Mike Ross woke up happy.
He didn't open his eyes immediately. He just laid there in his bed, his breathing even, and let the atmosphere of the room soak through him. The near silence that was only interrupted by cars that would pass by under his window every now and then; the warmth that had made him discard his blanket during the night and was now lulling him in and the warmish yellow sunlight that shone through his closed eyelids.
After a while Mike opened his eyes and stared at the white ceiling. Yesterday had been an eventful evening. First there had been this woman – Dana – he had talked with. Mike hadn't lied to her when he confessed that he had a habit of talking to strangers that looked like they needed someone who would listen to them. For example there was Maria, the building´s cleaning lady who he helped fighting the deportation order that would have seen her sent back to Nicaragua where her family lived in poverty with her as only source of significant income.
Since then his floor was always extra clean and once a month Maria would clean his apartment for him as gesture of gratitude. Mike would always protest – he hadn't helped her expecting something in return – but try talking something out of a woman who was used to several nephews, nieces and siblings trying to make her do what they wanted.
So when Mike had seen Dana sitting on the stairs, completely out of place in her tailored clothing and with her manicured hands, looking completely desolated, he just couldn't walk by. The picture of her would have haunted him for days if he had taken the cowardly route out. So he sat down and let her dictate the pace of their talk. He had learned long ago that pestering someone who didn't want to talk was not the way to go. It would only make them close themselves off faster.
Mike´s heart had ached for her when she told him about her father´s death. Mike knew the pain of losing one´s parents. He had lived through it when he had been eleven after all. But it didn't matter how old you were, losing someone you loved so dearly would always feel like the world had ended. Thus Mike hadn't given her his useless condolences.
Oh, how he had hated them back when he was still a child. How people who hadn't really known his parents would walk up to him, pet his hair or squeeze his cheek and tell him how sorry they were. They could simply drive home, back to their families and pretend that nothing happened while he had to go back into a house bereft of his parents, accompanied only by his grieving Grammy. So Mike hadn't said something like that to Dana.
Mike didn't really know why he had given her his number. Maybe it was because Dana looked like she was lonely. He could read people and he saw a good-looking, intelligent and ambitious woman who probably had a job where people termed each other 'allies', 'threats' and 'competition'. Not really an environment where lasting friendships were forged. Mike should know, he worked at Cadbury & Wakefield and out of the dozen of associates he had only two people he would call friends.
Dana could have thrown his number into the next garbage bin or already forgotten in existence. Or maybe she would call him one day and they would simply talk. Only time would tell, but Mike was looking forward to it.
With a smile Mike pushed himself up and sat on the edge of his bed. The other thing that happened yesterday was his second date with Harvey. The man was truly an enigma: attractive, charismatic, cunning, ambitious, but also ethical, caring and funny. Mike hadn't met many people who could match his sarcasm and his movie quotes, but Harvey managed both.
Mike was completely fine with simply letting himself be swept away by the currents, seeing where his kindling romance with Harvey would led to.
But now he had to make himself ready for the day.
Harvey Specter woke up thoughtful.
He didn't waste any time with staying in bed. He had people to meet, cases to win, money to make and Louis to harass. All things that didn't do themselves alone. There was no use in lying in bed and daydreaming when the real world was waiting outside, ready to be conquered by those who were ambitious enough.
Yet as he stood in front of his bedroom mirror and tied his tie – never a skinny one, never – he couldn't help but letting his mind wander back to the evening before, or rather to the person he had spent the evening with.
Harvey Specter didn't do relationships. That was something everyone that knew him could agree on. He had one-night stands, flings, friends with benefits and Scottie, but he never had a relationship that deserved that name. It suited him better that way. Relationships required commitment, trust and loyalty and Harvey didn't have much of the former two to give. The lesson his mother had taught him still had their effects on him.
Harvey couldn't imagine having another person in his life with whom he had to share everything. Who would invade his space with their belongings, who would want his attention when he simply wanted to be left alone, who he would have to take into consideration with every decision he had to make. A relationship would just restrict his freedom. He would have another person he would have to answer to. And Harvey valued his independence too much to give it up for anyone.
Relationships didn't last either. That was another lesson his environment had taught Harvey. His parents had seemed like the perfect couple – dedicated to each other, loving, compromising – until he found out that these things didn't apply to his mother. No matter where he looked, there was always a person who just had come out of a relationship and it was pathetic. The sobbing, the desperate phone calls, the begging and the morose mood that they brought everywhere they went. Harvey was aghast by all that and had long vowed to himself that he would never sink so low as to allow another person to have that kind of power over him. The only person Harvey Specter belonged to was himself and not some other.
