Dave Miles let the silence breathe a little longer, then shifted on his stool. His weathered fingers brushed the keys of the sax as if deciding, then stopped. He looked at Michael again, really looked, and his voice came low and steady.
"Boy," Dave said, "you've carried my song long enough. Time you gave me yours. Sing with me."
The words landed like thunder in Michael's chest. His throat worked, but no sound came. Him—sing? Here, beside the man who had unknowingly shaped his soul? The thought was unbearable. Sacred. Terrifying.
"I—" Michael faltered, eyes darting to Synvie. She sat frozen at the table, her hand over her mouth, tears already threatening. She gave the smallest nod.
Michael's breath trembled out of him. Slowly, he climbed the stage.
Dave's hands moved over the piano now, the opening notes spilling out soft and fragile, like a secret barely spoken. Then came the melody, You Don't Know Me, tender and aching.
Michael closed his eyes. The words rose from him as if they'd been waiting his whole life for this exact moment:
You give your hand to me, And then you say hello...
And I can hardly speak, My heart is beating so...
And anyone can tell, You think you know me well...
Well, you don't know me...
The café held its breath. His voice, rich yet unsteady, cracked in places, but every fracture only bled more truth. And when Dave's saxophone answered, wrapping around Michael's voice, the two sounds fused into something neither had ever carried alone.
It was not performance, it was confession. Two men, generations apart, one carrying the other's ghost, the other hearing his legacy live again.
Michael sang on, his chest opening wider with every line, until he felt he wasn't singing to the room at all but to his grandfather, to the boy who first believed, to the man before him who had lit the way.
And in the crowd, Synvie couldn't hold it in. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks as she pressed both hands to her heart. The song was too raw, too human. She had seen Michael command stadiums, but never had she seen him stripped like this, singing not to conquer, but to remember.
When the last note faded, silence reigned for a heartbeat. Then the café erupted, not with wild cheers, but with something deeper: reverence, gratitude, the kind of applause that came from souls touched to the core.
Michael bowed his head, shoulders shaking. Dave placed a steady hand on his back, a weight both grounding and blessing.
"You've got your own song now," Dave murmured. "Don't be afraid to let the world hear it."
Synvie wasn't one to cry. She was steel, unshaken even in storms. But as Michael's voice braided with Dave's sax, a single tear slipped free before she could stop it.
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