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“I’m sorry, Mr. Specter. Harvey,” he amends after a moment. “I know that’s not what you were hoping to hear.”
Harvey can’t imagine anyone hoping to hear their dad only has three months left to live. At most. It’s like a sick joke, and Harvey’s family is the punch line.
“So what’s next?”
“Well, first we need to tackle this infection. Get him back to feeling like himself again.”
Harvey almost laughs at that. Gordon hasn’t felt like “himself” since he got diagnosed. But this doctor is young, and he still thinks that platitudes will comfort Harvey. Telling him they don’t feels cruel, somehow. He never thought it would be up to him to comfort his father’s doctor.
“Okay. Just let me know what you need from me.”
Harvey dismisses the doctor and heads into his father’s darkened room. Gordon is asleep on his side, facing the door, toes of his left foot sticking out from underneath the covers. Well, no, he’s attempting to fool Harvey into thinking he’s asleep. He sucks at it.
“I know you’re awake, old man.”
Gordon’s eyes blink open, and he asks, voice rough, “So what’s my prognosis?”
“Pain in the ass, as always.”
“Too bad there’s no cure for that.”
Harvey nods. “A lifelong condition.”
There’s a long pause, and Harvey’s never thought of hospitals as quiet places, but damn if he can’t hear himself think. And that’s a problem. He sighs.
“It’s okay, kid. Whatever it is.”
But it’s not. It can’t be. There is no universe in which this conversation or the reason for it are even approaching okay.
“How many months did he give me?”
He’s so damn calm when he says it, and all Harvey wants to do is scream.
Gordon shifts so he’s lying flat on his back, but his head is still turned toward Harvey, his eyes sharp and penetrating. “No, never mind. Don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter.”
“How can it not matter?”
The look Gordon gives him is kind. “I’m going to die when I’m going to die. I’d rather not spend the rest of my life counting it down.”
“Jesus, dad.”
Harvey falls into the chair next to his dad’s bed and drops his head into his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees. He closes his eyes when he feels his dad’s hand grip the back of his neck and squeeze. Harvey leans into it just a touch.
“They did say they were going to give you some stuff to clear up the infection.”
“Well that’s good. This thing is kicking my ass.”
Harvey just nods. He doesn’t know what else to say that isn’t fuck the infection, life is kicking your ass.
“I wish you were happy, kid.”
Harvey looks up abruptly and his father’s hand falls away.
“You’re dying. Of course I’m not happy.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.” Harvey sits back, slouching into the back of the plastic chair. “No one has that much time in this life, you know. And certainly not enough to go around wasting it.”
Harvey feels worn out – done with this day. “What gives you the idea that I’m unhappy?”
“You forget I raised you. I know what your happy looks like.” When Harvey doesn’t respond, he says, “I know that what happened between your mom and I made you wary.”
“So that’s what this is about? You want me to get a wife?”
“Or a husband.” At Harvey’s raised eyebrows, he adds, “I want you to find your partner. That’s what I want to see before I go - someone in your corner. Someone who knows how to fight for you. Call it my deathbed wish.”
His deathbed wish. Jesus.
Harvey doesn’t know what to say to that. So he says nothing.
He turns the TV on to a football game and feels his father’s eyes on him but eventually they fall away, and when Marcus drops by about a half an hour later, Harvey gladly hands him over and begs off for a while. Let his dad drop life changing desires on his brother for a change. He’s full up for the day.
Harvey sighs.
He needs a hot dog.
+
Evidently he’s not the only one who needs a hot dog, because it’s just shy of eleven AM, it’s about twenty-nine degrees out, and the line is already a dozen people deep.
New Yorkers.
“Harvey?”
Harvey turns at the tentative question and is astounded to find himself facing someone he honestly thought he’d never see again.
“Mike.”
His name is like fresh cold snow in Harvey’s mouth.
They’d only had one day together about five years ago and Mike looks a little older, but Harvey could still place him without the slightest effort. Same mischievous twinkle in the same bright blue eyes, same easy smile, same damn messenger bag.
“God…it’s been, what?”
“Five years.”
His response is soft. “Five years.”
He looks good – healthy. Not like that day. “How are you?”
“Good,” he says, and Harvey can tell he means it. He’s wearing a navy blue wool pea coat with a striped scarf, and underneath that a v-neck sweater, a checked blue button down and khakis. He looks polished, put together, in a way Harvey doesn’t remember him being. Well, except for that damn messenger bag.
“How are you?”
“I’m good.” He pauses. That’s a lie. “No, I’m not. I don’t know why I said that. My dad’s sick. No…not sick.” He shakes his head. “Dying. Or so they tell me.”
Mike’s bright eyes widen and his face falls. “Oh, Harvey. God…I’m so sorry.”
Harvey nods. “Thanks.” Mike’s hand twitches on the leather strap of his messenger bag, and Harvey focuses on his flexing, nervous fingers, and says, “You never called.”
