Chapter Text
february, 2006.
Dad was gone.
After he passed away, Harvey took a single, enforced day off. Friday, then a blurry weekend colored orange by the deep tinge of whiskey, and Monday he was back in the comfort of bespoke fabric and a tie fitted around his neck. It was the worst few days he’d had in a long, long time, and only the familiar rhythm of work could keep his feet on the ground and his head out of the bottle.
Grief—this kind of sudden, irreconcilable grief—was a stranger to him, so he turned away from it and faced strangers and clients while pretending that if he picked up his phone and called his dad, someone would pick up.
He went to the funeral the next weekend with a practiced, genial smile plastered on, as sober as the day he was born. People shook his hand and offered him condolences. He thanked them all as he wondered if they’d ever even spoken to his dad once.
Dad would’ve hated such a somber affair, would’ve nudged Harvey with his shoulder and mumbled something about shitty wine and a lack of live music. Harvey couldn’t get out fast enough.
On the drive home, he jerked his car over to the side of the interstate and stumbled out to sit on the gravel. The cars were deafening as they roared by, inconsequential. The noise rattled his bones and made his teeth chatter, and he shut his eyes and let the sensations swallow him. He waited for a long time for one to tilt off the road and slam into him, killing him instantly. There was an image of his guts and shattered bone strewn across the road stuck inside his head. It remained, even when he got back in his car, started the engine, and drove away—part of him was still smeared along the interstate under the hot sun, waiting for his dad to come home.
march, 2006.
“Harvey!” A rapid flurry of knocks, loud enough that it sounded like his intruder was slamming through drywall. “Harvey!”
Harvey muttered some choice words to himself as he took his time going to his door. He opened it, entirely unsurprised to see his brother, face red and hackles raised.
“Come in,” he welcomed with a slight drawl, spreading his hand sarcastically. Marcus shouldered into his apartment, but the momentum which had carried him across state borders to Harvey’s apartment paused so he could look around. \
“Shit. This place is nice.”
“You’ve never been here?”
“You know I haven’t.” Marcus took one slow circle to inspect the Arhaus hanging lights, the Room and Board oak coffee table and the Ethan Allen rug. “Man. Imagine seeing this shit when we were kids. We’d take a box of crayons and trash the place.”
“If I see a crayon in your hand, I’m pushing you out the window.”
Marcus shrugged off the threat the way only a little brother could. He swiveled around and said, “Look, man. I need your help.”
Ah. Harvey sighed through his nose, but nodded, reaching for his wallet. “How much do you need?”
“What? Oh—No,” Marcus said, having the decency to look humbled. “I’m good. The family’s good; don’t worry. This is, uh—it’s a buddy of mine. And it’s not money. His son is part of a little league team in Brooklyn. It’s a ragtag group of nose-pickers, nothing close to an All-Star team, but they’re good kids. I’ve seen a game.”
Harvey’s hand was still frozen on his wallet. “Are you high?”
“Let me finish,” Marcus protested, and his voice was low but he had the same whiney intonation he always had when he was a little kid and Harvey was fucking with him. “Their coach had a mid-life-crisis and fucked off to Argentina with a nineteen year old, and they’ve canceled practice two weeks in a row while looking for a replacement.”
Harvey is reluctantly following his brother’s path of logic, but the path is idiotic. “You drove all the way to Manhattan to ask me if I would coach a little league team?”
“Harvey.”
“No,” he said, like it was the obvious response. (Because it was.)
“I drove here because you won’t pick up the damn phone. This could be good for you. Just a week or two until they get an actual replacement.”
“I can’t believe you—“ Harvey laughed shortly. “Right now? Seriously? Dad just— and you want me to babysit?”
“They’re not toddlers, they’re middle schoolers. And you used to love little league, remember? You were good. These kids need someone who actually gives a shit about them. Their first game is in April, and it means a lot to them if someone wants to help them get there.”
“Marcus,” Harvey said, shaking his head. “It’s been decades since I played ball. I have a big boy job now; I can’t just drop everything and—“
“Sunday morning only,” Marcus added quickly, like that would help.
“This is such a bad idea. Are you messing with me?”
“I’m not,” Marcus said firmly.
