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“Quad Grande Americano,” Mike greeted his regular, adding a polite smile.
The man nodded, unimpressed. It had been months since Mike had impressed anyone. Years, perhaps. Remembering drink orders went with the job description. He wondered if his customers realized all of the other things he remembered about them.
This guy, for instance, was named Walter. He strode into Café Monet nearly every morning at precisely seven thirty, silver MacBook Air tucked under one arm, his expensive brown suede jacket as immaculate as the day he’d carried it home from Nordstrom in a handled shopping bag. He paid with a debit card, and always left a one-dollar bill in the tip jar. While he waited for Mike to brew his four shots of espresso and assemble his drink, he set up at the far corner table (seething with annoyance if anyone had managed to beat him to the spot), plugged in his computer, laid out a writing pad, one fountain pen, and one mechanical pencil.
When Mike carried his drink out to him, he was usually busy checking Facebook. By the time things had slowed down enough for Mike to make a pass through to collect dishes and wipe crumbs from tables, Quad Grande Americano had a Word document open, typing at decent speed, thick fingers splatting at the keys in what could have been anger, but was more likely supreme self-confidence. Mike had given up trying to figure out what he was writing. A novel, maybe. Or a series of long, well-reasoned and tightly organized comments on some article in the Times which had stuck in his craw that morning.
Walter was not a bad looking man, with a strong jaw and clear hazel eyes, and once Mike had tried flirting with him, out of a combination of boredom and loneliness. He was reasonably sure that the lack of interest had been due to Mike’s place on the man’s perceived social hierarchy, and not his gender. That type of dismissal was surprisingly uncommon in Seattle. For some reason, a barista in a coffee shop was rated well above a burger flipper, even though they might be pulling in an identical hourly wage.
Whatever. He did not take Walter's rejection personally. It didn't touch him. Nothing seemed to touch him these days, and he hadn't yet decided if that was a good thing, or a very, very bad thing.
***
The job at Café Monet, which paid his bills (barely), wasn’t the least bit taxing to his mind or imagination. Five days a week, Monday through Friday, Mike cranked out coffee beverages and slapped pre-made sandwiches onto the panini press, or grabbed the tongs to transfer a stale pastry onto a plate, rang up the order -- wash, rinse repeat.
Sometimes a mini-rush of four or more customers, lined up and shifting from foot to foot, hefting their laptop bags impatiently, had him humping it hard behind the counter, heart beating and adrenaline pumping, his cardiovascular and endocrinal systems mistaking a busy ten minutes in a rundown Seattle coffee shop for an actual crisis.
Mike remembered what an actual crisis felt like. It was a patent application that hadn’t been filed in time to prevent the potential loss of millions of dollars. It was an unjustly fired single mom who had just lost any hope of financial restitution. It was the carefully crafted, cobbled-together deal that fell through at the last instant because the client held a petty grudge against your boss. And it was the sight of two somber men in suits waiting to haul you away in handcuffs in nearly the same instant that your life had just begun to make sense again.
Some days, he thought that he would happily trade his current life for the heart stopping rollercoaster it had once been. All he needed to do to remind himself of the absurdity of that notion, was to think back, to hear again the sound of his name being spoken, like a sonorous bell tolling out the news of his impending downfall.
He’d frozen in place for perhaps a second, no more than that, before instinct, and years of pondered “what-ifs,” took over and sent him running in the opposite direction.
Everything for the next few hours remained a blur, even with his usually flawless memory. He’d sprinted, and pounded down stairs, and darted onto random floors, tearing down hallways, ducking into file rooms to crouch behind rows of metal shelving stacked with boxes. He’d made it out of the building finally, blending into a shifting sea of office workers who were escaping for the weekend.
The first thing he did was clear out his bank accounts, both checking and savings, and the second savings account he’d kept secret even from Rachel. He tapped out two quick texts on his phone, sent them, and then smashed the phone under his heel and kicked it into an alley. Tempting as it was to head home to pack a bag and grab a few personal mementos, he understood that for the trap it was. Returning home was too obvious a play at the moment, and he needed to remain unpredictable.
He slipped back into the throng of commuters, descending into the subway system, where he spent the next ninety minutes getting on and off trains at random stops. When he finally ascended back to the surface, he was in a busy Brooklyn neighborhood.
His next stop was at a clothing store, where he dressed himself in nondescript jeans, button down shirt, cheap sneakers and jacket, and a baseball cap. He carried his expensive suit out with him, so as not to arouse suspicion, but tossed it in the first dumpster he spotted. Maybe he should have felt regret at the waste of thousands of dollars’ worth of precision tailoring, but he did not. He felt relief, as if the gray wool gabardine had weighed several tons, which he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying around for the past few years until it was gone.
At the Greyhound station, he paid cash for a bus ticket west, boarding as the numbness began to wear off, and the surreal recognition set in that this was it. The worst had finally happened and his life as he’d known it was finished. As the bus hit the freeway, chugging along in the deepening night, he considering shedding a few tears, but fear gripped him too hard to allow in any competing emotion. So he sat in his seat, staring at his reflection in the window, and trying to remember to keep breathing.
***
Seattle had turned out to be his ultimate destination, but he’d made a few stops and detours along the way in the eight months it took to get there. In Denver, he’d drummed up the courage to make inquiries about acquiring new identification. Mike Ross was a fairly innocuous name, but he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that geographical distance would keep him safe if he applied for work with his own social security number. He’d kept his first name, and changed his last to Frost, which seemed close enough to both throw off the scent and feel familiar. New ID tucked safely in his wallet, he left Denver in the middle of a snowstorm and continued west, finally washing up on the shores of Puget Sound a week before Christmas.
To begin with, he’d had a clock of sorts in his head, ticking down the minutes and hours and days and weeks. Five years. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days. Forty-three thousand and eight hundred hours.
Impersonating an attorney had been boosted to a Class E felony a couple of years after he’d begun the deception. If he’d gone to trial and been convicted, he would have served up to four years. The statute of limitations, on the other hand, was five years, and although he’d avoided prison, his life had become a sentence all its own.
For the first few years, he’d moved through the days like a sleepwalker, with his thoughts firmly fixed two thousand eight hundred and sixty miles to the east, because as soon as his one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days were up, he intended to head right back home.
There exist different varieties of distance and separation, he came to realize over time. There was the physical type – the miles and time zones between you and where you thought you wanted to be. There was the lengthening line of time – days and months and years. And there was the emotional distance, the tiny invisible threads connecting you to the past, that gradually unraveled and broke free, piece by piece, decaying slowly from nothing more than age and lack of use.
