Author's Note: Surprise! I got really inspired all of the sudden and managed to get another chapter together and I hope you will like.

I would like to thanks for all the reviews/follows/favorites and then I would also like to wish you all a happy new year and hope that 2018 will be a great year for all of us :D

CHAPTER 6

Harvey would be lying if he said that he wasn't a little disappointed when Mike asked him if he could visit his grandmother and his friend, instead of spending the day with him.
He had made sure he had no obligations this weekend so that he could get to know his son but apparently his son didn't want the same thing.
He had to remind himself that this must be very hard for Mike and that there was still Sunday.

"But I want us to exchange phone numbers, and you should be home by-"

Harvey was trying to create some rules like any good, responsible parent did but he realized that he didn't even know how long he should let the kid be out, or any other rules you should set for an eleven-year-old.

"8.30?"

Mike suggested and it sounded fair enough, at least for the weekend and he accepted it as a curfew.
When Mike had finished eating he disappeared into his room, emerging a minute later in a new set of clothes.

"Hey Mike?"

Harvey asked when the boy opened the door, ready to leave without thinking about a very important detail.

"Yeah?"
"How were you planning on getting there?"

Mike stopped and looked at him sheepishly while mumbling that he hadn't thought about that.
Harvey chuckled and took some cash from his wallet and gave to the kid so that he could take a cab.
Mike thanked him before rushing out of the apartment and leaving Harvey alone.

Since he suddenly had an entire day off he decided to swing by the office to pick up some work.
He wanted to do work at home just in case Mike decided to come back earlier than his curfew.
The day went by pretty fast, Harvey spent his time working, talking to Donna on the phone, eating some leftover pizza and watching some baseball game on the TV.
As the evening came along he found himself constantly glancing at the clock and the door, expecting Mike to walk through it any minute now, but suddenly it was 8.30 and there was still no sign of the boy.
He tried not to worry, he had probably just forgot about the time or he was on his way home right now.
Harvey sent a text reminding Mike about what time it was but he received no answer.
Thirty minutes and a dozen of texts and calls later Harvey did start to worry.
What if something had happened to him?
He could've been in an accident, or been kidnapped, or god forbid he could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
It was that thought that made him call Mike's grandmother, hoping that she would be awake and that she would know where Mike could be.

"I'm sorry to bother you Mrs. Ross, but is Mike with you?"
"No, he left hours ago. I thought he'd be home by now?"
"He was going to a friend after visiting you but he should have been back half an hour ago and he won't answer his phone."

Harvey surprised himself with how he already managed to sound like a worried parent, even if he had just been one for a little over a week.

"He's with that damn Trevor."

Edith said, and it was clear by the old woman's voice that she did not like Mike's friend.

"I take it you're not very fond of Trevor?"
"He's not a good kid, you should make sure Mike stays away from him."

Harvey didn't think he was in the position to decide who Mike should be friends with and not, but he still promised Edith to do his best before she gave him the phone number to Trevor's house.
Trevor's mother did nothing to still his worry when she said that the boys were out and she didn't know where they were but she would send Mike home as soon as they returned.
Harvey soon found himself pacing the apartment, looking at his phone every other second just in case he had somehow missed an answer from Mike.
It was 9.25 and Harvey was thinking about going out to look for the kid when he finally received a simple text saying that Mike was fine and that he should let his grammy know.
Now that he was certain that his son was okay, the worry was replaced with anger and he sat down on a chair, waiting for Mike to return.

As soon as he heard the door open, he crossed his arms and made himself ready to scold the boy.
He had been spending some time thinking about how he should react to all of this, and he had decided to not go too easy on him, and make him believe that Harvey was a pushover, instead he had decided to assert his authority.

"I'm pretty sure we said 8.30, right?"
"Yeah, sorry I forgot."
"You forgot?"

Harvey got up while he shook his head in disbelief, he would have accepted that an hour ago but now it just wasn't a good enough excuse.

"Do you know how worried I was? Or how worried your grandmother was?"

Mike didn't even seem to feel guilty about the fact that he had worried him, so he decided to bring up his grandmother and that did the trick.
Mike suddenly looked guilty before he said that Harvey shouldn't have talked to her and gotten her worked up, as if it wasn't him that had been the cause of her getting worked up.
Harvey was about to point this out to him when he picked up a sudden smell, it smelled like cigarette smoke. It seemed to be coming from Mike and he took a step closer, sniffing to make sure that it really was coming from the boy.

