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California is lazily sinking into the criminally-warm November evening, red and orange hues melting into a dark sky. Most Stanford students are pre-gaming the beginning of Fall break, excited for a week of little responsibility. Most— While his peers spill into the bars off campus, Mike is hunched over his fold-out desk in his windowless apartment reading about property law.
This is where a call from Mt. Sinai Hospital finds him, eyes burning and hands shaking as he holds his phone to his ear. The call is short, but it’s everything he’s been dreading since he left Grammy behind in New York to go to university.
They tell him she’s fallen and hit her head. They tell him they can’t say how badly she’s hurt yet, but that he should come to New York City to stay with her, just in case. They tell him to be prepared to say goodbye.
Terrified out of his mind, Mike immediately spends nearly all of the money he has on an overnight flight to New York—which would be a little easier, normally, but it’s the beginning of Thanksgiving Break and half of America’s flying somewhere this weekend. Even the midnight flight he’s booked on is nearly full.
He’s in a daze all the way to the airport, gripping tightly to his ratty backpack on the metro. His eyes burn as yellow street lamps whizz by in blurry streaks. Outside, only a sliver of daylight peeks out from behind the horizon. Most of the city is going to sleep, but he’s wide awake. His eyes burn. Denial buzzes under his skin, a naivety that he should have grown out of years ago.
She’s going to be fine.
She has to be fine.
Mike somehow makes it through security, disoriented by the white walls and metal x-rays and blue TSA uniforms. When he’s clear, he squints out at the wide airport terminal, bitterly wishing that he hadn’t stopped smoking when he decided to go to law school. His fingers itch for a joint, to insulate his nerves and keep his brain from dredging up memories of his grandmother holding him after Mom and Dad died.
Instead, he walks across the huge airport through mostly empty terminals to reach his gate. The walking soothes his stress a little. He checks his phone again and again, and he gets one update text from her home caretaker that the swelling they’d worried about isn’t as bad as they’d thought it would be. At that, Mike can breathe a little easier, and by the time he reaches the gate, he’s begun to actually register the world around him.
He dumps himself into one of the chairs at the gate to wait for the flight. According to the monitor, it’s been delayed forty-five minutes for some reason, so he watches the TV display the flight’s estimated arrival until his eyes burn and he has to look away.
The gate is full of drowsy people, mostly napping sideways on the uncomfortable chairs. There’s a young couple arguing in hushed voices in the corner, and an older man staring out the window. Closest to Mike, there’s a man sitting in the row across the walkway with a sharp three piece suit and a leg propped up on his knee to balance an open laptop. Mike can’t help but raise his eyebrows. Who the hell wears a three piece on a flight like this?
If Trevor were here, they’d bounce jokes off of each other about the theoretical life this douchebag lives. Mike hasn’t seen or spoken to Trevor in over a year.
The man shifts a little, still staring at his screen with dark, calculating eyes. He’s either working or playing a very intense game of sudoku. Working… as a what? Banker? Investor? Lawyer? Whatever the profession, there’s no mistaking the expense in the sharp lines of his bespoke suit and his shiny black loafers.
Mike looks back at the TV, and the flight’s been delayed another hour. Shit. It’s hard not to think about Grammy, alone in the hospital bed. Is she scared? Probably—he would be. It makes him sick to think about. He can’t sit still, and anxiety drives him to his feet and back down, and again. He can’t seem to get enough air. The businessman even glances at him a few times, and Mike refrains from asking if he’s being a bother.
The flight gets delayed another hour to three AM, and a few people in the gate give up and leave to book a new flight. Mike buries his head in his hands and tries not to cry. He checks his phone for the thirtieth time: no new updates.
A woman that’s been sitting near Mike has already gotten up to yell at the kiosk worker a few times, demanding a reason for the delay. Of course the kiosk worker doesn’t know, but Mike can sympathize. He feels a little like screaming, too. The angry woman curls up in her seat and falls into a fitful sleep, and Mike watches and wonders what her story is.
It’s 2:38 AM when his phone blinks out. Dead. He didn’t even notice the dwindling battery; preoccupied with mindlessly refreshing the messaging app.
“Shit,” Mike mutters as he fruitlessly clicks the power button, frustration burning like bile in his throat. He doesn’t have his charger; he tore out of his apartment so quickly that he didn’t even remember to pack any underwear. He doesn’t have the money to buy one, but…
Mike looks between the man and the woman, and decides not to poke the sleeping bear unless he has to. He stands and walks up to the man, stopping feet away from his expensive shoes, and tries to seem as unintimidating and pathetic as possible. It’s a pretty easy image, since that’s exactly how he feels. “Do you have a phone charger?”
The man glances up at him, a quick flicker of his eyes. “No.”
Well, fuck you too, Mike thinks. ‘No’ is a flat out lie, and they both know it. Normally, Mike would just walk away. Normally, he wouldn’t even have asked in the first place. Mike bites his lip and shifts on his feet, holding his hands out with his palms up. “Please,” he says, and doesn’t even care that his voice wavers. “I’ll use it right in front of you; I won’t walk off with it. I’m waiting on a really, really important call and my phone is dead.”
