"I have to tell you, the two of you coming in as a pair has been refreshing. I think we could work well together."
Mike couldn't help but give Harvey a self-satisfied smile. They had been on fire recently, feeding off each other seamlessly. It was good timing because this meeting with Joseph Scott, the CEO of David Scott Investments was an important one; it would be one of the largest clients the firm had ever brought on.
"I'm glad to hear it, I know this could be a great partnership," Harvey answered.
"You know, I'm happy I met the two off you," Joseph continued casually, "my daughter Charlotte, well everyone else calls her Charli, and her friend recently moved to the city and they are finding it a bit overwhelming. They are about the same ages as the two of you. I would consider it a huge personal favor if you gentlemen would maybe take them out on a casual double date, show them the city can be a friendly place?"
Harvey was used to clients trying to set him up with their daughters or granddaughters. He had only had to make that mistake once to learn what a mess it could cause.
"I'm sure your daughter is delightful, but we really prefer to keep business relationships professional," he answered without missing a beat.
Joseph scoffed, "I'm not asking for a double wedding, I just mean a friendly night out. Look, this business has grown exponentially since my great grandfather started it 100 years ago. It wasn't just because we are great at making money make money. It's because as other businesses became less and less personal we understood that trust was built on human interactions, we knew the value of developing personal human relationships."
"That is –" Harvey began but was cut off by Mike,
"It would be our pleasure." Mike reached out handing Joseph his business card and shaking his hand, "Feel free to pass on our information."
Harvey was fuming but had no choice other than to follow Mike's lead,
"Thank you so much for your time Mr. Scott. We'll have our office forward the paperwork we discussed."
After a few more pleasantries the two men were walking shoulder to shoulder down the busy New York City sidewalk, Mike slightly struggling to keep up with Harvey's brisk pace.
"What the hell was that?" Harvey snapped.
"That" Mike said unbothered, "was us closing our biggest client yet."
"I'm warning you this is a bad idea."
"Excuse me, were you listening to the same speech I was? He was giving us a test, it wasn't optional. I'm not about to let us lose out on millions of dollars a year worth of billables because you don't want to sit through taking a woman for drinks if you don't get to take her home at the end."
"You know that's not what it's about, these things can get messy."
"It's one night of schmoozing, with boundaries. It will be fine, what's the worst that can happen?"
The night of their double date Harvey knocked on Mike's door only to hear a muffled "It's open!" He sighed impatiently and entered Mike's tiny apartment to see him hoping on one foot leaning on what looked like a thousand year old hand me down couch trying to put on his shoe with a PopTart held in his mouth.
"Hey," he said, finally getting his shoe on and taking a bite out of the PopTart, brushing crumbs off his wrinkled light blue oxford shirt.
"Really?" Harvey asked, with the tone he saved for when Mike was doing something particularly stupid.
"Wha'?" Mike asked through a mouth full of PopTart.
"Where do I even start? Since I'm writing your checks I know for a fact you get paid enough to get yourself a new couch, or better yet a new apartment. Oh, and also an iron. And this?" He snatched the PopTart out of Mike's mouth and tossed it into the trashcan across the kitchen in a perfect shot, "What are you five?"
"Hey I was eating that!" Mike protested following Harvey out the door to where Ray was waiting.
"That is exactly the problem."
"I'll have you know PopTarts are a staple breakfast food for the American family."
"For the children of the American family, the adults eat real food."
"Don't be jealous I can eat what I want and still look this good," Mike mocked, raising his eyebrows.
Harvey just rolled his eyes, "You caught me. I'm jealous of your life. Although.. I guess there is one thing you have going for you, you do get to spend a lot of time with me."
Harvey had chosen an upscale bar that was nice enough to feel impressive, but also had comfortable seating and music quiet enough to have a conversation. They only waited a couple minutes at the bar before two women hesitantly approached. One was burnette and maybe a few years younger than Harvey. She was petite, with delicate features made even more attractive by the traces of laughter still on her face from some joke shared between them on their entrance. The younger woman, about Mike's age, could only be described as stunning. She had dark skin, black wavy hair pulled over one shoulder, and large deep brown eyes.
"Harvey and Michael?" the older woman asked.
"Call me Mike," he corrected, holding out his hand.
"I'm Charli, and this is Rhea." She ignored Mike's outstretched hand and moved in to hug them each. "You two were easy to find, just had to look for the most handsome men in the room."