He had an eidetic memory, true, but just because you could recall a face in perfect detail, did not mean that the colors remained as vivid and sharp as always, or that you could still feel, deep down, all of the reasons that you had felt so close to that person.
So, the sound of the clock that ticked down the days of his exile inside his head grew fainter and fainter, and then eventually stopped altogether. One day he realized that his five-year milepost had come and gone and he hadn’t even noticed.
***
Vince, who owned Café Monet, had been promising Mike some paid time off for over three years. Mike knew employment law backwards and forwards, in New York state, and now in Washington (he’d spent one slow afternoon at work reading the statutes online), and could have pointed out that a business owner needed to follow through on those sorts of promises or risk fines and sanctions. What did Mike care, though? He could barely make it through his weekends as it was. What would he even do with more than two days off in a row?
At the beginning of June, he found out that he was going to learn the answer to that, whether he wanted to or not, when, out of the blue, Vince told him to pick a week that summer. With a shrug, Mike flicked his hand carelessly at the calendar, and his index finger landed on the second week of July.
By the time the date came around, he’d nearly forgotten about the week off. Vince reminded him, though, the Friday before. He brought his teenage niece in and left her with Mike for the day with instructions to train her. She, it turned out, would be his replacement for the week. She was smart, thank goodness, had a decent sense of humor, and caught on quickly, so at least it wasn’t a chore to spend the day with her. He did worry that she was meant to replace him permanently, but she shot that idea down when he mentioned it.
“I’m still in school, dude. Uncle Vince just wants someone on standby to fill in if anyone gets sick, or is taking the week off, like you.”
When Carla arrived for the evening shift, Mike waved goodbye to her and the niece, and hopped on his bike for the short ride home, already worrying about how to survive a whole week with nothing to do.
He decided to start things off with a night out, and showered and headed up to Broadway in his “gettin’ laid jeans,” to see what kind of trouble he could get into. This turned out to be a mistake, sort of, and just like every other mistake he’d made, would change the trajectory of his life once again.
***
“Come on, Mikey. Drink with me. Just one more.”
The impossibly beautiful young man named Cristian nudged a shot glass of tequila closer to Mike’s hand. Mike’s head lolled backwards and a giggle burst out of him. “You’re killing me, man. I jus’ wanna get to it, and you – ” Here, he paused to poke his companion over and over with his finger. “You jus’ keep on plying me with l-liquor.” He belched and slapped a hand over his mouth, before dissolving into laughter and sliding halfway off the barstool. Cristian steadied him with one hand and helped him resituate himself.
“It’s the last one, I swear.” Cristian raised his own glass and licked the back of his hand. “Salt me.”
Moving with exaggerated care as he strove to determine which of the two Cristians in front of him was the real one, Mike lifted the salt shaker and sprinkled it in the general vicinity of the slim, perfectly tanned hand, actually getting a fair number of grains in the proper spot (yay, team!).
He treated his own hand the same before recalling that he’d forgotten a step. Shaking off the salt, he licked his hand, doing his drunken best to maintain eye contact with Cristian and appear sultry and seductive as he licked himself. He poured salt on the damp spot and raised his glass in his other hand. “To Vince,” he declared, dragged his tongue through salt, tossed back his shot, and searched the bar top frantically for the wedge of lime, which had disappeared.
Cristian had mirrored his actions (“to vacation,” being his only variant), and green showed between his plump lips, where he held his own lime. He removed it, tilted his head to the side, and leaned in to kiss Mike. Their tongues snaked together, and Mike got all of the limey goodness he wanted as he licked and sucked and tasted the dirty little enabler.
Cristian pulled away first, running his hand down the side of Mike’s face. “To hot sex,” he whispered.
Mike thrust one finger in the air. “To the men’s room,” he declared to the spinning atmosphere. He slid off the barstool, almost knocking Cristian over as he leaned all his weight against him.
“My place is half a block away,” perfect, wonderful Cristian purred in his ear.
“Oh, good.” Mike slipped out of his grasp to sit on the floor. “I’ll wait here and you go get it.”
“Mikey … “ He sounded exasperated, suddenly appearing less pouty and more pissed off. “I’m not carrying you. You need to get up.”
“You need to get up.” Mike lay down. He heard yelling, probably from the bartender, probably at him, but couldn’t bring himself to care. He may have dozed off for a minute or two because the next thing he knew, someone knelt next to him, roughly shaking his shoulder. He peered up with one eye, and thought he recognized the bartender, although he seemed a little … spinny.
“Hey, man. You can’t sleep here. Get your ass up and go home.”
Mike managed to sit up, and looked around, stupid with confusion. “Where’d he go?”
“Your friend? I think he took off. He left you this, though.” He slapped a printed bar tab on Mike’s chest.
Mike frowned down at it and took it from him. “He was a bad man,” he mumbled sadly, and didn’t resist when the bartender – what was his name … he was kind of cute – got a hand under his arm and hoisted him to his feet. He teetered only a little as he fumbled in his wallet for his debit card, which he handed over, mentally crossing his fingers that he had enough in his account to cover the tab.
“Lean,” the cute bartender ordered, pointing at the bar. “Do not fall.” When he seemed satisfied that Mike wasn’t in immediate danger of face planting, he went back behind the bar to run the card, returning half a minute later to watch over Mike while he added a tip and signed his name. With his mind apparently set at ease on this one thing, his voice gentled when he asked Mike, “Who do you want me to call? Boyfriend? Cab?” A pause. “Your mom?”
Mike put on his fake-sad face. “I’ll have you know, sir, that I am an orphan. In every conshev … conceivable way. I demand an apology.”
The bartender sighed loudly. “Give me a damn number, or I’ll throw you out on the sidewalk. How’s that sound?”
Mike heard a chorus of snickers around them, and suddenly tuned into the fact that he had become the evening’s entertainment. He spotted his cell phone at his elbow on the bar top and lifted it, showing it to the bartender as if this had won Mike some obscure point. “I will make my own calls, thank you very much. Good day to you, sir.”
It took every ounce of concentration he still possessed to remain upright and walk in a semi-straight line as he made for the exit. He thought he spotted Cristian straddling someone’s lap and sucking at their neck, but he couldn’t be sure it was him. And he didn’t care. Not at all.
His brain had stuck and stalled on his own words: an orphan in every conceivable way. He tried not to make it a habit to wallow in self-pity, because what good had that ever done anyone? But his tequila-soaked brain found this revelation so unbelievably sad. He hadn’t just been running from the law that day. He’d run from the only family he had, the only people he cared about.