The man doesn’t move for a second. Mike, still awkwardly looming over him, waits for him to debate whether he’s going to be a Good Samaritan or not.
Having decided, the man sighs with his shoulders, half-closes his laptop, and starts to dig into his sleek, black Underarmour backpack that every frequent business traveler seems to own. He pauses and looks up with sharp eyes. “Lightning?”
“Huh?” Mike asks, like he doesn’t understand the question. He does, but he’s thrown off, so he has to gather himself and cut off the man before he can receive a patronizing lecture about the different kinds of proprietary charging cables. “Um, no, not a lightning cable. Sorry. I don’t have an Iphone.”
That thankfully doesn’t seem to deter the man, as he unzips an inner pocket and retrieves a white bundle of a cord compatible with androids.
The bundle is held out to Mike by a boxy hand with trimmed nails and a surprising amount of callouses along the knuckles. No ring, but that would make sense for a businessman who flies across the country at three in the morning.
The charger is perfectly rolled, without a speck of dirt on the cable or the block, and it’s even labeled with a small silicon tag. Did Mike just meet a serial killer? This gives serious serial killer energy.
As Mike takes it, the man gestures at the nearest outlet and says, “Plug it in right there, where I can see you. Like you said you would.”
“Thanks,” Mike replies, relieved despite the guy treating him like a thief. He ducks over to a column a few feet away and plugs in the block. He undoes the silicone ziptie and unravels the cord, plugs his phone in and settles against the column to wait for it to turn on. He rests his head against the cream paint, too keyed up to attempt a short nap.
In this position, he’s kind of forced to look directly at the man. Said man has his laptop back open, but no amount of scattered typing is going to convince Mike that he’s not being silently observed.
“I’m not going to take off with your charger, dude,” Mike mutters, after a few minutes of being watched.
“Don’t call me a ‘dude,’” the man replies, completely ignoring the rest of Mike’s statement.
“If I knew your name, I wouldn’t call you dude, dude.”
“I lent you my charger, and now you want my name?” It’s as much a quip as it is a genuine question. Mike gets the feeling he’s being analyzed, dark brown eyes drinking in everything from his days-old stubble and his dirty sneakers. “That doesn’t seem like an even trade.”
“Is every encounter in your life a transaction?” Mike shoots back. “I’m just curious what your name is. Look, I’ll give you mine in exchange.”
The man cocks his head. It shouldn’t be as attractive an action as it is. “Harvey,” he says finally.
“First or last?”
He seems amused. “First. And you?”
“Mike.”
“First or last?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Please don’t tell me your last name is Mike. That’s just cruel.”
Mike shakes his head, disbelieving, but can’t help a smile. This guy has to be a lawyer, with such a smug, patronizing manner of speaking.
Harvey continues. “Let’s do another trade: you tell me why you’re waiting for a 3 AM plane, and I’ll give you my last name.”
Mike frowns. “That doesn’t seem like an even trade,” he says, quoting Harvey’s words from earlier.
“I lent you the charger.”
“That’s fair.” Mike sobers. For a second, he was pretending that he wasn’t in such a shitty situation, but of course the reprieve only lasts so long. “It’s not a fun story. I’m not from California; I only go to school here. My grandmother—“ here he develops a small lump in his throat, and hopes that his voice doesn’t get obviously thick— “She’s in the hospital. I got the earliest flight possible but it was canceled, so they moved me to this one, but it’s already been delayed an hour—“
“I see,” Harvey says, and Mike wonders if he hears a bit of sympathy in his voice. “What school?”
“Stanford Law.”
That seems to get the guy to perk up minutely, a there-and-gone twitch of his eyebrows. “Law?”
“Yeah. Don’t tell me—you’re a corporate sellout, aren’t you?”
Harvey laughs under his breath, which is how Mike knows he’s right. Corporate lawyers know exactly what they are. “You got me,” he says, tapping one of his shiny black loafers on the ground. Geez, he reeks of wealth. His head tilts to the side, cocky and intrigued. “Anything other observations, Sherlock?”
Mike considers telling the guy that he’s got a stray cowlick that even copious amounts of gel can’t keep down after hours in an airport, but decides not to. “Nah. You owe me your last name, anyway.”
“Specter.”
Oh, shit. There’s no way. Mike’s not distracted enough to forget the name of the Harvard golden boy who was just promoted to senior parter at Pearson-Hardman. He may be at Stanford, but he pays attention to news at the major firms like any L1 does, especially any firms based in NYC. “Fifth in Harvard’s 2003 class,” he blurts, because he never quite mastered the art of thinking before speaking.
Harvey eyes him. “I could try to tell you you’re mistaken, but I don’t think that would do much.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Mike agrees confidently, checking his phone for a reason to look away from Harvey’s scrutiny. The phone hasn’t buzzed, so he knows it’s still dead, but he goes through the motions of waiting for the charging signal to display on the black screen.
“Do you make a habit of memorizing the name and rank of every graduate from Harvard law?”
“Only the top five,” Mike says mildly, looking back up. “You barely made the cut.”