One of them had to say it. Their twenty-one hours together were…important, and it could have been the start of something incredible. They both know that. Instead they’re two almost strangers, meeting once more in front of a hot dog cart.
“No.” Mike sighs. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wanted to, but…I couldn’t. I had some things I needed to take care of before…”
Before. Before they could be anything to each other. Before they mattered too much to each other to walk away. Before they became a them.
They’d both felt something that long day, but Harvey had known even as he’d handed over his number and hoped Mike would follow through that he might not. He wasn’t surprised when Mike didn’t call, but he was disappointed. “So I’m guessing you’re not a bike messenger anymore.”
“Uh, no.” Mike grins. “I’ve moved on and up. I’m a teacher at a private school a few streets over. History and civics. And one pre-law class.”
Harvey’s lips twitch at that. “Pre-law?”
Mike’s smile is a little bashful. “I may have had some inspiration on that front.”
“How’s Grammy?”
Mike tilts his head a little and smiles wide – touched that Harvey remembers, he guesses. But that’s no feat – Harvey remembers everything about those twenty-one hours. Everything.
“She’s had some rough days but she’s good – hanging in there. Thanks.” Mike wrinkles his nose and inhales sharply at the cold air. When he exhales, a cloud forms in front of his mouth. He removes his hand from the strap of his bag and shoves it into his pocket. “Do you want to get some coffee?”
“I’d prefer a drink.”
The circumstances of today being what they are.
Mike wrinkles his nose regretfully. “I have a few more classes to teach this afternoon. Can I buy you lunch instead? I’d love to catch up.”
He’s hopeful and dammit, so is Harvey.
“Unless you have to get back to your dad. I don’t want to keep you from him.”
Harvey steps out of line, a little closer to Mike. “Lunch would be nice.”
+
Really, it was nothing. Harvey was probably fine. But Ray had insisted that head injuries were “nothing to take lightly”, so here Harvey sits, on a bed in the ER at Mount Sinai West, watching the frenzy unfold around him in what had to be the busiest day they’d had seen in a long time.
“You would think they would have planned their staffing better when they knew the worst blizzard in thirty years was going to hit today.”
Harvey reaches out a hand and yanks back the curtain to his left and finds a man in his early 20s cradling his left arm, feet propped up on the messenger bag at the foot of his bed.
“Broken arm?”
The man nods. “And abrasions and contusions.” He lifts his chin once, toward Harvey. “Stitches?”
“And possible concussion. Car accident. Head meets door frame. You?”
“Bike meets car.”
“What were you doing on a bike in a blizzard?”
He lifts his right foot and brings it down on the messenger bag. “Rent and food wait for no man.”
“Not for one day?”
“Not for one hour.”
Harvey just shakes his head. He was that young once, and just as sure in his own invincibility, but he had it ripped away from him when he tore his shoulder in half. He wonders what it will take for this guy, and hopes he never loses something as important as Harvey lost.
“Besides, the storm is just starting. It’s going to get a lot worse out there.”
“And in here.”
He nods again and they watch as a few nurses rush by with a woman in a bed, as a doctor pulls out a penlight and shines it in a teenager’s eyes, as an orderly pushes an elderly man in a wheelchair past their beds.
Harvey holds out his hand. “Harvey.”
The man takes it, shakes firmly. “Mike.”
“So how long you think we’ll be here?”
Mike seems to think about it a moment, then says, “Non-critical cases like us? I’d say four or five hours, give or take.”
He crosses his ankles, leans back against his pillow and Harvey follows his lead, reluctantly resigning himself to the wait.
“So what do you do, Harvey?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
He nods, almost as if to himself. “That explains the fancy suit.” He rolls his head across the pillow toward Harvey and a slow, knowing smile tilts up the corners of his mouth. “I bet you’re a big shot, aren’t you?”
Harvey waits, eyes softly holding Mike’s before he finally gives in with a shrug and a slow blink, a smile pulling at his lips.
Mike’s head rolls away. He laughs up at the ceiling.
“The Big Shot and the Bike Messenger. ERs are fucking weird places.”
+
“God, your dad.”
Mike is leaning over the table in the café toward him, forearms braced on the top, all earnestness as he looks at Harvey. But he knows how much Harvey’s dad means to him – maybe the only one who knows how much. Twenty-one fucking hours, that’s all they’d had. But he’d been so easy to talk to, so effortless a listener that the words had just come out sometime in hour six, after Mike had told him all about the car accident, all about losing his parents, all about Grammy. It had felt only right to tell Mike about his parents, about his brother, about the injury that cost him his future shot at the majors.
“Yeah.” Harvey nods at the waitress as she sets down their waters. “He’s got a few months.”
The muscles in Mike’s arm twitch and his fingers flex on the table between them, and he lets out long, slow breath of a sigh. “That’s not enough time.”
No amount of time is ever going to be enough.
