonight.”

Mike cocks his head, and Harvey recognizes the beginning of a bit. “Hm, I dunno. I’ll have to see if my hardass boss decided to dump a bunch of work on me,” Mike replies, but he sounds like he wants to laugh.

“Don’t worry. Your hardass boss says you’re free to go.”

Mike abruptly stops them both in the middle of the hallway. He yanks Harvey into the nearest empty conference room, shuts the door and leans forward. He keeps himself at just a far enough distance that anybody walking by isn’t going to wonder if two lawyers are about to start making out at work. His lips are a little pink from the late winter chill, and Harvey wills himself not to look at them.

Mike’s icy eyes pin him in place. “I know you’re not going to say anything unless I spell it out for you. Is this a date? And don’t ask me if I want it to be a date.”

“It’s a date,” Harvey confirms quietly, trying not to smile. He has a reputation to maintain.

Mike loses his intense gaze and smiles back, tentative but sunnier than the skies outside. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Harvey echoes besottedly, and then hears how dumb he sounds, and decides to retreat and cut his losses. “Nine tonight. I’ll pick you up.”

“I don’t know anything about this season,” Mike confesses as Harvey walks to the door. “Ever since I started working, I haven’t been paying much attention to sports news.”

“If only you were a speed-reading genius with an eidetic memory,” Harvey throws back over his shoulder, opening the door.

“Does that mean I have an excuse not to do all this crap for Louis?” Mike tries. “Baseball homework?”

Harvey chuckles without answering, walking past the windows until he’s out of sight, which is an answer in and of itself.

He picks a 2014 Porsche 911 from the car club, skimming his fingers over the edge of the door while he waits for the keys. He shocked the managers when entered in a pair of well-cut jeans, a fitted t-shirt, a coat and a Yankees cap. He’s well aware that he looks like one of those eccentric billionaires getting caught by paparazzi.

One of the car handlers that he’s known for years, Evelyn, sends him a knowing smile. “I’m guessing this isn’t a work event,” she says as she hands him the key.

“No,” he replies. “Hot date.”

“And you’re dressed like that?” she asks, raising one well-outlined brow.

Harvey chortles under his breath. “I can guarantee you that even this will intimidate them.”

She drops the brow. “Mm. I see. Have a good night, Mr. Specter.”

He nods and climbs into the car. He finds that he’s nervous as he pulls out of the club, fingers drumming against the leather of the wheel when he immediately hits a red light.

He makes it to Mike’s place pretty quickly. He shoots a quick text to let him know to come outside. Then he climbs out of the car and stands out in front of it. With any other car, he’d lean, but this baby isn’t getting leaned on while it’s under his care.

When Mike first emerges into the frigid air of a New York evening, he doesn’t see him. Harvey realizes that he’s looking for the town car, and raises one hand to get his attention.

Mike breaks out into a happy, golden-retriever grin when he spots Harvey, and bounds down the steps to meet him at the car. He’s wearing a Yankees shirt that Donna gifted him last Christmas (which Harvey is pretty sure is the only baseball merch he owns) and jeans and sneakers.

“Hi,” he says brightly, and Harvey is overcome momentarily with how stupidly in love he is with this man.

“Hi,” Harvey echoes. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he replies, bouncing on his toes. They’re both nervous, but one of them is obviously worse at hiding it.

Harvey leans over and opens the door for him, which is a move that flusters Mike. Harvey privately smiles when he rounds the car and sits neatly in the driver’s seat.

“I’m a little surprised you’re driving,” Mike admits.

“I was raised old-fashioned. I personally chauffeur my dates. Ray is reserved for dragging my associate with me places.” he replies with a flash of his teeth. Mike’s responding laugh makes the smirk turn into a grin.

Mike covers his lips with his fingers to smother his smile. “I’m flattered, though it is a little unfortunate we can’t neck in the back of the car while Ray’s the one driving.”

Harvey forgets how to speak for a moment. “Tease.”

Mike snickers from behind his fingers and lifts them away. “Quick question: am I dreaming?”

“No,” Harvey replies smugly. “New York’s sexiest bachelor just picked you up in a Porsche, and it’s very real.”

“Your ego knows no bounds. And—“ Mike cocks his head. “Sexiest?”

“Don’t act so shocked. NYC Tribune, 2010 issue.”

“No way. You’re shitting me.”

“I didn’t win,” Harvey admits. “Donna nominated me, as a joke. Got further than I thought I would, and my picture’s in there.”

“I need that magazine.”

Harvey shakes his head. “I had every issue burned in a massive bonfire. You should have seen it.”

“I would’ve saved one and put it up on my wall.”

“And risk burning yourself?”

“It would be worth it,” he replies grandly, “If I had the only copy of you wearing, what—a speedo? Don’t they expose your entire body for that segment?”

“Essentially.”

“Damn, now I really need a copy,” Mike murmurs, turning to look out the window. “It’s weird saying it out loud,” he admits.

