After a second, she nods.
Just once.
It’s small.
But it hits harder than the crowd.
“Go,” she mouths.
Jesse waves at me.
“Dada loud,” he says, not even trying to keep his voice down.
I grin.
“Yeah,” I call back. “Dada’s loud.”
The stage manager gives me the signal.
I step forward.
The lights swallow me whole.
The noise spikes—louder, sharper, a physical thing that slams into my chest and rattles around in my ribs. I can feel it in my bones, the vibration of it, the collective energy of all those people focused in one direction.
On me.
Old Bron would have eaten that alive.
Would have soaked it in, turned it into fuel, let it burn hot and reckless until there was nothing left but the high of it.
This time?—
I let it settle.
Let it exist without letting it take over.
“Hey,” I say into the mic.
My voice carries.
The crowd answers.
I let them.
Then I lift a hand slightly, and it quiets.
Not completely.
But enough.
“I’ve played a lot of shows,” I say, pacing slowly across the stage. “In a lot of places. For a lot of reasons.”
A few cheers ripple through the audience.
I nod.
“Some of them were good reasons,” I add. “Some of them… less so.”
