Page 10 of Willow in the Wind

But parenthood brought so many surprises.

James left his apartment at two that afternoon to walk to Colton Parsons’ studio, which was about a mile from his place in the Village. When he arrived, the studio secretary buzzed him in and shook his hand.

“Colton’s waiting for you in the studio,” she said. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Just a water,” James said. “Thanks.”

James entered the studio to find Colton bent over the soundboard. One of Colton’s latest tracks—one he’d only performed live and was in the midst of recording—came through the speakers. The music tugged at James’s heart. It was truly beautiful and ragged, offering the aching of a man who’d been through so much and wasn’t afraid to dig into it.

Colton cut the music and offered James one of his signature gap-toothed smiles. “James!” he said, getting up to shake his hand. “How long has it been?”

James was surprised Colton remembered they’d met before. It was back in London in the early 2000s. A million years ago.

“How long have you been back in New York?” Colton asked.

“Seven months, thereabouts,” James said. “But you’ve been here straight through, right?”

“Since 2007,” Colton said. “This city is the only place for me.” He laughed. “Don’t write that in the article. It sounds cheesy.”

James laughed.

“Make me look cool, James!” Colton said with a big laugh.

James might have assured Colton that Colton Parsons always looked cool. He’d built his reputation over a number of musically iconic years. James would never screw that up. He would never dream of it.

They had light chitchat for a few more minutes before James dug into the new album.

“Tell me where it came from,” James said, making sure his recording equipment was on.

Colton’s eyes were illuminated. “You really want to know?”

James laughed. Of course, he did. But he kept quiet.

“It’s about love,” Colton said, rolling his eyes. “Specifically, it’s about my first love. This was all the way back in the early nineties. We were both totally wild and unhinged, unleashed upon London like fireworks. We couldn’t get enough of each other. We also fought ourselves silly. We met when I was playing with The Stone Age, and she came to all of our gigs and stood in the front row. Sometimes she got up on stage and danced around. Everyone loved her. We thought we were sort of famous in the scene, you know. People waited for us to show up to parties.”

James could imagine that. Colton had a magnetism. Obviously, any woman he was with would have that kind of magnetism, too.

“But anything that intense has a dark side,” Colton said. “We couldn’t survive the storm of that love.”

James felt his heart darken.

“One night, we got into a huge blowout fight,” Colton said, laughing, his shoulders drooped. “I still remember her stomping her way down this London back alley to get away from me. I told her to go! I said you’ll regret this for the rest of your life! I assumed it was all theatrics, you know? I thought we’d see each other the next day and make up. That was what we’d always done before. But this time was different.

“I milled around London, looking for her over the next week or two. I was about to go on tour and wanted to see her before then. I wanted to apologize. But I didn’t see her for several more years. I had already gone solo by then. I was buying asandwich from a little shop in London between tours, and there she was with a baby in a stroller. Her hair wasn’t blue anymore, obviously. And she wore a big rock on her finger. But when we looked at each other, I could see it in her eyes. She remembered everything. And she still loved me. And at that moment, it was as though an alternate universe was created, one in which we had never broken up. One in which that baby was never born. Maybe we’d had a baby instead.”

James was captivated. “Did you say something to her that day?”

Colton chuckled. “I didn’t. She was on the other side of the street. A big double-decker bus went between us, and she must have used those seconds to hide herself and her baby away.”

“Did you think she was a coward?”

“No. I understood why she did it,” Colton said. He looked contemplative. “Some things are better off left in the past.” He tugged his collar. “What about you? Tell me about your first love so I don’t feel so square.”

James felt his soul fly out of his body. It was incredibly rare for the musician to turn the questions back on him. But Colton was a rare sort of musician.

“I suppose it’s similar, in a sense,” James offered. “We had a fiery and passionate love affair. It didn’t last long enough. Something happened. Something that I can’t fully grapple with. And all at once, we were apart, and we never saw one another again.”

James thought,Don’t burst into tears in front of Colton Parsons.

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