“He’s taking it better than I am, I think. Even giving me deathbed requests.”
Mike flinches at that. “What was his request?”
Harvey laughs, sardonically. “He wants me to find the love of my life.”
+
"Okay, two truths and a lie.”
It’s hour two, and there’s still no sign of medical personnel stopping by their beds. But there hasn’t been much of a lull – Mike is a talker, and he seems intent on filling their time with commentary on the other patients, with little games, with stories, with anecdotes and facts from whatever the hell he’s been reading.
Evidently he reads a lot.
“I’ll tell you three things about me, and you have to figure out which one is the lie.”
Should he tell him this isn’t a fair game? That no matter what Mike says, Harvey will know which is the lie? That he’s sure he’s known exactly who Mike is since he shook his hand?
“I know how the game works.”
Mike holds his right hand up in supplication, an easy smile on his lips. But he winces too, just barely, and Harvey’s eyes slip away to see if there’s a nurse or a doctor nearby – Mike’s left arm is clearly hurting. But there’s no one who isn’t rushing by, clearly on some other mission, probably for someone a lot worse off than Mike.
“I lost my virginity when I was sixteen to the captain of the varsity boys soccer team…I got kicked out of Columbia for selling tests…and I have an eidetic memory.”
Harvey just looks at him a moment – at his small, mischievous smile, at his dancing eyes. “The first one’s a lie. You weren’t sixteen when you lost your virginity to the soccer captain.”
Mikes smile grows into a grin. “How did you guess?”
“Because the best lie is always a partial truth. You were…fifteen? Not sixteen.”
He laughs, delighted at Harvey’s answer. “I must be an open book.”
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe just to Harvey.
+
“He wants you to meet someone.”
Harvey nods, but that’s just the beginning of it, really. Meeting someone is easy. It’s everything else that’s hard.
“Well, what if you did?”
Harvey eyes him. “That’s easier said than done.”
“What if you introduced him to me?”
“Mike…I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
Mike shifts closer to the table, if possible, and earnestly meets Harvey’s eyes. “It’s your dad, Harvey. Besides, spending time with you again wouldn’t be a hardship.” When Harvey hesitates, Mike reaches forward and grips his hand. “I know I didn’t call, and I’m sorry. But we both know I wasn’t in a good place. We both know I had things I needed to work through. As much as I wanted it to be, it wasn’t the right time for us.”
Harvey turns his hand over, grips Mike’s gently. “I wanted it to be the right time, too.”
His admission feels like a release, and Mike grips his hand right back.
“If you’ll let me, I’d love to tell you who I am now.”
Harvey nods. “I’d like that.”
“Even if you could guess it all? You were always good at that.”
Harvey’s eyes soften, and he gently squeezes Mike’s hand, once. “It’s always better coming from you.”
+
It took five and a half hours, but Mike finally has a cast on his left arm, and Harvey finally has six stitches on his hairline, and they’ve finally being discharged with instructions for Mike to keep his cast dry and Harvey not to fall asleep for twenty-four hours.
Fantastic.
The storm is getting bad outside, and Harvey takes one look at Mike and sees the trepidation on his face as he stares out at the snow – getting back to Brooklyn is not going to be fun.
“I live a couple of blocks away.”
Mike turns and looks at him like he doesn’t know how to take Harvey’s words. Harvey doesn’t really know how to take them either. They were an impulse, but now that they’re out there, he wouldn’t take them back.
“I have beer and I need someone to keep me awake.” Harvey buttons up his coat, flips up his collar to protect against the wind. “Interested?”
Mike hesitates then nods, and they bustle along down the streets, not talking as they make their way as quickly as they can to the refuge of Harvey’s condo. The streets are completely empty of cars and there’s just a few stragglers, like them, rushing to get to warmth.
He knows things about Mike already – so many things. Things Mike said, things he didn’t have to say, things probably better left unsaid. When Mike talked about his Grammy, Harvey knew instantly his love for her ran deeper than for anyone else. When he talked about Columbia, he knew what regret truly sounded like. When he talked about losing his parents…
He knows so much now, but he can’t help feeling like there’s a lot more he’d like to know.
+
“So you’re a teacher now.”
Mike is all smiles. “Yeah. It’s great. I love it. I mean, the kids can be little shits sometimes, but they’re kids, you know? They’re still learning how to be human beings.”
“You seem really good.”
“I am.” Mike nods, calmly earnest. “I got my shit together. And I have you to thank for that, really.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Mike shakes his head, says firmly, “You did.”
Harvey picks at his salad. “So that means?”
“I finished college, got my teaching degree, got Grammy into a better home. She’s thriving now. Sometimes I bring a guest speaker into my classes and Grammy…she’s always the favorite.”
Harvey smiles. Mike told him enough stories during those hours they had together that he doesn’t doubt that for a moment.
“Trevor’s gone.”
Harvey looks up at that and finds Mike staring at him intently.