Harvey sets his laptop aside, abandoning any pretense of getting work done. “Okay, smartass.” (He says it more like a compliment than an insult.) “Are you looking to go into prosecution? Or defense—fighting for the little guy, pro bono feel-good work?”
“Haven’t decided. I’m only a 1L. I know that I sure as hell don’t want to defend millionaires when they commit fraud or cheat on their wife.”
Harvey ignores the bite. “You’re only a first year? What were you doing after undergrad, before law school? I know you’re not twenty-three.”
“Rude. I could be.” Harvey doesn’t twitch, and Mike sighs. “I didn’t do anything. I wasted ten years. Bad friends, bad decisions, you know?”
“I know,” Harvey murmurs. “It takes a lot to force yourself to do something rigorous like law school when you don’t have the momentum of the American schooling system behind you.”
Mike thuds his head against the wall and huffs. “I got lucky. I couldn’t pay, but I applied for a nontraditional student scholarship and received nearly a full ride. It helped that I’m caring for my grandma, but I had to put her in a home.”
Harvey doesn’t reply, which makes Mike’s face grow hot. He’s sharing his baggage with a random corporate lawyer, which is something he’d never do if it wasn’t the middle of the night in a surreal, green-tinged airport terminal. “Sorry, man,” he mutters. “I’m getting shit off my chest. Feel free to ignore me.”
“No,” Harvey responds mildly. “I was thinking of what information to give you in exchange.”
Mike smiles a little, pleasantly surprised that Harvey’s willing to continue their little game. It might just be an act of pity; a benevolent douche and a broke college kid who is currently holding the douche’s charger hostage. It soothes the stress in his body anyway, like warm hands cupping frigid fingers in the winter. “What did you come up with?”
“I also went to law school on need-based scholarship.” Surprise must be evident on Mike’s face, because Harvey huffs sardonically. “Oh, I know. I act like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. It helped that I had a mentor who took a chance on me.”
“Do you regret it?”
Harvey’s face doesn’t change, but his shoulders draw back at the unexpected question. “Regret…law school?”
Mike waves his hand vaguely. “Any of it. Corporate law. I mean, you’re loaded, but I’m not asking about that. You ever consider what would happen if you did something else?”
Harvey chuckles stiffly. “Hell of a personal question there, kid.”
“It’s not…I’m just having doubts,” Mike mumbles. That’s when his phone decides to turn on, and his light mood comes back down to dreadful reality. He clutches the phone between pale, trembling hands and waits with a hammering heart to see if he missed major news about Grammy.
No, nothing, just a quick text from the facility to let him know she’s still stable. He exhales, desperately thankful for the extra time. He’s not a religious person, but it feels like there’s something supernatural on his side, bargaining on his behalf for enough time for him to make it to Gram.
He has this foolish hope that if he’s there in person, she’ll come back from the edge for him. Which is stupid, because he’ll have to come back to university at some point and leave her all alone again.
“Mike?”
Mike glances up and grimaces. “I’m sorry. I, um… I was checking to see if I missed anything from the hospital. I didn’t.” He watches with disbelief as Harvey nods, like he’d actually been worried about Mike’s grandma.
“I’m glad.” The way he speaks, it’s genuine and warm. That’s the last thing Mike needs, because meeting an attractive, witty lawyer he’s never going to see again is one thing, but finding out he’s a decent human being? Hell, Mike’s loved people for less.
Mike swallows and holds the warm device against his chest. “Me too,” he manages.
The laptop next to Harvey glints against the overhead lights, and Mike finds that he can’t bear losing this momentary connection back to whatever work he’d been doing. “You never told me why you’re getting on a 3 AM flight.”
Harvey recognizes the deflection for what it is, but follows along. He spreads his hands a little, like a what-can-you-do. “Met a client for drinks at eleven. I have to be at a partner meeting at seven.”
“Rough life.”
Harvey flashes a distinct, performative smile. His teeth are perfectly white and straight, like a reporter’s or an actor’s. Mike is seriously attracted to this guy if he’s noticing his teeth. “It’s tiring. But I don’t have doubts, no.”
Since Mike was fully expecting him to ignore the question from earlier, it takes him a second to find the thread of conversation. “Never?”
“I don’t think anybody never has doubts about their career choices. You only get one life. Why are you having doubts?”
“I don’t actually know,” Mike admits. “But I feel like an imposter in class, and in exams, and in moot court…Everybody around me works so hard—”
“Just because you’re not in the top ten doesn’t mean you’re not going to find a lucrative job after law school.”
Mike shakes his head and crosses his legs. “No, that’s exactly the opposite issue. I’m first in my class right now. I’ll probably still be first in my class when we graduate, unless my eidetic memory suddenly ceases to exist.”
This is where Harvey’s supposed to scoff, say something about how easy Mike’s got it, or just plainly not believe him. Instead, he says appraisingly, “You think you don’t deserve it, because you were born with your photographic memory.”
“The people in my class are insanely smart, yeah, but they spend hours and hours in the library. I barely have to glance at my notes if I’ve learned something in class. I spend my extra time studying ahead or working to pay for Gram’s care instead.”
“Where do you work?”
“Barnes and Noble.”
