Six months later, Mike finally asked: “Do you have anywhere to go, kid?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you’d better keep that room clean. The Ministry of Health doesn’t like messes.”
And just like that, I had a home. Not legally—Mike couldn’t adopt a runaway—but in every way that mattered, he became my father.
Mike laid down rules.
I had to go to school, and he drove me there every morning on his Harley, ignoring the stares from the other dads.
I had to work in the shop after classes—“because every man should know how to work with his hands.”
And on Sundays, I had to attend dinner at the clubhouse, where thirty bikers checked my homework and threatened to “kick my ass” if my grades dropped.
“You’re smart,” Mike told me one night when he caught me reading a law book. “Scary smart. You could be more than just a mechanic like me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being like you,” I said.
He ruffled my hair, smiling. “I appreciate it, kid. But let’s make sure you use that brain of yours.”
The club pooled money to pay for my entrance exam classes. When I earned a full scholarship to study law at the university, they threw a party so loud the whole neighborhood knew.
