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I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Chapter Text

The first time it happened was a few days after they’d gotten in the fender-bender with the overzealous cabbie. Harvey and Mike had just run through what had quickly become their typical morning routine: first Harvey stole Mike’s coffee, then Mike pulled out the puppy dog face, and finally Harvey sighed and let him tag along to the client meeting. 

Ray had popped on a new CD - the Moody Blues this time - and, accompanied by the cheery guitar work of “You and Me,” Harvey had begun explaining to Mike the importance of netting this new client - a thirty-year old programming genius who’d turned a thesis project into a billion dollar company in just under two years. 

Suddenly, there was the sound of screeching tires and honking horns, and Ray quickly slammed on the breaks. “Sorry, guys,” he called from the front seat, “Didn’t mean to jolt you there.”

Harvey was just about to throw out a quick, “Don’t worry about it,” when he was distracted by the sensation of pressure on left hand. Glancing down to investigate, he was somewhat astonished to see that Mike had clamped his right hand over Harvey’s left and was squeezing it with surprising force.

Harvey looked to Mike’s face for some sort of explanation, but Mike was rather pointedly staring out the window. Harvey had just made up his mind to do something, whether it was to make some sort of joke or just yank his hand away, when he heard a little voice in the back of his head telling him to stop. 

He considered for a moment, letting Mike’s hand clutch his as he scanned his admittedly impressive mental compendium for any sort of reason why on earth he, Harvey Specter, ruthless closer, legal shark, heartless bastard some - or at least Louis - would say, should allow his associate to continue holding hands with him without even a comment. 

The second he accessed his ever-increasing mental file labeled “Mike Ross,” however, a small alarm went off in Harvey’s head. Oh God, his parents, the car accident, he thought, giving his associate another glance, this time noting the increased pallor of his face and the slight tremor in the hand which was still clinging tightly to Harvey’s. 

As the gears in his mind continued to turn, Harvey found himself swiftly putting the rest of the pieces together. The collision with the cab must have triggered some pretty terrible memories, Harvey thought, Although he had been too busy saving Ray from legal disaster to really notice at the time, thinking back on the incident now, Harvey remembered that Mike had seemed a bit shaky after they’d hit the cab. He’d just put it down to the basic shock of the accident and the subsequent yelling, but he realized now that it hit a lot closer to home for Mike. 

Poor kid, he thought, a wave of sympathy rushing over him unbidden. Harvey decided that it wouldn’t do any harm if Mike’s hand happened to occupy space adjacent to his for the short duration of the limo ride. After all, he reasoned, there was no one there to see but Ray, and he had certainly witnessed many more scandalous things than this during his eight year tenure as Harvey’s driver. 

So Harvey resumed lecturing Mike on the client as if nothing had changed, although when he quizzed Mike on the billionaire’s particulars and the kid got them all right, Harvey made sure to beam at him little more than usual. By the time they arrived at the client’s offices, Mike seemed fully himself again, so Harvey felt comfortable simply sliding his hand out from under Mike’s as they both exited the limo. And that should have been that.

And maybe it would have been, if not for the winding country roads the two of them found themselves hurtling down a few days later. The client was one of Pearson Hardman’s oldest, a retired army colonel whose vast millions were matched only by his many eccentricities, one of which was refusing to take meetings anywhere other than his hunting lodge an hour from the city. 

The last half of the drive took place entirely on barely-paved country roads, which, even with Ray’s superior driving skills, resulted in Mike and Harvey finding themselves jostled all over the back seat. During one particularly sharp curve, the car lurched left so suddenly that Harvey didn’t have a chance to brace himself, and found his hand clamping down on Mike’s to keep from tumbling into his lap. 

Mike laughed, and though he stifled it quickly at a hard stare from Harvey, he didn’t suppress the smile that remained. After they both had regained at least some of their composure, they resumed their discussion of the corporate restructuring they were going to attempt to sell to the colonel. It was only a few minutes later that Harvey realized that he had somehow forgotten to let go of Mike’s hand.

He felt his cheeks heat up - obviously the limo was too hot, he concluded, because there was no way in hell that Harvey Specter could be blushing - as he instinctively wanted to pull away, embarrassed. Before he could, however, a strange thought occurred to him which made him pause; it was unlikely that Mike had also not noticed, yet he had shown no sign of being self-conscious or confused, nor had he tried to subtly slide his hand away. No, Mike had continued to chat and strategize as if there was nothing in the least bit strange about Harvey holding his hand while debriefing him about a client. 

