From A Producer To A Global Superstar

The night didn’t settle quietly.

It pressed in, thick and persistent, the kind of darkness that made the walls feel closer than they actually were. Dayo sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, fingers loosely clasped together, staring at nothing in particular. The phone lay on the mattress beside him, screen dark, silent. He had picked it up three times already. Set it back down each time.

His mother’s voice was still in his head. You are afraid. Sharon’s too. You wanted to lose her? And Jeffrey, lighter but no less pointed: You can’t leave this one hanging.

He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand across his jaw. In another life—his first life—he had been older than he was now. Much older. He had served, seen things, survived things. He had loved once, badly, and when that broke, he learned to stop loving cleanly. He moved through people like they were temporary, which they were. He kept his distance, kept his surface smooth, kept everything shallow enough that nothing could sink deep enough to wound him.

That was the man he had been.

Then he came here. This body. This world. This life. And eventually, her.

Luna.

She didn’t fit the pattern. She didn’t accept the distance. She looked at him like she could see the seams where he stitched himself together, and instead of pointing at them, she just... stayed. Patient. Present. Refusing to let him be less than he was capable of being.

He changed for her. Not because he had to. Because he wanted to. The habits he had carried from that other life—the detachment, the casualness, the way he treated intimacy like a transaction—he set them down. Not all at once. Gradually. Because she made him want to be someone who didn’t need those defenses.

And then Alice.

He closed his eyes, pressing his fingers against his temples. Alice had confessed her feelings, and he hadn’t handled it. That was the truth he had never fully spoken aloud, not even to himself. He hadn’t cheated. He hadn’t done anything physical. But he had stood there, hearing words he should have shut down immediately, and he had said... nothing. Not yes. Not no. Just avoidance. A strategic silence that felt safer than a clear rejection.

Luna had seen that moment. Or enough of it.

And from where she stood, that silence meant something. It meant a door was still open. It meant he hadn’t chosen. It meant whatever they had wasn’t solid enough to withstand temptation.

She left. Not in anger. Not loudly. She just... walked away. And he had let her, because his pride wouldn’t let him chase her, and because some part of him—some damaged part from that first life—believed that if she could leave, she was never really his to begin with.

That was the logic of a broken man. He knew that now.

Dayo opened his eyes and looked at the phone again.

The question was no longer whether he would call. It was whether he would keep being the man who let fear disguise itself as wisdom.

He picked up the phone. Unlocked it. Scrolled to her name.

His thumb hovered.

Then pressed.

The ringtone was softer than his heartbeat. One ring. Two. Each one stretching longer than it should have.

"Hello?"

Her voice. Guarded. Surprised. Like she hadn’t expected this, even though they both knew it was inevitable.

Dayo cleared his throat. "It’s me."

A pause. Not long. Just enough for him to hear her breathing shift.

"I know."

"We need to talk." The words came out direct, almost blunt. That was how he protected himself—by cutting through softness before it could soften him further. "In person. Not on the phone."

Another silence. He could picture her, holding the phone the way she always did, slightly away from her ear, her expression controlled but her eyes giving away more than she realized.

"When?"

"Tonight. If you’re free."

"I’ll send you an address." Her voice was steady, but there was something underneath it. Tension. Or maybe just the same weight he was carrying. "A place near me."

"Okay."

The line went dead before he could say anything else. Not abrupt. Just finished.

Dayo sat there for a moment longer, the phone still pressed to his ear even after the silence came. Then he lowered it slowly, set it on the bed, and stood up.

He walked to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. The man in the mirror looked the same as always—controlled, composed, eyes that gave away nothing. But inside, something was moving. Something he had kept still for too long.

He got dressed. Dark shirt, simple jacket. Nothing that would draw attention. He told Sharon he was going out, didn’t elaborate, didn’t wait for her to ask. She studied his face for half a second, then nodded. She knew better than to push him on this.

