He knows he shouldn't indulge the kid the way he does, but the thing is, sometimes he just can't help himself. Because when Mike looks at him with those eyes that are blue just like the ocean, he just folds, no matter how strong he tries to stay or how hard he had previously put his foot down.

Like when Mike had come strolling, yes, strolling into his office, because apparently knocking on doors was a concept that perpetually eluded Mike. Harvey probably at that point should have just told him to get out, especially when his opening words had been 'Hardman is awesome', that should have been enough to get him kicked out on principle alone.

Instead Mike makes himself comfortable in the chair across from Harvey's desk and tells Harvey all about the pineapple's life story, which Harvey finds almost amusing because if Mike can't even managing investing himself into caring about the life story of a pineapple, he'll never be able to stop doing it with client's.

Then Mike offers him the pineapple, and this is where that not indulging Mike part comes into play.

"I don't want it."

Of course, Mike doesn't just accept that as a final answer. "Come on, are you serious? I know it's got a rough exterior but it's all sweet on the inside, I promise."

Harvey finds himself feeling oddly insulted by that particular analogy. He's ready to refuse again. But then Mike does this little voice and this whole 'Come on, Harvey. I love you', and it's so stupid and it doesn't mean anything, but god damn it, the pineapple is in his hand before he even realizes it and Mike's right, it is spectacular.

Harvey then watches as Mike grabs the pineapple back from him and takes a bite from it. He catches his eyes lingering on Mike's mouth a little too long and tries to snap himself back into Harvey Specter mode by giving Mike a speech about how ridiculous his suggestion of choosing Hardman over him and Jessica is.

Mike gets the point quickly, though in all fairness Harvey knew that it was a point that Mike already knew. Mike gathers his pineapple and starts to head for the door where Harvey stops him momentarily to give him some research to do.


Harvey finds himself thinking about Mike more than usual throughout the day. Maybe it's the fact that he'd let Mike talk him into something ridiculous that morning. Maybe it was the fact that Mike had said I love you to him. Of course, Mike was being well, Mike and pretending to be a pineapple when he did it, but Harvey couldn't stop thinking about how nice it felt to hear those words. Or hell, maybe it was just the taste of pineapple lingering on his tongue, knowing that's the exact way Mike's mouth would taste if he were to kiss him.

Harvey was completely distracted by these thoughts about Mike and he knew he had to shake them quickly.

He went out and grabbed a cup of coffee from the street vendor closest to him. He normally didn't take milk in his coffee, but he added a ridiculous amount of it in order to cool the coffee as quickly as possible before downing it. He needed to get the taste of pineapple out of his mouth.

"Getting your own coffee now? Isn't that beneath you?"

"Jesus," Harvey said as he spun around to face the voice. "Keep following me and I'm going to be forced to get a restraining order."

"All right, first of all, wasn't following you. Secondly, why are you so jumpy?"

"I'm not jumpy..I just..you know what, I don't have time to explain myself to you. What do you want from me?"

"Wanted to give you this," Mike said, holding up a manila folder. "All the information you need for your lunch date."

"It's lunch. Not a date," Harvey corrected as he grabbed the folder from Mike's hand.

"Really? I thought he'd be your type. I mean he does wear a bow tie."

"Very funny." Harvey rolled his eyes. "Don't you have work to do? Because if not, I'm sure I can get Louis to give you something."

"You wouldn't really do that to me, would you?"

Harvey just shoots Mike a look. Mike gets his answer.

"All right, all right. I'm going. Have fun on your date."


Eventually the day winds down, and Harvey is able to go home. Mike talking about dates ends up giving Harvey the idea to set up a date, because maybe that's exactly what he needs to get Mike off of his mind.

He's definitely not expecting Mike to show up at his front door as he's almost ready to head out. Mike, as usual, walks right through his front door, doesn't even wait for an invite, not that Harvey would have readily given him one.

Harvey has to mentally roll his eyes the moment he starts talking about Rachel. It's not that Harvey cares who Mike dates. He definitely doesn't. Okay, so maybe he cares. Just a little bit.

And then when Mike says that he's going to tell Rachel, Harvey sort of feels the odd sensation that he's been sucker punched in the gut. Because he's put not only his ass on the line, but he also had to go against Jessica and drag her into all of this, all so he could protect Mike and protect what they have.

"You want to take down the firm, Mike? So you can get laid?" Harvey knows those words are going to sting Mike when he says them, because he knows Mike and he's not that kind of person. By the shocked look on Mike's face, it looks like he was right.

"Hey maybe for you relationships are all about getting laid, but not for me. I actually care about her," Mike argues back.

Of course, Harvey can't stop himself from bringing up Jenny and how that didn't work out for Mike. And it's really just turned into a shouting match at this point.

Harvey doesn't plan on stopping arguing with Mike until he gets the last word in, the only thing was, usually getting the last word in makes him feel better. Like he'd somehow won the argument. However saying "you tell her and you're done" made him feel awful after saying it, and he couldn't imagine how Mike must have felt having to hear it.

Mike doesn't respond to it, just looks at him, hurt written all over his face. Like he couldn't believe that Harvey of all people had just threatened to take his dream away from him and had been completely serious about it.


Harvey wasn't able to get much sleep, so he's up early trying to replace the lost hours of sleep with caffeine. He's surprised by the knock on the door. Almost hesitant to go answer it because he thinks it's Mike. Instead, it's Jessica, which isn't much better of an option, because he knows in the back of his mind that nothing good can come of it.

