"Who's this?" Donna had just gotten back from rehearsal, tossing her keys onto the counter and kicking off her shoes, her mouth still buried in her scarf, having wrapped her coat just a bit tighter on the walk home, the winter air biting at her cheeks the whole way home, when her phone had rung.
"Is that how you answer the phone?" She can hear a huff of a laugh, as if actually appalled, on the other end of the line, and she bites back a smile. Her cheeks are painted with a scarlet hue, and although she'd like to blame the weather, she knows it's the voice on the other end that has warming.
"See, I told you you don't want me working for you," she teases.
"You know I don't have to pay if you're the one that brings it up, right?" He can't see her rolling her eyes, but she hopes he's imagining it.
"Why are you calling, Harvey? Miss me that much this week?" When they'd exchanged numbers, she hadn't really expected him to call her. Ever. In fact, she'd been the one that had scribbled her number on his hand, much to his horror. She'd thought for sure he'd scrubbed the ink off immediately, but apparently not before saving it somewhere else.
"No."
"Admit it, you were just so overcome with emotion, you had to call me, profess your undying love for me," she exaggerates, plopping down onto her couch, pulling her feet underneath her, trying to warm up her toes.
"I'm hanging up," he threatens, but she knows he's only half kidding. However, she treads lightly, not wanting to scare him off when he was the one that had sought her out.
"No, you're not."
She waits a beat, hearing him breathe into the phone, like he's trying to make her think he's actually hung up.
"No, I'm not," he sighs, and she imagines him leaning forward on his couch, his mock frustration with her earning a hunched figure, a drink probably held in his free hand, sleeves rolled up, tie discarded, and a discernible grin plastered on his face.
"So…what's up?" She asks, biting her lip trying to figure out why he'd called.
"Just…watching the game." It's difficult to hear the background with the sounds of the city drowning out much of everything from her window, but she swears her regular hadn't mentioned a baseball game when he'd popped by that afternoon.
"What, you kicked your hot date out earlier than usual?" And she wants to smack herself for constantly trying to act like it didn't bother her, but part of her hopes he doesn't go into detail or that he denies the accusation altogether, and spares her the thought of him having picked up someone on a Thursday night, despite her being the one to tease him about it in the first place.
"Nah, she's asleep right now," his says, and Donna hopes he doesn't hear her heart sink at the thought.
"Wow, over so soon and in bed before nine?" She nearly chokes out, hoping if she keeps up with the banter, he won't be able to see right through her.
"You think you're funny." And she can just see him narrowing his eyes at her in that way that she knows he's annoyed, but she just smiles at him.
"I know I'm funny," she counters in a sing-song voice that drives him crazy. "Now, tell me, have you always been such a nerd?"
"Excuse me?" And she snorts into the phone picturing him, his eyes going big, confused at her accusation.
"You just referred to Survivor as 'the game', I don't know what's funnier, that you were trying to keep it a secret or that you actually refer to it as that," she smirks, the feeling of knowing more about him than he'd like her to never getting old.
"For your information, it is a game," he states.
She adjusts on the couch, her face refusing to lose the smile now playing on her lips, tucking this fact about him into the vault of secrets he tries to keep locked away from everyone.
"Mhmm, and tell me, are you taking notes on future strategies to use in court," she teases, but she knows full well that it's absolutely this aspect of 'the game' that he likes the most without him even having to tell her.
"Now I'm really hanging up," he warns, but she can hear the smile in her voice that someone gets him.
"Careful, you might wake your guest," she baits.
"Donna, we both know there's not a woman here right now," he says so matter of factly, and she swallows back what he means by that.
"So what you're saying is you called just because." But there's no teasing to her statement this time and she closes her eyes at the almost whisper of a thought that perhaps he hadn't had a reason, but just wanted to hear her voice.
"Yeah, I guess I did."
"So, how long have you worked here?" Donna keeps from rolling her eyes, never more annoyed than when customers ask her personal questions they usually use to then shame her for her life's choices.
"A long time," she responds, hoping the subject will be dropped. But it never is, they never sense how uncomfortable it makes her, they just continue demanding answers they've no business knowing.
"But how many years would you say?" Donna pretends to busy herself with her notepad, having had enough of this smarmy man in his suit. His questions suggest perhaps he's been coming here a while to have noticed her, but she can't recall having served him before.
"I don't know, I don't keep track," she sighs, about to walk off.
"Eight? Nine?" She narrows her eyes this time, his persistence raising her suspicions.
"Sure," she snaps, not really caring what she's agreeing to, anything to make this conversation end, and she turns to leave.
"And how long have you known Harvey Specter?" She slowly turns back around, biting her lip.
"Excuse me?"
"You know him, arrogant lawyer, comes here most days, only sits in your section," he raises his brow, as if he's backed her into some corner.
"I've a lot of regulars," she counters, crossing her arms.
"Well, if you happen to remember, give me a call," he says, standing up to hand her his card. She hesitates a moment, but then decides taking the card might expedite his departure.
As soon as he leaves, she walks back to the kitchen. "Harold, cover my tables for a second," she asks, pulling out her phone, checking to make sure her manager isn't around.
Some guy was here asking about you. Travis Tanner. A real dick.
She hits send and tucks her phone back in her apron, hoping that Harvey actually checks his phone before the end of the day this time.
Donna gets a response before she even makes it back to her tables.
I'll take care of it.
The heat feels stifling in her apartment, opening the freezer, she's tempted to climb in. Grabbing her pint of Chunky Monkey, she heads back to her couch, pressing the container against her chest, groaning at the relief, her curls bouncing in their ponytail as she flops onto the couch.
Popping the top of the ice cream, she settles it next to her leg, resting on the couch, so she can open her book back to the page she'd left it on. Her spoon working overtime as a bookmark, being the closest object available, and digs into her frozen treat, as she settles back in with her fictional friends.
Licking her spoon, she hears her phone ring, and she blindly reaches for it without looking up from her page.
"This better be important, things are just getting good with this book," she warns, hesitant to put her makeshift bookmark back into place.
"Donna," she hears on the other end, and she can feel the anxiety radiating through the phone.
"Hey, what happened?" She asks, dropping her book down without even marking her place, her ice cream toppling over, and she scrambles to pick it up, nearly tripping over her own coffee table.
"I don't want to talk about it," he bites out, and she knows his anger is just attempting to cover for the anxiety, so she doesn't comment on his tone. "He shouldn't be bothering you anymore."
"Okay," she breathes out, not knowing what he's done to ensure that, but she's grateful that she doesn't have to see him again, and hadn't helped him in whatever vendetta he clearly had against Harvey.
She can hear him sitting down, an exhausted sigh escaping him, but no words.
They sit in silence for well over a minute, his breathing evening out at some point, and she wonders if he's fallen asleep.
"Harvey, do you want me to let you go?" She gently whispers, not wanting to wake him up if he was in fact asleep.
"No," he mumbles, taking a deep breath.
"Is it a 'just because' night?" She asks, the phrase having morphed into something they'd become familiar with, when Harvey just needed to hear her voice, know someone was there. But he'd never admit that, so they'd coined it into something almost careless, just because. Sometimes it was Donna rambling about her childhood, sometimes it was turning on Survivor, making bets on who would get voted off that episode, and other times it was like this. When the anxiety was too much, and just sitting in silence, listening to the presence of someone else was enough until one or both of them fell asleep to the even breathing of the other.
A regular occurrence that further blurred the lines of their relationship.
"Yeah.