“You’ve resorted to shelving books, with that kind of brain? That seems like a waste.”
Mike shrugs. “Less of a waste than a decade of getting high on my couch.”
Harvey studies him a little longer, then smiles a little. “It’s a shame my firm has a strict Harvard hiring policy. You’re something else, kid.”
Mike raises his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you’re getting tired of Harvard clones?”
“As a proud Harvard clone, yes, I am.”
Mike snorts a little. “I almost went there for undergrad. The more I hear about that university, the more I figure I dodged a bullet.”
“Why didn’t you end up going?”
Mike really doesn’t feel like getting into the nitty-gritty of his brief life of crime. “Crimson doesn’t look good on me.”
Harvey rolls his eyes, but doesn’t push. “Well, in any case—“
The overhead speaker crackles to life. “Gate 12, Flight 216 from SFB to JFK, Flight 216 from SFB to JFK, is cancelled. Passengers booked on Flight 216 SFB to JFK, please see the agent at the kiosk. Flight 216 is cancelled. Thank you.”
“No fucking way,” Mike says, stumbling to his feet, phone gripped in his hand. Harvey also stands, though he doesn’t seem nearly as dismayed. “Shit—“
“Mike—“
Mike brushes past him and crosses the empty hall to the kiosk at the far side of the terminal. The shoelaces of his sneakers slap the ground with every step, and he’s breathing rapidly by the time he reaches one of the ladies stationed there. He’s faster than the other passengers—most of whom are still trying to wake up after the announcement roused them from their naps.
“Flight 216—“
“To JFK? I can go ahead and reschedule your flight, sir,” the worker says with a sunny smile. “Refunds will be distributed soon, but for now you can—“
“When’s the— When’s the next flight? Soonest,” Mike pants, tripping over his words.
“The next flight for you to switch at no cost is tomorrow at three PM,” she tells him.
“That’s too late,” he says immediately.
“Well, the soonest flight to JFK is boarding at six forty-three, but there are no economy or first-class seats available, only business. You would have to pay for a seat. I’m sorry—this is how the holidays are.”
Mike swallows and grips the edge of the counter. He’s not going to get his refund in time to cover whatever the cost is. It’s a fool’s hope when he asks, “How much?”
She tells him the price, and he stares at her, eyes burning with shame and desperation. “The price for the last flight was already insane—I barely have forty dollars in my bank account; I can’t just—“
“I’m sorry, sir,” she says again, and no matter how sympathetic she might feel, her apology feels flat. Besides, it’s not even her fault. Mike pulls away from the kiosk, hands trembling as he spins around.
There’s someone in front of him before he can take a step. He jerks backwards and looks up into Harvey’s dark eyes. He’s a lot taller, when he’s standing, and he commands all of Mike’s harried attention with ease.
“I’ll buy you the ticket.”
Mike squints up at him. “Are you fucking with me?”
“I wouldn’t joke about this.”
“I can’t,” Mike says weakly, fruitlessly, because he hates charity but he’s more terrified of missing what could be his grandmother’s final hours.
“I’ll do it if you let me buy you the seat next to me. You look half-dead, someone’s got to keep an eye on you.”
Mike absently runs a hand through his hair. “Geez, Harvey, I can’t even—I seriously owe you—“
Harvey waves him off like he’s insulted by the notion. “Consider it my way of proving that I’m not a cold, heartless corporatist, yeah?”
Mike nods rapidly, and watches him pass by to flash the kiosk worker a patented, charming smile. She gets him two tickets in no time, and he saunters back with the boarding passes in his hand.
“Ticket to freedom,” he says, holding the second out.
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me,” Mike says, taking it before Harvey can decide he’s changed his mind. He can’t help but feel a little giddy, on top of the anxiety and the guilt that he has to rely on a stranger to help get him home.
“Then don’t. Look, the terminal for the other flight is across this airport, and there are better food options over there. I’d kill for a cup of coffee right now. Grab your stuff, and let’s go.”
Mike nods, scrambling to retrieve his ratty backpack. Harvey’s already got his backpack slung over one shoulder, laptop put away. Mike is handed the same cord from before, but with a heavy duty portable charger instead of a block. He quickly plugs back in his phone and looks back at Harvey, stunned. “These things cost so much money.”
“I’m well aware. Lose it, and I’m forcing you to become my assistant’s assistant for a month.”
‘Lose’ it—not ‘steal.’ How far they’ve come, in less than an hour.
The airport seems vastly different now, walking alongside Harvey’s confident strides. Mike feels less like the world is trying to chew him up and spit him out, and instead feeds off of the comfort of companionship as they pass gate after gate.
Harvey, for all of his suave, mature businessman energy, has a serious sweet tooth. He detours to look at candy kiosks three different times, Mike trailing behind him. Harvey stalks through the shelves and mutters under his breath about ‘fifteen bucks for a share size MnM pack; egregious,’ which makes Mike snort.
“What?” Harvey demands, turning.
“I can’t believe you’re complaining about their up-charge for candy. You could probably buy out the place, if you wanted.”
“It’s the principle of it,” Harvey replies, disgruntled. “This would cost half as much if I got it in a grocery store.”
