Page 67 of Willow in the Wind

“I can do it,” James said.

Taylor perked up. “That’s right. Duh! I always forget you’re such a great musician. I’ve barely heard you play your guitar in, like, years.”

James’s cheeks were inflamed.

“But yeah. I guess I read that book about you,” Taylor remembered. “You’re basically a musical genius in it.”

“I was never a genius,” James said. “Stella was in love with me. And we always think the people we love are geniuses.”

Taylor tilted her head. “I never thought of it that way. I always just assumed everyone thought Aiden was a genius, too.” She laughed. “Did you think Stella was a genius?”

“In a way,” James said. “I thought she was insanely creative and a very good conversationalist. We had loads of great talks out on the Aegean. I wish I would have recorded them.”

“She put some of them in her book,” Taylor reminded him.

But they weren’t verbatim,James wanted to tell her.They lost the magic of the original conversations. Or they were better than the original conversations.

They were fiction.

But instead, the server arrived to take their order. Taylor got pizza; James got tagliatelle.

“I can only have one glass of wine,” Taylor said. “I want to stay sharp for the gig later.”

“Of course.” James raised his glass. “To you and your tour!”

Taylor was now officially on tour. They had a brief stopover in Manhattan before proceeding to Boston, Providence, and down the coast. It wasn’t lost on James that she followed in Stella’s book tour’s footsteps. He’d followed it vaguely since he’d last seen her but hadn’t allowed himself to listen to any interviews. He needed to distance himself.

“So,” Taylor said after they’d ordered, “you have to tell me what’s going on. Did you see Stella again?”

James blushed in a way that gave himself away.

“You did!” Taylor cried.

“I did,” James admitted. “But it wasn’t romantic. We just talked.”And talked and talked and talked.

“That’s so cool,” Taylor said. She didn’t seem surprised that it hadn’t been romantic. “Did she seem different?”

“Not really,” James said. “She was still really fun and lively.”

“Did you tell her you still have the sailboat?”

“I did,” James said, remembering how much Stella had laughed when he’d said so. “I showed her a photo, and she said it looked three hundred times more sturdy than it had in 2001.”

Taylor grinned. “Are you going to keep talking?”

“I don’t know,” James said. “She texted last week, but…”

“Let me see the text,” Taylor demanded.

James winced and passed his phone over so that Taylor could read it.

STELLA: Hey, James. Thanks again for the wonderful evening. I wanted to thank you, especially for what you said about my ex-husband, Matt. You forced me to see what was right in front of me. Matt and I met in Boston the other day and talked and talked and talked. I don’t know if we’re going to try again—but we’ve opened the door. I never could have done that without you.

STELLA: I hope you can find a way to apologize to your ex-girlfriend and move forward together. I hate to see you in pain.

STELLA: I love you. I will. Forever.

Taylor gasped when she finished. James took his phone back and looked at his daughter.

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