Harvey sighed and looked up at his eggshell-white ceilings. “Even if I wanted to, it’s a horrible idea. My life since the funeral has been work and sleep and the car rides there and here. I’ve been begging Jessica to give me more cases but she won’t give me any because I’m making stupid mistakes in what I already have. And I’m drinking just enough at night that I won’t dream but I can function in the morning. Marcus, I’m holding onto life with the tips of my goddamn fingers, but I’m holding on. I can’t add any more weight or I’ll slip.”
Harvey’s little brother rarely shut up, but when he did, it was for good reason.
“I’m not trying to rub salt in the wound,” Marcus said finally. “I’m trying to keep you from jumping off a high rise.”
“I’m not suicidal,” Harvey said dully, passing him to sit heavily on the couch. “I need a drink.”
“Saying those things back to back isn’t helping your case.”
Nonresponsive, Harvey stared at the reflection of his ceiling lights in the glass windows. It was late, and the ongoing sunset was hidden by grey clouds that threatened a storm. “You should stay the night,” he said finally. “Don’t drive at night in the rain.”
“I can get a room. Harvey.” Insistent as always.
Harvey looked up, sure he looked weary and unstable. He flipped his hands to show his palms to the ceiling and asked carefully, “Only Sunday?”
“Only Sunday. Just one week. They play at that park off grand central parkway; Hilton or Hinton or something. It’s a local league, which means you don’t gotta deal with bullshit rules or anything.”
Harvey shut his eyes. “One week.”
“Thank you.”
Tightly, he shook his head. “Don’t. This isn’t benefiting you. I see what you’re doing.”
“It’s because I care.”
“I’m not going to die,” Harvey said quietly, because it was easier than saying I do need to do something before I let my grief infect everything I’ve worked for. “Stay the night.”
Marcus shook his head. “Nah. I’ll stay in the Marriott. Free soaps. The wife loves ‘em.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, and you’re stuck with me,” Marcus retorted, grinning. “Don’t be a loser. Breakfast tomorrow; I’ll give you the details. Make sure you buy some sports shorts or something.” He gestured at Harvey’s slacks. “If you show up like that they’re going to band together to give you the ultimate wedgie.”
Harvey found himself smiling, but smothered it to keep his brother from feeling too proud of himself. Marcus wandered in a roundabout way to his fridge, reached in to grab two cold beers by their necks, and then left with a “See you, brother!” and a middle finger.
Leave it to his brother to be a caring guy and a dipshit at the same time.
Sunday morning at seven-thirty AM, Harvey shrugged on a white t-shirt, khaki pants (against his brother’s advice), and took a cab that stunk of cigarettes up to the park off grand central parkway where the team had practice. He was essentially unrecognizable like this, so he wasn’t too worried about running into a client, but he felt naked without the firm edges of a bespoke suit jacket cupping his shoulders.
His head swung both ways after he paid the fare and climbed out, and his hands reached down to button a jacket that wasn’t there. The highway was close enough that he could hear the whistle of morning church service traffic.
It was a short walk to the gated field where children and adults were scattered. On the ride there, he had reached deep into his memories and dug out whatever he remembered doing when he was in Little League. He’d recalled more than he thought he would, which was good and bad. As he passed the parents sitting in the bleachers when he enters the field, he nearly expected to see his dad sitting among them.
Harvey stopped on the dead grass with his hands on his hips and eyed his available players.
He didn’t know their names yet, but he would soon. Brandon had a stubbed toe, so he was sitting on the bench. Mitchell was wiping a heavy string of snot along his forearm. Brayden, Jayden and Cayden, obviously identical triplets, seemed uninterested in giving Harvey any portion of their pea-sized attention, and he frankly couldn’t blame them. The other seven members were either distracted, didn’t give a crap, or in Logan’s case, scared shitless by Harvey.
They were all wearing dark blue shirts that read BISONS. All of them were much smaller than he thought they would be. What were they, 9, 10? Why were they barely at his hip? Was he really that small when he first started playing?
Behind him, someone’s mom yelled, “You got this, Bradley! My little all-star!”
Harvey resisted the urge to point out that he was pretty sure Bradley was the one doing cartwheels in the daisies.
He clapped his hands together to really get their attention. The sound almost spooked him, and he shoved his hands back onto his hips. “My name is Harvey. Don’t call me coach; Harvey’s fine. I’m here today and today only, so we’re going to spend our time together keeping you in shape before the next game in a few weeks.”
They stared at him like he was speaking French.
“Got it?” he pressed.
“Got it,” one of them replied (Brayden), and the rest echoed it reluctantly.