“I told him he couldn’t be in my life anymore.”
Harvey sets his fork down slowly. “That must have been difficult.”
“It was.” He winces gently. “But he was getting deeper and deeper with some really bad people, and he was pulling me along with him.”
“You made the right choice.”
“I know. But even making the right choice is painful sometimes.”
Like not calling, even when you want to.
“So what about you? Did you get your name on the door?”
He’s eager, earnest.
“I did. I’m a senior partner now.”
He relaxes into the back of his chair. Choices can have unintended consequences, and Mike, Harvey can tell, was desperately hoping his wouldn’t.
“That’s incredible, Harvey. I’m so…”
So happy for you? So proud?
“You should come be a guest speaker in my class. The kids would love it.”
“I’d like that.”
He thinks he means it too, regardless of the fact that five years later he’s still feeling a little burned by Mike’s choice. Harvey put himself out there, he took a chance, and all he got was silence.
“So what’s the first step?”
Maybe Mike’s right and it wasn’t the right time for them five years ago. Or maybe he’s wrong, and everything would have worked out just fine. Maybe the only thing Mike prevented was five great years together.
It’s an impossible problem with no correct answer. But Mike is sitting in front of him now, begging to be in Harvey’s life, and if Harvey was so eager to have him then, how can he not grasp at a new beginning now?
And it would make his father so damn happy.
“You ready to go back to Mount Sinai?”
+
Harvey makes some pasta for them and they start to eat in the dining room, but the power goes out, so they move to the living room and sit on the floor in front of the fireplace, snow so thick outside it’s all they can see. Mike has the bowl balanced on his cast, sitting cross-legged, facing Harvey. There’s a hole in one of his socks almost at the tip of the big toe.
Mike talks in between bites, and Harvey listens. And when he’s done talking, when it seems like he has no stories left, Harvey picks up where he’s left off. Mike is easy to talk to, and Harvey knows he’s told him things he’s never said out loud, things he’s never trusted to anyone before.
There is a kiss, one that Harvey initiates, one that grows into a few more but never goes beyond that.
Harvey’s head hurts a little, and every time he shuts his eyes for more than a blink, Mike pokes him and tells him he can’t sleep.
He doesn’t feel the least bit tired. How could he?
When the storm ends and the real world starts to encroach on them, Harvey hands Mike his number. He invited Mike over, he initiated the kiss, the next move is Mike’s.
But he never calls.
+
“So there is someone, actually.”
Gordon mutes the TV and Marcus shifts in his chair to look at Harvey.
“Someone?”
Harvey steps a little further into the room. “Mike. His name is Mike.”
Marcus just lifts an eyebrow, but their dad brightens, sits a little more upright. “Mike.” He smiles as he says his name, as if he approves. “When did you meet?”
“Five years ago, actually.”
Across the room Marcus snorts and says, “You started dating five years ago, and we’re just now hearing about him?”
“No, we met five years ago. The dating is much more recent.”
Technically it’s not a lie, since dating is exactly what they intend to do. Start slow, but let Gordon think they’re already crazy for each other, already planning for what comes next. But Marcus doesn’t believe him, Harvey can tell. On top of that, he’s being weirdly combative about it, and Harvey doesn’t know why.
“So tell us about him. What does he do? What’s his family like?”
“You can ask him yourself.”
“He’s here?”
Harvey nods. “Just outside the door. He’s excited to meet you.”
“I’m excited to meet him.”
And the thing is, he would be. Harvey hasn’t brought anyone to meet Gordon since he was a teenager. Even Donna and Jessica only know his voice, and only in passing. Marcus, on the other hand, brought all his girlfriends by, showed off every one of them. Harvey was never sure if Marcus wanted to show his girlfriends off to their dad, or show their dad off to his girlfriends. He doesn’t think Marcus knows either.
“Go. Get him.”
Mike is leaning against the wall directly across from Gordon’s room, looking down at his hands as he picks at his nails. He looks up when Harvey places a hand on his, stilling him. From his father’s room Harvey can hear quiet, mostly indistinguishable words before the door shuts with a click and a hush.
“You don’t have to do this.” Mike glares up at him and Harvey is charmed by it. Jesus. “I can just tell them you had to go back to work.”
He lifts himself off the wall, squares up. “I’ve wanted to meet him for five years, Harvey. I’m meeting him. I just hope he thinks I’m worthy of you.”
Harvey pauses, breathes in…out. “He’s going to love you.”
Of course he is.
He opens the door and steps through, holding it for Mike to follow. When he stops next to Harvey, Harvey lets the door go and centers a hand on Mike’s back, nudging him forward just a little. He can feel Mike relax into it, watches his shoulders loosen.
“Dad, Marcus…this is Mike Ross. Mike…my dad Gordon and my brother Marcus.”
