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Thalia let out a shaky breath, confirming that she shared my concerns about what my life meant for her little girl.
“That’s great to hear. Really, Damian. And I want the both of you to get to know each other, too.”
My heart raced off again. This was a scary new chapter, after all. Two days ago, I didn’t even know I was a parent.
I cleared my throat against the growing lump of emotion.
“I’m ready to start whenever and wherever you are. Any ideas?”
It was time to be strong and to just do my best.
Thalia chuckled, and it lightened up the energy of the room. My tense shoulders eased just a touch as the sound bounced off the dressing room walls. Thalia walked over to me and held both my hands, her warmth radiating through my coldness.
“Great. We’ll come up with a plan, then. And don’t worry, I wasn’t the best at first, either. I messed upa lot. Luna is only as great as she is despite me, really.” I chuckled, knowing that was the furthest thing from the truth. Thalia was clearly a great mom, and Luna was incredibly lucky. But I appreciated her trying to ease the fear she saw in my eyes. “But I’ll help you.”
I couldn’t help it. I knew anyone could walk in at that moment to tell me to get on stage, but I couldn’t help it. I pulled Thalia in for a deep and passionate kiss—the type that told her I was happy she was here in my life.
“Make sure you don’t miss the second half of the show,” I whispered in her ear.
With that, I got the call and made moves to get out on stage. It was show time… and I wanted to make a statement with this one.
The show started off without a hitch. This was only my third show after continuing the world tour, but this was possibly the most fluid I had felt. Hell, I was positive this was the most comfortable I had ever been at any show, even the ones I had from years before. I just felt good, and the crowd was amazing. I wasn’t missing any of my marks as the choreography progressed. I wasn’t late for any of my cues whenever the stage would suddenly shift along with the song. I was in the zone, and the crowd was feeling it as the entire stadium was abuzz. Grabbing some of that energy back, I had never been so invigorated on stage.
Every now and again, I spotted Thalia on the floor section by herself, dancing and singing along to my songs. It put an even wider smile on my face to see her enjoy herself so much. But the sun had fully set, and I was approaching the end of the first half of the show. Man, all of those songs passed by in a blur, but I was feeling such a good rush that I was just grinning through it all.
As I finished the last part of my first-ever number-one song, I started to feel a cold chill run up my spine.“And you’ll always see all I couldn’t say… beyond these ocean eyes,”I sang with the crowd singing back at me, and as I hit the last chord, the stage dimmed down and I was slowly being lowered into the stage. A group of stylists immediately came to change my clothes, and I had to move quickly as well because I really only had about thirty seconds before I needed to be on stage again. Hey, putting on a great show required a lot, and I was ready for it.
Still, there was something that I was a bit apprehensive about, but I knew it was now or never. On my side was my stage manager, and I quickly caught her attention by tapping her shoulder as the stylists removed my shoes.
“Hey, please stop for a second,” I told the stylists. They were confused, but they did as I was told, though they were checking their stopwatches a bit frantically. As quickly as I could, I told the stage manager, “I want to do the next part a bit differently.”
I wasn’t sure if she was pleased by it, and I was sure that there was an unmistakable increase in her stress levels.
“You’re just telling us now that you want to change something?” Her eyes were wide, and I knew she had every right to be furious with me. “What is that you want to do, Mr. Apollo?”
With that, my plan was set in motion, but the chill in my spine was still very apparent. It was the first time I tried to change something about my show on such short notice, but I was going to push through it. After a quick change, I stood on my mark where they were going to raise me up, where there was a gray stool waiting behind me. I was sure they just found it in the back somewhere, but I was fine with it, nonetheless. My heart was about to run out of my chest as the stage slowly ascended, but the lights were still dimmed, and no one could get a good look at me. I could see that Thalia was in the same spot from earlier, however, and she was squinting in an attempt to see what I was doing.
“Three… two… one…”I counted in my head. Right on cue, a single warm spotlight shone upon me, emulating the feel of a simple dive bar gig. The crowd gasped for a quick second when it did, but when they noticed what I was wearing and what I had in my hand, they slowly started to scream even louder than they had the entire night.
Thalia’s mouth dropped as she saw me on stage. She covered her mouth as she shook her head, in utter disbelief. I simply smirked as I sat down on the gray stool, placing one of my feet on the support as I rested the guitar against my chest.
White T-shirt… black jeans…iconicblue guitar. Just like in the early days of my career.
The crowd continued to go wild, and I could even see some of them shed a tear as I reminded them of how I presented myself back in the day. It almost hit me right in the feels too, as I was reminded of how far I had come in this career in such a short amount of time, but there was still a show I had to perform, so I toughened up.
“Well, I’m beginning to think you guys like this little change,” I teased the audience, earning another uproar of screams. I strummed the guitar, trying to get comfortable in this small but intimate stage set-up I had going on. It was almost hilarious how I was on an enormous stage but was only occupying around a smidge of it. “But… I have one more surprise for you guys…”
Thalia’s eyes widened, and I was sure I was stressing her out a little, but I wasn’t gonna do anything extreme. I gave her a reassuring head shake while the Denver crowd was in shambles trying to figure out what I was about to do.
“What do you guys say to me performing a brand new song tonight?” I asked, and I smiled so widely when the crowd was almost uncontrollable. I couldn’t even get another word in with how loud they were being, and Thalia was even more stunned when she probably realized I was about to perform the song I wrote about an hour ago. “I hope you guys like this one.”
I began to strum the blue guitar, and this was actually the first song in a long time that was purely written and produced by me. No influences. No changes. No Jackson to tell me some suggestions. No Thalia to contribute some instrumentations. Just… all of me into a song.
“In a crowded room, with all of my glories,”I began, and though the crowd was still cheering, they eventually calmed down and started to listen intently to my song.“If the world was on fire, I wouldn’t even feel it,”I continued, and this time, I was the one to be surprised as the crowd brought out their phones and shone their flashlights as I continued to sing my mellow song.“So many people, so many stories, but I just want to be with you for a bit.”
As the chorus approached, I found myself staring directly at Thalia as she was swaying around with her lit flashlight. She smiled fondly at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“I just want you to know that I’ve been thinking about you,”I sang, not letting Thalia out of my sight.“Oh, who’s been holding you at night? We’ve been apart, but I want to make it right.”And there it was again. As I was finishing the chorus, I was feeling that haze once more. Even in a stadium filled with people, they all disappeared and it was just me and Thalia.“I just want you to know that these flowers… they’re for you.”