“What drills do you all usually do to kick off practice?” Harvey asked, and it came out gruffer than he intended.
“Coach Sampson didn’t give us any drills,” piped up Mitchell, before sniffing grandiosely.
Geez, what kind of team was this? “Then Coach Sampson was an idiot.”
Idiot, Jayden mouthed gleefully.
Eli raised his hand.
Harvey sighed, reminded himself that this wasn’t a board meeting, and gestured for Eli to speak.
“Where’d Coach go?”
Harvey stared down at him and shook his head a little. “I’m not answering that.” He raises his voice and pushes some of his practiced courtroom projection into his tone. “Alright, we’re going old school. All of you, start running laps clockwise. Home base is your start. Five runs, tap every base with your hand when you pass it. Got it?”
He received a few sluggish nods, and from the looks of it some of them didn’t seem to know what clockwise meant, but he figured they’d get the idea soon enough.
“I need to buy a whistle,” he muttered under his breath, then shoved his thumb and pointer finger in front of his teeth and sent out a shrill natural whistle that got the kids moving.
A few of the parents might have been staring daggers into his back, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
Once they were appropriately winded after warm up, Harvey rounded them up and got a practice game going. It was easy to slip into the role of a Coach. He felt like his dad, with his raised voice and his arms thrown in the air, getting the kids to actually play some goddamn ball. It surprised him that his dad’s memory didn’t ruin his mood, and instead made him feel lighter as he ran practice. He followed the kids up and down the field at a jog, fixed stupid plays and poor posture, and not once did he receive the wash of grief he’d been expecting. It only took about thirty minutes before he had all of their names solidly memorized, so he could shout Mitchell’s name when his head was off in the clouds or get Logan to move bases instead of watching his ball fly away.
Harvey found out that Bradley had a mean swing when he wanted to, and Eli’s pitches packed serious heat. While Mitchell could run and catch a stray fair ball pretty cleanly, he kept forgetting that he was actually supposed to tag the other team once he had the ball. Instead, he just stared at it like an idiot, and no amount of cajoling from Harvey on the sidelines could save his team that game.
Cayden, Eli, and Logan were the ones who showed real promise, and Harvey caught himself thinking in hypotheticals, how he could potentially guide them towards being solid players. He nipped those thoughts in the bud. What the hell was he thinking? This wasn’t him. He was Harvey Specter, a cutthroat junior partner at Pearson-Hardman, and he sure as hell didn’t coach little kids on the weekend.
When he got home after practice, it felt awfully quiet. He grabbed his laptop and scrolled through his email for anything pertinent, but didn’t sit on it like he usually would. That night, he grabbed a beer, switched on a re-run of a game from last season—Astros v. Red Sox—and thought about his old little league team, a bunch of rowdy boys who probably ended up scatteredall over the country.
He took another swig from the bottle and acknowledged the familiar twinge in his shoulder when he moved.
Halfway through the re-run, Marcus texted and asked him to do one more week. Harvey couldn’t do anything but say yes.
The next Sunday, the team stood at slightly more attention than last time. They recognized him as he walked up, hands on his hips. He’d gotten no sleep the night before, stuck on a particular case that should have been handled by a patent lawyer but had somehow become Harvey’s problem, and he was sure the bags under his eyes gave that away. Still, he forced himself to have some energy.
“Look,” he said. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m your new long-term coach. I’m a substitute.” He surveyed them. “But as long as I’m your coach, I’m making you work. You’re not here to sit and pick flowers. You’re here to play ball as the Bisons. And the Bisons win. Got it?”
“Got it,” they chorused, cleaner than last week, and Harvey tried not to feel too pleased. Eli raised his hand, but Harvey ignored him and sent them to do warm-up laps.
And that was that.
Marcus didn’t have to ask again; Harvey let him know that he’d cover for a little longer until they found a suitable replacement.
‘A little longer’ turned into a few months.
april, 2006.
Setting an alarm for 7:30 AM on Sundays became a habit. His sparse collection of casual wear grew. He’d only admit it under oath, but he did make a singular, shameful trip to Walmart to buy a six-pack of t-shirts that he wouldn’t care about when they inevitably got muddied or stained by sweat.
When Jessica told him to take a lunch with the CFO of Walmart on Sunday, he did something he hadn’t ever done before.
“You’re refusing?” she asked him, incredulous.