Harvey inwardly groaned. He mentally reminded himself to tell Mike 'I told you so' once they got through this night of fending off advances and trying to maintain the professional boundaries this woman clearly had no sense of. He convinced himself it was annoying, but honestly it had been awhile since he had gone out, and knowing women were still interested was a nice ego boost.
"So I hear you all are new to town?" he asked politely leading them through the bar. When he made it to an empty booth he stepped aside to allow Charli to sit down first. To his surprise, Rhea followed and took the seat next to her friend. Well, at least he wouldn't have to worry about wandering hands, he thought sitting next to Mike.
"Yes," Rhea answered, "we had been living in Florida but I had always loved visits to the city, and Charli kept talking about being closer to family. Our lease was up at our condo so we just kind of moved on a whim." As she was talking she reached up and covered Charli's hand with her own.
The conversation veered towards jobs as the women discussed their careers in the banking industry and Mike and Harvey told them about their jobs at Pearson Specter. As the talking continued Harvey found that he was actually enjoying their company and having a pleasant start to the evening. He was intrigued by the depth of their friendship, not just that they had moved across the country together, but the openness to their smiles when they looked at each other and the way Rhea nestled into Charli's side when a draft made her cold. The way the fed off each other in conversation and seemed to always know what the other was going to say before she said it reminded him of he and Mike.
Mike took advantage of a pause in Charli's story of how she and Rhea met to clear his throat,
"Uhm sorry to do this, but I actually have to deal with something for a client really quickly, Harvey would you mind making a quick call to Mr. Hicks with me?" he asked giving Harvey a pointed look.
Harvey was confused, "I'm not working on a case with a Hicks, you must be doing that one on your own, you don't need me to baby you still do you?"
"Come to think of it, it can wait until the morning," he said settling back into his seat and looking at Harvey with an amusement that just confused him more.
"So anyway, that was the moment I knew I had to have this girl in my life. I went up to her, a complete stranger and told her 'I'm Charli, and I think we're meant to be.' Somehow she didn't only not run away but she let me talk her into a coffee date. Little did she know she would never be rid of me." Rhea smiled wide at her and, with Harvey staring on wide eyed, gave her a tender kiss on the lips. Harvey was uneasy, obviously not at the two of them as a couple, but at how ridiculously wrong he had been. He prided himself on his ability to read people, but this time he was so far off the mark it was laughable. Mike's entertained smirk next to him after he had obviously tried to warn him didn't help. He lifted his drink to cover his shock as Rhea turned back towards them,
"But that's enough about us. How long have the two of you been together?" Harvey choked on his scotch, having a full blown coughing fit before he could breathe again. The smirk had dropped off Mike's face, defaulting to the practiced poker face used in depositions.
"Sorry, just went down the wrong tube," Harvey covered, still clearing his throat. "Tell you what, why don't Mike and I go get you ladies another round of drinks before starting in on us?" He was practically shoving Mike out of the booth before he was even done with his sentence. As soon as they were out of earshot Harvey hissed, "what the hell did you get us into?" Mike just raised both his hands and shrugged in a gesture of innocence that said he was just as blindsided by the turn of events as Harvey. "Well I'm texting Donna to have her call with an emergency in ten minutes."
"You can't do that. They will see right through it and Mr. 'trust is built on human connection' will never sign us. There has to be a better way out."
The bartender came with four drinks for them. "Yeah, I'm gunna need another," Harvey told him dryly before picking his up and finishing it in one swallow. "Well," he said to Mike, "if you're really concerned about the client, the best way out is always through."
"I never considered you to be much of a Frost man."
Harvey pinched his eyebrows in confusion.
"Right, because you're not. Sorry I momentarily forgot the only quotes you know are ones that don't actually involve you reading anything. But wait, what do you mean?"
At that, Harvey broke into one of his rare full smiles that made his eyes wrinkle and his face light up. He handed Mike the tray of drinks and threw his arm around his shoulders, leading him back to the booth, "Well come on boyfriend, lets tell them how we met."
"You're not serious?"
"Oh, I would never joke about our love," he said with mock sincerity right before they got back to the table.
"Sorry about the wait, where were we?" Harvey asked the women.
"You were going to tell us the story of how you got together."
"Ah right, I just love this story. We actually worked together for a couple of years before anything happened between us. To be honest, I hired him mostly out of pity. He just looked at me with these big blue puppy dog eyes that I couldn't resist." As he was talking he reached out and took one of Mike's hands in his, surprised by how soft his skin was.