Harvey had to admit, it was kind of nice. It was very different from both the overtly sexual way he would touch the women on his revolving roster of one-night stands and the testosterone-fueled arm punches and high fives he exchanged with his basketball buddies. There was a casual intimacy to it that he’d never experienced with anyone else. 

Harvey would later tell himself that it was simply the novelty of the sensation that made him keep his hand on Mike’s until they reached the hunting lodge, not the strange feeling buried further back that he couldn’t quite name. 

So, really, it shouldn’t have surprised Harvey as much as it did when it happened again the following week. He and Mike were finally driving back to the office after a beast of a day in court; Harvey had fought like a tiger to keep the damning video of their client from being admitted, citing everything from the Constitution to French common law, but the judge had overruled him, and he was very much afraid that, thanks to his failure, they had lost the jury. 

Consequently, he was not feeling at all like the bold, cocksure Harvey Specter that everyone expected him to be; he was just feeling tired. And since no one but Ray and Mike was there to see, Harvey indulged his bad mood a little bit, laying his head back on the headrest with a groan and closing his eyes. He nearly opened them again in surprise when, out of nowhere, he felt Mike’s strong fingers slide through his own, which had been hanging loosely over the edge of the seat, and squeeze his hand ever so slightly. 

Harvey fought this instinctual urge to open his eyes, however, afraid that it would frighten Mike into drawing back, because at the moment, Harvey was startled to discover that there was nothing he wanted more than to stay just like that, with Mike’s fingers linked through his. After a couple of minutes, Mike began to move his thumb in soothing little circles over Harvey’s palm, and Harvey had to resist the urge to let out a noise he was very much afraid would have sounded like a purr. 

When they finally rolled up in front of the office, Mike murmured a quick, “Good night, Harvey,” before slowly extracting his fingers and slipping out of the limo. It was only when he was quite sure that Mike was gone that Harvey finally opened his eyes, though he shut them again after a minute, and was astonished to find that he could still feel the ghost of Mike’s hand pressing against his palm. 

Over the next few weeks, Harvey found that his hand somehow managed to find its way into Mike’s on an increasingly frequent number of occasions. Whether it was one of them bolstering the other after a bad day, or the result of Ray’s driving - which Harvey would have sworn had gotten more erratic as of late - or any one of a dozen other perfectly sensible reasons, somehow Harvey and Mike holding hands in the limo had become part of their normal routine. 

It wasn’t that strange, Harvey told himself; after all, there wasn’t quite enough room in the backseat for both of them to put their hands on the middle seat without joining them together in some way, so really, when he thought about it more, it all boiled down to a simple issue of efficient space management. It’s not like it meant anything, he kept telling himself, although he was beginning to realize that a growing part of him that didn’t believe that for a second.

Chapter Text

The first time Harvey held Mike’s hand outside of the limo truly was an accident. They were on their way to lunch, and Mike was too busy telling Harvey about a loophole he’d found in a thousand page contract to look before he started crossing the street. Meanwhile, the driver of a sleek black Ferrari decided to choose just that moment to barrel down the street at an ungodly speed, and Harvey only just managed to grab Mike’s hand and pull him back from the curb before the car whizzed by. 

The force of Harvey’s tug launched Mike into his arms, nearly toppling them both face-first onto the sidewalk. Once they both had righted themselves, Harvey held Mike out at arm’s length to give him a quick once-over and ask brusquely if he was all right. In return, Mike gave him a shaky little nod, accompanied by a smile that made it seem like he was almost all right. Harvey did his best to ignore the worry stirring in the pit of his stomach and instead tugged Mike across the street, after checking the traffic very thoroughly, of course. 

As he strode purposefully down the street toward the restaurant, with Mike half dragging, half jogging right behind him, Harvey realized that he was still holding Mike’s hand, even though any accident-related excuses had definitely expired. He couldn’t even blame it on Mike this time, since a quick glance back showed him that the kid seemed to have already recovered and was looking back at Harvey quizzically as he struggled to keep up. Well, thought Harvey defensively - although who he was defending himself against, he didn’t entirely know - if Mike wasn’t mature enough to look both ways before crossing the street, then he obviously wasn’t mature enough to walk to lunch in the big city without a grown-up holding his hand. That was all there was to it.