Mike steps forward quickly, hand outstretched. Gordon smiles as he takes it, motions Mike down into the chair next to his bed. Harvey stays standing but moves to stand next to Mike’s chair as a show of support.
“It’s such an honor to meet you. Harvey’s told me so much about you.”
“About the both of us?”
Mike doesn’t seem fazed by Marcus’ lifted left eyebrow or his question and cheerfully says, “I think it’s pretty awesome you insisted on being Wonder Woman for Halloween when you were five.”
Harvey can’t keep his grin contained and neither can Gordon, who lights up as a laugh bursts forth. Harvey had forgotten he’d told him that.
“At least I went as something new every year, unlike Harvey who went as the same thing every year until he was ten.”
Mike holds Marcus’ gaze for a long few seconds before saying, “Well, Captain Kirk is the man.”
“You’re damn right he is.”
“We couldn’t convince him to go as anyone else,” Gordon says. “So Mike, what do you do?”
Mike leans forward, toward Gordon. “I’m a teacher at the Tannehill Academy.”
Gordon looks suitably impressed. “That’s a great school.”
Marcus does not. “That’s an exclusive school.”
“Yeah, it is,” Harvey says. “They have incredibly high standards, and the only hire the best teachers.”
Mike reaches up and takes Harvey’s hand, squeezes and holds on. A thank you .
Something has crawled up Marcus’ ass today, and Harvey wants to know what the hell it is.
“So where did it all begin?”
Mike laughs a little. “With bodily injury, actually.”
“The night of the snowstorm five years ago Mike got hit by a cab and I was in a car accident, and we ended up in beds next to each other here, in the ER.”
“They were…busy, so we had a lot of time to kill until they could get to us.”
Harvey looks down at him. “It was a great night.”
“Aside from the broken arm.”
“And the stitches.”
Mike smiles up at him. “Yeah,” he says softly. “It was a really great night.”
+
Mike has to leave eventually to teach and not long after that Gordon looks like he’s about done for the day, so Harvey and Marcus say their goodbyes and promise to see him tomorrow.
The door is barely shut before Harvey says, “Okay. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Marcus shakes his head and starts to walk away then turns back and says, “What did you do, just load him up with stories about our childhood?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“There’s no way you’re dating Mike.”
Harvey takes a step back at that. “What?”
“Look, dad believes it because he wants to, but you can’t hide it from me. Besides, he’s nothing like anyone else you’ve dated.”
“Careful, Marcus,” Harvey says, his voice thin and sharp. “You’re this close to sounding like an asshole.”
Marcus gestures wildly with his arm toward Gordon’s room. “Dad is dying, Harvey. What you’re doing isn’t a mercy. How do you think he’s going to take it when he finds out it’s a sham? You know how he feels about love.”
Harvey leans in close. “Well then it’s a good thing there’s nothing for him to find out.”
If Marcus says anything in response, Harvey doesn’t hear it. He’s too busy finding the closest exit.
+
“It’s really not that difficult to understand, Louis.”
Louis is still staring at him through narrowed eyes, no doubt wondering where the trap door is located.
“You’re just giving me Braverman.”
Harvey silently asks for patience. “No, I’m asking for you to partner on me with Braverman.”
“Why?”
Harvey doesn’t sigh, but it’s a close thing. He’d just rescind his offer right now and do all the work himself, but Louis is amazing with numbers and Harvey has a lunch with Mike he needs to make.
“Braverman needs someone with an eye for numbers. That’s you.”
Louis pretends to think about it for a minute, then rocks forward on his heels and says, “So does this make us Butch and Sundance?”
Harvey says, “You realize they die in the end, right? Not exactly good role models.”
He starts to walk away but feels Louis following after him, just back of his right shoulder.
“What about Batman and Robin? No…that would make you a sidekick.”
Harvey stops just outside of his office, turns. “Louis, let’s worry about Braverman first, then we’ll pick out a couple name.”
Louis looks entirely too excited about that.
Donna stands from behind her desk and says, “Harvey, there’s a Mike Ross waiting for you at reception.”
The thing about having been Donna’s boss for years is that he knows exactly how to read her tone. And this one means what the hell is a Mike Ross? and why is this the first I’m hearing of him?. She’s going to have to learn to live with disappointment.
“Thanks.”
He snags his trench from his office and slips it on as he starts to walk away and once again feels Louis behind him, matching his pace. “Is Mike Ross another client? Is that really the reason you gave me Braverman?”
“He’s not a client, Louis.”
They turn the corner and there Mike is, standing at the reception desk. When he sees Harvey he straightens up and gives him a big smile.
“He doesn’t look like a client.”
Harvey rolls his eyes. “That’s because he’s not a client, Louis. As I just told you. Ten seconds ago.”
“You’re Louis?” Mike holds out his hand and Louis shakes it, warily. “Did you really convince a client to sign by reciting a scene from Macbeth?”
Louis looks over at Harvey and then looks back at Mike. “I did.”
