“Dad made mistakes?”
“Many.”
“You still love him?”
Grant laughed softly.
“More than I know what to do with.”
Noah nodded.
That answer mattered.
Children did not need dead parents turned into saints.
They needed permission to love real people.
At fourteen, Noah found the old club meeting minutes from Lucas’s expulsion.
He read Grant’s abstention.
One line.
G. Mercer — Abstain.
Noah brought the page to Grant.
“Was this your hand?”
Grant stared.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Grant had explained before.
But fourteen-year-olds asked differently.
“I thought being president meant I couldn’t choose family over rules.”
“Were you president?”
“Not yet.”
“So you were being dramatic.”
Grant laughed.
“Probably.”
Noah pointed at the page.
“If Dad said he didn’t do it, why didn’t you believe him?”
Grant did not avoid the question.
“Because evidence scared me more than losing him.”
Noah frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
Grant looked toward the restored Dyna.
“Sometimes people convince themselves they’re being rational because admitting they’re afraid feels worse.”
Noah sat.
“Are you afraid of losing me?”
The question surprised him.
“Yes.”
“Would you believe me if somebody said I stole?”
Grant looked directly at him.
“I’d investigate.”
Noah’s eyebrows rose.
“You wouldn’t just believe me?”
Grant smiled faintly.
“I’d believe you deserved me beside you while we found the truth.”
Noah considered.
“That’s better.”
Grant agreed.
By sixteen, Noah was almost as tall as Lucas had been.
His voice changed.
His shoulders broadened.
The little boy who once crouched over a toy motorcycle disappeared gradually, though Grant still saw him whenever Noah became uncertain.
On his sixteenth birthday, his grandmother finally allowed Grant to teach him to ride.
Not the Dyna.
Too powerful.
Grant bought an old 250cc motorcycle that barely looked respectable.
Noah was horrified.
“That thing is ugly.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“You won’t cry when you drop it.”
“I’m not dropping it.”
He dropped it eleven minutes later.
Grant said nothing.
Noah looked at him.
“Don’t.”
Grant raised both hands.
Noah laughed.
They practiced in an empty parking lot.
Clutch.
Balance.
Braking.
Turns.
Noah stalled repeatedly.
Each time Grant waited.
Never mocked.
Never grabbed the controls.
Eventually Noah completed one clean loop.
Then another.
He stopped beside Grant.
His grin looked exactly like Lucas’s at nineteen.
Grant felt grief and joy arrive together.
He had learned not to choose between them.
“You look weird.”
Noah said.
“Bug flew in my eye.”
“You’re crying.”
“A very emotional bug.”
Noah laughed.
At seventeen, Noah rode beside Grant for the first time.
Not on Lucas’s motorcycle.