Page 110 of The Lodge

“Wait—sorry—but Mom brags about me? She’simpressed?”

This is news to me, but Lauren gawks at me.

“Um, yes. Definitely. She brings it up to anyone who’ll listen.”

“I honestly had no idea.”

Maybe she’s spent so much time saying nice things to other people, she doesn’t realize she’s never actually said them to me.

“But… yeah,” Lauren goes on, looking down at her chipped nail polish. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for the city like you are, or for city people. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

My heart breaks all over again.

“Hey,” I say, nudging her.“Hey.”

Finally she meets my eyes.

“No one knows what they’re doing, not really. It’s not like people are born knowing how to handle every single thing—it takes work to figure out your own life. I know it has for me, anyway. You’regoingto make mistakes. Everyone does. But you have a choice: you can face the hard things, or you can run from them. You have to risk making mistakes in the first place if you’re ever going to get better at dealing with them.”

She’s quiet, probably thinking—like I am—about how our mother has spent Lauren’s entire life solving every one of her problems for her before she even gets a chance to try.

And I think about Tyler, who ran when things got too hard before—who could very well be running away again right this very minute.

Puffin climbs lazily over Lauren’s lap and onto mine, then raises his chin until I give in and start scratching it. He leans into my fingers, purring loudly, and then flops his entire body upside down like he’s lost all his bones. His huge green eyes stare up at me like I’m the sun at the center of his universe.

Lauren’s eyes on me feel almost the same. I don’t know how I never saw it before this spring—how much she looks up to me.

“You’re the last person I ever wanted to hurt, Alix,” she says now. She shakes her head and sighs. “Maybe I should start by gettingyou an apology latte since you barely touched the drink I brought earlier?”

The corner of my mouth quirks up. “And maybe some apology maple candies, too?”

There’s a knock at my front door. I’m not exactly motivated to answer, given that there’s only one person I want it to be and it’s almost certainly not him—but maybe it’s Sebastian, even though he still hasn’t answered my text.

Lauren follows me to the door, pulling on a puffy coat as she walks. “Maple latte again?” she asks.

“Tell the barista to surprise me.”

I open the door, hoping against hope that Tyler’s there, leaning artfully against the doorframe in one of his trademark V-neck shirts—

But no such luck.

It’s Sebastian.

Lauren slips out the door with a little wave.

“You said you wanted to talk?” he says. “Let’s talk.”

He came all the way to Vermont to discuss his memoir, but this is about to be an entirely different conversation. Which, ironically, we would not be having had he not shown up at the resort in the first place. It’s not like he had any idea he’d be setting off a chain reaction that led to the implosion of our numerous secrets, though, I remind myself. I may not be his biggest fan, but at least I can acknowledge that he didn’t put Tyler’s privacy at risk on purpose.

“Come in,” I tell him.

“Nice place,” he remarks as we pass through the living room and turn off into an area where I haven’t spent much time, the game room.

“I could live here, honestly,” I say. “I really appreciate you arranging for me to stay here this month.”

Sebastian gives a cursory glance to the myriad seating options in this room—barstools, armchairs, a couch upholstered in emerald-green velvet—and chooses, instead, to lean casually against the pool table.

It’s the most blatant attempt at a power position I’ve ever seen, and I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s doing it. I think that’s just how heis.

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