But now Harvey doubted all those resolutions that had been part of his very being since he had been a young adult. When he looked at Mike there was this nagging voice in the back of his mind that urged him to make the leap – to take the risk – and simply explore what he could have with the younger man. There was this warm feeling that rushed through his body every time Mike looked at him with those sky-blue eyes of him, so full of warmth and mirth.
It was ridiculous, Harvey thought, he behaved like a teenage girl with its first crush on the captain of the football team. Yet he couldn't help but smile every time Mike send him a message that was both senseless and funny. He couldn't help but feel nervous every the second time they met and simultaneously so giddily happy when Mike finally appeared. It was like his body was pulled in thousand different directions and he wanted nothing but see where it would take him.
Harvey looked into the mirror. Staring back at him was the suave, charming and attractive lawyer who people wanted to have on their case and who the opposing council feared. It was the picture of himself that he projected into the world to make them think twice before trying to screw him over. It was his armour behind which he hid all those aspects of him that had no place in the cutthroat world that he navigated every day. It was the Casanova that flirted with everyone, had sex with women he didn't know and drove cars he didn't own.
Harvey stared at his reflection and thought that maybe Mike was worth taking that armour off, was worth showing the true Harvey Specter. He needed to think about that. No matter how emotional he was right now, he wouldn't take any risks without deliberating about it a great deal.
But now he was ready for the day.
Dana Scott didn't wake up at all.
She wasn't happy and neither was she thoughtful. She just sat there at her kitchen table and stared out of the window in front of her like she had for the whole night. The sun was just rising and dipped the skyline of New York in red and orange light, making it look like she was looking at a painting and not at a real city. The glass windows reflected the light and made it look like thousand sequins hung from the sky.
People said New York never slept and that was certainly true, but to Scottie it had always been dawn when the city was the most silent. Tourist had yet to leave their hotel rooms, the night shifts hadn't ended yet and the majority of people were still at home readying themselves for the day that was announced by the ray of lights that shone over the city.
If it was a normal day like any other Scottie would be amongst the thousand that were now heading out of their homes in order to travel to their jobs. But it wasn't a normal day, was it? At least not for her.
Scottie took a sip from her coffee and curled her lips in disgust when she noticed that it was cold. Yet she didn't bother to make a new one. Like she hadn't bothered to change out of her clothes. Like she hadn't bothered to make her hair and make-up. It was of no use anyway.
The piece of paper with Mike´s number laid on the table beside the coffee mug. Scottie had contemplated throwing it away, but every time she curled her fingers around the paper she just couldn't do it. So now it laid there innocently as if daring her to do something to it.
Scottie would have never thought it, but the talk with Mike truly had helped her. When she had come back yesterday, for the first time since she started living here the apartment had felt like home. Her father was dead and that was something that couldn't be so easily pushed away, but he had bought her this little flat just for herself and it was something that would stay with her as long as she wanted.
She had imagined her father wandering through the hallway into the kitchen, knowing that she couldn't cook even a little bit, continued into the living room, where he probably assumed that she would sit, sipping on a glass of wine after a long day of work. He had seen this apartment and had thought of her. And that was something she could find solace in.
And Mike was right, Scottie mused. Her father would be proud of her. At the end he may have been bedridden and could barely remember her, but in his clear moments he made always sure to let her know that. Mike just made her remember these moments.
Still, you couldn't rationalize pain away. That stinging that drove through her heart every time she thought of her father. Of the man he was and the man he had been at the end. But Mike had given her hope that one day that pain would turn bitter-sweet instead.
But there were still things she had to take care of. The distribution of her father´s possession and his funeral had to be organized. Scottie knew that there were some distant relatives, which she had seen maybe thrice in her whole life, to whom her father had bequeathed some of the things he knew she wouldn't have a purpose for. There wasn't much left anyway.
With shaking hands Scottie took her landline telephone.
She wasn't ready for the day.
"I thought it wouldn't take you so much time," Mike commented without looking up from the briefs he was currently going over. Katrina, who lingered on the doorway to his little office, pouted.
"How did you know it was me?" the blonde woman asked as she made her way to the front of Mike´s desk. Mike read the last sentence on the page and looked up. Today Katrina wore a white blouse and a black pencil skirt which gave off this 'I´m a business woman and you better respect me' vibe. The accompanying black high-heels only highlighted her slender legs and the various golden accessories – earrings, bracelets and necklace – added just enough colour to the outfit that it didn't appear prude. Her lips were painted in a decent red, her blond hair hung in waves over her shoulder and her green eyes pierced him with curiosity.