Mike and Harvey's relationship had always been fueled by a similar wit and friendly competition. Whenever they were together, things automatically became an unspoken contest, and this time was no different. There was no way Mike was backing down from Harvey's clear challenge. He moved his second hand so he now held Harvey's hand in both of his own, smoothly grazing his thumb up and down the side of Harvey's palm.
"And what he means by that," Mike took over the story, "is that he was barely getting by without me and was desperate for my help." Harvey dramatically rolled his eyes, a move that was somewhat invalidated by the large grin on his face. "But I had no idea that all those years poor Harvey was just pining after me. He kept making excuses for us to work together. I mean it was either that or a senior partner really did need a first year associate to close all his cases for him.."
"Mh-mmm" Harvey said noncommittally, moving his free hand to run back and forth over Mike's forearm. "He was always so cute when he would come up with an idea, how could I not? I could never stay mad at him, even when he was constantly getting us into trouble I had to brilliantly find a way out of."
Mike scooted closer on the bench to Harvey so their entire bodies from their shoulders to their toes were pressed against one another. "And after years of him being sad and lonely-"
"I decided to make my move," Harvey interrupted before Mike could paint too desperate a picture. "One night when we were both leaving from working late in the office I grabbed his arm, pushed him against the wall, and kissed him."
"And then I filed a sexual harassment claim against him," Mike said obviously joking.
"Well he could have, it wasn't my brightest idea. But no, more like then he wouldn't leave my side."
"You're forgetting the part where I totally melted your heart of stone."
Harvey just smiled and put an arm around Mike's shoulders, somehow managing to pull him closer. "And I put up with your terrible sense of fashion and god awful movie preferences."
"Yes well at least I eat real food. You should see how much sugar this man eats, I still can't get him to give up his Lucky Charms for breakfast or his stash of PopTarts in his desk, no matter how many times I tell him those are for kids." Harvey hid his laughter as a cough.
"And the people at the office were fine with it? I mean it's not often you hear about openly out corporate lawyers?" Rhea's voice almost startled Mike, he had been so focused on their game he practically forget the women were there.
"Oh well that was a bit tricky," Mike said. "We tried to hide it but Mr. Handsy over here," he gave Harvey a disapproving look, "wasn't great at keeping secrets. He couldn't help but gush to his best friend Louis." This time Harvey couldn't help but laugh. Mike moved one hand down to Harvey's thigh under the table.
"Sorry, I'm just picturing, well remembering," he corrected, "Louis's face when I told him. I had never dated a man before, aside from the obvious experimenting in college, so he was a bit shocked."
"But of course he was over the moon," Mike added his lip twitching. "He was really very supportive with absolutely no doubts or frustrations and kept the secret completely to himself." Mike paused, suppressing a smile imagining what Louis would actually do if he thought he and Harvey were together. "A lot of the office knows now. We don't necessarily advertise it but we don't hide it either." Harvey squeezed Mike's shoulder in a kind of half hug and looked at him with his best loving smile, keeping eye contact for long enough he should have felt uncomfortable.
"Well I think it's great," Charli chimed in.
"Yeah, me too," Harvey said without a hint of humor in his voice, still looking straight at Mike, "Mike's changed my life."
The evening had passed in much the same manner, with both Harvey and Mike struggling to one up the other in slightly barbed compliments and pushing the boundaries of how far each would go. Both couples ended up enjoying themselves, the women none the wiser, before Charli thanked them for making them feel welcome in the city and assuring them she would tell her father what a delight they were.
Since they were a only a few blocks from the office they decided to walk there to pick up a few files and have Ray pick them up from there.
Once again walking shoulder to shoulder down the New York streets Harvey said, "I told you that would be a bad idea."
"Mhmm, a bad idea that just made you a hell of a lot of money. You know you loved it. Also though, experimenting in college?" he raised his eyebrows in a question.
"You know, if Louis ever finds out you called him my best friend I will never hear the end of it right?" he said ignoring the question.
"Yeah well I just can't believe you insulted my movie preferences." He placed his hand over his heart and flinched in mock injury, "you love my movie quotes." He paused for a beat, "So, we agree to never speak of this again?"
Harvey chuckled and slapped Mike on the shoulder, letting his hand rest there for a moment. After spending the evening with their hands all over each other, casual touches no longer felt unnatural.
"You wish."