“If you really needed me for this, I would do it,” he replied, which was true. He wasn’t as crucial to the daily operations as he liked to think, and the only thing he was risking here was someone else swooping in to be a hotshot lawyer of the day. “But any other junior partner could take this and do fine.”
Jessica pursed her lips. “Look, Harvey…I didn’t want to bring it up if you wouldn’t, but I know about your dad. I’m sorry for your loss. If you—“
“It’s not that,” he interrupted, and sent a slightly apologetic look when her eyes narrowed. “I’m not less…hungry than I was before. I’m just saying, I have a prior commitment.”
“A prior commitment,” she echoed doubtfully. “A date?”
Funny. He wouldn’t hesitate to cancel a date for a client. It was what screwed over his dating life so thoroughly. “No.”
“Family affair?”
“Sort of,” he allowed, though Marcus hadn’t had to actually ask him to cover in weeks. He just… did it.
“Fine. Don’t tell me,” she said airily, circling back to her desk. “I’m giving Louis the lunch.”
It took a lot of his poorly collected self-restraint to avoid falling for the bait. “Okay,” he said agreeably, then spun on his heel and left her office before he could change his mind.
Jessica watched him go and made a mental note to follow up on his strange behavior with Donna.
As Harvey got more practices under his belt, his phone—begrudgingly—started to fill up with the numbers of various parents. All of them claimed they needed his information for safety, but it was definitely so they could bother him more easily. Some of the parents, having Googled their kids' new coach, found the Pearson-Hardman website with Harvey’s name listed seventh from the top. He made it clear to those that inquired that he wasn’t going to acknowledge his job or the wealth that came with being a senior partner at a top law firm. They stopped mentioning it, and Harvey was glad for that; he didn’t want to breach the careful boundary between this escape—a fragile, untainted reminder of his dad—and the cutthroat corporate world that waited for him come Monday morning.
Rhonda Linden, the triplets’ mom, was the loudest parent on the bleachers by far. One day, after practice, she tapped him on the shoulder. He tried not to look too apprehensive as he turned to answer, but he probably failed. It didn’t help that behind her, Cayden was dunking a whole Gatorade bottle on his head.
“It’s my sons’ birthday on Friday,” she said, her bright red lipstick stretched into a wide smile. “They want the entire team there.”
Harvey stared at her. “Okay,” he said after a moment, gesturing vaguely as if to say, I don’t know why I should care who goes to what party.
Her smile soured a little. “The entire team. Don’t worry, you can talk to my husband and the other fathers. Have a little ‘dad’ moment, watch the game.” She punctuated that with a shrill laugh, rattled off a dare and an address, then walked away without giving him a chance to say no.
Harvey turned back to the field. “Shit,” he muttered, and added it to his calendar.
Not once during the birthday party did he get to chat with the “other fathers.” The single mothers—who he admired for their patience levels but kept his distance from—grabbed his arms and bombarded him with questions. Some of them would have made excellent prosecutors.
The entire team, who had assembled in party hats with gifts their parents bought, was causing as much of a commotion as humanly possible. Rhonda was doing her absolute best to corral them in a thin, reedy voice.
“Brayden—!” she cried as one of her sons tried to feed chocolate cake to their golden retriever.
“I’m Cayden,” Brayden said as he reluctantly put the cake back on the counter, rolling his eyes, and Harvey inwardly grinned. They’d tried to pull this shit on him before, but it never worked. They may have looked identical, but they were very different in behavior.
Rhonda didn’t seem to notice the mix-up—she huffed and turned to another triplet. “Brayden—”
“Hey, I’m Jayden!” Cayden protested. “Come on, Mom.”
And so it went, until Rhonda finally figured out the joke and released a long-suffering sigh, earning laughs from the gathered parents. The kids ran away and left Harvey to more genial conversation that felt pointless if he wasn’t going to make clients out of any of them. (And he wasn’t, since they both couldn’t afford him and had ordinary career paths that didn’t involve skirting the line between an ethical dilemma and a crime.)
When Harvey finally extricated himself from the throng with a vague excuse about the restroom, he ran directly into the triplets. All three were double-wielding Nerf guns with wicked grins on their faces.
“Coach!” Brayden exclaimed in a whisper-voice. “Wanna help our team—(“Defense Force 900!” interrupted Jayden)—win ultimate water war? I’m captain, so only I can pick who’s on our team,” Brayden boasted. “But I’ll add you, since you’re Coach.”