He’d done that to himself, cut those ties, and some days he wondered if four years in prison wouldn’t have been the easier choice. He usually convinced himself, that no, it would not have been, and that he was an idiot for even considering it. Sometimes, though, times like this one, he missed home so much he didn’t think he could bear it. As he considered all he'd lost, it wasn't Rachel that filled his thoughts, it was Harvey.
He could picture Harvey so clearly in that moment, and longed to hear his voice. With his impulse control currently drowned at the bottom of a bucket of tequila, he tottered down the sidewalk and sat, back against the building, and dialed the number still lodged in his memory, never expecting it would still be current, or that anyone would pick up on the other end.
But he could hear the connections being made, cell tower to cell tower, down whatever passed for the wires these days, probably pinging up to a satellite circling the earth with a front row view of the stars, and then down again, digitally sorting through the millions of phones in New York City until it found the correct one.
Hang up, he urged himself. Do not pick at this scab.
He heard the phone at the other end begin to ring, once, twice, three times, and then, “Harvey Specter. Who the hell is this?”
His heart seemed to stop, and then it started up again, galloping away, searching for a cliff over which to throw itself. He thought he might have made a small sound, as his vocal chords fought for dominance over his brain. And then, “No,” he gasped, and broke the connection. He stared in horror at his phone for long seconds before surging to his feet, lurching toward the curb, and puking his guts out into a storm drain.
******
Harvey tossed his phone back onto the hotel nightstand and ran a hand through his hair. Wrong number. It happened. Just some idiot who couldn’t get his digits straight at three thirty in the goddamn morning.
There’d been something about that choked off voice though … He shook his head, annoyed with himself and whoever had interrupted his sleep. He stared down at the still sleeping woman in the bed, trying to decide, and shook his head with something that wasn’t quite regret. Every time he fell into bed with Evan Smith, he swore it would be the last time. There were some days when he could barely tolerate the woman, and she seemed to have nothing but contempt for him. Still, god help him, she was one hot piece of ass.
He dressed as quietly as he could in the dark, but after a few minutes he sensed her eyes on him as she silently watched.
“The room is paid for,” he said unnecessarily. These nights always went the same way, although he usually stayed until morning for another round.
“Who was that on the phone?” she asked sleepily, stretching her lean body like a cat.
“Wrong number.”
“Do you have to go?”
“I have a trial to prepare for.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t precisely true either. The trial date was weeks away, and he had every confidence that they would settle long before then.
“It’s Friday night. Or Saturday morning now, I guess. You work too hard.”
“I’m the boss. I need to set a good example.”
She snorted and dragged the blanket further up her naked body. “And by good example, you mean sleeping with one of your senior partners?”
“Hey, you want to get your name on the letterhead or not?” He meant it as a joke, but could see her stiffen, even from across the room, and wished he could take it back. Nobody deserved that promotion more than Evan, and nobody was less likely to use sex as leverage. She straight up enjoyed a good fuck, just like him. He likely would change the name of his firm from Specter Law to Specter and Smith sometime in the next year or two. This, though, these trysts … They had to stop before things got messy.
Fully dressed now, he returned to the bed and sat next to her hip, laying a hand on her shoulder and bending down to kiss her temple. “This was nice.” But, ”nice” was too bland a word to describe the physical chemistry between them, so he amended, “You were spectacular, as always.”
She gave a grudging sounding grunt and turned her head to look at him. “We probably shouldn’t do this anymore,” she said, blunt and honest as always, which was one of the few things he liked about her.
Ignoring the tiny stab of hurt – just the merest of flesh wounds, barely drawing blood – he nodded. “You’re right, of course.” And his lips found her mouth for a brief, tender goodbye kiss. “I’ll see you Monday morning.”
“See you, boss.”
***
On the cab ride home, Harvey took out his phone and checked the log. The wrong number had come from a 206 area code. A quick Google search told him that was the Seattle area. He closed his eyes and replayed the brief call in his head. Silence, perhaps some loud breathing, and then, “No,” in a soft, broken voice. Then nothing.
He frowned, shaking his head. What had brought Mike to mind? That voice could have belonged to anyone, man or woman. He hadn’t thought of Mike Ross in … Bullshit, he chided himself. He thought of him nearly every goddamn day, and how he’d disappeared from his life with such suddenness and finality.
One minute, he’d been hugging him in his office, had watched him walk off into the figurative sunset, and then chaos had broken out, with shouts, running feet, frantic calls for backup. The two men who had shown up to arrest Mike had stormed through the floor, searching every room, and then, with the three uniformed officers who had arrived, they thoroughly, methodically, searched each floor of the building.
Harvey could have told them that they’d never find Mike. One, it was a big building, and two, Mike was a verifiable genius. He’d had years of practice evading the law, and he’d done it again. Perhaps an hour after his disappearance, Harvey had received a text from Mike, which had been their last contact in over five years.
Sorry. I owe you everything. Don’t forget that river in Egypt.
Which, Harvey had deduced, was Mike’s unique way, knowing that Harvey’s text messages could, and probably would, be subpoenaed, of advising him to deny everything. And he had. As had Jessica, and Donna, and Louis, and Rachel, even though it had been her own parents who had turned Mike in. Harvey had never figured out exactly how they had discovered the truth, and supposed now that it didn’t matter. Their main motive in reporting him was to stop his marriage to Rachel. They’d succeeded, and hadn’t pushed when interest in locating the fugitive had faltered and fizzled.
He rode the elevator up to his condo, feeling the weight of years, and sadness for all they’d lost. His new firm was thriving, and he did enjoy being at the helm, and controlling his own destiny, but occasionally all of the responsibilities got to him. It was at times like these that his respect for Jessica burgeoned, and he missed her with a fierceness that felt like a heated knife plunged into his chest. She’d been his savior, all those years ago, when she’d pulled him from the mail room and sent him to Harvard. After that, she’d remained his center, the calming influence in his life, reining him in when he got too wild, and easing back when he needed to run free. Now he only had himself to turn to, and he began to understand the deep loneliness he’d often sensed in Jessica.
Although he had to be up in a few hours – it was four o’clock already – he poured himself a small glass of scotch and stood at his living room windows, looking down on the city. He’d often wondered in the past five years if Mike was still out there somewhere, still in the same orbit, hiding in plain sight. He pulled out his phone and stared at the unfamiliar number, frowning thoughtfully.
On an impulse he refused to examine closely, he hit “call,” and waited for the line to connect. It rang several times, and went to voicemail.
Hey, said a voice so eerily familiar that it felt to Harvey as if he had contacted a ghost, who spoke to him from The Great Beyond. This is Mike. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.