The drive took twenty minutes. He didn’t remember most of it. His hands were steady on the wheel, his eyes on the road, but his mind was already in the room ahead, rehearsing conversations he knew he couldn’t control.

The café was small, tucked into a corner of a street that didn’t see much foot traffic after dark. Luna was already there when he arrived, seated at a table near the back, a cup in front of her that she wasn’t drinking from. She looked up as he entered, and for a moment, their eyes held across the space.

She was wearing something simple, dark, her hair pulled back the way she did when she wanted to feel composed. But he knew her tells. The way her thumb rested against the edge of the cup. The slight tension in her shoulders. She was holding herself together with effort, same as him.

Dayo walked over and sat across from her. Not too close. Not too far. The table between them felt like a boundary and a bridge at the same time.

"Thank you for coming," he said quietly.

"You asked me to."

"I know. I just wasn’t sure you would."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and something shifted in his chest. She was tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixed. The kind that came from carrying something heavy alone for too long.

"I’ve been thinking," he started, then stopped. The words felt inadequate. Everything he had rehearsed on the drive over suddenly sounded like performance, like strategy, and this wasn’t a situation where strategy was going to work.

"About what?" Luna asked.

"About the last time we talked." He kept his voice low, steady, but he could feel the edges of it fraying. "About the things I didn’t say. The question I didn’t ask."

Luna’s fingers tightened slightly around her cup. She didn’t look away.

"You had your reasons."

"I had fear," he corrected, and the admission cost him something. "I told myself it was respect. That I was giving you space, that I was waiting for you to open the door. But that wasn’t the whole truth. I was afraid of what would happen if I asked. If the answer was no, I’d look like a fool inserting myself where I didn’t belong. If the answer was yes, everything would change. And I wasn’t ready for either of those things."

Luna’s expression shifted. Not dramatically—she was too controlled for that. But he saw it. The surprise. She had expected him to come in guarded, the way he always did, deflecting with logic, hiding behind reason. She hadn’t expected him to lay himself bare this quickly.

"And now?" she asked. "You’re ready?"

"I’m not sure ready is the right word." He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table, closing some of the distance between them. "But I’m tired of not knowing. I’m tired of pretending I can control this by staying silent. That I can manage the situation by keeping my distance. That’s not control, Luna. That’s just cowardice wearing a better outfit."

She let out a small breath, almost a laugh, but her eyes were serious.

"You never talk like this."

"I never had to." He held her gaze. "But I do now. So I’m going to ask you the question I should have asked the moment I saw the news. The question that’s been sitting in my throat since I walked into that room and saw you again."

Luna went still. Completely still. The cup in her hands forgotten, her breathing shallow, her eyes fixed on his face like she was bracing for impact.

"Is she mine?" Dayo asked.

The words came out clean. No hesitation. No embellishment. Just the question, finally spoken, hanging in the air between them.

Luna didn’t answer immediately.

She looked down at the table, at her hands, at the cup that was starting to cool. Her chest rose and fell with slow, measured breaths, like she was gathering herself for something she had been preparing for but never felt ready for.

"Yes," she said finally.

The word was quiet. Barely above a whisper. But it landed in Dayo’s chest like a physical weight.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just sat there, letting it settle, feeling the reality of it rearrange everything inside him.

A daughter.

He had a daughter.

In his first life, he had never been a father. He had seen what absence did to children—watched men in his unit struggle with the weight of being half-present, watched the damage that accumulated when a parent chose distance over involvement. He had told himself back then, without really believing it would ever matter, that if he ever had a child, he would be different. He would be there. Fully. Completely. Not the shadow of a parent, but the substance of one.

And now, in this life, that possibility was real.

"Her name," he said, and his voice was rougher than before. "Tell me her name."

"Jennifer."

Dayo repeated it under his breath. Jennifer. A name he had never spoken before that now felt like it had always belonged in his mouth.

"How old is she exactly?"

"Four months. Almost five."