Page 49 of The Lodge

I take it all in: the hint of pretzel salt and sweet cocoa on his tongue; the scent of him, fancy cologne and fresh soap and fabric softener; the silence and stillness on this incredible mountaintop; the chill I would feel in my bones if he weren’t here, burning me up from the inside out.

Unfortunately, it isn’t long before the temperature drops and reality sinks in—that itisactually very cold out here, that I am currently shivering.

“We could go somewhere warmer?” Tyler suggests.

“Warmer sounds good,” I say, pulling the blanket tighter around me. It doesn’t do a thing.

I don’t want this perfect night to end.

As we make our way back toward the gondola lift, I glance up and see a pair of shooting stars glittering across the sky. I stop dead in my tracks to watch—but Tyler doesn’t see me, doesn’t realize I’ve paused until he barrels right into me. I lose my balance, step right onto a slick patch of ice, and the next thing I know, I’m on the ground staring up at the entire night sky.

My wristhurts.

BEFORE

BREAKDOWN: Epic Jett Beckett/Sebastian Green Backstage Fight

By Aria Statler // Pop Culture Blogger, LifeLoveLattes.com

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Breakdown, where we take an in-depth look at the day’s viral news. Tonight we’re talking aboutthis videoof Jett Beckett and Sebastian Green—a stealthy observer captured the backstage drama after tonight’s True North show in Boston, and it’s already gotten more than a million views in the half hour since it showed up online. Let’s break it down!

First: note the body language. The video picks up mid-fight, so we don’t know what started it. But it’s clear that Jett is absolutely livid—his aggressive stance is like that of a lion, though it’s tough to say whether he’s the aggressor or simply defending his territory. Sebastian, usually the easygoing one, is equally on edge.

Next: the fight itself. Again, it’s unclear who started it—but whatisclear is that this tension has been building under the surface for quite some time. Sebastian, mere inches from Jett’s face, loudly accuses him of being a “self-centered asshole” who “never puts the band first.” This lights an emotional fuse in Jett, who furtherescalates the situation with accusations of his own: that Sebastian is a “narcissistic sellout” who “know[s] nothing about what [Jett has] been through.” River rushes to intervene, moving between them—and thank goodness he did, or else the intense altercation almost certainly would have turned physical.

River makes eye contact with whoever’s filming, and the video abruptly cuts off. From start to finish, the video is just shy of twenty seconds long—not long enough to give context for the drama but more than enough time to give viewers an ugly peek behind the True North curtain.

[UPDATE, 5:42 p.m.—Due to this afternoon’s breaking news that Jett Beckett has been missing since late last night, we have turned off the comments in the interest of limiting insensitive speculation regarding all band members involved.]

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“I amsosorry, Alix,” Tyler says for what has to be the tenth time since the accident.

“Please don’t apologize. It’s my own fault for stopping so suddenly—or maybe we should blame the meteor shower.”

He laughs. “Still,” he says. “Here, let me get the door.”

He pulls out his key card, and I wince thinking about how painful it would be if I were to try the same movement right now. When Tyler suggested going “somewhere warmer,” he most certainly did not mean the resort’s twenty-four-hour medical center, but the twenty minutes we spent there did the trick. Now we’re back at our building with a few more bruises than when we left.

The doctor wrapped my wrist in an ACE bandage and told me I’d been lucky to fall in a pile of relatively fresh snow—I’ve got a light sprain that could have been much worse if I’d fallen elsewhere. It hurts, but it should heal in less than a week as long as I rest and ice it.

Which means no ski lessons for a few days. And I probablyshouldn’ttype with it, but I have a deadline.

“This day,” I mutter as we wait on our elevator. “You were definitely the best part of it.”

“Given that I took you on a date that ended at the medical center, it must have been pretty bad before that.”

Between my laptop that smells hopelessly like honey nut latte and the throbbing pain in my wrist, today has not been my favorite.

Outside my penthouse door, I attempt to extract my key card from my wallet using only my good hand—which is, fortunately, my dominant hand—but the zipper is a struggle.

Tyler gestures to it. “I can—if you want?”

I hand it over, and of course he has immediate success.

“Do you want to come in?” I ask.

He follows me inside.

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