Synchronicity
Chapter Seven
Two weeks later
Rebecca walked down the street with Harvey. They had gone to dinner three blocks from his penthouse and were walking back.
"I still don't see why we couldn't have taken a cab or an Uber." He complained.
She looked over at him and smiled before looping her arm around his. "We didn't because it's only three blocks. That's not that far to walk."
"I shouldn't have given Ray off tonight. Then we could have already been back."
"You had to let him take the night off though." She reminded him as she laughed. "It was his 20th wedding anniversary. If you didn't give him tonight off, his wife might have come and murdered you in your sleep and you know it."
"Still…" He looked up at the sky. "It looks like it's going to start raining any minute and neither of us brought an umbrella."
She stopped walking and stared at him. "Ok, Harvey. What the hell is going on with you tonight?"
"Nothing." He stopped, faced her and shook his head. "Why?"
"You've been massively cranky all night and I'm started to get annoyed." She pointed out. "So just tell me. What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong."
There was obviously something wrong. He had been extremely quiet during dinner, except to complain about random things…the lighting in the restaurant was wrong, there wasn't enough ice in his water, there was too much pepper on his food. The complaints were petty and seemed to never end. "Is it work?"
"There's nothing wrong."
She hated to have to ask this next question but she did anyway. "Is it me? Did I do something?"
"No. Everything's good in every aspect of my life." He snapped. "So just drop it."
She could tell that he was getting annoyed with her now. A part of her wondered if she should just drop it. But then she realized she couldn't do that. "I know you want me to drop it but I can't." She sighed, seeing his roll his eyes. "Look, if you don't want to tell me what's going on and what the problem is that's fine. I'm a grown up and I can deal with that. But don't you dare lie to my face and tell me everything's fine when clearly you are upset about something. I'm not that stupid and it's rude to insult my intelligence like that."
She didn't say another word, choosing instead to continue walking towards his penthouse. Out of curiosity she counted the seconds until Harvey caught up to her. It took exactly fifteen seconds before he got in step with her. He surprised her by grabbing her hand.
"Wait." He called out.
She turned to look at him, prepared to still be mad. But he looked genuinely contrite so she softened her stance a little.
"I can't tell you everything that is going on." He started. "But I'm preoccupied with a problem about a work thing that I haven't fully solved yet. As you can see, it's making me grumpy."
"It's making you extremely grumpy." She chuckled.
"Ok. Extremely grumpy." He conceded.
"Ok." She nodded, kissing his cheek. "Thank you for telling me. I can respect that."
He chuckled. "Wait. So just like that everything is fine again?"
"Yeah." She smiled.
"But you were mad at me a moment ago."
She chuckled. "Yeah, I know. But I'm not mad anymore. Harvey, I understand that there are going to be things having to do with work that you can't tell me, just like there are things with my work that I can't really tell you. My issue came from the fact that you wouldn't even admit you were upset. You lied about it instead."
She moved to whisper in his ear. "Now that you have admitted it, we can focus on how I can make you feel less grumpy. I already have several ideas." It really didn't matter to her if he told her all of his work problems because she understood some things they wouldn't be able to share. But since she couldn't help him with his problem, she would try to help by distracting him.
He smirked. "Really?"
"Really." She was about to say something else when there was a huge boom of thunder, followed by a downpour.
"I told you it was going to rain." He chided her with a smile on his face. "We're only about a block away. We should hurry and get out of the rain."
She twirled around, letting the rain soak her more before going over and kissing him. "But I thought you liked it when I was wet."
He chuckled and grabbed her hand. "You're going to be the death of me. C'mon. Let's get back to my place and get out of this weather."
"It's just rain." She laughed.
"If you want, you can grab some of my clothes and I can put yours in the dryer." He offered as they walked down his hallway.
"Thank you. That would be nice." She smiled.
He unlocked the door to his penthouse and saw her push her way through first. They were both completely soaked from the rain. While he wasn't happy about it, she seemed thrilled. She walked down the hallway, slipping off her shoes as she walked. Then he saw her throw her purse onto the counter. He smirked as he watched with amusement.
The next thing she did was unzip her skirt and slowly shimmy out of it. The skirt got left where she was standing before she continued towards the bedroom. She was unbuttoning her blouse as she walked. Without looking back she let the blouse fall to the floor. Briefly he wondered just how much she was going to take off considering she only had underwear on now. This must have been one of her ideas to make him feel less grumpy. Maybe he would have to be grumpy more often.
"Am I supposed to clean up after you now?" He teased causing her to turn around and look at him.
"You could…" She trailed off, reaching behind her for the clasp on her bra. "Or you could just follow me to the bedroom and start getting out of your wet clothes too. It's your choice." She then dropped the bra on the floor.
He moved to follow her but his phone started to ring. He sighed as he pulled it out and saw the caller id. "It's Jessica. I have to take this."
"Ok." She winked with a smirk. "That just means I get free reign over picking what shirt of yours I wear."
He chuckled and watched her disappear into the bedroom before answering the call.
"Harvey, where are you on the Mike situation?" Jessica said, forgoing a greeting.
"I'm still waiting on Lola to let me know how she is doing with her project." He explained. There was someone getting suspicious about Mike and they needed to cover their tracks before they all got exposed.
"Well hopefully she gets it done soon or else we are going to be in a lot of trouble."
"I know." He sighed. "But I'm on top of things. Trust me."
"Trusting you got me into this situation in the first place." She reminded him. "Just get it done Harvey. I'm not going down for your lapse in judgment."
Jessica then hung up on him. Lola would come through for them and create a better digital trail to cover Mike's tracks. She had to. Everything was riding on it. Unfortunately there wasn't anything he could do now was wait.
He put his phone down on the table next to the couch and headed into his bedroom. He was hoping that Rebecca was still practically naked but unfortunately she was slipping on a shirt. "Hey…"
She turned around to show that she had picked his Harvard t-shirt. "What do you think?"
"I think you're wearing my favorite shirt." He started to take off his wet clothes, starting with his jacket.
"I know it's your favorite. It's the only shirt I've seen you wear more than once." She smirked, coming over to help him take off his tie. "Why do you think I chose it?"
He chuckled, watching her work on the buttons of his shirt. The feel of her warm hands on his chest as she slowly slid the wet garment off excited him almost as much as the sight of her in his shirt. He still didn't like seeing women wear his clothes, but he was willing to make an exception for her. Everything she wore of his made her look like a goddess.
By now she had moved to his belt and was pulling it through all of the loops. Then she pressed herself up against his body as her hands worked to unbutton his pants.
"Would you like to get out of your wet clothes and into something else that is wet?" She whispered in his ear.
He didn't bother replying. She was taking her time and being too slow taking off his clothes so he moved back and quickly got the bottom half of his clothes off. Then he picked her up and gently pushed her on to the bed.
About an hour later they were laying on the couch in the living room. He had made a fire and they were having a drink. He had his feet up on the coffee table and she was nestled on his side.
"I hope you know that I'm commandeering this shirt." She told him, taking a drink. "It's officially mine now."
He chuckled. "Oh yeah? Who said you could do that?"
"No one." She turned to look at him. "That's the whole point of commandeering it. Besides, don't you know by now that I take what I want?"
"And you want my shirt?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "I do."
"What if I say no?" He was amused by this conversation.
"You could say no, but I won't listen." She told him, setting her drink on the coffee table. Then she moved to straddle his lap. "I know your rule about not having women wear your clothes. But something tells me that deep down, you like seeing me in your shirt. Am I wrong?"
"You're not wrong."
"So then it's settled. This shirt is now mine." She smirked, leaning in to kiss him.
At that moment, his phone rang. "I need to take this."
"Is it Jessica again?" She asked as she got off of his lap and sat on the other side of the couch.
He looked at the caller id and saw it was Lola's number. "Yeah. I'm going to take it on the balcony."
"Ok."
As he walked out to the balcony, he felt bad about lying to her about who the caller was, but he couldn't tell her about Lola without telling her everything. And he definitely wasn't going to do that.
"It's done." Lola said.
"Already?" He asked.
"Yeah. I'm just that good." She boasted. "Everything will show that Mike went to Harvard. There are records everywhere now that will corroborate his story, not just in the Harvard database."
"Thank you Lola. I really appreciate it." He said, meaning every word.
"You're welcome. Tell Mike he owes me one now." She said before hanging up.
He quickly sent a text to Jessica, Louis, Mike and Donna letting them know that it was done and everything was fine now. He knew that since Mike lived with Rachel he could take care of telling her. With a smile on his face he went back inside so he could get back to Rebecca. Glancing at the couch he saw that she had stretched out and fallen asleep.
He grinned before gently picking her up to take her back to his bed. Once she was in his arms she made a contented sighing noise and cuddled closer to him. He looked down at her and realized she was beginning to mean something to him. She was supposed to just be someone he spent time with and had some fun with.
This was the first time he realized he might be in over his head with her. They had spent every night together for the past two weeks. He had her phone number programmed into his speed dial. And thoughts of her infiltrated his mind at work. He was starting to really care about her. That thought left him both amused and petrified at the same time.
