Page 115 of The Lodge

“Um… hi, everyone,” he starts, with a small wave. “It’s been a while. You might remember me from a band called True North.”

The crowd erupts.

Everyone wants a picture, everyone has a question. They shout at him, voices blending together in cacophony, their collective volume growing louder by the second.

He nods politely at them but keeps his head down as he makes his way toward the crowd—

Towardme.

People move just enough to let him pass but close in around him again as soon as they can. They snap photos and reach out to touch his jacket, still asking so many questions; the television reporter shoves a microphone in his face.

Tyler barely seems to notice.

He’s clearly on a mission, and that mission is me.

“Do you want me to record this moment for you?” Lauren asks, holding up her phone.

I shake my head. “I kind of just want to pretend no one else is here,” I admit. “But on the bright side, I don’t think there will ever be a shortage of footage if I want to relive it.”

By the time Tyler gets to me, all eyes—and cameras—are on us. He takes my face in his gloved hands, which most definitely must have hand warmers inside, and presses his forehead to mine.

“What happened?” I say quietly, wrapping my arms around him. My voice is so low I’m not sure even Tyler can hear me, but it’s the closest we’re coming to privacy right now. “I thought you were going to disappear again?”

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. Everything you said on the mountain this morning—and then your text—” His thick brows furrow. “It was the clarity I needed. I don’t want to be the sort of person who runs when I’m afraid things will be too hard to face. I had good reasons the first time, and I’m not sorry I did it. But this time—today—”

I feel his rib cage expand as he takes a deep breath.

“This time,” he goes on, “I wouldn’t have been running for any good reasons. And I would be missing out on—onthis. On you.” His hands move gently, fingers finding their way up into my hair. “I know we only just came into each other’s lives recently, but you’ve changed mine, Alix. I thought I was fine before I met you,but now—now I see what I’ve been missing. You make me laugh more than anyone. You weren’t starstruck when you figured out what I’d been hiding, and you never used my secret for your own gain, even though we both know you could have, and—”

His voice breaks, but he’s said enough.

My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket; we’re pressed together so close that I know he feels it, too. I take a quick glance, see a message from Tyler that apparently took its sweet time to come through:I’m on my way down. Meet me at the bottom?

“I got your text,” I say, and he laughs.

“Kiss her already!” someone yells from the crowd, setting off a wave of laughter.

We’re already so close: it doesn’t take much to close the distance. I tilt my head just enough, and he meets me halfway. His lips are chapped from the cold, but I don’t care—I only hope it doesn’t hurt him.

My worries melt away as he kisses me, sending dueling sensations of heat and chills coursing through my body. His hands tighten in my hair, and I wish, really wish, that we weren’t surrounded by a crowd of onlookers right now.

Screw it, I think, as he continues to kiss me in front of the entire world.Let them watch.

When he finally pulls away, he only has eyes for me.

“It’s weird when you’re famous,” he says, not realizing—or not caring—how many people are hanging on his every word. “Everyone thinks they know you, everyone has an opinion. Everyone wants to control you and use you and they start to forget you’re an actual person. But I… just… I don’t know. I was just thinking about how long I sat back and let everyone believe what they wanted to believe. After we talked, I thought a lot about how Icould continue to let that happen—at the expense of actuallylivingmy life—or I could choose to finally take control of my own story. It doesn’t have to be like it was before.”

I tuck his hair behind his ears, search his eyes for any sign that he might regret this, but he’s fearless. Determined. Brave.

We might both have uphill battles from here, dealing with the fallout, but life isn’t perfect. Life is messy and hard and complicated. Even if you go to great lengths to outrun it, to completely reinvent yourself like Tyler did, it will almost always catch up eventually.

But neither of us will have to work through it alone this time: we can face it together, the good and the bad and the shady. Andthatwill be worth it.

“I’m done, Alix,” he says, pressing one more kiss to my lips. “I’m done hiding.”

Hundreds of thousands of eyes could be on us right now, maybe millions.

In this moment, the only ones that matter are his.

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