Mike grins, and Harvey buys a bag of peanut MnMs (peanut? Criminal, truly) without another word.
There’s a coffee stand closer to their new gate, a blatantly off-brand Starbucks, so they stop and get in line.
“Can I guess your order?” Mike asks, rocking onto the balls of his feet to let his heels rest.
Harvey eyes Mike, but turns to face him. His lips spread a little, but not quite enough to be considered a smile, which is an expression Mike is learning means Harvey’s humoring someone. “Go for it.”
“You like to snack on sugary stuff, so I’m guessing you’re one of those people who likes to drink coffee without sugar, because it makes you feel better about your diet. Hot americano. Blonde roast, because you’re uppity. Medium. Splash of milk— Half and half?” Harvey’s face doesn’t change. “Whole milk. Nah, you seem like an anti-fat guy; 2%. Unless you’re lactose intolerant, in which case—“
“Mike.”
Mike grins. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Harvey rolls his tongue in his mouth and looks skyward. “You’re right. Hot blonde americano with a splash of milk. Happy?”
“Okay great, but which milk? This is an important personality test, Harvey.”
“You talk a lot. I miss when you were intimidated by me. What was that, fifteen minutes ago?”
“Who says I was ever intimidated by you?”
Harvey makes an are-you-kidding face.
Mike laughs it off. “Fine,” he acquiesces, bumping into him lightly like they’ve been friends for years. A pause, and then—“But what milk?”
Harvey ignores him, but when they get to the front of the line, he says, “Hi, I’ll have a hot blonde Americano with a splash of 2% milk, please.”
Mike pumps the air with his fist, and that earns him a twitch of Harvey’s lips.
Harvey abruptly claps a hand on his shoulder, wearing a shit-eating grin. “Oh, and a hot chocolate for this one, please, at a kid’s temperature. Clearly he’s not quite old enough for caffeine privileges.”
Mike pulls away with a very mature roll of his eyes to go wait for their drinks as Harvey pays. He would’ve offered to spot the coffee (a pathetic but genuine gesture of thanks) before the asshole move.
“Tell me more about that memory of yours,” Harvey says, walking to stand next to him as he pockets his wallet.
“What about it?”
“You said it’s eidetic; I get that. But how useful is memorization if you don’t have efficient ways to retrieve the information you’ve memorized?”
It’s a good question. Mike’s never been asked that before, and it takes him a second to try to put it into words. “I develop systems, automatically, and for the most part it’s hard to explain without like, drawing out what I see, if that makes sense? It’s like—well, first off, it’s easiest if I’m reminded of something like anybody else. This coffeeshop reminds me of my old haunt in New York, which makes my brain automatically pull up the entire menu. Or a particular smell will send me straight back to an old memory in perfect detail, or at least whatever detail mattered to me in the moment. But if it’s schoolwork or cases or anything, I imagined everything to be put into subcategories. I have a category for law, a subcategory for cases in the last decade, with subcategories for cases in regards to sexual harassment or patents or mergers. Et Cetera.”
“And that’s it?” Harvey asks, squinting his eyes a little in awe. He’s obviously not the kind of guy that gets surprised or awed easily, so Mike can’t help but feel proud of himself for yielding the rare reaction.
“That’s the gist. Sometimes my issue is that I’ve forgotten what I remember, or I can’t dig up a memory quickly. It’s like knowing you have a book somewhere on your bookshelf but you’re not sure where you put it, and all of the other book titles keep distracting you while you’re looking for that one specific book. And I can forget things, if I’m in… unique situations.”
“Unique?” Harvey asks as their drinks are placed on the pick-up counter.
“If I’m drunk, or sleep deprived, or—let’s just say, what’s legal in California that isn’t in New York?”
“A boatload of things, but I see what specific thing you’re getting at.”
Mike grabs his cup, aware of the tight disapproval in Harvey’s tone—but for some reason, he doesn’t think that it’s because of the weed. Or, not the weed alone. Maybe because Mike mentioned earlier he spent the better part of a decade drowning himself in drugs?
But that theory is dumb, because that would mean this guy actually cares. (But also, this guy is buying Mike a plane ticket and asking about his grandma and just generally being way kinder than Mike deserves. All he needed was to borrow a charger, and now he’s just…bewildered.)
“Okay, this is actually good,” Mike allows, once he’s licked through enough whipped cream to sip at the hot chocolate. “And I’m an adult, for the record, but I do like that it’s not that hot. I didn’t know you could just ask for a cooler temperature for hot drinks.”
Instead of replying, Harvey reaches past him and grabs a napkin from the dispenser. Without a warning or a pause, his finger tucks behind the napkin and wipes at Mike’s upper lip in two firm movements. He tosses the used napkin in the trash before he catches Mike’s stunned stare.“What?” Harvey says, shooting Mike an incredulous look as if he’s the crazy one. “I’m not walking around an airport with a guy wearing whipped cream all over his mouth.”
Mike revisits his serial killer theory from way earlier and adds whatever that just was to the proof. He follows Harvey mutely, and tries not to think about how his lips still tingle from Harvey putting his finger on them.