Harvey takes a left turn. He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It’s weird on my end, too.”

“It’s nice, though,” Mike adds, resting an elbow on the window edge and absently brushing his stray hairs above his ear. “It doesn’t feel like a dream because I got picked up by a hot man in a hot car, though that’s great, obviously. It feels like a dream because Harvey Specter’s looking at me like I hung the moon.”

Harvey can’t quite find a worthy response to that. They jump to other topics to bicker about, but Harvey carries the warmth from Mike’s words all the way through the VIP valet at Yankees Stadium, the security scanners, and into the hallway leading down to the private viewing boxes.

“Did you buy this room?”

“No, I called a client who works with security at this stadium,” Harvey replies. “He gets me a space when I want it, but I’m usually too busy to actually make it to a game in-person.”

Mike slows to a stop and makes a small, impressed face. “I’m a little happy you didn’t pay for this outright,” he admits. “I looked it up this afternoon—it costs thousands of dollars.”

“I figured you wouldn’t like that,” Harvey says with a shrug.

Mike smiles at him, small and pleasant, and reaches out to wrap his fingers in Harvey’s. They’re cool, not frigid like they were in the interrogation room. Harvey’s busy trying to memorize the feeling of holding Mike’s hand when Mike says, “Thank you.”

They’re alone, just the two of them, but it still feels brave.

“You know, There’s a lounge in here that has snacks and alcohol.”

“Oh, yeah.” And they’re off.

Mike grabs a beer from the bar but Harvey declines when he’s offered a drink, citing that he’s ‘Designated Driver’. Harvey won’t ever forget the day that Mike found out his dad had alcohol in his system before the accident. Mike doesn’t say anything outright, but the small flicker of gratitude in his eyes says enough.

They make it through three innings, messing around and watching the game proceed, before Harvey turns to Mike and says, “Remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago about ‘going legit’?”

“Harvey, I…” Mike frowns and shakes his head. “I’ve come to terms with it. It’s okay.”

“What if I told you I have a way to make you… somewhat legitimate?”

Mike furrows his brow.

“At this point, the felony’s been committed. You and I know what we did. So do Jessica, Rachel, and Donna. So: Pearson-Specter keeps you on as a consultant. You’ll be essentially doing the work of a partner— and we’ll pay you appropriately. You just can’t have your own clients. And…” he holds out the envelope that’s been tucked into his inner pocket for the last hour. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. It won’t make me not want to date you. I just think you should get a real chance to dominate in any field you choose.”

The paper crinkles as Mike opens it, then his jaw goes slack. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m dead serious. Close your mouth; you’ll let bugs in.”

Mike obeys as he looks over at Harvey. The recommendation letter creases where he clutches it.

“You get your fix helping the little guy. I’ll be handing over a lot of pro-bono cases, don’t you worry. In exchange, you go to Columbia or Dartmouth and you get a Masters degree in finance, business, biology, whatever. Just not pre-law. Anybody digs too hard, you say you’re bored; you wanted the experience of another Ivy League. You’re a genius; people will wave it off as an eccentricity.”

“Why did you…?”

“Because you like learning,” Harvey replies simply. “Actually, you love it, and that’s what I wrote about on top of your work ethic. And you can take that masters and get a PhD, or med school, or industry. It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not law, you can go as far up as you want.”

“And Pearson-Specter?”

“Like I said. You don’t specifically like law for the money or the glory. You like it because you can play a part in the national production of Justice the musical. You can still do that without the fraud.”

Mike snorts quietly.

The edges of Harvey’s eyes squeeze, but he doesn’t quite smile. “You can work with us as long as you see fit, but you deserve to work in a field where you can earn the recognition you deserve, get awarded a Nobel prize or something.”

Mike laughs a little, disbelieving. “You’re saying ‘Nobel Prize’ like it’s easy to earn.”

“For you? Of course it is.” Harvey keeps his eyes trained on a shit call from the umpire while Mike processes silently next to him.

“This is… better than I’d hoped,” he says eventually.

“Hoped for what?”

He shrugs a little. “My future.”

Harvey nods, and nudges him with his elbow. “Mike.”

Mike darts his head up, eyes shining bright.

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Are you lying to me?”

Mike chuckles wetly. “Maybe. Watch the game, Harvey.”

“Distraction tactics won’t help you here, Mike,” Harvey responds, but obeys and watches Tanaka strike out. Twice, ouch.

They don’t talk about it for the rest of the game, even though Mike is obviously mulling over it in his mind. It’s what Harvey expected—Mike isn’t going to be able to decide today. That’s just fine. They’ll figure it out.

And if he says no and remains with the firm as a fraudulent lawyer, Harvey will cover for him. If they get caught, then Harvey will have to exchange a few happy years for the rest of his life in prison, and he’s apparently insane enough to be okay with it. And he’s certainly not ever letting Mike take the fall.