Harvey did not leave a message. He disconnected the call and tossed back the rest of his drink, and thought about going back for more, and drinking the whole bottle, but in the end he walked in the other direction, to the bedroom, undressed and crawled under the covers, tossing and turning for close to an hour before he finally slept.
******
Something had crawled inside Mike’s mouth and died. He groaned and rolled onto his back, staring up at his ceiling and gradually coming to the realization that he’d slept (passed out) on the floor. His back ached, but nothing like his head, which pounded with a ferocity that made him fear his eyeballs might explode.
“Fuck. What did I do?” he moaned, and instantly regretted the words, which redoubled the sharp throbbing in his skull. “Fuck,” he mouthed silently. Across the room, he could see his diminutive refrigerator, inside which he knew he would find several bottles of water, if he could only reach them. Dismayed by the effort it took, he rolled onto his stomach and crawled painfully across the threadbare carpet. He opened the refrigerator door, grabbed the closest bottle, and downed it like a poisoned man receiving the antidote seconds before it was too late.
He paused, waiting to see if the water would come back up again. When it didn’t, he sucked down the rest of the bottle and panted, reflecting that he needed to make more of an effort to get out on his bike, or perhaps start running laps around Greenlake, like the rest of the mindless horde.
Slightly revived, he struggled to his feet and scrabbled around in a bowl he kept on his bookcase, until he came up with two of the packets of pain reliever he’d taken from the first aid kit at work. He swallowed four tablets and guzzled down another half bottle of water. He collapsed onto his sofa bed (which he hadn’t bothered to pull out and make into a bed for months), and tried to remember what he’d done last night.
He’d danced for close to an hour with a hot little guy name Cristian. So far, so good. Then he’d been convinced to do a shot of tequila, and then another, and another … He’d eventually lost count and … after that there was only a big blank place.
He was at home, though, and alone, and seemingly in one piece. He checked his pockets and found his wallet intact. He had the same amount of cash he’d left with, so apparently Cristian had paid. Last, but certainly not least, he found his phone, so all in all, no harm, no foul.
He lay back with his phone on his chest, trying to decide if he was hungry, and if he was, what he should eat. Was he feeling energetic enough (or brave enough) to go downstairs and use the communal kitchen? None of the students and baby-wannabe-hippies with whom he shared the house seemed to have grasped the rudiments of cleaning, and hygiene, and personal space. Spending his vacation week fighting off a bout of salmonella or E. coli sounded even worse than what he had planned -- which was precisely nothing.
These thoughts led him to question, not for the first time, what he was doing, at the ripe old age of thirty-four, living with a bunch of eighteen to twenty-two year olds. And that, in turn, had him reviewing all the choices he'd ever made as an adult person, which probably wasn't the wisest pastime for someone with a vicious hangover, who had failed to get laid by what had seemed the surest of sure things the previous night.
He had plunged deeply into my life sucks and everything hurts territory when his phone began to vibrate on his chest. He plucked it up and propped it against his ear. "Yeah?"
"Mike. Don't hang up. It's me. Harvey."
Shock seemed to stop his heart for half a second -- or it could have been an hour, or a year, or forever -- along with all of his brain functions. When he was able to unpaste his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he croaked, "How? How in the hell did you get my number?"
Silence oozed from the other end of the line, a silence which he sensed had to do with more than geographical distance. When Harvey spoke, he sounded careful, as if humoring a dangerous lunatic. "Uh, when you called me last night? That's sort of how cell phones work, unless you remember to block your number."
Wait ...what? Mike had called Harvey last night? He jammed his eyes shut, trying to squeeze the memory out of his brain like juice from an overused wedge of lime. It must have happened. No one but he could have made that call from his phone, because Harvey's number was not in his list of contacts. He knew he'd been drunk, but hadn't realized he'd been that drunk, so far gone that he would jeopardize five plus years of keeping his head down and living an anonymous life where no one would ever find him.
"Shit," he bit out without thinking. "I am never drinking again."
"Ah." Harvey's voice remained infuriatingly calm and level. "The classic drunk dial. My mistake."
He was going to hang up, forget about Mike again, go on with his life, and this interlude would remain nothing more than a hallucinatory blip that should have never happened, and which he could convince himself never had happened. In the instant it took him to realize this, Mike also recognized that this wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to prolong the call as long as he could, because it turned out that he thirsted for news of home like a man who had been wandering in the desert for years, drinking nothing but sand.
"Wait," he begged faintly. "Just wait. Um. How are you?"
"That's why you called me at three-thirty in the morning? To ask me how I was doing? Next time, try Google. If you do, I'm certain you'll discover that I'm doing just fine." Mike heard a sharp exhalation of breath. "Was there anything else?"
Yes … don't you want to know where I've been? How I've been doing? How much I've missed you? All the words he wanted to say clogged his throat, and the only thing he managed to get out was a hoarse, "I'm sorry."
"Save it. You've had five years to tell me that. Don't embarrass us both by saying things you don't mean."
"But -- "
"Goodbye, Mike."
The line went dead, no dial tone, just cold empty space.
He blinked stupidly, not believing anything that had just happened in the last five minutes.
"Fuck."
He threw his phone across the room.
******
Harvey resisted the urge to throw his phone off the terrace, but only just. What had he expected? A tearful reunion, where Mike explained that he'd been hit by a taxi while crossing the street, had been in a coma for five years, and had phoned Harvey the second he'd regained consciousness? Come to think of it, wasn’t that the plot of an old movie?
He'd run every possibility through his mind in the days and weeks and months following Mike's disappearance, even as he waited for word from him. One word would have sufficed, just a single clue to tell them he was still doing all right. Instead, there had been silence -- unrelenting and absolute. It had felt uncannily similar to experiencing a death, except that there was no body to bury or grieve over.
In the beginning, directly after Mike ran, and left that text for Harvey, he'd felt weirdly proud of the kid's courage, and happy that he had evaded capture. As one day turned into the next, and he witnessed the unraveling of Rachel, and how Jessica and Louis and Donna had all closed ranks and lied and perjured themselves to protect the lie – “the lie,” lower case, which had somehow morphed into “The Lie” following Mike's escape -- resentment had begun to build inside of him at the way they had all been left behind to clean up the mess, while Mike flitted away into the breeze, free as the proverbial bird.
Life had gone on, as it does. Soon, Harvey's energies focused on getting his new firm up and running, and any thought he gave to Mike tended to be something along the lines of where in the world is Mike Ross, if he is still in this world, jesus, let him still be in this world, healthy and happy.