They keep making their way down the hall, passing through an enclosed skybridge between two large buildings. Mike keeps sipping at his hot chocolate to keep from having to maintain conversation, because he’s still kind of discombobulated over the napkin thing. Harvey doesn’t seem to care at all, walking as casually as before. Does he do this kind of thing a lot? He’s either very practiced or has a natural talent for picking out broke, sad law students and looking after them.
“Okay,” Mike says whenever they find their gate a few minutes later, which is still empty this early before boarding. “If this flight gets delayed even a minute, I seriously might have a breakdown.”
Harvey makes a face. “Well, don’t do that. I don’t handle tears well.”
“I didn’t say I’d cry,” Mike replies, dumping his bag down on a seat. He checks his phone again, but he hasn’t received any new messages. “Maybe a little tantrum, or I’ll break some stuff.”
“Not my charger. Remember my warning?”
“That seems like a redundant question. Do you remember my eidetic memory?” Mike shoots back, pitching his tone like he’s talking to a five year old.
Harvey doesn’t respond, but Mike knows that he’s suppressing the urge to flip him off. He flops into one of the chairs with a triumphant smile.
“You’re a little shit.”
“And you’re stuck with me for the entire flight.” Wait, now Mike sounds ungrateful. His smile drops. “I’ll shut up, though, seriously. I don’t want to bother you.”
“You’re not bothering me. This is entertaining.”
“I live to serve.”
“What was your undergraduate degree?”
“Huh?” Mike says smartly.
Slower, Harvey repeats, “What was your major for your undergraduate degree?”
“Sorry, I actually understood you the first time; you just threw me off. Uh, I finished my degree through a special program for people going to law school. It was essentially a paralegal studies major.”
“So you’re qualified to be a paralegal.”
“Uh… yeah.”
Harvey gestures at him with the hand holding the coffee cup. “So… why are you shelving books?”
Mike shrugs a little. “I worked as a paralegal for eight months. They quickly recognized what I was, what I could do for them, and slammed me with so much work from associates and partners and even other paralegals—it was too much. I was getting a total of ten, twelve hours of sleep every week. My eidetic memory only works if my brain can function.”
“You know people will still do that when you’re an associate, right?” Harvey asks, like he thinks Mike is naive.
“I know that. But at least as an associate, I’m actually getting something out of it. I’m growing and working towards a partner position; a useful associate is a useful partner. As a paralegal… the only real benefit for a law student working as a paralegal is a connection to a firm, but I plan on going back to New York, anyway. My skin feels wrong in California.”
“Was that always the plan?”
“Yeah. Stanford’s ABA-accredited and gave me the most financial aid. It made sense. I could only afford so many law school applications, anyway, so my options were limited.”
“Good set of options; sounds like.”
Mike’s lips quirk upwards. “4.0 gpa and a perfect LSAT will get you pretty far.”
Harvey hums a little, sipping from his coffee. He’s still standing, and Mike fights the urge to tell him to sit down. He feels off kilter, sitting while Harvey stands, but also—he wouldn’t admit this out loud, ever—kind of finds it comforting to have Harvey standing over him, all-encompassing with his secure presence.
“You’re going to miss your meeting,” Mike realizes.
Harvey shrugs. “I texted my boss and let her know. She’s asleep, but I’ve missed more important meetings for less valid reasons. It’s a partner meeting, which means everyone dickrides for an hour.”
“Dickrides?”
“Not literally,” Harvey clarifies with a sigh, which, Mike got that far, thank you. “Every junior partner is vying for senior partner status, and every senior partner wants more stake in the firm. It’s a never ending rat race. They spend the entire meeting telling Jessica about their accomplishments.”
“And you don’t?”
Harvey smirks. “I don’t need to tell her anything. She already knows.”
“Jessica’s the mentor you mentioned earlier?” Mike guesses, and Harvey nods. Then something occurs to him—“But then—you could’ve gotten a hotel and slept, taken the later flight,” Mike reasons, confused. He can come up with an explanation for Harvey’s motives, yeah, but it’s not one that makes much sense.
“Then who would’ve chaperoned your business-class experience?” Harvey replies, amused. He sure sounds like he doesn’t care, but his eyes betray something like affection. Mike wonders if Harvey’s deliberately letting that slip—no way he’s made it this big as a cutthroat lawyer by being an open book—or if it’s unintentional, and something about Mike is keeping him from maintaining a believable detached expression.
“Thank you,” Mike says quietly.
“Any time, Mike,” Harvey says gently, and if Mike’s eyes get shiny, he’s polite enough not to comment on it. He finally takes a seat next to Mike, slinging his ankles over each other.
“You know you could’ve come to the airport in like, sweatpants.”
“And risk running into a client? No, thank you.”
Mike shakes his head. “That’s such a contrived reason. D’you sleep in a three piece?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Harvey says mildly, opening his laptop.
Mike’s face goes hot and he decides to shut up for a little bit. Harvey spends the next hour or so working—Mike peeks over at his screen multiple times out of curiosity, blatantly violating attorney-client privilege, but Harvey only half-heartedly tells him off. It’s better than fruitlessly refreshing his messages with Grammy’s nurse, or searching up complications of a hard fall for a senior.
