15. First Dates
Canon. Donna and Harvey's teen daughter asks about their first date.
"Where did you take mom on your first date?"
The question catches Harvey off guard, and he stops stirring the pot of sauce he has on the stove and turns to face his teenage daughter.
From her seat at the kitchen table, she's smiling up at him over her homework. He loves that she has Donna's smile.
"Where is this coming from?" he asks.
"Morgan got asked on a date by a guy in our class and he's taking her to the Olive Garden."
"I bet Mike's loving that," he snickers, picturing his best friends reaction when some young punk showed up at his door to pick up his daughter. "Aren't you too young to date?"
"Daaad, I'm almost sixteen."
"Exactly. Too young."
He watches as his daughter rolls her eyes and smirks. He loved that he got to embarrass her.
"So, where did you take mom?"
He pauses, runs his hand over his face and resumes stirring before answering. "It's complicated."
"Why?"
"Well, you know that your mom and I were friends for a long time."
"Yeah, but you took her on a first date, right?"
"I took her on several," he smiles. He and Donna had discussed the very same topic when they first got together. What was their first date? They'd spent so many years toeing at the thin line that separated friendship and more and he'd never officially asked Donna on a date. Sure, he considered that night after the trial the "official" start of their relationship, but they fell into a romantic relationship with such ease that the pressure and nerves that came with an official first date never happened.
"Your mother will tell you that I took her out to dinner, but that wasn't actually our first date."
"It wasn't?"
"Nope. On our first date we got coffee."
"You took mom out for coffee as a date?! Why does she think dinner was your first date then?"
"Well, your mother and I were supposed to go for dinner after work one night, as our first official date, but something came up and we had to reschedule for the next day. So, instead we went to get coffee at this little cart outside the office. We sat on a little old bench in the park across the street and just talked."
"That's so romantic."
"It was very romantic. She told me that she loved me on that park bench."
Harvey pauses, choosing to omit the fact that they'd slept together for the first time in twelve years the night before and that he'd heard Donna whisper the words when she thought he was sleeping; making their exchange on the park bench the second time she told him she loved him.
"She told you she loved you on your first date?!"
"To be fair, I told her I loved her before our first date."
"If a boy ever told me he loved me before taking me on a date, I'd say no to the date."
"I think you should say no to any boy that asks you on a date," Harvey smiles.
"Who's taking someone on a date?" Donna asks as she joins them in the kitchen.
"Morgan got asked on a date," Harvey explains after leaning over and stealing a kiss.
"And now dad is giving me the 'I'm too young to date lecture' but I don't think that's fair because he told you he loved you before your first date.
"Your father never has liked following the rules."