Of course, he's right. Nothing good comes of the conversation, as Jessica wants him to tank the deal. Harvey's left to mentally wrestle with what she told him to do and what he had planned to do for the rest of the day.

He doesn't see Mike until that afternoon, about five minutes before he has to meet with the client. He can feel some tension between them, and it doesn't sit well with him. He almost wants to apologize just to make it go away.

"Jessica told me to tank the deal."

"Sucks doesn't it? Being told what to do. What not to do."

"What are you going to do about what we talked about?" Harvey asks, but he knows the answer. He knows what Mike is going to do just by the look on his face.

Even after he watches Harvey directly go against Jessica's orders, he still knows that Mike is going to do the right thing. Because he's Mike, and that's just what Mike does.

Harvey finds Mike in the file room a few hours later. He really just wants to make sure that he's okay. That they were okay. Mike's half-hearted insults he's throwing at Harvey are an indicator that he did the right thing and broke it off with Rachel, just like he knew he was. Harvey finds himself feeling happy about it, which also makes him feel guilty because Mike seems so sad.

"You know I was right," Harvey says as he watches Mike gather his things up off the desk.

Mike stops in front of Harvey and makes eye contact with him, pausing a moment before speaking. "Doesn't make it any better."

Mike goes to brush past Harvey and Harvey grabs him by the arm, "Mike..wait," he says pulling him towards his own body.

"What do you want from me?" Mike's mere inches from Harvey, and he has no choice but to look up into Harvey's eyes.

Harvey kisses Mike. It wasn't his intention, but it happens. Harvey kisses him gently, carefully, but with an unyielding need underneath it all that makes Mike groan into his mouth with desperation and the need for more.

Mike moves his hand up and grips a fistful of Harvey's suit jacket, closing his eyes and holding Harvey in place. It feels like everything is suddenly moving in slow motion and that the world begins and ends with this kiss.

When they break apart, neither of them can bring themselves to say anything right away. They just let their breathing be the only sound filling the room. Mike's hands are still full of fabric, and Harvey tries to steady his breathing hoping Mike can't feel the way his heart his pounding hard up against his chest.

"Harvey," Mike finally manages to say.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.."

Mike finally releases his grip from Harvey. "Why now?"

"I…don't know."

"No, no, you do know. You plan everything, Harvey. You are a lawyer. You are meticulous about the things you do and why and when you do them, so why now?"

"Not when it comes to you I don't. Because the fact is, you have been throwing me off since the day I met you. Jesus, Mike. You got me to hire you and risk this job that I love more than anything for you. So no, I don't know why I kissed you just now other than the fact that it's been driving me crazy not to."

"Where do we go from here?"

"I say we go wherever this thing takes us," Harvey says, stepping forward and leaning in and kissing Mike softly, gently tugging at his bottom lip as they separated once more.

"But..what do I tell Rachel… about us?"

"Look, we don't have to tell anybody anything. Not right away at least. We can just cross that bridge when we get to it. Besides, we're already keeping a secret, what's one more?"

Mike takes a moment to attempt to process it all. He had wanted Harvey to kiss him since, well, he would have probably kissed him based on sheer fact that he had took a chance on him and hired him in the first place. But he'd never not wanted Harvey, that was never the issue stopping them, he just always assumed that Harvey wasn't interested in him like that. Or that he was somebody who was unattainable.

Now that he apparently wasn't unattainable, it changes everything.

"I always knew, you know."

"Always knew what?"

"That you had it bad for me," Mike says, a smile now firmly planted on his face.

"Is that so?"

"Well, I mean you did practically kiss me yesterday."

"Definitely don't recall that happening."

"With the pineapple. You took a bite off the pineapple I was eating. I mean, that's a kiss by proxy."

"Nice try, I took a bite of the pineapple before you had taken a bite, and then you took a bite out of it after me. Therefore, technically, you indirectly kissed me first."

"But you knew I was going to eat off of it."

"How could I possibly know that?"

"You're Harvey Specter, you know everything. Right?"

"Can't disagree with you there. On a semi-related note..are you hungry?"

"Starving. Red Bull is a lot less filling than one would think."

"Let's go grab dinner somewhere."

"I think we should just go back to your place. Pizza. Ordered in," Mike suggested.

"I like the way you think."

"That is why you hired me."

Harvey answered the door to his condo, shirt halfway unbuttoned, hair mussed up and sticking every which way. He took the pizza box from the delivery guy, handed him an entirely generous tip, thanked him, and quickly closed the door behind him.

"Pizza's here," he yelled out loud enough for it to echo through the condo.

"Where did my tie go?"

"Hopefully lost and never to be found again," Harvey replied with a smile as he glanced up to see Mike approaching him, buttoning his buttons as he did so. Their make-out session had gotten a little intense to say the least.

"That smells amazing," Mike said, choosing to ignore Harvey's remark about his tie.

Harvey grabbed plates from the cupboard and served up a slice for each of them. It was Hawaiian. Pineapples and ham, it's not what Harvey would normally order, but it seemed appropriate given the situation. And Mike had gotten a kick out of it when Harvey had suggested it.


They spent the rest of the night on the couch together, wrapped up in conversation, and even more wrapped up in each other. They had stopped paying attention to the movie they were watching hours ago, as they found their conversation with each other to be much more interesting.

They talked about them. Talked about the future, and everything in between. It felt right. Like it's how things should have always been. How things were always going to be. Of course, they didn't know what the future held, but they knew that together, as one, there wasn't anything they wouldn't be able to take on.