After a couple of hours that feel much shorter than they really are, the plane arrives (on time!). The stale smell of an airplane hits Mike square in the face as they board, Harvey in front. From behind, he can objectively admire the curve of Harvey’s ass in suit pants. Maybe that’s why the man wears a three-piece in an airport. Harvey greets the flight attendant welcoming them, and Mike gives her a quick thanks as he passes.
If not for Harvey, he would’ve confidently passed his seat on the way to economy class. Harvey circles a firm but loose grip on his wrist and shoves him into his window seat. The people that were behind them pass, children trailing behind. Mike hovers as high as he can stand with the baggage storage over his head, ogling at the other passengers in their section, all decked in suits of varying quality.
“You couldn’t be more obvious that you’ve never sat in business class if you wrote it on a sign and wore it,” Harvey points out, without any real heat. “Sit, Mike. This isn’t a zoo.”
Mike flushes, but drops into his seat and shoves his backpack into the convenient space below the seats. He has so much leg room; he wiggles his feet with an embarrassing amount of awe as Harvey gets settled in his own seat. The plane is oriented so that there are two business seats on either side of the aisle, and their space is just the two of them.
Mike wonders if this is where the conversation stops; if Harvey wants to get some shut-eye or more work done or…
“Excuse me. Sir?” An elderly woman ducks into their little nook and looks at Harvey with eyebrow-less eyes. Mike blinks a little as she asks Harvey to put up her bag.
“Of course,” Harvey says kindly, and it’s weird for a moment, to see him interacting with another person. So far, Mike’s only known Harvey as either A. directly focusing on Mike or B. distracted by Mike while focusing on work. Mike’s seen a version of Harvey that, aside from the first few minutes they met, has felt very, very genuine.
Talking to the woman, Harvey’s got his charm ramped up to 11 for no reason at all. He’s been directing charisma at Mike, sure, but Mike can’t help but feel like he’s gotten a glimpse of a more real version of the man then the rest of the world. The version of Harvey lifting the woman’s suitcase is an aloof lawyer doing a patient, benevolent thing for an old woman.
Harvey’s suit wrinkles into elegant lines as he reaches overhead and puts away her suitcase. He sends the woman one more charming grin that makes something fond and supremely unjustified curl in Mike’s gut, and then slides back into his seat.
The stream of passengers continues by their seats.
“I’m going to lose internet on the plane,” Mike realizes out loud, and texts the caretaker to let her know he’ll be out of reach for a few hours as he crosses the country.
“No, you’re not,” Harvey replies mildly, slipping a pamphlet out of the neat rack of relevant safety papers and menus. He flaps it in Mike’s face, more obnoxious than he needs to be, and Mike takes it and peers at the top.
“I’m not paying thirty dollars for in-flight wifi,” he says, when he really means he can’t pay for that. He also means that he can’t accept Harvey paying for it, either. “No,” he says firmly, to Harvey’s pending offer.
“What if I told you it was for your grandmother, not for you?” Harvey says mildly.
Mike drops his head against the back of the seat—leather, nice— and laughs a little. “Isn’t this insane? Do you not feel like this is insane?”
“Business class isn’t that impressive,” Harvey replies dryly.
“You—You know what I mean,” Mike gripes. “You’re throwing money—“
There’s a slight edge to Harvey’s tone as he interrupts: “I’m not throwing anything. I’m offering.”
“Offering to a stranger.”
“Less of a stranger, more an acquaintance. I prefer to think of this as an investment: You’re smart, kid. Stupidly smart. You’re going to be big one day. Jessica did something similar for me once, when I was just a stranger to her, and now I make her firm millions.”
“I don’t want to work corporate.”
“So?”
Mike finds that he doesn’t have a response to that, and Harvey pulls out his phone and blatantly pays for two devices’ wifi.
The plane slowly begins to settle as Mike pokes around his seat. There’s a TV, and polished armrests, and complimentary hot towels. He does his best not to seem too delighted, but from the way Harvey is smirking at his phone, he’s not succeeding.
The seatbelt lights turn on, and Mike starts fishing around for one half of it, which seems to have dropped into the seam between the seat and the armrest. Harvey retrieves it for him, then reaches over his lap and buckles it in for Mike. Just like the whipped cream incident, Mike is shocked and Harvey is nonchalant.
He has to start talking before he starts overthinking everything Harvey’s done in his general direction for the past few hours.
“Got anybody waiting up for you?” Mike asks, in the least-casual way possible. The second it leaves his mouth, he hears how stupid it sounds, but he can’t take it back. He tries to play it cool.
“The only people that would ‘wait up for me’ are people I work with.”
Well, that’s a useless answer. “So…?”
“I don’t sleep with coworkers,” Harvey says, like he’s a reciting an old, well-worn rule. “Or clients, since we’re on the topic.”
Mike snorts. “So, what, you pick up girls at bars?”
“And guys,” Harvey says, unfazed.
The wood pattern of the back of the seat in front of Mike becomes very interesting.
“That’s when you choose to shut up?” Harvey asks, suddenly incredulous.