Harvey looked down at his Henley and fresh-pressed slacks, thought for a moment, then looked back up. “Deal me in, captain.”
All three of their grins got much wider.
Needless to say, Defense Force 900 won ultimate water war. Harvey also swallowed the cost of the broken cabinet that Eli crashed into, but it was worth resting easy, knowing he’d never be invited to Rhonda Linden’s house again.
june, 2006.
A month turned into a whole season.
A regular Little League season usually began with tryouts and registration in late winter, so around January or early February, followed by practices starting in March. The games themselves began in April and ran through June, with the regular season concluding in late June. Harvey missed the first half of it when he joined, but stuck with them for the rest.
The kids began to look up to him and shape up during practices, and under his watch, they actually became pretty decent. They were still a local league, sure, but they beat other teams more often than not.
Deep-rooted pride spread through Harvey as he coached them through their victories. It was that same heady rush he felt when he won cases—a kind of euphoria that made his chest swell. The kids screamed and pumped their fists in the air, still young enough to celebrate their success loudly without seeming arrogant.
He earned his reputation as a hardass with the parents, but the kids knew it was all bullshit. They read him just as well as Jessica or Donna did, which was absurd. His gruff exterior was really tested when Mitchell darted up to him after their sixth win of the season, wrapped his little arms around Harvey’s waist, and said, “Thanks, Coach Harvey.”
“Thank me after I make you all do twenty laps on Sunday,” Harvey replied down at him, arms crossed.
Mitchell grinned, showing a dimple in his left cheek that reminded Harvey of Marcus, and then darted away for victory ice cream with his family.
They were good kids, really. Even when they tried to dirty talk other teams, it did them no favors. The most recent game came to mind:
“Get your eyes checked!” The opposing pitcher hollered with all of the might of a fully grown man but the vocal cords of a pre-pubescent teen.
Gary inhaled with his whole chest and yelled back, “I’M GETTING GLASSES ON MONDAY, SO—TAKE THAT!”
Watching from the sidelines with his clipboard shielding his eyes from the sun, Harvey winced.
Another game, Jayden tripped between 2nd and 3rd base and ate dirt. Luckily he didn’t chip any teeth, but he still earned a nasty road rash on his chin and cheek. Harvey hauled him up to his feet with a hand on his forearm and took him to the bench, the other team jeering the whole time.
Jayden, who was still a little stunned after getting the wind knocked out of him, raised a pale hand up and unceremoniously flipped off the other team.
“Where did you even learn—“ Harvey hastily wrapped a hand around Jayden’s finger to tuck it back down. “Christ, kid, you’re going to get us cited.”
Behind them, Cayden howled with laughter, knocking against Brandon. Harvey had to pretend to be upset, but none of them believed it for a second.
The following Sunday practice, Harvey didn’t let them play any games. Instead, he rounded them all up on the field and said, “Today you’re going to learn sportsmanship.”
To the chorus of groans he received, he shrugged and said, “The thing you don’t get is, sportsmanship isn’t about baseball. It’s more than that. Jayden, you think when you’re a doctor you can stick your middle finger up at a coworker?”
“No,” Jayden answered glumly.
“We have to be the bigger person, in baseball and beyond it. Or you’re never going to get anywhere.”
“But I thought we were suppose’ta to win!” Simon piped up.
Harvey huffed. “It’s not winning if you have to stoop lower than your opponents to do it. Then it’s just dirty. And Bisons don’t fight dirty, you hear me?”
Eli’s hand shot up.
“Eli,” Harvey acknowledged.
“My mom says you’re a lawyer. Don’t lawyers fight dirty?”
It took Harvey a few seconds. The…part of him that was a corporate attorney rarely showed up on this field. The question shoved him off-center for long enough that Eli followed up with, “Wait, do you put people in jail?”
That was an easier question. “No,” Harvey said with a small, self-amused scoff. “I’m not that kind of lawyer.”
“Then what kind are you?”
“I…fix issues with really large companies.” He didn’t know how to put it into words that wouldn’t make him sound like an asshole. “But no matter what you practice in law, you can’t fight dirty or you’ll lose your license. Well, you aren’t supposed to,” he acknowledged. He wasn’t the shiniest star in the court of law, but he sure as hell didn’t commit perjury on the daily like some people he knew. “But the rules are the same. We don’t act like a-holes just because the other team is a bunch of pricks. We’re better than that.”
“Why?” asked Gary.
