The Only Living Boy in New York

FORTY FOUR

Van

England felt like a dream.

It took some convincing, and Taylor pulling some strings for work, but two weeks after I told her about Ivy, we were on a plane to England for twelve days. We planned to spend a week with my family, and five days by ourselves either in Northern Ireland or somewhere south, but we hadn't figured that part out quite yet.

When we met at the police department with Officer Grey and the detective team, I told them about Ivy and the few instances in which she showed up at the house. I showed them my phone and let them have full reign of the text thread, including the photos she'd sent of herself back when I first moved to the city. Taylor didn't want to see those. I understood why. She also didn't want to see the texts between us. She didn't really want to see any of it.

There was a heavy strain on us after Taylor knew everything about Ivy. A strain that I hoped a trip to the UK would put an ease on. Even though she swore she wasn't mad about my past, something felt different between us. Like there was a lack of trust.

The tension lifted slightly on the plane, when Taylor smiled as she relaxed in her seat and reminded me this is how we met. I smiled idly to myself, remembering how just six months ago, I was a nervous wreck about my life. I didn't know what awaited me in the city, and now I was in love with a woman who I was certain I'd be with forever and I was making music again.

I'd been spending time in the studio with The Deadcoast, plugging away slowly at making music. Benji knew, and asked if he could come sit in when I returned from England. I was happy to have Benji coming to town and even more elated to have his support over the music, and I knew he'd give me honest feedback. It was different than the things I was used to, but it was...better. And that scared me.

Before, things were tense. Even during The Balance sessions, the dynamic was muffled. We were growing and gaining momentum, and after The Ride, people wanted more. The fans wanted more. I knew I was the frontman and in the line of sight, and it was my band and what I said is what happened, but those lines begin to blur for Bob and Bondy. They want to experiment but I liked our current path. They wanted to be more creative and I wanted to keep it what the fans wanted and what we'd cultivated. It became a fight that started with jabs and grief before it turned into a real problem that led to our undoing. It was around the same time that I got heavily involved with all the things that were bad for me, including drugs. It created a snowball that plowed us all over. I'd sorted through the rest by now, but the creative process is probably what started the ending.

But making music with The Deadcoast was different. They did whatever I recommended while adding their own flair. They fought me on nothing but added their thoughts when they wanted to, and usually, their thoughts were good. They were encouraging and highly intuitive of each other and where they needed to fill in, and that intuitive nature somehow bled into how they were with me. They could pick up on something I was struggling with and add a lick or a beat to bring it all together and tie it all in. It was almost cosmic.

We'd been playing around with a few of my demos before I left for England, and I couldn't help but feel the itch to get back at it when I returned. For the first time in a long time, music felt like music again.

We'd landed in Manchester and I rented a car and headed East toward Llandudno. My parents sold their Bed and Breakfast a year or two before Covid, and spent their time between Llandudno and Australia simultaneously now. If Taylor was nervous, she hadn't let on about it, but I was nervous. I hadn't introduced a girl to my parents for a lot of years.

"Did you have any serious girlfriends back home?"

Taylor broke the silence in the car as I yawned and passed cars along M56 outside of Chester. It made me miss the flat Larry and I shared there for a season.