Mike grasps at air and finds no solace. “I guess so.”
Harvey scoffs and looks out at the aisle. Their plane begins to taxi, and something about the initiation of movement makes Harvey turn his head back and study Mike for a long moment. “Let me take you to dinner,” he says finally. “Before you go back to California.”
“It’s the middle of the night, I’m visiting my critically sick grandma and you’re… asking me on a date?” Mike asks slowly.
Harvey’s fingers drum lightly against the armrest. “I’m…aware that I’m being inappropriate,” he says, “—but I get the feeling that if we land and I never see you again, I’ll regret it for the rest of my—“
To say Mike is openly gaping at Harvey would be an understatement.
Harvey clears his throat. “It doesn’t have to be a date. I just mean—“ he huffs lightly. “I’m normally much better at this. I don’t make a habit of asking for more than just—”
“Yes,” Mike says, interrupting Harvey’s thoughts. His eyes burn a little from the stale plane air and his head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, but, you know. Hot guy saves you from the worst night of your life; can’t find that kind of man on dating apps. Or, at least, not easily.
“Yes to…”
“Dinner. Depending on how my Grandma’s doing, I don’t know yet if it’s a date or not, and I don’t know if you want it to be—I might cry all over the table,” Mike tells him. “Just so you know.”
“Not into my shoulder?”
“I wouldn’t come close to your bespoke suit, are you kidding?”
Harvey’s eyes crinkle a little as he smiles, and Mike is smiling back because he’s stupidly, insanely attracted to this guy and trying to focus on the only positive in this horrible situation.
And that’s the beginning.
(The plane ride feels like an escape, almost like a dream, and when he gets a text a few hours in that Grammy’s in the clear, he can relax into the conversation a little more. He’s disappointed when the plane lands, and it’s hard to follow Harvey off the plane and back into the real world.
They leave JFK and part ways—except Mike’s got a new phone number in his contacts and a promise to meet for dinner in the next few days, to at least give Mike a break from the hospital. And then they get dinner the next day. And the next, and it becomes routine. And then—well, he wakes up in Harvey’s bed. That becomes routine, too.
Mike’s grandma recovers from the scare, but he stays in the city for an extra week (past Fall break and overlapping into the regular university schedule), anxious that this could be his last time with her in person. The extra time means that she gets to poke and prod him about the ‘kind man’ that had helped him on the plane. She reads him better than anybody, so he can’t hide from her. She knows he’s smitten, and it’s nice that for once, she approves of his choice of a partner.
Her insurance mostly covers the care for the fall, but not all of it. He’s already started planning how to get a second job; he can go back to being a paralegal and just suck it up and do whatever work they need.
The night before Mike leaves, Harvey comes to pick him up and shows up with flowers for Grammy. Mike brings him upstairs to give them to her directly, and watches from the doorway as Grammy grills him about everything from his stupid hairstyle to how much of his assets are liquid.
“When are you coming back?” Harvey asks him later, when they’re walking out side by side. It’s the question Mike’s been dreading.
“This trip obliterated my travel fund for the holidays, so not until next year, probably,” he admits, staring at his feet and trying not to feel awful. “I know we just started something, but—“
“I have a way for you to fund another trip.”
Mike glances up and shakes his head. “I can’t accept any more charity, Harvey. I can’t be in debt to you for years—I know you’re trying to be kind, but I can’t, especially not if we’re dating—“
“Work for us.”
Mike stops and stares. Harvey’s eyes crinkle at the edges, and if they weren’t having such a serious conversation Mike would lean up and press his lips right to the creases. “What?”
“You heard me. Work for Pearson-Hardman. I talked to Jessica this morning; she’s a little dubious about the extent of your talents, but if you talk to her tomorrow in person she’ll see how brilliant you are. She’s agreed to offer you a position if you can walk my talk—which of course you can.”
“Harvey, I’m not a lawyer yet.”
“I know that,” he says patiently. “You’ll be a legal consultant, working hybrid. We’ll cover travel costs through the firm.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wouldn’t kid about this, not to you. I know you don’t want to go corporate, but this will give you a great line on your resume and the connections to propel your do-gooder career when you graduate.”
Mike shuts his eyes and allows the world to filter in for a moment while he remembers how to breathe. Behind him, the doors of the hospital slide open and shut. A taxi sits impatiently by the curb, blasting a Hiemic cover of an ABBA song. Past that, the noise of millions of New Yorkers heading home for the day.
Gently, Harvey adds, “It pays well. The offer letter’s with Jessica for tomorrow; I can tell you it’s at least four times what you were making as a paralegal.”
Mike opens his eyes. “You don’t date people you work with, though.”
“I also don’t talk to strangers.” Harvey shrugs. “You’re my exception.”
My exception. Mine.
“Okay,” Mike agrees, and when Harvey smiles, it’s breathtaking. Mike wants to make him do it again and again and again. He’ll never get tired of it.
“Okay,” Harvey echoes.
Mike flies back the next night with a return flight for the holidays already booked. A copy of his offer letter is reverently folded and tucked into his backpack. He doesn’t stop smiling the whole way back to California.)