Mike and Katrina had both recognized on the first day they started working here that they were the only competition for each other. While Katrina may not have his eidetic memory she still was a legal genius and possessed the cunning that Mike was lacking. All the other associates weren't worth their notice and so they had struck a deal on their first week: They would both help each other and one day have their own names on the wall. In the beginning it had just been a Non-Aggression-Pact, but over the years it had turned into a solid friendship. They challenged each other and weren't afraid to call each other out on their bullshit. Mike had no doubt that Katrina was the next in line to become Senior Associate and he would use the clout he had to help her make it happen anyway.
"I guessed," Mike replied. Katrina heaved herself on his desk and crossed her legs so that Mike had no way of escaping.
"Spill," she commanded.
"I don't know what you mean," Mike said in mock-innocence which only made Katrina narrow her eyes at him.
"You know exactly what I mean, Mr. Wunderkind," she shot back.
"Wow, you really are curious when you have to resort to that name," Mike laughed at her. "But I guess I will indulge your curiosity."
"I´ve expected nothing less of you," Katrina replied benevolently like she was praising a small child who just had seen the error of his ways. "Now tell me: Did you do the dirty?"
"No!" Mike´s eyes nearly bulged out. "It was only our second date, if you count the day before when I saved him from being thrown out of the restaurant."
"I don't see the problem," Katrina commented. "I slept with François after knowing him for only one hour." Mike gave her his best 'are you serious' glare.
"He was a French tourist you picked up from Times Square," he said. "And you only slept with him because you have a thing for French."
"French dirty talk is the best dirty talk," Katrina replied. "And I can clearly remember that it was you who slept with his friend Marcel!"
"It definitely wasn't because I get off of French," Mike shot back, but Katrina just grinned at him.
"I was his 'le plus grand amour'," she said wistfully. "He was burning with 'passion semblable à celle de mille soleils'. 'J'ai toujours rêvé de rencontrer une femme comme toi,' he said to me. Isn´t that beautiful?" Mike just gaped at her.
"How do you remember that shit?" he asked incredulously.
"You´re just jealous you weren't praised for your beauty," Katrina replied. "Didn't Marcel tell you: 'je n'ai jamais vu une telle beauté de toute ma vie' as well?" Mike made a gagging noise.
"But you won´t distract me any longer," Katrina continued. "So just tell me everything!"
"It was great!" Mike said. "Harvey – he just knows so much? I have the feeling that with him there´s finally someone who gets me completely, you know? He doesn't look at me like I´m some weird firm mascot like Cadbury does. He takes everything I say serious. I don´t even notice time passing when I´m with him." Katrina just stared at him.
"Wow," she said after a while. "That was so much cornier than anything François ever said to me. You really are in love, aren´t you?"
"I don't know," Mike shrugged. Was he in love? He couldn't really answer that. "I´d like to see where this goes."
"Now I just have to tell him that I cut off his balls and feed it to his opposing council if he dares to break your heart," Katrina announced and walked out of his office.
"Wait, Katrina, you aren't really gonna do…" Mike shouted and ran after her.
"Harvey," Donna greeted him as he entered the floor of PH.
"Were you standing there the whole morning waiting for me?" Harvey asked and Donna just looked at him like he was an especially nerve-grating child.
"I have your mobile sending me a message when you enter the building," his secretary answered. "GPS is such a fine thing."
"Of course you have," Harvey replied incredulously. "I could list several laws and by-laws you´re violating with that. And now that you´ve told me there´s nothing that prevents me simply switch it off."
"Please," Donna laughed. "You don't even know how to change your ringtone; no snowball´s chance in hell that you´ll find the setting for GPS." Harvey wanted to retort something, but he couldn't think of something. As always Donna was right. Her smirk told him that she knew it as well. "But there actually is a reason why I ambushed you at the elevators. Jessica wants to see you." Harvey stopped in his tracks and turned to his secretary.
"Why does she want to see me?" he demanded to know. Donna just shrugged with her shoulders.
"I don't know," she confessed. "Have you been naughty?" Harvey shuddered.
"Please, don't say that word ever again," he said.
"Got it. I´ll put it on the same list as 'moisture', 'mankini' and 'duckface'," she quipped, putting particular stress on each of the three words. Harvey just gave her his best glare, which didn't really impress her.
"Better not let Jessica wait," she reminded him. Harvey sighed and turned around. Better see what he could do for Jessica before the woman came looking for him.