And really, that's all he had ever wanted for him. That's why he'd hired him, after all … that, and to feed his own rebellious streak, and as a clever route to avoiding work. As he'd gotten to know him, and to become fond of him, and to finally become much more than fond, guilt had set in for the position in which he'd placed Mike.
Harvey had always kept faith that if the shit ever did hit the fan, he would find some way out for Mike. If it turned out that Mike hadn't shared the same faith, what was there to say to that? It was Mike's life and future on the line, and his choice to make.
He'd missed him, though, so much, and as the residual anger from the phone call slowly dissipated, he realized that Mike's cool dismissal didn't change that. Harvey still wanted to see him, to talk to him face to face.
Sometimes it seemed to him that their relationship was rather like a complex piece of music, with varied movements that had all led in one direction, in carefully orchestrated steps, ratcheting up the tension, moving inexorably to what should have been a resounding climax, but instead had cut off mid-crescendo, to hang in the air, static and unresolved, for more than five years.
Even Mike's time with Rachel had seemed like a detour, as had his own attempts with Scottie and Zoe
One way or the other, he needed to play this out to the end. Which meant he needed to locate Mike. He knew what city he was in. He had his phone number. He could probably hunt down the information on his own, but the process might veer into slightly squishy legal territory, so he did what he'd been doing for years, and texted his investigator, Vanessa. Ten minutes later, she texted him back with the information he'd requested. He consulted his work schedule on his phone, calculated what he could push back, and what needed to be handled, and then made his airline reservations.
******
Mike had fallen into the habit for the last year or more, of barricading himself inside his room all weekend, reading, or binging on Netflix, ordering out for food and doing his best to ignore the noise produced by five energetic college students intent on “getting their party on.” He understood the impulse, if he no longer shared it, and didn’t want to be “that guy,” or “Grumpy Old Asshole in Room 2C,” so he stayed out of their way.
Following the brief contact with Harvey and home, it felt natural to follow the same pattern, and go full hermit. The difference this time was that he had a whole week to fritter away, not just the usual two days, and by Tuesday, he was beginning to go stir crazy. He yanked open curtains which had been blocking out the world since February, and took note of the perfect, sunny day outside. From his room, if he stood in the right spot, up on his tiptoes, and craned his head just so, he could see a slice of Lake Washington through the buildings and trees. With the sun glinting on it, it seemed ... inviting. In fact, the whole outside world seemed to be beckoning him to venture out of doors.
Determined to set aside his habitual torpor, he ran a comb through his hair, pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, went down the hall to pee and brush his teeth, grabbed a bottle of water and two energy bars, and wheeled his bike out into the hall, thankful that he only had to lug it down one flight of stairs.
Because school was out for the year, and summer school was not as well attended, traffic on the street was light (as light as it ever got in Seattle). When he entered the bike path, it was a different story. Even though summers in general tended to be long and warm and lovely in the region, the residents treated each sunny day as if it was a rare gift which needed to be taken advantage of in every way possible. Instead of being irritated by the congestion on the path, Mike found himself smiling, enjoying the simple pleasures of warmth on his shoulders and the smooth glide through space.
He headed north, parallel to Lake Washington’s shoreline, catching glimpses of the lake past the expensive houses built at the water’s edge. It was tempting to stop at one of the parks he passed, but he kept going, gaining speed as he reached the apex of the trail and headed back south on the opposite side of the lake. On this side, the trail went past a couple of wineries, a golf course, condos and apartments butting right up to the edge of the path, and eventually cut a line through low, marshy looking tracts of land which were home to hawks and blue herons and several varieties of ducks.
The last time he’d been this way, he’d watched one of the blue herons take flight, what seemed like mere yards away, rising into the mist-soaked air like a portent he couldn't quite interpret, and his breath seemed to catch in his throat at the sight. Today, he wasn’t so lucky, perhaps because the number of other bicyclists whizzing past had sent the wildlife into hiding.
Feeling more relaxed than he had in months, he pedaled lazily over the mostly level path, enjoying the day. Just before he got to Marymoor Park, he pulled off the trail and found a small café that served sandwiches. He sat at an outside table, munching on turkey and white cheddar, and gulping down a mango smoothie. He bought a brownie for the road, and was on his way again.
He was starting to feel all the miles he’d traveled in his calves, and thighs and back, and had begun to wheeze whenever he climbed the rare hill. He knew his limits, though, and decided to head across the I-90 bridge and on to West Seattle. If his appetite had returned by then, he intended to splurge at Fatburger before heading home again.
***
The day long ride left Mike feeling so loose and positive, he decided to repeat it the next day, and the next, although he cut the distance in half and stayed on the west side of the lake. He found a couple of coffee shops on his route to West Seattle and back that put Café Monet to shame. He actually considered putting in an application at the one with the Help Wanted sign in the window, but decided he couldn’t do that to Vince, who had, after all, hired him when no one else would, and who had given him this week to play, with pay.
But loyalty be damned, he sure as hell would ask for a pay raise when he got back, because he'd decided that he needed to get out of the boarding house and into an apartment, or even a nicer house with roommates closer to his own age.
The weekend before he went back to work, it rained, and all the native Seattleites complained about what a shitty summer they were having, seeming to forget about the gorgeous stretch of weather they had just enjoyed. Mike ignored the rain (which was only a drizzle) and took the bus downtown to mingle with the tourists and explore Pike Place Market. This outing, with all of its photo-ops, made him nostalgic for both the camera he’d been forced to leave behind, and the days when he’d had the ready cash to plunk down on a new toy. With his lousy pay at the coffee shop, anything beyond food and rent required extensive planning and juggling. He'd saved for over a year to buy the bike.
When he found himself thinking about classes, and training, and professional development, he forced himself to rudely stomp on any and all such aspirations. Fake Mike Frost could probably toil safely away in a crappy coffee house until he dropped dead, but Fake Mike Frost the history professor, or photojournalist, or even the medical transcriptionist, might attract the wrong sort of attention. Maybe he was being overly paranoid, but it had become a habit that was not easy to shake.
***
“You’re back,” said Grande Quad Americano – Walter.
“I am indeed.”
“That’s good.”
“Is it?” Mike smiled toothily to demonstrate that he was only kidding.
“That other one – your replacement – she burns the espresso. It was unacceptable.”
“Did you tell her?”
“I shouldn’t have to tell her.”
Before his vacation, Mike might have decided it was too early in the morning to be having this conversation, and shut it down. Maybe it was the relaxed feeling of renewal he’d brought back with him from his vacation, or maybe it was the brief phone call with Harvey, but he’d reached the not so startling conclusion that things in his life needed to change.
