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Conventional wisdom has it that once two lawyers walk into a bar, hilarity ensues. Mike Ross, however, was never one to listen to words of wisdom. Hence, as he rode the elevator to a bar on the 26th floor of the Beekman Tower, Harvey Specter at his side, he was blissfully unsuspecting.
They had just signed another client, and apparently, Harvey was feeling generous. Other than that, Mike would be hard-pressed to explain how he ended up in his company. The establishment they just entered had a quiet, understated sophistication to it. It looked expensive, but tastefully so, with tall windows lining its walls and neat, elegant white tables awaiting paying customers. In a way, Mike thought, it did a good job of matching Harvey's personality. Handsome, arrogant, wealthy – but never in bad taste.
They were settled at their table with a Macallan 18 in Harvey's hand and a Manhattan in Mike's. There was a delicate glass ashtray sitting on the tabletop, nice-looking yet unnecessary in their case. Or so it seemed at the time. They drank quietly for a moment before Harvey spoke.
'You know, nights like these I'm kind of happy you're on the side of the law now.' He paused in thought, and then a smirk started forming on his lips. 'Not to mention you'd be crap at being a criminal.'
Mike never prided himself on reading people well, but he knew a challenge when he saw one. And that smirk was definitely a challenge.
'Excuse me, I was an amazing criminal,' Mike scoffed, a look of great offence on his face. He chose to ignore the fact that the only serious experience he had with crime – prior to conspiring to commit fraud on a daily basis, that is - had almost landed him in jail. Harvey chose to call him out on it.
'Oh, you mean that time you failed to lock a briefcase full of drugs? Or that time you spilled $25,000 dollars' worth of weed on that hotel floor? Oh wait, I think it was the same time,' the man quipped.
Mike had half a mind to take a sip of his cocktail, – and thus admit defeat, – and then he had a better idea.
'I may have been a crappy criminal, but I bet you'd be even worse.' He could see Harvey's expression shift from confused to calculating to mischievous in seconds.
'How do you know? I could be brilliant.'
'Oh, that's easy.' Mike leaned forward, propping his elbows on the tabletop between them and fixing Harvey with a stare. 'First, committing a crime requires discretion. You, on the other hand - you'd do anything to draw attention to yourself. You live for it.' He gave a sharp nod in the direction of the bar counter, looking at Harvey all the same, 'Even now, the waitress over there is totally checking you out, and you know it. You're relishing it.'
Harvey looked like he was about to say something, but Mike held up a hand to stop him. It might have been the liquor or the recent rush of closing a client, but he felt bolder than he usually did around his boss.
'Nope, I'm not done making my case yet, Harvey.' He paused to take a sip of his drink, grimaced slightly at the taste, and continued. 'Second, crime takes balls.' At that, Harvey raised an eyebrow, eyes wide and disbelieving, and mouthed a 'what the fuck are you saying' back at him. 'Yes, Harvey. You're all confident and cocky when you know the law's on your side, but I'll bet you anything that you can't pull it off when you know it's not.'
Harvey was silent for a moment, and then he leaned forward so that he was right in Mike's face.
'You'll bet me anything?' he said quietly, dangerously. Mike stayed exactly where he was. His next words came out as little more than a puff of warm air over Harvey's face, and he felt it. It was definitely the liquor talking at that point – he couldn't remember himself being half as daring with Harvey ever before. It wasn't a bad feeling, though.
'Okay, you want a bet, I'll give you a bet, Harvey.' Mike let his eyes trail away from Harvey's face and looked around the bar. It wasn't too crowded, there were about a dozen customers around them, all sufficiently inebriated by the look of it, and two waitresses. His gaze stopped at the empty table facing the counter and the small object at the centre of it. Grinning, he turned back to his companion. 'See that table next to the door, the one in front of the bar?' Harvey followed his eyes and nodded. Mike leaned even closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. 'I say you can't walk over there, snatch that ashtray and come back here without the whole bar noticing.'
Harvey looked at him, dumbfounded. Then, he shrugged and whispered back.
'And when,' Harvey Specter doesn't say if, it's always a when with him, and Mike should be used to it, but he breathed out a small laugh all the same, 'when I show you I can, what do I get?'
Mike finally leaned back in his chair, feeling a shiver of cold run through him as the distance between them increased. He crossed his arms, smiling lazily at the man opposite him.
'As I said, anything. You get to choose what I do, and when I do it. The only thing I need in return is that ashtray.'
Mike looked dead serious even though the absurdity of the situation started to occur to his whiskey-affected brain. He had dared Harvey Specter. To steal an ashtray. From a ridiculously posh rooftop bar. In front of a dozen people.
Harvey stared at him for a minute or so, and Mike was almost certain he would refuse and pretend the whole conversation never happened. Instead, Harvey stood up.
'Watch and learn, rookie,' he said, before gulping down the rest of his Macallan and striding over to the bar counter, as confident as ever.
Mike raised an eyebrow and watched in disbelief as Pearson Hardman's best closer went to make his criminal debut.
Having reached his destination, the man paused in front of the counter and turned his attention to one of the waitresses. Mike couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but in a moment he saw the woman nod, give Harvey a bright smile – the one women always gave him, Mike thought, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes, - and walk away to what seemed to be the storage room.