Harvey couldn’t help the sly smile growing on his face. “There are much more fun ways to get under their skin. You ever heard of killing people with kindness?”
They all shook their heads.
“Okay. Imagine this—I’m at work, okay?”
“What are you wearing?” Paul interrupted.
Harvey sighed. “A suit.”
“Ok. Just tryna imagine.”
“You wear suits?” Brayden asked, peering up at him as if that was an inconceivable concept.
“I—yes. You know, they call lawyers ‘suits’ sometimes, as a nickname. That’s irrelevant, do whatever you want with it. But—let’s say I’m at work and the opposing counsel—the other team—decides to lie about something I said to get me in trouble and get themselves more time to figure out how to beat me.”
“Lying is bad,” Cayden nodded solemnly, which was a load of bullcrap on his part, but, whatever.
“Right. So what do you think I should do, in this situation?”
“Tell them you didn’t lie!” Eli protested indignantly, baring his teeth.
“What if the judge doesn’t believe me?”
Eli faltered, and the rest of the kids shifted on their feet, curious. Hooked. It was an electric feeling; maybe this was why Louis liked having all of the associates under his purview.
“I could lie about him too and stoop to his level,” Harvey offered lightly, walking to the side. Their eyes tracked him as he pretended to ponder. “Or I could go along with it. Smile when I see him, shake his hand. Don’t let him think he’s rattled me. I get him loose and friendly, thinking he’s gotten away with it, and then the second he lets his guard down—“ Harvey tossed the ball into the air and it landed back in his palm with a dull thwip. “I play hardball. He gets all that extra time and I use that same time to make my own attack better. His guard is let down and I take that moment to attack. He lied because he just wasn’t good enough to beat me without cheating.”
Harvey pointed his hand clutching the ball at them. “When you’re better at the game, you don’t have to play dirty.”
Gary tilted his head. “What if you’re worse than them?”
“Fight as hard as you can, and take the loss. Learn from what they did right. Come back stronger the next time.”
They all stared at him, riveted. Maybe there were even some future lawyers in the bunch. Who knew.
Bradley raised his hand and asked, “Can we do a Compliment Circle?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You pair up and then you compliment each other after each—“
“Nope,” Harvey said, tossing the ball between his hands. He reached up and whistled through his fingers to get them moving. “Ten laps round the field, and then we’re playing dodgeball. Come on. Why aren’t your legs moving yet, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
During their second-to-last game of the regular season, Bradley got so bored in the outfield that he plopped down and started digging in the dirt with his fingers. Harvey didn’t care when Bradley stopped paying attention; he knew the kid would rather be doing ballet classes than this. But when Eli hit a stray ball that soared across the field, Harvey was running his direction and yelling for Bradley to duck. It was too fast. Bradley’s head darted up at the wrong moment, and the baseball smacked into his lips with a dull thunk.
Bradley lost a few teeth, came back to practice for one more session so Eli could apologize, and then never returned. Harvey hoped his parents finally put him in dance classes or something.
He also pulled his knee, running that fast. Donna looked at him suspiciously when he was icing his knee behind his desk at work the next day, but didn’t ask.
After the regular season, Little League entered the All-Star season, which began in early July. This period included tournaments at local, state, regional, and national levels, with the pinnacle being the Little League World Series, held in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in late August. None of this really meant much to Harvey, who’d heard the kids talking about it but didn’t think their team was big or good enough to be on the map in the All-Star season.
The night before their last game of the regular season, knee-deep in paperwork, Harvey was called by one of the managers of the local All-Star tournaments—who knows how they nabbed his number—and told that he’d go to the meeting of the Brooklyn teams to decide their All-Star team.
“Wait, huh?” he said weakly, sounding like he’d never taken an English class before, much less gone to law school.
“You the Bison coach, yeah?” the man said. “Well, you don’t exactly have a manager, so I don’t blame you for not knowin’, but you gots the opportunity to nominate one o’ your boys for the All-Star team, Harv.”
“Harvey,” Harvey corrected absently. “Do you need their stats from the season?”
“We got most o’ it from scouts, don’t worry, but if you’ve been tracking their records then sure, bring it to the meetin’. You know, those Bisons haven’t never been good enough to even be looped into the conversation, but you’ve sure knocked ‘em into shape.”
“Thank you,” Harvey said, and then discussed details before he hung up. He stared at the silent phone in his hands, considering.