The time after that was entirely Mike’s fault. Harvey had dragged Mike into his office and demanded that he show him how to work the drawing software which was the golden egg laid by Pearson Hardman’s newest proverbial goose, the technological wunderkind who was now Harvey’s biggest client. It wasn’t that he couldn’t figure it out himself, Harvey was quick to point out to Mike, it was just that Jessica had been bugging him about being a proper mentor, so this was him mentoring. 

Mike mumbled something about how brave it was to try and tackle specialized computer software “at his age,” which had earned him a smack upside the head, but he quickly agreed to help. Mike swung around behind Harvey and leaned down over him, in such a way that his skinny tie flapped tauntingly over Harvey’s shoulder. As Harvey was preparing to ask him if this was strictly necessary, Mike had placed his hand over Harvey’s on the mouse and began moving it slowly around on the mousepad, his fingers occasionally exerting a little pressure on Harvey’s when he wanted him to click. 

Thirty minutes later, Harvey felt like he was mostly getting the hang of the program, and he and Mike celebrated his apparent victory in mentoring by drawing themselves in superhero costumes - Harvey immediately called dibs on Batman, while Mike had always preferred Superman anyway - which caused them both to devolve into fits of what might have been accurately described as giggles, had they not been produced by Harvey Specter. 

This was, of course, the moment that Louis chose to rudely barge into his office over the protestations of Donna to drop off some papers Jessica needed Harvey to sign, only to stop short at seeing Mike practically draped over Harvey and the two of them laughing like idiots. Mike automatically started to withdraw, but Harvey quickly fixed Louis with a death glare and flipped the position of their hands on the mouse so that his rested on top of Mike’s, forcing Mike to lean over him once more. 

It wasn’t that he’d suddenly missed the warmth of having Mike’s hand on his, Harvey reasoned as he watched the junior partner scuttle out of the room under the heat of his gaze, just that he refused to give Louis the satisfaction of knowing he could affect their behavior. Harvey then proceeded to show off how much he’d learned by guiding Mike’s hand into adding capes to each of their alter-egos. 

The third time, well, Harvey blamed the third time almost entirely on alcohol...and, since he was the one who had essentially ordered Mike to imbibe said alcohol, he might, if pressed under oath, have accepted a tiny portion of the responsibility. But it’s not like he’dknown the kid had the tolerance of a third grader when he’d told him to go get the information from those stockbrokers, or like he’dtold him to come bring the trades to Harvey at his apartment while he was still smashed. 

And once the kid was there, looking completely trashed and out-of-it in a way a different man could easily have found completely adorable, it’s not like Harvey could send him back onto the streets. All manner of things would surely have befallen him, Harvey surmised, and like it or not, the kid was his responsibility. 

So when Mike stumbled drunkenly into his apartment, declaring what a nice place it was and how he expected nothing less of Wayne Manor, Harvey just went with it. In the same way that he went with it when Mike found his stereo, and switched the stations until he found one playing, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” 

It was then that Mike actually started singing along - Harvey made a mental note to stash this information for further blackmail possibilities - although his advanced state of inebriation made the verses sound something like, “Mmmmm....true...mmmmm...you.” When they got to the chorus, however, Harvey discovered that Mike knew it quite a bit better, since he immediately began to belt, “I love you, baby! And if it’s quite all right, I need you baby, to warm the lonely nights...” 

It was at this point that Mike blundered over to Harvey, grabbed one of his hands, and, before Harvey could even think of protesting, dragged him into the middle of his own living room shouting, “Dance with me, Harvey! You’ve got to dance with me!” Harvey soon learned that Drunk Mike’s idea of dancing was swaying back and forth woozily while swinging their joined hands vaguely in time with the music. 

As the song wound down, Mike’s swaying got slower and slower, and he stumbled closer to Harvey, until his head was resting on Harvey’s shoulder. When Harvey attempted to move him, Mike just mumbled something about having always wanted to slow dance with Batman and buried his head in Harvey’s neck. 

Eventually, Harvey dragged Mike, by this point semi-comatose, to the couch and, after arranging him in such a way that his limbs hopefully wouldn’t be aching too much in the morning, grabbed the white afghan that Donna had given him to “make his place a bit more human,” and tucked Mike in for the night. When he went to pull away, however, he felt a tug on his hand, and, looking down, was surprised to see a pair of surprisingly alert eyes looking back at him. Mike’s blue eyes stared directly into his brown ones as he mumbled, “Thanks, Harvey, you’re the best,” before passing out, his hand still resting lightly in Harvey’s.