With that in mind, he looked Walter straight in the eye and asked, “Do you think you would ever like to go out with me? Like, on a date?”
He received a long, appraising stare in return. For several seconds, the man’s face appeared to be cut from granite. Then his mouth curled in at the corners, one eyebrow went up, and he said, with zero inflection, “That would be acceptable.”
Okey dokey, Mr. Spock, thought Mike, already regretting his impulse. But what did he have to lose? Walter didn’t seem like the type of guy to get him blind drunk, stick him with the bill, and leave him to fend for himself when he could barely even stand on his own. They made arrangements to meet up for drinks the next night, speaking to one another as if setting up a business transaction.
***
Walter had suggested they rendezvous at a bar not far from Seattle Center that specialized in multiple varieties of martinis. As soon as Mike walked in the door, he knew he was in trouble. More specifically, his wallet and bank account were in trouble. Prices in Seattle were nothing like those back in Manhattan, but ten to twenty dollars per drink sounded excessive. Walter had arrived before him, and was sitting at a dimly lit table in the far corner. Mike wondered cynically if he’d chosen it to make it more difficult for the other patrons to see who he was with.
Mike plopped down across from Walter, and opened with the stark truth. “Gotta be honest here, man. Barista pay is not great. I can barely afford a glass of tap water in this place.”
“It’s fine, Mike. I’ve got it.”
Which was decent of the guy, considering Mike had invited him, and not the other way around. Taking him at his word, Mike announced his intention to order an espresso martini because it sounded good, and then actually blushed when Walter pointed out the obvious fact that Mike must enjoy his work if he took it so far as to order coffee drinks on his time off.
“You know what?” said Mike. “You’re right. I should branch out. I think I’ll have the pomegranate martini instead.” Which happened to be three dollars more than the espresso.
A waitress took their order, and Walter opted for the basic gin martini, which shouldn’t have surprised Mike, given the man's personality. He did order it with top drawer gin, so there was that.
While they waited for the drinks, both of them looked around the place, neither finding anything to say for several minutes. The martinis arrived, and Mike drank deeply. Not bad, he decided. More silence ensued.
When Mike did finally speak, it was to satisfy his curiosity. “So, Walter, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m an attorney.”
Mike had just taken a good-sized gulp, and nearly performed a spit take at Walter’s revelation. He managed to swallow without choking. “You’re a what, now?”
“An attorney. I know that may surprise you, considering how much time I spend at the café.”
“I’m guessing you don’t work for one of the big firms?”
Walter gave him a sharp glance. “How astute. No, I do not. I’m a sole practitioner, specializing in bankruptcies. I generally see clients in the afternoon. You may or may not have noticed that I’m sometimes absent from the café on Tuesday mornings?”
Mike had noticed, and now he put two and two together. “You’re in court, I’m guessing.”
“You seem to know a thing or two about the profession, Mike.”
I worked for a law firm back in New York, he almost blurted out, before clamping his mouth closed against the incriminating words. If he told this guy too much, and he got nosy, or even mildly curious … “I just read a lot,” Mike said.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Fire away.”
“You seem reasonably bright. If you were a student, I’d probably see you studying during slow times at the café, but I never do. What are you doing working there? I’d think you could do much more with your life if you only applied yourself a little.”
Mike signaled their waitress for another drink. “No offense, Walter, but I’ve applied myself plenty, and every time I do, life kicks me in the teeth and takes away everything I’ve worked for. Where I am now … well, there’s not much more to take away from me.” He abruptly stopped talking and frowned, surprised by his own moment of revelation.
“So you’re afraid to try anymore?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He made a cutting motion through the air with one hand. “Let’s drop it.” He reached over and touched the back of Walter’s hand, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. “I didn’t come here to dissect my questionable life choices. Did you? Is that why you’re here? Or can you think of some more enjoyable way to spend our time?”
A faint flush colored Walter’s cheekbones and his hazel eyes darkened. He licked his lips. “Do you live near here?”
Mike had ridden the bus here, so as not to have to keep track of his bike. He was free, then, to ask, “Are you driving?”
“Sure.”
“Then I live close enough. Let’s go.”
They both downed their remaining drink – apparently even a self-employed attorney harbored a certain level of respect for a ten dollar martini – and got up to leave, not holding hands, but bumping shoulders companionably.
Miracle of miracles, they found an open spot on the street just two blocks from the house. Mike began to feel self-conscious about his living arrangements, and to wish he’d suggested they go to Walter’s place instead. Luckily, he was just drunk enough not to care as much as he normally would about the stale, musty smell of the place, or the throbbing bass drifting up from the basement, or the padlock he had to unlock to get into his room.
“I know, I know,” he joked needlessly, although Walter hadn’t said anything, “pretty fancy place. It’s cheap, though, and clean. Cleanish. I haven’t seen any cockroaches for months, and only down in the kitchen, not in here.
“It’s fine,” Walter assured him, stripping off his coat and advancing on Mike, only to freeze with a perplexed look on his face. “Don’t you have a bed?”
“Just wait a second.” Mike dragged the cardboard box that served as his coffee table out of the way and pulled the bed out of the sofa. “Ta da. Let me grab some sheets and we’ll be good to go.”
“I’m good to go now.” Walter grinned and tackled Mike, pinning him to the bed while leaning in for a kiss.
This is what Mike wanted. It was the reason he’d asked Walter out, and the thing for which all of that liquid courage was required. Now that the moment was upon him (and Walter was upon him), he felt strangely detached, and sad, as if he could burst into tears with the slightest provocation.
So he turned his head to the side, and the kiss landed on the side of his face. He tried not to grimace at the strong odor of gin that wafted up his nose. When Walter grabbed for the hem of Mike's t-shirt, he lifted his arms, feeling like a puppet, and let his shirt be whisked off over his head. With fingers suddenly sluggish and uncooperative, Mike unfastened his own jeans.
And then, for the moment, Walter seemed content merely to stare down at him, eyes greedily devouring him. Finally, one hand went to the collar of his own shirt, which he began to unbutton with almost mechanical efficiency. “I would like to top you,” he said, voice devoid of passion. “Are we both okay with that?”
Were they? Was Mike? His brain seemed to stutter and splutter as he tried to answer the question. He had just opened his mouth, not sure what was going to come out, when a series of hard raps sounded on the door.
“Oh, holy shit,” Mike muttered. “Those goddamn kids. One of them started the rumor that I deal drugs, and now I can’t seem to get rid of them. They’re worse than the cockroaches. Just ignore them and they’ll go away.”