“Harvey Specter, my All-Star champ!” Gordon hollered as he crushed his son in a warm hug. “My boy’s going to take down the state!”
“I’m on the team, Dad; it doesn’t mean we’re gonna win,” Harvey whined, wrestling out of the grip. He ducked a few faux headshots from his dad’s fists and started play-punching back, giggling until his mom came in and told them to knock off their roughhousing and come eat dinner.
“I’m proud of you, bud,” his dad whispered to him, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Even if you lose every single All-Star game. Well, I might send you to the army in that case, but—“
“Dad,” Harvey groaned, but he was grinning. “You’re going to watch the games, right?”
Dad scoffed. “Every single one. I don’t have any shows out of town for the next month; my son’s playing Little League all star! So you better not be picking daisies out there, you hear me?”
Harvey saluted his dad, and Gordon patted him on the shoulder with a large hand as they went to eat.
His shoulder felt heavy, stiff like it hadn’t in years.
Harvey set aside the phone and retrieved his records for Cayden, Eli, and Logan.
july, 2006.
Eli made it onto the All-Star team for their area. He started practicing with them while the rest of the Bisons finished the regular season excited to spend the rest of their summer doing whatever it was middle schoolers got up to without a rigid schedule in place.
And Harvey—abruptly had nothing to do.
The week after their last game of the season was a weird sort of hollow. He didn’t have practice or a game to look forward to, and Fall Ball was…months away. And it went without saying that he would keep coaching them; he was long past admitting he was attached.
Logan had given him a little card to say thanks. It sat on his desk at work. Its big and horrible handwriting had earned two or three curious glances from associates who ended up in his office.
“Whatever will you do with your Sunday mornings now?” Donna asked mildly, stepping inside his office on Friday evening.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harvey answered in the same tone, flipping the page of the Donaldson merger without really looking at it.
“Have you considered baking?” She perched on the edge of his desk and pretended to think hard, flipping her upper lip and looking up. “What about crocheting? Ooh. I know—tutoring. Make some extra money on the side.” She wiggled her fingers at him.
Harvey finally looked up. “How long have you known?”
“Since Marcus asked me if you’d be in your apartment when he arrived in town.”
Harvey shook his head and sighed. “I hate him.”
“Have you seen him, lately? Maybe this weekend you can head over and visit.”
“I don’t know about that one, Donna. He’s got the baby now, and—“
“All the more reason to—oh, stop that.” She reached over and plucked the paper from his hands, setting it down. “All the more reason to spend some time with your niece.”
“Babies don’t remember things,” he told her, and she rolled her eyes.
“Nor do you, if it isn’t put in your calendar.”
“What am I, senile?”
“Something like that.” Donna stood back up, teasing smile warming. “How has it been, coaching? What’s your favorite part?”
Harvey appraised her, exasperated. “Oh, so now you want to talk about it?”
“I wanted to let you come to terms with it on your own. You didn’t volunteer the information.” She leaned over and gently tapped at the card on his desk. “But you sure as hell care about those kids, Harvey.”
He sighed and sat back in his chair, pressing his knuckle to his lip in thought. “They’re making me soft.”
“Trust me, I know. You saved that little first year from Louis’s wrath last week. He was so stunned he let you have it.”
“My reputation is going down the drain,” Harvey groused. “You wanna know my favorite part? Watching the opposite team’s twerps lose.”
She laughed without hesitation. “Liar.”
He spread his hands. “The hot moms.”
“Try again.”
He squinted at her. “I don’t like being interrogated.”
She shrugged. “Too bad.”
Harvey exhaled through his mouth and blew his lips out. “My favorite part is getting away from all this,” he waved his hand vaguely to reference the office. “Everybody lies. The kids are honest to a fault. It’s…refreshing.”
Donna softened. “In another world, you think you would’ve coached?”
“Not a chance.” He smirked, but rubbed his chin and looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t think there was any other way for me to end up doing this other than the events that led to it. I didn’t touch a ball after…everything blew up. Stopped going to physical therapy the week I told my dad about…” He gestured vaguely again.
“Hm.” She stared him down for a second. “Well. You never answered my question. What will you do on Sunday?”
“Sleep in,” he muttered. “Will you leave it?”
“Visit your brother,” she said gently. “You don’t have to see your mom at all.”
Harvey shut his eyes. “You’ve scheduled my Monday off already, haven’t you?”
He can’t see her, but her responding smile is loud.