“Amazing. Creative.” He smiles, releases Louis’ hand. “I’m Mike, by the way. Harvey’s boyfriend. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Harvey’s…boyfriend?”
“That’s what he said.”
Louis gives Harvey a long, slow look, then nods. Just nods.
“I’ll have a look at Braverman’s numbers. We’ll talk when you get back.” He nods at Mike. “It was good to meet you, Mike.”
“You too, Louis.”
Harvey leads Mike to the elevator and they slip into the first unoccupied one they find, doors closing in front of them.
“I can’t believe you remember that story.”
Mike taps his head with a grin.
“Right, genius brain.”
“It has its uses.” Mike nudges Harvey’s shoulder with his own. “Your dad’s amazing. He’s exactly like you described. Got the feeling Marcus didn’t like me much, though.”
“Yeah…it’s not you.”
“No?”
Harvey shakes his head as the elevator doors slide open in front of them, revealing a half dozen people, waiting for Mike and Harvey’s elevator. He nods toward them and Mike seems to understand, because he nods back. “I believe I owe you lunch.”
+
“So he thinks we’re…what? Mismatched? That’s his big problem?”
Harvey sets his napkin down on his plate, watches Mike twirl the last bit of pasta at the bottom of his bowl onto his fork. “I think he’s just worried about our dad, and he’s being an asshole about it. Don’t worry about it. He’ll get over it.”
Mike’s fork clinks against the bottom of his bowl as he pushes the few bits of meat sauce back and forth. He purses his lips then he puts the fork down, tines balanced on the edge. “That accident was the best thing that ever happened to me. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looks up. “I wanted to make sure you knew that, because I realized I hadn’t said it. If I hadn’t met you, my life would be very different right now.” He pauses, then powers on. “I know Marcus is your brother, and you love him, but he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. There’s never been anybody better for me than you.”
Harvey swallows. He can feel his heart beating against his ribs.
“I know we’re taking it slow, and I understand why. But I just wanted you to know everything. You deserve that. And I hope I can be as good for you as you’ve been for me.”
“It was one night, Mike.”
Mike smiles gently. “We both know it was a lot more than that.”
His eyes are bright under the lights of the restaurant.
“You’ve been the voice in my head for five years.”
Harvey remembers exactly what he told Mike that day, sitting cross-legged in front of Harvey’s fireplace, their knees touching. Mike had told him all about his parents, about Columbia, about Trevor, about every single mistake he’d made. About the mistakes he kept making. There wasn’t a way to end the cycle, he’d said. Not now. He’d screwed up too many times, dug too deep of a hole.
Harvey told him that was the biggest load of bullshit he’d ever heard.
You’ve convinced yourself you’re a screw up when really you’re just someone who makes mistakes. Congratulations, you’re human. Now you need to figure out how to get out of your own damn way. Because when you do, that’s when you’ll figure out what your limits really are. And I have a feeling they’re pretty fucking huge.
“That was one hell of a close.”
Mike says it with such fondness, and Harvey drinks it up, soaks it in. “I’ve always been great at my job.”
“Speaking of.” Mike looks down at his watch. “I have to get back to mine.”
Harvey needs to get back too. Back to Braverman and Louis. “Dad’s being discharged this afternoon.”
“That’s good, right?”
Harvey nods. “They were impressed with how well he rebounded. I was going to pick him up on the way to Sam and Ava’s pageant…can I pick you up too? That is, if you’re in the mood to go to a Christmas pageant.”
“Uh…YES. Tiny little humans in oversized Santa costumes and reindeer antlers singing carols off-key? Your tiny little niece and nephew dressed in oversized Santa costumes and reindeer antlers singing off-key? Sign me up.”
“Ava is a Christmas mermaid, and Sam is a Christmas ham.”
He shakes his head in disbelief as he stands and puts on his jacket. “I am unbelievably excited to see how that comes together.”
Harvey grins and says, “It’s an elementary school pageant. I wouldn’t count on anything coming together.”
He pulls out his wallet and drops a few bills on the check. Mike doesn’t object, but he does lift up his phone and snap a picture of Harvey when Harvey looks up at him.
“There’s dinner after, at Marcus and Katie’s house. You up for that too?”
He slips his phone into his back pocket. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
+
Ava comes running toward them down the hallway, her brother Sam following close behind, shouting, “SCUSE ME! THANK YOU! SCUSE ME! THANK YOU!” as she shoves past groups and families in her way.
Katie huffs a laugh and rolls her eyes. “Ah, we’ve raised such a polite child.”
Sam has a grip on the back of his sister’s iridescent blue mermaid tail, and keeps muttering sorry with wide eyes every time he bumps into someone. Which is a lot. It’s got to be pretty difficult to maneuver as a paper maché ham.
“Grandpa! Uncle Harvey! Did you see me? Did you see me?”
“You were amazing, sweetheart.”
