Page 1 of The Lodge

1

Congrats, everyone—the news is out! Go celebrate tonight!

Everything feels buzzy as I take in the new email at the top of my inbox.

There’s hardly anything to it, just that short note—sent from my editor, Maribel, to the whole team—along with a screenshot. I zoom in, see the Publishers Marketplace deal listing for Sebastian Green’s book.

Forourbook.

I’ve been sitting on this secret for what feels like forever. It’s a feat, honestly, considering how many times I’ve almost let it slip.

With the announcement now out, it’s finally starting to sink in that I’m writing a memoir—acelebritymemoir that will likely take up permanent residence on theNew York Timesbestseller list for at least a year. Not only that, but I’m on a train, headed to a ski lodge in Vermont for an entire month, all expenses paid.

These are the things dreams are made of, and not just because I quit my day job last year to pursue freelance work. Ghostwritingthe memoir of Sebastian Green, arguably the most famous member of my all-time favorite boy band?

Yes. Yes,with enthusiasm. I signed on in a heartbeat.

But I haven’t breathed a word about it, not to anyone.

I’ve been dying to tell my best friend, Chloe. She’s easily starstruck, though, and notorious for inadvertently spilling secrets. Not even my sister, Lauren, knows—and she’s been crashing with me in New York for more than a month while doing an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In retrospect, maybe she would’ve let me get some work done if I’d told her.

I had almost nothing to show on my most recent Zoom call with the book’s publisher. That wasn’t entirely Lauren’s fault, but her presence in my apartment has been distracting, to say the least. My editor—the infamous Maribel Tovar at McClendon & Murphy—though gracious, took the opportunity to emphasize our not-so-flexible deadline. Every single aspect of this book is being rushed so it can hit shelves before the holiday season, and as it is currently early March, the deadline felt tight enough even before Lauren made my work hours nonexistent.

Enter Sebastian Green.

Sebastian is a lot of things, butthoughtfulis not the first word that springs to mind. Trendy to a fault? Yes. Aloof, flighty, a touch self-obsessed? Yes, yes, more yes. Handsome and he knows it? Absolutely.

But he’s also a well-connected multimillionaire who wants his book to release in time to cash in on the holidays, for which I will be forever thankful, because as soon as I told everyone about my distracting living situation, he offered to hook me up with an all-expenses-paid writing retreat at an incredible-looking ski resort.

Why would he offer this? No idea. Maybe it’s to make sure I want to show his best side as I tell his story? Maybe it also eases hisguilty conscience about how he blew off two meetings before we ever got to this point—we’d been planning to meet up for a series of interviews but he took a last-minute trip to Los Angeles, and then another one to Spain, and promised we’d connect soon.

We haven’t. Not yet, anyway.

Hence, I am on a train. To Vermont. Where Sebastian will—at some point, hopefully—meet up with me to discuss the more nuanced details of his life story.

In the meantime, he sent over roughly eighty hours’ worth of voice memos. Thankfully, the ski resort should provide a quiet place for me to sort through them in peace while also affording the privacy someone like Sebastian needs to meet face-to-face.

As long as he shows up this time.

It’s snowing when we pull into the train station.

Sebastian told me to keep an eye out for the driver who’ll take me to the lodge, but it’s harder than it should be thanks to the weather.

“Alix Morgan?”

I hear my name before I see him, the man holding up a sign meant for me. He takes my luggage as I climb into his sleek silver SUV, an Audi with leather seats and the biggest sunroof I’ve ever seen.

The ride is beautiful and peaceful, aside from a few disgruntled yowls from Puffin, my cat—Lauren wasn’t confident she’d remember to feed him, so he’s along for the ride. As we make our way north, the snowflakes gradually become smaller and more delicate, spiraling gracefully outside the windows.

We turn, and the world opens up: it suddenly feels like we’re driving straight toward the canvas of a massive, masterful painting.

Snowcapped mountains pierce the lowest clouds; at their baseis a sprawling lodge, grandiose and picture-perfect. It looks warm and cozy even at a distance, lit inside and out with the glow of yellow lanterns.

I feel like a starlet as we pull up to the lodge.

This close, it feels absolutely colossal—the covered drive at the entrance stretches at least three floors high, with stone and steel and wooden beams to scale. Entire humans could fit inside the iron frames of the glass-paneled lanterns, if said lanterns weren’t ablaze with actual fire.

We come to a stop just outside the main entrance. One of the valets appears with a cart, and my driver steps out to take care of my luggage. Puffin yowls again, bristling at the cold air as we get out of the car.

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