Harvey carefully untangled his fingers from Mike’s before placing Mike’s hand gently on his chest. He stood there for a few moments just watching Mike sleep, marveling at how he looked even younger than he usually did. As he watched, Harvey found himself fighting a strange urge to brush the disheveled tangle of hair back from Mike’s face. 

It was at that precise moment that realization hit him with such sudden violence that Harvey felt a little like he’d been punched in the gut. Oh God, Harvey thought, I love Mike. I am so screwed.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days, Harvey did his best to avoid Mike - he sent him on unnecessarily long errands, gave him huge piles of paperwork to file, even let him work another pro bono on his own. At first, Mike seemed excited, his face framed in the eager, puppy dog expression he always got when he thought Harvey was proud of him; but by the end of the third day of Harvey evading him, however, Mike’s excited face soon morphed into his despondent one, and one glance at what Mike looked like despondent was nearly extreme enough to make Harvey take him by the hand, drag him to the limo, and reluctantly succumb to whatever the manly version of pining was while they rode to the client meetings. Nearly. 

Finally, Harvey couldn’t take it anymore, and he decided there was only one person who could possibly sort out such a tangled mess, the sole person at the firm he willingly admitted was smarter than him - Jessica. This meant, Harvey realized with a sinking feeling, that he would to have to tell her how he felt about Mike. She was never, ever going to let him live it down, but seeing Mike mope around the office was enough to convince Harvey that it was a price he would have to pay. 

So it was that at 8:35 PM precisely on that Tuesday evening, when he was sure that everyone else had already gone home for the night, Harvey Specter stormed into Jessica Pearson's office and thrust a single dollar bill onto her desk. “Here.”

Jessica looked up from her desk, her expression one which on anyone else would have seemed like confusion, but somehow on Jessica just appeared calculating. “Wow, did you lose another bet with me already? I’ve lost track; it happens so often.”

“Haha, very funny,” Harvey said with a roll of his eyes, “It’s a retainer.”

“I believe, last time I checked, my going rate for retainers was fifteen thousand dollars. Plop another fourteen thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine on my desk and we’ll talk.” 

“I’m not kidding around, Jessica!” Harvey said frustratedly. “I am in severe need of some attorney-client privilege right now.” 

The edge in his voice must have convinced her that something was actually going on, because Jessica slowly slid the dollar across her desk and ostentatiously placed it in her wallet. “In all the time we’ve known each other, I’ve never known you to look this serious about anything. What the hell is going on, Harvey?”

Harvey sighed and sank down in the plush, leather chair across from her desk - it was time to face the music. “I’m in love with Mike,” he said gravely, never taking his eyes from Jessica’s.

To his utter astonishment, Jessica simply burst out laughing. “Honestly, Harvey, you are a bit of a neanderthal sometimes. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it has very recently become socially acceptable to be in love with the people you’re sleeping with.” She leaned forward conspiratorially to whisper, “Some actually encourage it.”

“What do you mean sleeping with?” Harvey asked, too flabbergasted to respond in an appropriately biting manner to Jessica’s sarcasm. “Mike and I aren’t sleeping together!”

“Oh, come off it, Harvey, of course you are!” Jessica scoffed, laughing, “The whole office has known for ages!”

“The whole of-...known for ag-...” Harvey shouted, in a manner which he admitted was a bit abrupt, but Harvey Specter did not sputter, damn it. 

“Well, yeah,” Jessica replied, looking a bit at a loss. “I mean, come on, Harvey, it seems like every time I see you, you’re holding hands with the kid!” 

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Harvey defended, still reeling from the revelation that the whole office apparently thought he was already sleeping with Mike. 

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Jessica said in a tone of mock conciliation, “Holding hands is the new fist bump, isn’t it? I think I read that in GQ.”

“Oh, shut up,” Harvey shot back in lieu of a comeback. “The point is, I am not, I repeat NOT sleeping with him.”

“...And you’d like to?” Jessica finished for him, suddenly looking very amused.

“No!” Harvey yelled instinctively. “I mean, yes! I mean...damn it, Jessica!” This wasn’t going at all like he’d planned, Harvey thought desperately. Not only was Jessica not shocked at his feelings for Mike, but she’d apparently assumed that he’d long since acted on them. He buried his head in his hands in despair. 

“Wow, you do have it bad,” Jessica said with a low whistle. “I’ve never seen you this flustered, Harvey, not in court, not at the bargaining table, never."

Harvey merely groaned and leaned back in his chair. That was it, he decided; he couldn’t take this any more, and he quickly pushed up out of his chair and said, “I gotta go - I need some air. Just...forget I said anything.” 

“Harvey,” Jessica said, standing up as he turned to leave, “Come on, I didn’t mean to rib you about the kid. Truth is, I think he’s a good influence on you.” 

“I wasn’t aware I needed any influencing,” Harvey said defensively, “But...thanks, I suppose. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jess.”

“Til tomorrow, then, Harvey,” Jessica said with a smile that Harvey found frustratingly enigmatic, as if somehow she still knew something he didn’t.

Feeling even more worked up than before, Harvey left the building in a rush and headed straight for the comfort of his waiting limo.

“Mike not joining us again, Harvey?” Ray called out from the front seat, his tone surprised, but thoroughly amiable.

“Just drive, please, Ray?” Harvey responded, his tone tired and entreating, “I don’t care where.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Ray said brightly, although Harvey could detect an undercurrent of worry beneath the cheerfulness that warmed his apparently all-too-existent heart a little bit. 

As he leaned his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh, the soothing sounds of a piano started filtering through the limo’s speaker system, immediately followed by the dulcet tones of Ol’ Blue Eyes himself:

It’s quarter to three / There’s no one in the place except you and me / So set ‘em up, Joe / I got a little story I think you oughtta know.

Harvey couldn’t help but smile as he realized this was Ray’s musical version of, “Hey, you can talk to me about it.” You know, he forgot sometimes what a lucky son-of-a-bitch he was, Harvey thought to himself, to have so many people in his life who cared about him, despite his constant protestations that he didn’t care about anybody. This, of course, made him think of Mike, who cared more than anyone else, and he finally caved.

“Ray, you’ve known me for a pretty long time now,” Harvey began.

“Eight years next month, boss,” Ray agreed pleasantly.

“Do you think that Mike and I have been sleeping together?” Harvey asked, slightly afraid of the answer.

“Of course not,” Ray replied, and just as Harvey was about heave a sigh of relief, he continued, “I mean, sure, you’ve been in love with the kid for awhile now, but the sexual tension is still way too high for you to be sleeping together. 

“God, am I the only one who didn’t know?” Harvey asked, exasperated. The whole fiasco had officially become out-of control. 

“What, that you love Mike? Besides the kid himself - who’s as much in the dark as you were, by the way - pretty much. I’m afraid Donna and I have had a bit of a pool going, and from the looks of things, I think I’m gonna owe her twenty bucks.” 

Harvey moaned and smacked the back of his head repeatedly on the leather seat. “Everything’s such a mess, Ray, and I don’t know what to do.” 

Ray didn’t answer for a moment, then said finally, “Boss, can I be frank with you for a second?”

“Always, Ray, you know that.”

“Harvey, I’ve been your driver for eight years, and I’d say that by this point, I know you pretty well. So I’m going to tell you three things. One, the only person you’re fooling with your “I don’t care about people” shtick is yourself.”

“Now, I really don’t think that’s-” Harvey tried to object, but Ray cut him off.

“It’s no good trying to bluff me, Harvey. You may talk a big game, but at the end of the day, you always go out of your way to help the people who are important to you. Hell, you go out of your way to help people you don’t even know because it’s the right thing to do. Face it, Harvey - when it comes to being a heartless bastard, you are a complete and utter failure.”

“Two,” he barreled on before Harvey could interject further, “I have seen you do a lot of different things with a lot of different people in the back of this limo over the years. Clients, opposing council, models, Congressmen, and, as I recall, on one memorable occasion, the entire Swedish mixed doubles Olympic tennis team - kudos on that one, by the way. 

“But in all that time, there’s only one person I’ve ever seen you really be yourself with, and that’s Mike. It’s like when it’s just the two of you back there, you take off all that armor you put on to convince people you’re a big, bad lawyer who’s going to ruin them if they don’t do what you say. And, I’ll tell you, the way that kid looks at you when he thinks you aren’t watching - devotion, respect, affection, it’s like you’re his whole world.”

“Which brings me to three,” Ray finished as he slowly put the limo in park and turned around to look at Harvey. “You, my friend, are not a coward. In all the time I’ve known you, I have never, ever seen you back down from a challenge. You are Harvey Specter, the best damn closer in the city, and there isn’t a problem out there that you can’t handle. Which is why you’re going to call Mike right now, tell him to get down here, and put both of you out of your misery once and for all.”
Harvey instinctively looked out his window and was surprised to see that Ray had driven them straight to Mike’s apartment building. He looked back at his driver, who was smiling at him, and gave a little sigh. “I don’t have a choice, do I?” 

“Nope,” Ray returned with a firm nod of his head. “If you don’t tell him, I swear to God, I’ll run up there right now and do it myself.”

“You’re a bit of a bastard, you know that, Ray?” Harvey said, though there was no edge to his voice. 

“One of us has to be,” Ray deadpanned. “Now, go on, call him!”

Harvey rolled his eyes and pushed 1 on his speed dial - in retrospect, that probably should have been a clue, he thought ruefully - and waited for Mike to pick up. 

After only a couple rings, Mike’s voice came through bright and eager, “Harvey?”

Mike’s obvious excitement made Harvey feel even guiltier for avoiding him, and he barked out, “I’m outside, come down,” hanging up before Mike could reply.

“Smooth,” Ray said sarcastically, shooting him a look.

“Cut me some slack, I’m new at this,” Harvey said defensively, before slumping back in his seat and taking a deep breath. “God, Ray, why does it have to be this much work?” 

Ray gave him a little smile and said, “Come on - everything worth having is, Harvey, you know that.”

Harvey sighed again and said, “Well, whatever happens, Ray, thank you. You’re a good friend.” 

“Anytime, boss,” Ray said, before flashing him a cheeky grin and adding, “I will, of course, expect this to be reflected in my Christmas bonus.”

Harvey was prevented from uttering a witty retort by the sudden opening of the limo door and the appearance of Mike’s face, his expression uncharacteristically apprehensive and voice hesitant as he asked, “Harvey?”

“Well, don’t just stand there gaping at me all night, get in,” Harvey said, trying to keep his voice level and commanding to hide his own rising panic, which had only spiked upon seeing Mike. 

“Sorry,” Mike mumbled as he slid in beside Harvey and shut the door. 

Ray shot Harvey a look through the rear-view mirror that clearly said, “Hey, be nice to the kid,” before raising the partition to give them a bit of privacy.

As Ray pulled out from the curb, Harvey could sense that Mike was fighting the urge to move his hand a few inches to the right to rest on Harvey’s, as he so often did. Harvey was surprised when Mike spoke instead, his voice tentative as he asked, “Harvey, are you mad at me?”

“Did you know the whole firm thinks we’ve been going out together?” Harvey asked in lieu of a response, not giving Mike a chance to respond before continuing, “For weeks, apparently! Jessica was shocked when I denied it, absolutely shocked. There’s nothing I hate more the idea of other people spreading false rumors about me behind my back.”

“Harvey, you can’t have been avoiding me because you think that I told -” Mike interjected hurriedly, still looking a bit shocked at Harvey’s outburst.

“Of course not,” Harvey waved him off, adding an impatient, “I thought we had a talk about you interrupting me. Now, as I was saying, there’s nothing I hate more than false rumors. And the simplest solution by far seems to me...to make it so that the rumors are no longer false.”

“No longer...false?” Mike asked, confused, until his face suddenly lit up with realization. “Wait, Harvey, are you...are you asking me on a date?”

“Yes,” Harvey said firmly, because Ray was right, he thought - Harvey Specter was no coward.

“Oh,” was Mike’s only reply, although Harvey thought he looked as if he wished to say more. 

“Unless you’re dumb enough to say no,” Harvey continued, as this frightening possibility occurred to him for the first time, “In which case, I am definitely not asking you out, and Ray is my witness.” 

Mike looked at him for a long moment, then, ever so slowly, raised a hand and brushed it against Harvey’s cheek, before muttering, “Idiot.” 

Harvey felt his heart leap in his chest and, keeping his eyes locked with Mike’s, he leaned forward so their faces were mere centimeters apart. 

And so it was that at this moment, for the very first time - although definitively not the last - Harvey reached for Mike’s hand for no other reason than because he loved him; no excuses, no convenient explanations, just a simple little emotion, the likes of which he’d never felt before. 

Harvey subsequently closing the few inches between them and kissing Mike, however, could legitimately have been blamed, at least a little bit, on the limo’s sudden jolt left and a surprisingly romantic limo driver named Ray, who received a bonus that following Christmas equal to what he would have made in two years of driving Harvey; attached to the cheque was a note saying, “Worth. Every. Penny.”