Harvey crouches down. “As always, you are impossible to miss. You stole the show, Ava bug.”
She beams at him then looks over at Mike and bats her eyes at him. “Are you Mister Mike?”
Mike crouches down next to Harvey and smiles at her. “I am. But you can just call me Mike.”
“Are you my uncle’s boyfriend?”
“I am. Is that okay?”
“I don’t know, that depends.”
Mike’s eyes flit over to Harvey for a moment. “Yeah? On what?”
“Do you like Christmas?”
“I love Christmas.”
“And ponies?”
“One of the top ten best animals ever.”
“Do you give piggyback rides?”
“I give amazing piggyback rides.”
Ava shrugs. “They’re probably not as good as Uncle Harvey’s. He gives the best ones. He puts you on his shoulders and holds onto your feet and you’re as high up as a skyscraper and it feels like you’re flying.”
“You’re right, that would be pretty hard to top.”
“Yeah. That’s okay, though. You can be good at other stuff.” She pauses. “Are you gonna marry Uncle Harvey?”
Katie reaches forward and wraps an arm around Ava’s shoulders, pulling her back into her body with a laugh. “Okay, mini interrogator. Enough questions.”
Ava twists her head and looks up at Katie. “But momma! I only have one more question and it’s the most important question.”
She stares her down, narrowing her eyes playfully. “Alright, one more.”
“Thank you,” Ava says primly, nodding her head once. She puts her serious serious serious face on, which always makes Harvey want to laugh. He doesn’t though, because he knows she takes it as a personal affront the way only a seven year old can. “What do you think of my costume?”
Mike leans towards her, motioning her forward with a crook of the finger. Then he whispers in her ear, just loud enough so the rest of them can hear. “You don’t have to pretend it’s a costume with me. I know that’s your real tail, and I know that you’re really an ocean princess. You’re just pretending with everyone else, right? Don’t worry…I’m an expert secret keeper.”
She leans back from him, mouth open, eyes wide and sparkling.
Mike sits back on his heels and gives her an exaggerated wink, then says, “I’ve never seen such a beautiful costume before, Ava.”
She stares at Harvey. “We’re keeping him.”
Harvey smiles. “You’re the boss.”
She nods like a queen. “I’m glad you agree with me.”
Sam grumbles and shifts and Harvey looks over at him, leaning against Marcus, and tries very hard not to laugh. He looks positively miserable. “You doing okay, Sam?”
He frowns even harder. “I’m hot and sweaty and my costume itches.”
Mike smiles at him. “I thought you were an excellent ham.”
He shrugs and his whole costume shrugs with him. A shrugging ham. “It wasn’t hard. I just had to lay there and pretend to let people eat me.”
It was a pretty weird pageant. Harvey still isn’t sure what the hell it had to do with Christmas. But Mike had fun, he knows that. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Ava or Sam. He’s already sent a slew of pictures to Katie.
Gordon says, “I think we should get going so Sam can stop being a ham.”
“Thank you, Grandpa. You understand me.”
Gordon takes his hand and Sam stars waddling forward, muttering out sorry…excuse me to every person he bumps into.
Mike lets out a laugh. “God, that poor kid.”
Marcus walks past them and Katie touches Harvey’s shoulder lightly. “We’ll see you back at the house, okay? Ava…follow the ham.”
Ava employs the poutiest pouty lip she can. “Momma, can I go with Uncle Harvey?”
Katie is unmoved. “Sorry, kiddo. Your car seat is hooked into the van. Besides, you’ll see them in about ten minutes.”
She turns to them and says, with her serious serious serious face, hands on her hips, “You have ten minutes. And I know how to tell time,” before turning and flouncing away, grabbing Marcus’ hand when she catches up to him.
Mike stares after her. “She’s just…”
Katie smiles knowingly. “A forest fire?”
“Awesome. And Sam? Sam is going to grow up to be a comedy writer or something. That kid has sincere deadpanning down to an art form.”
Katie’s smile softens and she leans forward and kisses Mike’s cheek. As she pulls back she pats him on the chest and nods. “Oh yeah…we’re keeping you.”
Mike and Harvey and Katie follow the rest of the crowd out of the building, separating when they reach the parking lot. Snow is starting to fall, and when they come to a stop next to Harvey’s car, Harvey is gripped by the snow caught in Mike’s eyelashes. So he leans forward and kisses him.
Mike’s mouth is cold and so is Harvey’s, but they warm quickly enough. Mike lets out a little moan and shifts his body closer, and Harvey slips a hand behind Mike’s neck. Their noses bump and it’s over far too quickly, but they’re in the parking lot of an elementary school, and that makes pulling away a little easier. Harvey runs his thumb over Mike’s bottom lip and Mike chases it with a kiss to the pad, his eyes soft on Harvey’s.
Harvey drives them over to Marcus and Katie’s and Mike holds his hand, fingers interlaced, humming along to the radio as he stares out the window. Harvey could drive and drive and drive. But he makes the turn for the house instead.
When they get to the house they find Ava standing on the front porch, arms crossed, tapping her foot. She stands by Mike’s door until he opens it and steps out and then she grabs his hand, leveling Harvey with an incredibly disappointed look before towing Mike after her into the house. Mike grins at him, over his shoulder, and Harvey grins back.
“Harvey, wait a second.”
Marcus holds him back and Harvey watches as Mike disappears inside, as the door closes behind him. “I hope you’re about to apologize, Marcus.”
“What are you playing at here?”
“It’s my life…and what I do with it, and who I invite into it, are none of your damn business.”
Marcus points his finger at him, edges closer. “It becomes my damn business when your farce is in my house!”
“Boys…enough.” Neither of them had heard Gordon approach, and they break apart, going to their separate corners. “Marcus, I don’t know what the hell is the matter with you, but it stops…now.”
“You’re dying, dad.”
Gordon sighs. “I’m aware of that. Is there a reason you feel the need to keep reminding me?” Marcus purses his lips, looks away. “I get it. I’m not going to be around much longer. I’m working on borrowed time.”
“No, that’s what you don’t get. We’re all working on borrowed time. The whole family. We have so little time left with you. And Harvey introduces some guy into the family at the eleventh hour just because he thinks it’s what you want? He lied to you, dad.”
Gordon reaches forward and grips the back of Marcus’ neck, forces him to look at him. “I know you don’t want it to happen. Neither do I. I don’t want to leave any of you. But stop taking your fear and your anger and your frustration out on Mike and your brother. I know he lied to me, and I don’t care.”
Harvey’s head pops up and Marcus’ eyes widen. “You really thought I didn’t know? Your brother’s happy. Mike makes him happy.” He finally releases Marcus, gently gripping his shoulder before letting his hand fall away. “You know, you’ve always been the lucky one in this family, kid. You’ve had Katie in your life since the third grade. Harvey had to wait until now to have Mike in his life. Are you going to begrudge him that, just because the timing could have been better? Mike belongs with us, in this family.”
He turns, looks at Harvey.
“And you? Well done.”
Harvey smiles and Gordon reaches out and Harvey reaches back, wrapping their arms around each other. When they pull out of the hug Gordon pulls Marcus to him, hugs him.
“Can we all just agree right now to stop talking about when you’re going to die?”
“Please.”
Marcus nods, lets out a breath.
“Good. Now let’s get inside because this dying man is freezing his ass off.”
Jesus, dad.”
+
“Here you go, Mike.”
Katie sets a second piece of pecan pie in front of Mike and takes the seat next to him, dunking her tea bag in her cup a few times before pulling it out, placing it on her saucer. She’s sitting sideways in her chair, her bare feet resting on the rungs of Mike’s chair, smiling as she watches Mike take another big bite of pie. Harvey watches from across the table with his own cup of coffee and nods at Marcus when he comes down the stairs and claps Harvey on the shoulder. The kids are in bed and the house is mostly quiet and dark, but it’s warm in the kitchen at the table, and the Christmas tree in the family room gives off just enough light.
“Okay, so let’s have it. I want the whole story. How did you meet?”
Katie props her elbow on the table and rests her cheek on the back of her fingers, holding her cup on her thigh with her other hand.
“Didn’t Marcus tell you?”
She looks at Mike as if he should know better. “There’s no way he’d tell it right.”
“It’s true.” Marcus takes a seat at the table next to Harvey. “I’d probably forget to include all the longing glances and shit.”
Mike sets his fork down, leans back in his chair, and looks up at Katie. “Do you remember the blizzard five years ago?”
“Sure.”
“I got hit by a cab, and ended up in the ER with a broken arm. Harvey was in a car accident, and ended up in the bed next to mine with concussion symptoms. They were so busy they couldn’t get to us for hours – and that left us plenty of time to talk. When they finally released us, Harvey asked if I’d stick around and help him stay awake.”
Her face softens and she smiles. “That is one painful meet cute.”
“We spent the whole day together, basically. He made me this amazing pasta primavera and we talked and…I could tell him anything. And I did. I told him everything.”
“But nothing happened?”
Mike drops his head, winces.
“Mike.” Harvey’s voice is soft in a quiet room, and Mike looks up. “It’s okay.”
Mike just smiles, turns his attention back to Katie. “That’s my fault. Harvey gave me his number, and I wanted to call him so badly, but…I had some things I was going through, things I needed to take care of, and I didn’t want to drag him into that. So I didn’t call him.”
Katie straightens and reaches forward, grasping his wrist. Harvey feels eyes on him and turns to find Marcus looking at him, a new understanding shining through. Harvey would have chosen Mike from the moment they met, and he did. But life doesn’t always work out as cleanly as it did for Marcus and Katie. Sometimes there are stops along the way.
“But you’re here now. With us.”
Where he belongs.