Whoever was on the other side of the door made an instant liar of him by pounding away again, louder than ever.
“Ack. Sorry. Sorry about this.” He slid off the bed, dressed only in his undone jeans, and went to open the door.
And the phrase, you could have knocked me over with a feather might be a trite cliché, but it was the first thing that came to mind when Mike opened the door to find Harvey Specter on the other side, fist raised in the air as if he intended to bash the door down. A feather wouldn’t have been necessary. The flap of a consumptive butterfly’s wing would have toppled Mike.
“Harvey?” he whispered, in a voice full of wonder, and horror, and where the hell is a fainting couch when you need one?
“Mike.” Short and clipped. His obsidian gaze moved past Mike to Walter, who appeared about as affected by the dramatic reunion as a deactivated robot. “I’m sorry. Was I interrupting something?”
“Mike,” chided Walter, “this is getting messy.”
“It was about to,” came Mike’s stupid voice, completely beyond his conscious control, “but that doesn’t seem likely any longer.”
“No.” Walter shook his head, not looking angry, not looking anything except for mildly inconvenienced. “It doesn’t. I don’t like complications.” He snatched up his coat and made for the doorway, which was still filled by Harvey, who waited a beat before stepping aside. “He’s all yours,” said Walter, and then he was gone, and Mike was alone with Harvey.
******
Harvey was furious, but he hid it. He was good at that. And it was laughable. What right did he have to be angry at Mike for dating, or hooking up, or whatever this was that he had interrupted? Maybe anal-retentive, supercilious jackasses were his type now. Finding him with a man did answer one of Harvey's questions, so there was one worry done away with.
He’d taken a cab here straight from the airport. Some calf-eyed hippy had let him in the front door and pointed him up the stairs when he’d asked after Mike. Pot and patchouli saturated the walls of the place, making him hesitate before determinedly climbing the stairs. He’d come this far …
If the cab had let him out five minutes earlier, he would probably have seen Mike and his date – or whatever – arrive, and would have been spared this absurd little melodrama. But now his rival had quit the field.
Harvey blinked rapidly as he ran this last thought back to marvel at the word he’d used: “rival.” Which implied that he still wanted Mike, and that he'd flown all the way out here just to answer the unspoken question that had hung between them all of these years.
Had he? Is that why he was here?
Mike stared at him, appearing every bit as frozen and mortified as Harvey was angry.
“I should apologize,” Harvey finally said, “for not phoning first. It’s just that our last couple of phone calls have not gone well.”
“Huh. Yeah, you could say that.”
“Can I come in?”
Mike appeared to be weighing his possible answers, but finally shrugged and made an elaborate sweeping gesture with one arm, indicating that Harvey should enter. “You came all this way. Might as get your money’s worth.”
Harvey sauntered into the room, doing his best to hide his shock at how shabby the place was. This is where Mike had been living? “Is that what your friend was doing? Getting his money’s worth?” He immediately regretted his thoughtless words. Mike looked almost comically enraged.
“Is that what you think? Is that really what you think? That was a date, not a customer. Well, to be completely accurate, he is my customer, but not my john. He drinks my coffee, at the coffee shop where I work. Jesus, Harvey, have you really regressed that much? Back to your old assholian self?”
Exhaustion washed through Harvey. It had been a long flight, and now he’d painted himself into what felt like an emotional corner with Mike. This is not how he had intended things to go. Of course, he also had not counted on Mr. Suede Jacket and Nearly Naked Mike. He hadn’t even bothered to fasten his jeans, so it was clear exactly what had been going on when Harvey arrived.
He sighed and looked around the room for somewhere to sit. The sofa bed appeared to be the only option. Luckily, he’d arrived pre-questionable-stain, so he took a chance and perched on the edge of the mattress. “Let’s start again, all right? I know it may not look this way at the moment, but I didn’t fly all the way out here to pick a fight with you.”
Mike closed the door and leaned back against it, hip cocked and arms crossed over his chest, with his pants hanging low on his hips. Harvey’s mouth went dry as he stared at him. He looked sinful like that. And good, so damn good. His shoulders seemed broader, his waist trimmer, his skin tanned and healthy looking, with a hint of freckles across his nose and cheekbones.
He knew that Mike knew that he’d been checking him out. Mike licked his lips and ran a hand through his hair. “What did you come here for? And how did you even find me?”
“Your phone number, plus my investigator. And really, Mike Frost? You might have chosen something a bit less obvious.”
“No one’s found me until now. I’d say that’s a testament to a decent choice. I kept my first name so I wouldn’t slip up when someone spoke to me. Not that it’s made any difference. As far as I could tell no one was looking for me.”
“Oh, they were looking, just not in the right place. They sweated everyone at Pearson Litt, as well as your friends, and your priest, who, for the record, didn’t tell them a thing."
"That's because they didn't know anything. I'll ask you again: why are you here?”
“Before I answer that, I’d like to ask you a question. Why did you call me?”
The expression on Mike's face might have been either confused or flustered. Harvey couldn't be sure.
“I thought we’d already established that. I had too much to drink. I don’t even remembering making the call.”
“Sure, you were drunk, but you could have called anyone. You could have called Rachel, or Trevor, or the local radio station. But no. After cutting off all contact, suddenly you have the urge to phone me. I want to know why.”
Mike heaved a long sigh and suddenly Harvey could see how the intervening years had affected him. He looked tired, and sad, and defeated, and shadows marred his pretty pale blue eyes.
“I don’t know," Mike said, throwing up his hands. "I was lonely?" He moved away from the door, gaze flitting to the bed, as if considering taking a seat next to Harvey. Instead, he walked over to the window and lowered himself to the floor, sitting with his back to the wall.
His voice softened, and Harvey had to strain to hear him. "I passed the five year mark a few months ago, did you know that? No, there’s no reason for you to have been paying that close attention." He rubbed at his face, staring down at the floor.
"Anyway, maybe that milestone got me thinking about home, and family, which manifested in my subconscious mind when I was drunk. Because, all evidence to the contrary … “ He gestured around the room and gave a sharp laugh. “All evidence to the contrary, things aren’t going so well here. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m here to stay. It’s just … one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days, plus change, of … pointlessness. I thought this would be temporary, but all of those days add up to something. They feel like something. Like habit, and permanence. They have weight.”
Mike laughed again, this time with an undertone of despair. "I feel like I'm disappearing, Harvey, day by day by day. Turns out, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days of non-existence makes a person start to go transparent. Nearly invisible. I'm surprised you can even see me." He shook his head, appearing impatient all of the sudden. "None of this is your problem. And don't think I haven't noticed that you still haven't answered my question. Why did you come here?"