"Have you been smoking?"

He could see the guilt in his son's eyes and Harvey shook his head in disbelief again.
Weren't these kinds of behaviors supposed to come with teenagers, not eleven-year-olds?
Harvey had thought that he would get a couple of years before this kind of thing happened.

"Michael, you're eleven years old you shouldn't be out late and you definitely shouldn't be smoking!"
"Why do you even care?"
"Because I'm your father."

The guilt disappeared from Mike's eyes and was replaced by anger.

"You might be biologically but in other way James is my dad and he will always be. He gladly took the job that you didn't even want."

Harvey was taken aback by Mike's words, why would he think that he didn't want to be his father?
He had taken on the job now, and if he had known about Mike eleven years ago he would have done the same.
Sure, it would've been scary and a big change, but he would never have let Nina raise him without him in the picture.

"What are you talking about? Of course I wanted it."
"Then why did you abandon me?!"

Mike's yell surprised him, he wasn't surprised by the anger but by the pain he could hear in his son's voice.
It all suddenly made sense, why both Mike and Edith had been so cold towards him because they believed that he had left.
Oh god, Mike really believed the lie someone fed him, and he was really asking his father why he abandoned him, and it broke Harvey's heart.

"Mike, your mother never told me about you. I didn't even know that you existed until I got that phone call."

The kid looked surprised at his words, and Harvey felt guilty for not even thinking about talking about the past with him, instead he just let his son believe that he was abandoned.
He could see the internal struggle on his face, he went from surprised to puzzled and then finally he landed in denial.

"You're lying."

He said before he pushed past him and stormed off to his room.

"I'm not lying, Mike!"
"Bullshit!"

The door slammed behind Mike and Harvey sat down again, releasing a deep sigh.
He wanted to go after him but it would only make things worse, so instead he decided to go to bed and deal with this in the morning.

The next morning he decided to call Edith since he wanted to talk to her too, since she seemed to believe the same thing Mike did.
They agreed that Mike and Harvey would drop by later and Harvey hung up before reading the newspaper while waiting for the kid to get up.
Once he did, it was obvious that he was still angry about last night.
Mike was pouting and did everything he could to show Harvey that he was still mad and Harvey had to keep himself from laughing at the kid's dramatics.

"I was thinking about visiting your grandmother today, do you want to come?"

He asked, doubting that Mike would ever say no to visiting his grandmother even if he knew that there would be a serious conversation waiting.
Mike proved this by quickly glancing at Harvey and then nodding.

"Sorry, I didn't hear that."

Mike rolled his eyes, and Harvey wondered if Mike really was eleven and not a teenager.

"Yes, I would like to come."
He said, with a faked polite voice.
"Great, we'll go as soon as you've had breakfast."

Half an hour later they arrived at their destination where Edith's friend welcomed them.
They were shown upstairs where Edith were lying in her bed, looking much paler and sicker than Harvey could've imagined.
Despite her weakness, she managed to greet them with a smile and even got Mike to hug her before she lightly scolded him for yesterday.
Harvey sat down in an armchair while Mike took a seat on the edge of the bed.

"It has come to my attention that there's two sides of the story here, and I would just at least get the opportunity to tell you my side."

Mike rolled his eyes again, clearly not ready to listen to him but Edith looked at him with curious eyes and prompted him to continue with a nod.

"I'm not entirely sure about what exactly you've been told but I never left Nina and I never left you, Mike."

He tried to establish eye contact with him but the kid refused to look at him.

"I met your mother 12 years ago and we fell in love. We really loved each other but we ended up being bad for each other. We made a mutual decision to break up and then we walked away from each other and I never heard from her ever again. She never told me that she was pregnant, I never even got the chance to be your father."

Both of them were quiet and for a second he thought that they had really understood, until Mike looked at him and there was still denial written all over his face.
He got up from the bed and looked at Harvey with anger in his eyes.

"You're still lying! You're just trying to justify it because you're a coward!"

For a moment the room went silence while Harvey desperately tried to come up with an answer that wouldn't make him even more upset.

"Michael."

They both turned and looked at the old woman in the bed. She slowly reached out her hand and took Mike's hand in hers.

"I think I believe him."