Chapter Text
Summer 15, Year 1
May:
What time did you want to head over tonight?
Harvey:
Assuming there’s no last minute walk-ins, I’m hoping to close up the clinic at 5. I can be there by 5:30?
May:
5:30 sounds perfect! ^.^ Can’t wait!
Harvey:
Me either. I’m sexcited to see you.
Harvey stared in horror at the text message he’d just sent. It went unnoticed until the moment he hit ‘Send’. But by then, it was too late. His stomach clenched as all color drained from his face. He hadn’t even been dating May for three full days, the thought that he’d accidentally sent such a suggestive and forward typo was more mortifying than any nightmare he could have.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no,” Harvey repeated to himself over and over again, too horrified to even begin thinking of how to fix this.
Not that he would even have the knowledge to undo such an error, of course. If there were any way to delete the text or undo sending it, it was beyond Harvey’s limited technological capabilities. At this point he barely knew how to send a text at all.
In his panic, Harvey could only think of one person to contact, his regular ‘go to’ in a moment of crisis; Maru. If anyone knew how to un-send a text, it would be her. His hands were shaking so much by now that he could barely use his phone to call Maru. Harvey hoped that she wasn’t too busy on her day off. Luckily, she answered the phone within only a couple rings.
“Hey, Doc!” Maru greeted in her usual friendly tone.
“Maru!” Harvey shouted, more loudly than he’d intended. “I need your help, I really messed up and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Oh no, what happened?!” Maru asked, no doubt fearing the worst had happened in the clinic.
“I was sending May a text and I accidentally hit a letter that I didn’t realized I’d hit and I tried to type the word ‘excited’ and I… didn’t,” Harvey blurted out rapidly.
“Okay, slow down, I have no idea what’s going on,” Maru replied, though she sounded far more relieved to hear that the problem was only regarding Harvey’s relationship and not a clinic mishap.
“I tried to type ‘I’m excited to see you’ and instead of ‘excited’, I typed…” Harvey trailed off, too embarrassed to admit what he’d actually sent. It was too mortifying to even say aloud. On the other end of the line he could hear Maru give off a curious sound, clearly waiting for his answer. After a deep breath, Harvey barely muttered, “ sexcited .”
Deep down Harvey knew the situation was actually rather humorous, but it still didn’t feel great that Maru’s first reaction was to burst into laughter. The knot in Harvey’s stomach intensified as he sat there listening to Maru’s cackling, his face burning hot in embarrassment. This was a disaster.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for laughing,” Maru finally spoke up as her laughter died down. She still sounded terribly amused. “I know it’s not funny to you, but I promise it’ll be funny later.”
“Not if she breaks up with me,” Harvey answered solemnly. Maru let out one last snort of laughter.
“Harvey, she’s not gonna break up with you over a typo,” Maru pointed out, finally becoming more serious. “If anything I think her reaction will be really similar to mine, I think she’ll find it hilarious. She probably knows it was a typo, you don’t exactly seem the type to slip into her DMs and talk dirty.”
“We’ve barely been dating three days, Maru, our third date is tonight,” Harvey went on in concern. “For all she knows, I’m trying to come onto her in the most pathetic way possible. I may not be known for being crass, but I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to read as ‘pathetic’.”
“First off, if you genuinely texted a woman that you were ‘sexcited’, that’s even more pathetic than I think you’d be, Doc,” Maru teased. “I’d expect a pick-up line like that from Alex, but definitely not from you.”
“Okay, fine, but how do I fix this?!” Harvey asked desperately. “Is there a way to un-send this?!” The more time they wasted on the phone call, the more damage his text was potentially doing to his relationship with May.
“You can’t really un-send a text once it’s sent,” Maru began. Harvey heaved a frustrated sigh. “Calm down, there’s still ways to fix it. For now, just text an asterisk followed by the word ‘excited’.”
“Why?” Harvey asked, bewildered.
“Just trust me on this,” Maru assured him. “It’s like the universal sign for ‘oops, I made a typo and here’s what I actually meant to say’. And honestly, you probably don’t need to do anything more than that. She’ll know that it was just a typo and if she even brings it up to you at all, just play it off as such. It’s not wrong, you’re not lying to her. It was a typo, plain and simple. These things happen, Harvey. This just happened to be a rather, uh, suggestive typo is all. I promise you two will be laughing about this by the end of the day today.”
“I highly doubt that,” Harvey replied gloomily.
“But the sooner you send that text off, the better,” Maru advised. “If you wait too long it’ll be weird.”
“Okay, I’ll send it as soon as I get off the phone with you,” Harvey answered. “Thanks for your help, Maru, I appreciate it.”
“No prob,” Maru replied casually. “And slow down next time you send a text, proofread it first before you hit ‘Send’ so you don’t get too sexcited.” Maru cackled with laughter and quickly hung up before Harvey could even reply.
Harvey didn’t even have time to let Maru’s final jab get to him, he had to hurry up and send the text to May. His hands shook as he typed, nearly making the same typo all over again.
Harvey:
*excited
All Harvey could do now was wait. It seemed silly to think that such an innocent typo could lead to a major problem, but it was still so early in his relationship with May that he didn’t want anything to threaten that. Minutes passed in agony as Harvey stared at his phone, too nervous to see what May’s reply would be. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed from the time the original text was sent to the time he finally received a reply. It had been, without a doubt, the longest fifteen minutes of his life. When he finally saw a new message pop up from May, his breath caught in his chest and his heart raced as he read her reply.
May:
LOL!
😂
I’m excited to see you, too.
Though Harvey still wasn’t exactly clear on what ‘LOL’ meant, he at least knew enough that it was a positive thing. He heaved a sigh of relief at May’s response, finally able to see the humor in the situation. A nervous chuckle left Harvey’s lips as he collapsed down into his desk chair which grew into full blown laughter as the reality of what had happened sank in. With any luck, it would be a funny story they’d recall years later. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking.