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It should speak to what his life has turned into that when Harvey comes home and sees two paper bags on his kitchen table that he didn’t put there, his only reaction is to sigh and call out to the darkened apartment, “Hi, Parker.”
A blonde head rises momentarily past the back of the couch, and the young woman blinks at him before shrugging and flopping back down.
“I was in the-”
“In the area. Yeah, I know. This time and the last four times.” Harvey peers into the closest bag, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead. The grocery bag contained a packet of biscuits, two bottles of soy milk, a homemade bomb, and a tube of Mentos. “You brought a bomb into my apartment?”
Parker’s voice is nonchalant when she replies. “Relax, Herby. I clipped the detonator wire like an hour ago.”
“Harvey,” the lawyer corrects automatically. It’s their ritual by now. Parker calls him the wrong name, Harvey corrects her. They both know she knows his name. It makes them both feel better to go through the motions anyway.
His shoulders go up and down as he sighs and cracks his neck. It has been a long, stressful day, and all he wants to do is unwind with some mindless tv for a while then head to bed. Except now one of his brother’s band of merry thieves is camped out on his couch.
Somehow, the fact that Eliot has fallen in with this weird, felonious group of people means that they’re Harvey’s problem too, and Harvey finds he’s doing more and more pretending to mind than actual minding. Which is how he ends up grabbing one of the bottles and screwing off the cap, taking a drink and walking into the living room.
Harvey lifts Parker’s legs and shoves them over. She makes a face and complies, bending her knees and sitting up. Her head falls against the back of the couch, and she sticks her hand out. Harvey obliges, handing her the bottle. Parker takes a long pull from it, her eyes closed. She doesn’t open them when she lets her cheek rest back against the couch cushion.
“Long day?” Harvey asks quietly. Parker nods, shifting into a more comfortable position. She doesn’t volunteer the location of the rest of her team, of Nate, Sophie, and Alec, of Harvey’s brother, and Harvey doesn’t ask. Part of him, the part taking in how exhausted she looks and the bruise on her forehead, is afraid of what the answer could be.
“I just need a place to lay low for a little while,” says Parker, equally as quietly, after several beats of silence in the still darkened apartment. “Someplace safe. Just until they get here.”
A sharp, aching lump in Harvey’s chest unknots, and his head tilts back as he stares to the ceiling. “You don’t seem to have any trouble making yourself at home here, so. As long as you need.”
The milk bottle passes from a hand that looks vaguely singed to one that practically trembles from the exhaustion of several hours too many spent pouring over merger paperwork.
“Why soy?” His voice is bewildered, and Parker laughs a bright, sharp giggle.
“Never had it before. I wanted to try it.”
He shrugs, drinking from the bottle and setting it on the low coffee table in front of them. Seems like a good reason to him.
“Wanna watch Kitchen Nightmares?” Harvey ventures.
“Nah, finished that with Hardison and Eliot last week. Cake Boss?”
Harvey smiles and turns on the TV.