Harvey drew in a breath and held it while he considered how to respond to Mike. He hadn't flown all the way to Seattle just to lie to Mike -- or himself. He breathed out slowly, steeling himself. "I missed you."
"Yeah, right," muttered Mike.
"I missed you. I've worried about you for five years, and I wanted to see for myself how you were doing. And I -- " Mike was shaking his head, rejecting every word Harvey had just said.
Harvey could stop now. He could stand up, walk out the door, leave and not come back, and never get the answer to his question, but that would make him a coward, and Harvey Specter was no coward. "I wanted to ask you something."
"You've seen how I'm doing. I'm surviving. You can stop worrying. Ask your question, so you can leave." He sniffed, and Harvey saw now that tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes.
"Mike," he whispered, and without pausing to question what he was doing, he stood and moved to where Mike was sitting, lowering himself to sit next to him on the floor. He felt Mike go rigid beside him, saw him stare straight ahead, expression stony. "I've missed you."
"You said that already."
"We have unfinished business."
"If you're here to tell me I owe you money, you've wasted your time. I have precisely two dollars and seventeen cents in my pocket."
"Mike." He swallowed hard and stiffened his jaw. "You've actually made this easier for me with Mr. Suede Jacket, you know."
Mike snorted. "Yeah, that was just a little too precious, right?" He turned his head to look at Harvey. "Easier how?"
Their faces were only inches apart. Harvey thought about kissing him. That would both ask and answer his question. He looked away, keeping his gaze fixed on the door. "I'm surprised you haven't asked me about Rachel yet." From the corner of his eye, he saw Mike shrug.
"I kept track. She graduated near the top of her class at Columbia. She's working for Jessica. She's engaged." The back of Mike's head made a dull thock as it struck the wall. "I was sad about her for a long time, but I'm not anymore. She was part of the false life that never belonged to me. I never should have been a lawyer, and I never should have had someone like Rachel. The universe, or stars, or whatever, have come back into their proper alignment. And here I am. Just where Fate always intended me to end up."
"In Seattle?"
The air went out of Mike in a rush, and he closed his eyes. "No, Harvey. Not in Seattle. Not specifically. Don't pretend you don't know what I meant."
"I know what you meant, but you're wrong. You're not a loser. And if you want to talk about Fate, let's talk about the day you crashed my associate interviews. All things considered, I'd say that was Fate doing what it's supposed to do."
"You mean setting me up to become a criminal and a fugitive?"
"No. I mean throwing us together. Giving us the chance to meet." Mike was staring at him again, and it wasn't easy, but Harvey held his gaze. "All the rest of it, what came after … We made mistakes, but god help me, I don't regret any of it."
Mike's brows furrowed, as if struggling to parse Harvey's words. "You should. I brought Forstman back into your life. You'd still be with Jessica. You'd still -- "
"Let's not, Mike. Let's not do that. I'm happy where I am. Life is change. One thing leads inexorably to the next. We all make choices, and then we have to learn to live with them. I'd have left Jessica eventually, and I think she knew it. If you're looking to take the blame, don't look at me. My life is good."
"Did you ever meet someone who makes you happy, though?"
"You haven't been listening to me."
"But I have." Mike surged suddenly to his feet, pacing around the room as if too nervous, or too filled with energy to sit still any longer. "You're all cool and zen about your life because you're the same success you've always been. Or a bigger success. Is that why you're here? To throw it all in my face?"
Feeling at a disadvantage on the floor, Harvey rose slowly, standing against the wall with his arms crossed. "Of course not."
"Then why? Why? Why are you here? Can't you see -- " He cut off abruptly and turned his back.
"Can't I see what, Mike?" Harvey took a step, and then another, advancing slowly.
"It hurts. Seeing you again hurts too much. Remembering what I had, and what I lost."
"Come home."
Mike whirled around and flinched when he saw how close Harvey was. "What?"
"I said, come home." He paced towards Mike, backing him up all the way to the door, not stopping until he stood with his chest scant inches from Mike's. "Pack your stuff, quit your job, and get on the plane with me."
"I … what? I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"I don't have a place to stay, for one thing."
"Stay with me."
"I don't have a job."
"I'll support you."
The flummoxed look on Mike's face might have been funny, if the stakes weren't so high.
"Why, Harvey? Why would you do that? You don't owe me anything. I got to live my dream for a few years, and in the end I got away with virtually no consequences. I'd say we're even. I thought you understood that."
Harvey was quiet for a minute while he studied Mike's face, cataloging the new lines of worry and stress. "Then consider our slate clean. Blank. Ready for a new story."
"I don't … What are you saying?" Hope and doubt warred in his eyes.
Harvey placed a hand on Mike's shoulder and left it there. "Tell me you never felt it, this connection between us. I dare you."
Meaning, I dare you to lie to my face.
"Maybe. Maybe I did. Maybe the timing was never right. One thing is for sure, it's too late now."
Mike might have learned the art of winning an argument from Harvey, but he was rusty, and Harvey was still the master. "No. It's not too late. How do I know? Because you called me. You were blackout drunk, to hear you tell it, and you called me. No one else. Me. And I came. If you'd waited another ten years, or twenty, I would still have come. I'll always come for you, Mike. You have to know that."
A long, taut moment passed, during which Harvey hardly dared to breathe, and then Mike crumpled, practically falling forward, head coming to rest on Harvey's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he mumbled against Harvey's shirt, hands clutching his shoulders. "God, I missed you. I thought I'd go crazy."
Harvey hesitated only a fraction of second before cradling Mike's head in his hands and planting soft kisses on his temple. "Come home with me," he whispered. His heart soared when Mike's head nodded up and down under his hands. He tilted Mike's head up and stared into his drowned blue eyes. "I would have protected you, if you'd stayed."
Mike bit off a sob. "That's why I couldn't stay."
And what was there to say to that? Harvey nodded. "Okay."
He wrapped his arms around Mike, holding him close, heart to heart. They stood that way for long minutes, until both of them moved at once, searching for one another's mouth, coming together in a kiss that started out soft and tentative, and developed into a wild, desperate clash, teeth bumping teeth, and tongues tangling and battling.
Mike finally pulled away with a sound part gasp and part laugh. "Wow. I mean, holy shit. That was … "
"Yeah. It damn sure was." Harvey nibbled Mike's reddened lips, and planted a row of tender kisses across his cheekbone. "How long will it take you to pack?"
"To be honest, I never unpacked."
The End