Now left with only one woman in front of him, Harvey put an elbow on the counter, scratching his chin idly and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. The waitress blushed and bent over, getting closer to Harvey and giving him a spectacular show of her cleavage. Most likely on purpose. Definitely on purpose. For some reason, Mike's hand reached for the glass, and he could feel a slight crease forming between his brows.
As he sipped on his cocktail, the whiskey bitter on his tongue and the vermouth soothingly sweet, Harvey moved to the next stage of his chat-up-the-waitress routine. He made a gesture that seemed to imitate smoking and smiled sweetly at her, prompting the woman to laugh and reach for a cigarette pack. While she was looking down and rummaging in the pockets of her uniform dress, Harvey's hand reached down for the small round object on the table to his right.
In the fraction of a second that followed, Mike's mind registered three separate facts. First, that Harvey had actually managed to grasp the ashtray, which meant that his bet was almost definitely falling through. The second thing he noticed was a balding man at the table to his left turning to address the waitress – and if he turned his head just an inch further, the man would certainly see Harvey's hand trying to tuck the ashtray into the jacket of his suit. Now, the third detail Mike noticed was Harvey leaning forward to kiss the woman on the cheek.
Later, Mike would go on to rationalise what followed and dismiss it as surprise, or simple reluctance to lose a bet. He would definitely deny that he had felt any discomfort witnessing any of these three minor events, especially the latter one. As it was, though, Mike felt his arm move, seemingly of its own accord, the jerky movement causing his glass to fly off the table and onto the tiled floor. The harsh sound of glass-to-floor collision caused everyone, balding man, waitress and Harvey included, to turn around and stare at him. Mike coughed and mumbled an apology. He missed the exact moment Harvey successfully hid the ashtray in his pocket, or the moment he parted from the beaming woman in front of him, but before he knew it, Harvey was back at their table. He looked decidedly smug.
'I know losing must be hard for you, but throwing glasses around? Seriously, Mike?' Harvey chuckled, reaching out and patting him on the shoulder as if to offer his condolences. Mike shrugged his hand away.
'Weren't you the one to lecture me on gloating a while back?' He sighed, suddenly both too sober and too tired to respond to Harvey's teasing in kind.
'Oh, I wasn't gloating. I was merely recognising the fact that you placed a bet in full confidence that I wouldn't meet your little challenge, and now I did.' Harvey quoted his own words from one of their countless conversations in the office and gave him another grin. It took about two seconds for him to look at Mike more closely. His face fell.
'Hey, Mike, what's wrong?' he asked.
Mike sighed. In all honesty, he didn't know what to tell himself, much less what to say to Harvey. He didn't understand what was wrong, and by the look of things, he wasn't about to have an epiphany about that. Therefore, instead of answering right away, he bent down to get his bag and started putting his jacket back on.
'Nothing's wrong, Harvey. I'm just tired, that's all. I think I'd better get going – we have an early morning tomorrow, too.'
If Harvey looked taken aback at first, he didn’t let the look linger, quickly schooling his features into their usual expression – calm, collected. Cautious. As they took the elevator down from the bar, Mike felt Harvey's eyes on him, looking for any signs of the actual problem. They remained silent until the elevator stopped. When Mike made a move to exit the bar, he was stopped promptly, Harvey's arm blocking his way and pulling him aside, to the corner of the foyer. It was close to midnight, and the floor was basically deserted, apart from the receptionist who seemed to pay them no mind.
Harvey came to a halt in front of Mike, looking him straight in the eye.
'Okay, we're going to do it this way. I'm calling in my chit.'
Mike blinked at him, hearing the words but not quite registering the meaning.
'Come again?'
Harvey let out a quiet laugh, the sound rolling off him in warm waves. Mike didn't know why, but the sensation was not unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact.
'The bet, Mike. You said I got to choose both what you do and when you do it. Does that ring any bells?'
Mike just stared at him, nodding slowly.
'Well, here's my choice. You're going to tell me what just happened in there, and you're going to do it now.' Harvey's voice was level and calm, just like the one he used when he was talking to a judge or to a client. Mike gulped. It was also the voice he used when he didn't expect to be contradicted.
A short silence stretched between them, and just as Harvey was about to prompt him again, Mike blurted out,
'I was watching you steal that stupid ashtray, and then you kissed that waitress, and I honestly don't know what happened, but I just saw red- Next thing I knew, there was that glass falling, and everyone was staring at me, and you won the damn bet, and that waitress was still beaming like she won the goddamn lottery or something and-'
It is a little known fact that both ranting and rambling become significantly harder to pull off when someone is pressing their face into yours. Mike blinked a couple of times and then relaxed visibly.
Harvey soon pulled away from the kiss. His trademark smirk was back in place, and he looked oddly composed, in stark contrast to Mike.
'It never ceases to amaze me how you manage to be a genius and a moron all at the same time. That must be exhausting for you, huh?'
Mike huffed in response but allowed himself to lean into Harvey’s side and follow him out of the door.
Conventional wisdom has nothing much to say about what happens once two lawyers walk out of a bar. Mike Ross, however, had a rather delightful idea.