The Yankees win 7-3, and spirits are high as they grab their things and leave, laughing nonsensically about an old story back when Harvey and Louis were in the bullpen together. They file into the hordes of fans streaming from the stadium, walking tightly against each other with their hands shoved in their coat pockets. They stick together as they circle around to the private valet.

When the car arrives, Harvey opens the passenger door for Mike. He flashes Harvey a smile before he ducks inside.

Harvey retrieves his key and hands over a twenty to the valet before he climbs in and pulls out of the pick-up. “So,” he says conversationally, to keep from acknowledging the fact that he can’t wipe his stupid grin off of his face. “Good first date?”

“What, you want a yelp review?” Mike jabs, but follows it up with, “You’re amazing.”

Harvey squeezes the wheel as he pulls over and parks in the parking lot for a moment, flustered and trying valiantly not to show it. “Mike.”

“Ha, your face is getting red. Harvey, I’m serious.”

Harvey exhales thinly. “You think too highly of me.”

“No, I don’t. And because we’re dating now, you have to take it. You’re amazing, and kind, and handsome, and somehow pretty, too, which isn’t even fair—“

“We’re dating?”

Mike falters. “I… thought so?”

“Okay. Yeah.” He nods. “That’s good.”

Mike huffs, amused. “I already told you I’m in love with you. The only reason we’d stop dating is if you were the one to break things off.”

Harvey grips the wheel and looks stubbornly at the horizon past the dimly illuminated Stadium parking lot. Manhattan after dark is beautiful, shining with millions of lights that illuminate the night. “I wouldn’t. I can’t—look, Mike. Falling in love with you was like… throwing a fastball. The second the ball left my fingers, I couldn’t take it back. I’d put everything I could into my pitch, and then the ball was either going to strike or it was going to get hit. No matter what happened, as soon my fingers let go, all I could do was watch.”

Mike stares at him for a long moment, nodding to himself until he begins to dissolve into laughter. “Holy shit. Harvey Specter just romanced me with a baseball metaphor.”

Harvey laughs helplessly and sputters something indignant in response, but his cheeks are hurting from how his smile splits his face. “I mean, if it worked,” he reasons.

Mike exhales, and Harvey can’t see his face but he can hear the joy in his tone as he says, “Well, yeah. I hit a home fucking run.”

Harvey turns.

A smile plays at the edges of Mike’s lips, and his eyes are bright, despite how dark it is outside. They’re both well aware of their respective desires in that moment.

“What are we, in high school?” Harvey asks desperately, trying not to laugh. “Kissing in the parking lot?”

“Just do it, Harvey,” Mike replies, and they’re both smiling as they lean together, heads tilting to their rights, and kiss. He tastes a little like beer and a little like salt, and it’s as natural as breathing for their mouths to yield to each other, Harvey’s tongue darting inside while Mike nips at his upper lip. It turns wet and hot quickly, from a first kiss to foreplay, and they’re both well aware that if they go on too long they’re going to end up fucking in the Yankees Stadium parking lot while fans are still streaming to their cars.

They pull apart reluctantly, and Harvey finds that his right hand is cupping Mike’s jaw.

“Well, shit,” Mike says lazily, eyes still drawn to Harvey’s lips. He leans in for a soft, chaste kiss, like a promise for later, and then they both return to their fully upright positions.

Harvey swallows, discombobulated in a way that never happens when he gets intimate with women. “Right,” he mutters to himself, buckling in, and Mike chuckles, the little shit.

Harvey’s heart is light as they pull out of the parking lot, and even post-game traffic isn’t enough to diminish his good mood.

Once they’re free from the congestion of cars, he presses heavier on the pedal, and the 911 thrums happily as it’s guided to its maximum power. A spontaneous plan forming in his head, he asks, “You ever see the Palisades cliffs?”

“Over the Hudson river? Not in years.”

Harvey grins. “Got anywhere to be tonight?”

“You know I don’t.”

Harvey takes the entrance ramp that’ll lead him to George Washington Bridge. “We’re going for a scenic drive,” he says.

“You’re really not helping the hopeless romantic allegations right now.”

“Shut it, or I’m dropping you back off at your apartment after.”

Mike laughs at the empty threat, seeing right through him, and Harvey reaches over to turn on the radio. The Who⁸ spills into the car at a pleasant volume, and Mike nods his head to the beat. They ascend Palisades parkway and quickly get buried in the dense trees, catching glimpses of the horizon of New York City wrapping along the Hudson. Harvey rolls the windows down once they’re far enough out that there are barely any other cars on the road, and Mike embraces the old puppy analogy by immediately pushing his head out the window.

They speed up to 80 miles per hour, the car yielding like melted butter under Harvey’s feet, and Mike’s still giddily sticking his face out the window to stare at the glittering river far below. His hair has been growing out since his last cut, and the wind sends it flying back, parts of it brushing against the nape of his neck and along his cheek. Harvey can only risk quick glances at him, but the image of Mike wearing joy so openly, just like his Dad used to, makes him smile too.

Maybe there’s something to be said about smiling easy.